The Sirdar's Oath Part 10

Raynier could hardly repress a start, as his hand went instinctively to his pistol pocket nor did he feel any the easier because, by some inadvertence, it was empty. Then he looked up.

Right over the way they were to pa.s.s was a small ledge, apparently inaccessible to mortal foot, or incapable of sustaining a single human being could such attain to it. Yet, there was the head again--huge, s.h.a.ggy, menacing--staring down upon them in the gloom. Then it again disappeared.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

CONCERNING THE OCCULT.

"How would it be to move camp to-morrow?" Tarleton was saying. "We've been here long enough, and there's nothing to shoot, or next to nothing.

What do you think, Raynier?"

"No great hurry, is there? It's breezy and picturesque here, and has its advantages. What do _you_ think, Haslam?"

"I'm with Tarleton," said the Forest Officer. "All our fellows are grumbling. They say it's an unlucky place."

It was the evening after the somewhat eventful ride just recorded, and they were all a.s.sembled within the large tent which was used as a common dining-room. Dinner was over and cheroots were being discussed.

"Yes. My Babu was telling me something of the kind only to-day,"

rejoined Raynier, tranquilly. "By the way, Haslam, how is it all this while we've never been through that _tangi_? You know, the one you were telling me the yarn about?"

Haslam stared.

"Well, you know, old chap--I--I told you the yarn, didn't I? Well, that explains it."

"But you don't really mean to say you believe in such arrant tomfoolery?"

"I don't know about believing in it. But--well, it's best to be on the safe side."

"Goodness gracious, I should think so," struck in Mrs Tarleton. "Why, I wouldn't go into that place if anyone were to offer me a million pounds."

"Well, I wish they'd offer it to me, that's all," said Raynier. "For I mean to go through it to-morrow, gratis. Who'll volunteer? What do you say, Miss Clive?"

"I'll go, with pleasure," was the answer.

It will be seen that these two had kept their former experience to themselves, and this they had done by mutual agreement, mainly to get some fun out of the rest of the party, and it was to this object Raynier was now leading up. The head which both had seen watching them they had since accounted for by optical delusion, even as the startling sounds had been accounted for by perfectly natural causes.

Mrs Tarleton gave a cry of genuine consternation.

"Hilda, you must not go," she implored. "Oh, Mr Raynier, don't take her--if only as a favour to me."

"But I'm not in the least superst.i.tious, Mrs Tarleton," said the girl, looking up from the work she was engaged upon. "In fact, I like to demonstrate the absurdity of these childish beliefs. Why, I can hardly count the number of times I've got up first of thirteen from table."

"Well, there must be something in these ideas, I suppose, or else they wouldn't be so universally accepted," cut in Tarleton.

"No? Then of course the world has only lately become round, seeing that for ages it was 'universally accepted' as flat," said Raynier.

"Ah, but that's quite a different thing."

Then Haslam told a weird and wonderful story or two ill.u.s.trating the strange power of native prophecy, which interested Hilda, and Tarleton would cap such with the coincidence type of anecdote, such as the first of thirteen at table--and at these she laughed.

"None of those instances come anywhere near carrying conviction," she said. "Now, remember. In good time I will supply you with just such an instance to the contrary. No; I won't tell you anything about it now.

But you'll see at the right time."

"I believe Miss Clive means to go into the _tangi_," said Haslam.

"No, I don't," Hilda answered. "I won't go into it now. I don't want to frighten all you poor creatures."

They laughed, rather weakly it must be owned--all but Raynier, that is, for he was in the know, and was enjoying the situation immensely. How well she looked when she was animated and her face lighted up like that--was what he was thinking as he sat watching her. Somebody touched on the subject of clairvoyance. In a moment Hilda's manner changed.

She became grave, almost earnest.

"Hullo!" cried Tarleton. "We've got hold of something at last that Miss Clive does believe in."

"To a certain extent, yes."

"I remember going to a _seance_ once," said Mrs Tarleton. "There was a dreadful woman going into trances, and pointing out people's dead relations standing behind their chairs. She described them, and all sorts of things. It made me feel quite creepy."

"Yes, but how many times was she wide of the mark for every time she made a good shot?" said Raynier.

"Hardly once. It is quite wonderful."

"There's nothing in that sort of clairvoyance; it's sheer quackery,"

said Hilda, speaking in a decisive, authoritative tone that astonished her hearers.

"I should think so," said Raynier. "Whatever may be the state or locality of the dead, it is not to be supposed that they would be empowered, or would even wish, to appear in London, to enable a cad in a second-hand dress-suit to take up so much a head in gate money, nor a female fraud either, for the matter of that."

"Well, but I don't see why they shouldn't," cut in Tarleton, characteristically.

"No! It doesn't strike you as improbable?" said Hilda, with a pitying look.

"Why should they be quacks?" persisted Tarleton. "Why shouldn't there be anything in what they do?"

"I don't know why there shouldn't be, I only know there isn't," she replied. "Why, the gift--for clairvoyance is a gift--is so rare that it is hardly surprising its very existence is disbelieved in. I know it-- at least, I mean--er--anybody can reason out the matter for themselves."

The concluding words were lame and stammering, and the change from the firmness and decision of tone which had marked her utterances. .h.i.therto, as though she had suddenly found herself out in saying too much, could not but strike her hearers as strange, to say the least of it. To Raynier it suggested a new idea, which indeed came to him with a sort of mental start. But he came to the rescue.

"Its existence is undoubted, though as rare as Miss Clive says. Why, that feeling that comes to us sometimes of having done or said some given thing before, or found ourselves in some given place, is a sort of an approach to the art, or gift, or whatever you like to call it."

"Oh, I don't know what that is," said Mrs Tarleton. "Thank goodness that sort of thing doesn't come my way. But we've been talking about creepy things all the evening. I'm sure I shall dream. Ugh!" with a s.h.i.+ver. "What is it like outside?"

It was time to separate for the night, but they lingered a while chatting in front of the tent. There was a very wildness of desolation in this sudden transition from light to darkness. All within the camp was silent, and away beyond, the loom of the hills was just discernible, black against the stars. The ghostly cry of a night bird echoed from the craggy height which overhung the camp, and far away over the plain a most weird and melancholy howling was borne upon the night wind.

"That's a wolf--or wolves," said Haslam, his _s.h.i.+kari_ instincts metaphorically p.r.i.c.king up his ears. "Aren't you afraid, Miss Clive?

There's nothing between you and them but a strip of canvas, all night through."

Hilda laughed.

"Afraid?" she repeated. "Why, this is positively delightful. It is such a contrast. Inside the tents--why, we might be in Mazaran, or even in London. Outside--the very ideal of savage wildness. Afraid? Why, I'm positively revelling in it. I like to hear that. Hark! There it is again. I'd like to see those wolves close--to watch them prowling for prey and doubling back and signalling to each other--if only I could get near enough to observe them without scaring them."