The Jungle Girl Part 12

"What a magnificent lot of heads and skins you've got here!" he exclaimed. "All your husband's, I suppose?"

She laughed as she glanced round the room, while pouring out the tea that her butler had brought.

"I'm afraid they make the house rather like a museum of natural history," she answered. "Yes, they are all Kevin's, or nearly all.

There are a few of mine among them."

He looked at her in open admiration.

"Oh, you shoot? How splendid!" he said. "Have you ever got a tiger?"

"A couple," she replied, smiling.

"I envy you awfully," he said. "I've never even seen one--out of a cage."

"Well, if you are keen on shooting, Mr. Wargrave, you ought to have little difficulty in bagging a tiger or two before long," she said.

"I'd love to have the chance of going after big game. I'm hoping for it here. Shall I? I've never had any, although I've shot a panther or two and a few black buck and _c.h.i.n.kara_."

"You will have every opportunity of good sport here. Neither of the other two Europeans, your Commanding Officer and the doctor of your detachment, go in for it, the latter because his sight is very bad, Major Hunt because he doesn't care for it. I'm sure my husband will be glad to take you out with him; and n.o.body in the whole Terai knows more about big game than he."

"By Jove; how ripping," exclaimed Frank eagerly. "Would he?"

"I'm sure he would. He'll be only too delighted to have someone for company. I used to go with him always, until my babies came. Now Kevin has no one but Badshah."

"Badshah? Oh, yes, that ripping elephant. I don't know much about those animals, but isn't it unusual for him to have only a single tusk?"

"Yes; Badshah is what the natives call a 'Gunesh.' You know that Gunesh is the Hindu G.o.d of Wisdom and is represented as having an elephant's head with only the right tusk? Consequently any of these animals born with a single tusk, and that the right, is considered sacred and looked upon as a G.o.d."

"One of the _mahouts_ said that the Hindus here regard your husband as one, too," said Frank, "and he seemed inclined to believe it himself. I like the name they've given Colonel Dermot--Durro Mut Sahib, Fear Not Sahib."

A look of pride came in the young wife's eyes as she repeated the name softly to herself.

"Fear Not Sahib. Yes, it suits him." Then aloud she continued:

"I think you'll like my husband, Mr. Wargrave. All men do. He's a man's man. The hill and jungle people wors.h.i.+p him. He understands them. Ah!

here he is, I think."

Her face brightened, and Frank saw the light of love s.h.i.+ne in her eyes as she turned expectantly to the door. He sprang up as a tall man with handsome, clear-cut features, dark complexion and eyes, and close-cropped black hair touched at the temples with grey, entered the room. With a pleasant smile the newcomer walked towards the subaltern with outstretched hand, saying in a friendly voice:

"Glad to welcome you to Ranga Duar, Wargrave."

"Thank you very much, sir," replied Frank gripping his hand and greatly taken at once by the Political Officer's appearance and friendly manner.

"It was very kind of you to send those guns for me. But I had no luck.

We saw nothing on the way."

After greeting him Colonel Dermot bent over his wife and kissed her fondly. It was obvious to the subaltern that after their five years of married life they were lovers still. Frank looked at them a little enviously. He wondered would it be so with Violet and him after the same lapse of time; for the sight of their happiness sent his thoughts flying to the woman who loved him.

"Are you keen on shooting, Wargrave?" said the Colonel.

"Oh, yes, he is, Kevin," broke in his wife. "I told him that I was sure you'd be glad to take him with you into the jungle sometimes."

"I'll be happy to do so, if you care to come with me, Wargrave," said the Colonel.

"I'd love to, sir. It would be awfully good of you," replied the subaltern eagerly. "But I've only a Mannlicher rifle."

"Ah, you'll need a bigger bore than that. But I can lend you a .470 high velocity cordite weapon. You want something with great hitting power for dangerous game," said Dermot.

He went on to speak of the jungle and its denizens; and his conversation was so interesting that Wargrave forgot the flight of time until his hostess reminded him that he had to report his arrival to his commanding officer and find his new quarters. Her husband volunteered to show him the way to the Mess and introduce him to Major Hunt.

As Wargrave shook hands with Mrs. Dermot, she said:

"I wanted to ask you to dinner this evening; but Kevin thought you might prefer to spend your first night with your brother officers. But we shall expect you to-morrow, when they are coming, too."

On their way up the steep road from his bungalow the Political Officer spoke of the great forest below them and the sport to be found in it.

Then he said:

"It's lucky you like shooting, Wargrave, for Ranga Duar is very isolated and life in it dull to a person who has no resources. Still, it has its advantages, and chief among them is the climate. It's delightful in the cold weather and pleasant in the hot."

"By Jove, it is indeed, sir! It's like Heaven after the heat in the Plains below. I don't know how I lived through it coming across India."

"The rainy season is the hardest to bear. We have five months of it and over three hundred inches of rain during them. One never sees a strange face then--not that we ever do have many visitors here at any time.

Still, you'll like your C.O., and Burke the doctor is a capital fellow.

Here we are."

He turned in through a narrow gate leading to a pretty though neglected garden in which stood the Mess, a long, single-storied building raised on piles. On the broad wooden verandah to which a flight of steps led from the ground two men were reclining in long chairs reading old newspapers. On seeing Dermot and his companion they rose, and the Colonel introduced Frank. They shook hands with him and gave him a hearty welcome, which, coming on the top of the Dermot's, cheered the subaltern exceedingly and for the time made him forget the circ.u.mstances of his coming.

"It's mighty glad I am to see you here, Wargrave," said Burke, the doctor, in a mellow brogue, "aven av it's only to have someone living in the Mess wid me. The Major there lives in solitary state in his little bungalow; and I'm all alone here at night wid _shaitans_ (devils) and wild beasts walking on the verandah."

"What? Has that panther been prowling round the Mess again?" asked the Political Officer.

"Faith! and he has that. Sure, I heard him sniffing at me door last night. I wish to the Powers ye'd shoot him, sir."

"I can't get him. I've tried often enough."

"Troth! and it's waking up one fine morning I'll be to find he's made a meal av me. Keep your door shut at night, Wargrave. Merrick, who lived in the room you'll have, forgot to do it once and the divil nearly had him."

"Is that really a fact?" asked Frank, delighted at the thought of having come to a place with such possibilities of sport.

"Yes; we're plagued by a brute of a panther that prowls about the station at night, jumps the wall of the Fort and carries off the sepoys'

dogs, and has actually entered rooms here in the Mess. He has killed several Bhuttia children on the hills around here. n.o.body can ever get a shot at him. He's too cunning. Will you have a drink, Colonel?" said Hunt.

The Political Officer thanked him but declined, and, reminding them all of his wife's invitation for the morrow, bade them goodnight.

"That's one av the finest men in India," exclaimed Burke, as they watched Dermot's figure receding down the road. The doctor had a pleasant, ugly face and wore spectacles.

"He is, indeed. He keeps the whole Bhutan border in order," said the commandant, Major Hunt, a slight, grey-haired man with a quiet and reserved manner. "The Bhuttias are more afraid of a cross look from him than of all our rifles and machine-guns. Have a drink, Wargrave? Yes?

And you, Burke? Hi, boy!"