The Jungle Girl Part 20

"By George, you shot him dead enough, Miss Benson!" he exclaimed.

She stared down at the animal.

"Yes; but it's well to be careful. I've seen a tiger look as dead as that and yet spring up and maul a man who approached it incautiously,"

she said.

She raised her rifle and covered the prostrate animal.

"Throw something at it," she continued.

Wargrave took out a couple of heavy, copper-cased cartridges and flung them one by one at the tiger's head, striking it on the jaw and in the eye. The animal did not move.

"Seems dead enough," said the girl, lowering her rifle. "Here come the beaters."

The other elephants had now burst out in line through the scrub. Their _mahouts_ shouted enquiries to Gul Dad and when they heard of the tiger's death cheered gleefully, for it meant _backsheesh_ to them.

Badshah was seen to be searching for a way down into the nullah and in a few minutes brought his pa.s.sengers up alongside Miss Benson and the subaltern. Her father and Dermot congratulated the girl warmly; and the latter, having made Badshah kick the tiger to make certain that it was dead, dismounted and examined it.

"Here's your shot, Wargrave," he said, pointing to a hole in the belly.

"A bit too low, but it made a nasty wound that would have killed the beast eventually."

"I'm so ashamed of missing it with my second barrel, sir," said the subaltern. "But for Miss Benson I'd have been a gone c.o.o.n."

"Yes, it certainly looked exciting enough from our side of the _nullah_," said the Colonel, smiling; "so what must it have been like from where you were? Well, anyhow it's your tiger."

"Oh, nonsense, sir; it's Miss Benson's. I ought to be kicked for being such a m.u.f.f."

"Jungle law, Mr. Wargrave," said the girl, laughing "You hit it first, so it's your beast."

"You needn't be ashamed of missing it," added the Colonel. "A charging tiger coming full speed at you is not an easy mark. No; the skin is yours; and Muriel has so many that she can spare it."

"Well, Miss Benson, I accept it as a gift from you; but I won't acknowledge that I have earned it," said the subaltern.

"Now, we'd better pad it and see about getting back," said Dermot, looking at his watch.

The other elephants had now found their way up the bank and joined Badshah and his companion. When their _mahouts_ heard from Gul Dad the story of the tiger's death they exclaimed in amazement and admiration:

"_Ahre, Chai_! (Oh, brother!) Truly the missie-_baba_ is a wonder. She will be the death of many tigers, indeed," they said.

Then each in turn brought his elephant up to the prostrate animal and made her smell and strike it with her trunk in order to inspire her with contempt for tigers. Colonel Dermot measured it with a tape and found it to be nine feet six inches from nose to tip of tail. It was a young, fully-grown male in splendid condition. Then came the troublesome business of "padding" it, that is, hoisting it on to the pad of one of the elephants to bring it back to the bungalow to be skinned. It was not an easy matter. For the tiger weighed nearly three hundred and fifty pounds; and to raise the limp carcase, which sagged like a feather bed at every spot where there was not a man to support it, was a difficult task. But it was achieved at last; and with the tiger roped firmly on a pad the elephants started back in single file.

As they went over the plain in the burning sun Wargrave looked back to where the striped body was borne along with stiff, dangling legs.

"By Jove, it's been great, Miss Benson," he exclaimed. "Some people say tiger shooting's not exciting. They ought to have been with us to-day. I am lucky to have got a bison already and now to have seen this. With luck I'll be having a shot at an elephant next."

The girl replied in a serious tone:

"Don't say that to Colonel Dermot. Elephants are his especial friends.

Besides, you are only allowed to shoot rogues; and since he's been here there have been none in these jungles which formerly swarmed with them.

There's no doubt that he has a wonderful, uncanny control over even wild elephants. Do you know that once a rajah tried to have him killed in his palace by a mad tusker, which had just slaughtered several men, and the moment the brute got face to face with him it was cowed and obeyed him like a dog?"

"Good gracious, is that so?"

"Yes, I could tell you even more extraordinary things about his power over elephants; but some day when you're in the jungle with him you may see it for yourself. Oh, isn't it hot? I do wish we were home."

Arrived at the _dak_ bungalow the tiger's carcase was lowered to the ground and given over to the knives of the flayers summoned from the _bazaar_ of Madpur Duar a mile away. As soon as the news was known in the small town crowds of Hindu women streamed to the bungalow compound, where with their _saris_ (shawls) pulled modestly across their brown faces by rounded arms tinkling with gla.s.s bangles they squatted on the ground and waited patiently until the skin was drawn clear off the raw red carcase. Then they crowded around a couple of the older _mahouts_ who, first cutting off all the firm white fat of the well-fed cattle thief to be melted down for oil (esteemed to be a sovereign remedy for rheumatism), hacked the flesh into chunks which they threw into the eager hands of the women. These took the meat home to cook for their husbands to eat to instil into them the spirit and vigour of a tiger.

