The Elephant God Part 39

The rest chorused: "Have mercy!"

"Spare thy slaves, O Lord!" went on the old man. "Spare us ere all perish.

We wors.h.i.+p at thy shrine. We grudge not thy elephants our miserable crops.

Are they not thy servants? But let not the Striped Death slay all of us."

Dermot questioned him and then explained to Noreen that a man-eating tiger had taken up its residence near the village and was rapidly killing off its inhabitants.

"Oh, do help them," she said. "Can't you shoot it?"

He reflected for a few moments.

"Yes, I think I know how to get it. Will you wait for me in the village?"

"What? Mayn't I go with you to see you kill it? Please let me. I promise I'll not scream or be stupid."

He looked at her admiringly.

"Bravo!" he said. "I'm sure you'll be all right. Very well. I promise you you shall see a sight that not many other women have seen."

He borrowed a _puggri_--a strip of cotton cloth several yards long--from a villager, and bade them show him where the tiger lay up during the heat of the day. When they had done so from a safe distance, he turned Badshah, and, to Noreen's surprise, sped off swiftly in the opposite direction.

Suddenly the girl touched his arm quietly.

"Look! I see a wild elephant. There's another! And another!" she whispered.

"Yes; I've come in search of them," he replied in his ordinary tone. "It's Badshah's herd."

"Is it really? How wonderful! How did you know where to find them?" she cried, thrilled by the sight of the great beasts all round them and exclaiming with delight at the solemn little woolly babies, many newly born. For this was the calving season.

Dermot uttered a peculiar cry that sent the cow-elephants huddling together, their young hiding under their bodies, while from every quarter the great tuskers broke out through the undergrowth and came to him in a ma.s.s. Then, as Badshah turned and set off at a rapid pace, the bull-elephants followed.

When he arrived near the spot in which the man-eater was said to have his lair, Dermot stopped them all. Despite her protests he tied Noreen firmly with the _puggri_ to the rope crossing Badshah's pad. Then he drove his animal into the herd of tuskers, which had crowded together, and divided them into two bodies. The tiger was reported to lie up in a narrow _nullah_ filled and fringed with low bushes. From the near bank to where Badshah stood the forest was free from undergrowth, which came to within a score of yards of the far bank.

Badshah smelled the ground, and the other elephants followed his example and, when they scented the tiger's trail, began to be restless and excited.

A sharp cry from Dermot and the two bodies of tuskers separated and moved away, branching off half right and left, and disappeared in the undergrowth.

Dermot c.o.c.ked his double-barrelled rifle. There was a long pause. A strange feeling of awe crept over Noreen at the realisation of her companion's strange power over these great animals. No wonder the superst.i.tious natives believed him to be a G.o.d.

Presently there was a loud cras.h.i.+ng in the undergrowth beyond the _nullah_, and Noreen saw the saplings in it agitated, as if by the pa.s.sage of the elephants. The tiger gave no sign of life. The girl's heart beat fast, and her breath came quickly. But her companion never moved.

Suddenly Noreen gasped, for through the screen of thin bushes that fringed the edge of the _nullah_ a hideous painted mask was thrust out. It was a tiger's face, the ears flattened to the skull, the eyes flaming, the lips drawn back to bare the teeth in a ghastly snarl. The brute saw Badshah and drew quietly back. A pause. Then it sprang into full view and poised for a single instant on the far bank. But at that very moment the line of tuskers burst out of the tangled undergrowth and the tiger jumped down into the _nullah_ again.

Then like a flash it leaped into sight over the near bank, bounding in a furious charge straight at Badshah. Noreen held her breath as it crouched to spring. Dermot's rifle was at his shoulder, and he pressed the trigger.

There was a click--the cartridge had missed fire. And the tiger sprang full at the man.

But as it did so Badshah swung swiftly round--well for Noreen that she was securely fastened--for he had been standing a little sideways. And with an upward sweep of his head he caught the leaping tiger in mid-air on the point of his tusk, hurling it back a dozen yards.

As the baffled brute struck the ground with a heavy thud it lay still for a second and then sprang up, but at that moment Dermot's second barrel rang out, and, shot through the brain, the tiger collapsed, its head resting on its paws. A tremor shook the powerful frame, the tail twitched feebly, then all was still.

