The Jungle Girl Part 22

But darkness s.h.i.+elded them effectively when the herd swept at length through a rocky pa.s.s on the frontier-line between India and Bhutan, and with cries of fear and dismay armed men seated around watch-fires fled in panic before the earth-shaking host. The screen was penetrated.

Daylight found them on the banks of a broad, swift-flowing river in a valley between the range of mountains through which they had pa.s.sed and a line of still more formidable and snow-clad peaks. The elephants swam the wide and rus.h.i.+ng water, for of all land animals their kind are the best swimmers. The tiniest babies were supported by the trunks of their mothers, on to whose backs older calves climbed and were thus carried across. Without stopping the herd plunged into the awful pa.s.ses of the next range, of which they were not clear until the evening of the following day. Then they halted in dense forest.

Next morning Dermot took from the pockets of Badshah's pad the dresses and other things that they needed for their disguises, and instead of replacing the pad concealed it carefully. Then he said:

"We'll leave our escort here, Wargrave, and carry on by ourselves; for we are not far from inhabited and cultivated country, and indeed fairly near the _Jong_ (castle) of our enemy the Penlop of Tuna."

The wild elephants were feeding all around, paying no heed to them. The Colonel turned to Badshah and pointing to the ground said one word:

"_Raho_! (Remain!)"

Then he continued to Wargrave:

"We'll find them, or they'll find us, whenever we return."

An hour later two elderly lamas in soiled yellow robes and horn-rimmed spectacles, followed by a lame coolie carrying their scanty possessions, emerged, rosary and praying-wheel in hand, from the forest into the cultivated country.

For some weeks they wandered unsuspected through the Tuna Penlop's dominions and even penetrated into his own _jong_, where they were entertained and their prayers solicited by his cut-throat retainers.

They learned enough to realise that the _Amban_ was endeavouring by the free supply of arms and military instructors to form here the nucleus of a trained force to be employed eventually against India, backed up by reinforcements of Chinese troops and contingents from other parts of Bhutan.

Their investigations completed they returned safely to the forest in which they had left the herd; and, much to Wargrave's relief, they had not been many hours camped on the spot where they had parted with them when Badshah and his wild companions appeared. The spies returned to India as they had come, unseen and unsuspected.

This excursion was but the first of many that Wargrave made with the Colonel and the herd; and he soon began to know almost every member of it and make friends, not only with the solemn but friendly little calves, but even with their less trusting mothers. He was now thoroughly at home in the jungle and no longer needed a tutor in sport. His one room in the Mess began to be overcrowded with trophies of his skill with the rifle. Other tiger-skins had joined the first; and, although he had not secured a second bison, several good heads of _sambhur_, _khakur_ and _cheetul_, or spotted deer, hung on his whitewashed stone walls.

Thus with sport and work more fascinating than sport Wargrave found the months slipping by. From Raymond he learned that Violet had returned to Rohar before she wrote herself. When she did she seemed to be in a brighter and more affectionate, as well as calmer, mood than she had been before her visit to Poona. But gradually her letters became less and less frequent; and Frank began to wonder--with a little sense of guilty, shamed hope--if she were beginning to forget him.

Christmas came; and with its coming Ranga Duar woke again to life.

Besides the Bensons and Carter, who now brought his wife, Mrs. Dermot's brother--a subaltern in an Indian cavalry regiment--and five planters, old friends of his from the district in which he had once been a planter himself, came to spend Christmas in the small station. Major Hunt's bungalow and the Mess took in the overflow from the Political Officer's house.

Brian and Eileen had the gayest, happiest time of their little lives.

Presents were heaped on them. Muriel and Frank initiated them into all the delights of their first Christmas tree, and Burke introduced them to a real Punch and Judy Show. On Christmas Day Badshah, his neck encircled with a garland of flowers procured from the Plains, was led up solemnly by his seldom-seen _mahout_ to present Colonel Dermot with a gilded lime and receive in return a present of silver rupees which pa.s.sed into the possession of the said _mahout_. Then he was fed with dainties by the children; and Eileen insisted on being tossed aloft by the curving trunk, to the detriment of her starched party frock.

The weather was appropriate to the season, cold and bright, and although no snow fell so low down, it froze at night, so that the Europeans could indulge in the luxury--in India--of gathering around blazing wood fires after dinner.