The long line of elephants halted on the far bank of the _nullah_, swung into file, and moved swiftly out of sight. Their work was done.

Dermot reloaded and urged Badshah forward, covering the tiger with his rifle. There was no need. It was dead.

Noreen leant forward and looked down at the striped body.

"What a splendid beast!" she exclaimed.

Dermot turned to her.

"You kept your word well, Miss Daleham," he said. "I congratulate you on your pluck. The highest compliment I can pay you is to say that I forgot you were there. Not many men would have sat as quiet as you did when the cartridge missed fire and the brute sprang."

The girl's eyes sparkled and she blushed. His praise was very dear to her.

In a lighter tone he continued:

"As a reward and a souvenir you shall have the skin. I'll get the villagers to take it off. Now stay on Badshah, please, while I slip down and have a look at the tiger's little nest."

With rifle at the ready, lest the dead animal should have had a mate, he climbed down into the _nullah_. He had not gone ten yards before his foot struck against something hard. In the pressed-down weeds was the half-gnawed skull of a man. The skin and flesh of the face were fairly intact. He took the head up in his hands. On the forehead were painted three white horizontal strokes. The tiger's last prey had been a Brahmin. A thought flashed across Dermot's mind. He searched about.

A few bones, parts of the hands and feet, some rags of clothing--and a long flat narrow leather case. He tore this open and hastily took out the papers it contained; and as he skimmed through them his eyes glistened with delight.

He sprang up out of the _nullah_ and ran towards Badshah. When the elephant's trunk had swung him up on to the ma.s.sive head he said:

"We must go back at once. I 'll tell the villagers as we pa.s.s to flay the tiger. I must borrow your brother's pony and ride as fast as I can to Salchini to get Payne's motor to take me to the railway."

"The railway?" exclaimed the girl. "Why, what is the matter? Where are you going?"

"To Simla. I've found the lost messenger. Aye, and perhaps information that may save India and proofs that will hang our friends in the Palace of Lalpuri. _Mul_, Badshah!"

CHAPTER XIX

TEMPEST

The storm had burst on India. In the Khyber Pa.s.s there was fiercer fighting than even that blood-stained defile had ever seen. The flames kindled by fanaticism and l.u.s.t of plunder blazed up along the North-west Frontier and burned fiercest around Peshawar, where the Pathan tribes gathered thickest.

No news came from the interior of Bhutan.

So far, however, the interior of the land was comparatively tranquil.

Sporadic outbreaks in the Bombay Presidency and the Punjaub had been crushed promptly. The great plan of a wide-spread concerted rising throughout the peninsula had come to naught, thanks to the papers that Dermot had found in the man-eater's den. He had carried them straight to Simla himself, for closer examination had confirmed his first impression and shown him that they were far too important to be confided to any one else.

The information in them proved to be of the utmost value, for they disclosed the complete plans of the conspirators and told the very dates arranged for the advance of the Afghan army and the attacks of the Pathans, which were to take place simultaneously with the general rising in India.

This latter the military authorities were enabled to deal with so effectively that it came to nothing.

Incidentally the papers conclusively proved the treason of the Rajah and the _Dewan_ of Lalpuri, and that the Palace was one of the most important centres of the conspiracy. To Dermot's amazement no action was taken against the two arch-plotters, owing to the incredible timidity of the chief civil authorities in India and their susceptibility to political influences in England. For Lalpuri and its rulers had been taken under the very particular protection of the Socialist Party; and the Government of India feared to touch the traitors. The excuse given for this leniency was that any attempt to punish them might be the signal for the long delayed rising in Lalpuri and Eastern Bengal generally.

A few days after Dermot's return from Simla orders came to him from the Adjutant General to hand over the command of the detachment to Parker, as he himself had been appointed extra departmental Political Officer of the Bhutan Border, with headquarters at Ranga Duar. This released him from the responsibilities of his military duties and left him free to devote himself to watching the frontier. He was able to keep in communication with Parker by means of signal stations established on high peaks near the Fort, visible from many points in the mountains and the forest; for he carried a signalling outfit always with him.