All, young and old, thoroughly enjoyed this almost English-like Christmas--all except one. Burke's attentions to Muriel became more marked and more full of meaning than they had ever been before; and it was patent that he intended to put his fate to the touch during this visit of hers. He did so without success, it seemed; for before she left there was an evident sense of constraint between them and they tried to avoid sitting beside each other or being left alone together, even for a moment. Shortly after the departure of the visitors Burke contrived to effect an exchange to another station, to the regret of all in the little outpost, and he was replaced by a young Scots surgeon, named Macdonald, his opposite in every way.

CHAPTER XI

TRAGEDY

The annual Durbar for the reception of the Bhutan Envoy and the payment of the subsidy had come and gone again. The _Deb Zimpun_, who had not been accompanied by the Chinese _Amban_ on this occasion, had departed; and of the few European visitors only Muriel Benson remained. Colonel Dermot had been called away to Simla, to confer with officials of the Foreign Department on matters of frontier policy. Major Hunt was ill with fever, leaving Wargrave, who was still nominally attached to the Military Police, in command of the detachment.

It was delicious torture to Frank to be in the same place again with Muriel, to see her from the parade ground or the Mess verandah playing in the garden with the children, to meet her every day and talk to her and yet be obliged to school his lips and keep them from uttering the words that trembled on them.

A few nights after the Durbar he dined with Mrs. Dermot and Muriel and was sitting on the verandah of the Political Officer's house with them after dinner. He was wearing white mess uniform. The evening was warm and very still, and whenever the conversation died away, no sound save the monotonous note of the nightjars or the sudden cry of a barking-deer, broke the silence since the echoes of the "Lights Out"

bugle call had died away among the hills.

Wargrave looked at his watch.

"It's past eleven o'clock," he said. "I'd no idea it was so late. I ought to get up and say goodnight; but I'm so comfortable here, Mrs.

Dermot."

His hostess smiled lazily at him but made no reply. Again a peaceful hush fell on them.

With startling suddenness it was broken. From the Fort four hundred yards away a rifle-shot rang out, rending the silence of the night and reverberating among the hills around. Wargrave sprang to his feet as shouts followed and a bugle shrilled out the soul-gripping "Alarm," the call that sends a thrill through every soldier's frame. For always it tells of disaster. Heard thus at night in barracks swift following on a shot it spoke of crime, of murder, the black murder of a comrade.

The two women had risen anxiously.

"What is it? Oh, what is it?" they asked.

The subaltern spoke lightly to re-a.s.sure them.

"Nothing much, I expect. Some man on guard fooling with his rifle let it off by accident," he said quietly. "Excuse me. I'd better stroll across to the Fort and see."

But Mrs. Dermot stopped him.

"Wait a moment please, Mr. Wargrave," she said, running into the house.

She returned immediately with her husband's big automatic pistol and handed it to him. In her left hand she held a smaller one. "Take this with you. It's loaded," she said.

Frank thanked her, said goodnight to both calmly, and walked down the garden path; but the anxious women heard him running swiftly across the parade ground.

"What is it, Noreen? What does it mean?" asked the girl nervously.

"A sepoy running amuck, I'm afraid," replied her friend. "He's shot someone----."

She swung round, pistol raised.

"_Kohn hai_? (Who's that?)" she called out.

A man had come noiselessly on to the shadowed end of the verandah.

"It is I, _mem-sahib_," answered Sher Afzul, her Punjaubi Mahommedan butler. He had been in her service for five years and was devoted to her and hers. He was carrying a rifle, for his master at his request had long ago given him arms to protect his _mem-sahib_. Before her marriage he had once fought almost to the death to defend her when her brother's bungalow had been attacked by rebels during a rising.

"It would be well to go into the house and put out the lights, _mem-sahib_," he said quietly in Hindustani. "There is danger to-night."

As he spoke he extinguished the lamp on the verandah and closed the doors of the house. A second armed servant came quietly on to the verandah and the butler melted into the darkness of the garden; but they heard him go to the gate as if to guard it.

"You had better go inside, Muriel," said Mrs. Dermot, but made no move to do so herself.

The girl did not appear to hear her. She was listening intently for any sound from the Fort. But silence had fallen on it.

"Muriel, won't you go into the house?" repeated her hostess.

"Eh? What? No, I couldn't. I must stay here," replied Miss Benson impatiently. In the black darkness the other woman could not see her; but she felt that the girl's every sense was alert and strained to the utmost. She moved to her and put her arm about her. Against it she could feel Muriel's heart beating violently.