The skin, spread out and pegged to the ground, was covered with wood ashes and left to dry. Little of the animal was left but the bones, to the disappointment of the wheeling, whistling kites waiting on soaring wings in the sky above.

After tea the two officers took their leave with many expressions of grat.i.tude from the younger man to the girl for her kindness in arranging the beat for him. Hours afterwards, as they halted in the forest for a rest in the middle of the night, Colonel Dermot said:

"You told me once that you'd like a job like mine, Wargrave. Would you care for frontier political work here?"

"I'd love it, sir," exclaimed the subaltern enthusiastically. "Would it be possible to get it?"

"Well, I've been thinking for some time of applying to the Government of India for an a.s.sistant political officer who would help me and take over if I went on leave, but I'd want to train my own man and not merely accept any youngster who was pitchforked into the Department just because he had a father or an uncle with a pull at Simla. Now, if you like I'll apply for you, on condition that you'll work at Bhutanese and the frontier dialects. I'll teach them to you."

"I'd like nothing better, sir. I'm not bad at languages."

"Yes, I've noticed that your Hindustani is very good and idiomatic. I've been watching you and I like your manner with natives. One must be sympathetic, kind and just, but also firm with them. Well, I'll try you. The rainy season will be on us very soon, and then all outdoor work and sport will be impossible. One dare not go into the jungle--it's too full of malaria and blackwater fever. The planters and Forest Officers have to cage themselves in wire gauze 'mosquito houses.' During the rains you'll have plenty of time to work at the languages."

"Thank you very much, Colonel. I promise you I'll go at them hard."

"You'll have a fellow-student for part of the time. Miss Benson's coming to stay with us during the Monsoons for a bit; and she has asked me to teach her Bhutanese, too. She wants it, as she has to deal with Bhuttia woodcutters and hill folk generally. Well, that's fixed. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, sir," answered the subaltern, as he lay down on the pad and stared at the stars. He was overjoyed at Colonel Dermot's offer, and as he dropped asleep it was with a thrill of pleasure that he realised he would see something more of the girl who had been his companion that day.

CHAPTER X

A POLITICAL OFFICER IN THE MAKING

The lightning spattered the heavens and tore the black sky into a thousand fragments, the thunder crashed in appalling peals of terrifying sound which echoed again and again from the invisible mountains. The rain fell in ropes of water that sent the brown, foam-flecked torrents surging full-fed down every gully and ravine in the mist-wrapped hills.

The single, steep road of Ranga Duar was now the rocky bed of a racing flood inches deep that swirled and raged round Wargrave's high rubber boots as he waded up towards the Mess clad in an oilskin coat, off which the rain splashed. He was glad to arrive at the garden gate, turn in through it, climb the verandah steps, and reach his door. Here he flung aside his coat and kicked off the heavy boots.

Entering his room he pulled on his slippers, filled his pipe with tobacco from a lime-dried bottle and sat down at his one rickety table at the window. Then he took out of his pocket and laid before him a ma.n.u.script book filled with notes on the frontier dialects taken at the lesson with Colonel Dermot from which he had just come. He opened it mechanically but did not even glance at it. His thoughts were elsewhere.

Months had elapsed since the day on which he had seen his first tiger killed. Not long afterwards the Rains had come to put a stop to descents into the jungle. But his interest in the preparation for his new work compensated him for the imprisonment within walls by the terrible tropical storms and the never-ceasing downpour. He had flung himself enthusiastically into the study of the frontier languages, of which Colonel Dermot proved to be a painstaking and able teacher. Miss Benson, who had returned to Ranga Duar and remained there longer than she had originally intended, owing to fever contracted in the jungle, joined him in these studies and astonished her fellow-pupil by her apt.i.tude and quickness of apprehension. But her presence proved disastrous to him.

Thrown constantly together as they were, spending hours every day side by side, the subaltern realised to his dismay that he was falling in love with the girl.

It would have been strange had it been otherwise so pretty and attractive was she. Often Mrs. Dermot, peeping into her husband's office and seeing the dark and the fair head bent close together over a book, smiled to herself, well-pleased at the thought of her favourites being mutually attracted. To her husband the thought never occurred. Men are very dull in these matters.

But to Wargrave the realisation of the truth was unbearable. He was pledged to another woman, whose heart he had won even if unconsciously, who was willing for love of him to give up everything and face the world's censure and scorn. He could not play her false. He had given her his word. He could not now be disloyal to her without utterly wrecking all her chances of happiness in life and dishonouring himself for ever in his own eyes. Muriel Benson had left the station ten days ago to rejoin her father; and Wargrave had instantly felt that he dared not see her again until he was irrevocably and openly bound to Violet. So he had written to her on the morrow of the girl's departure and, without giving her the real reason for his action, begged her to come to him at once, enclosing, as he was now able to do, a cheque for her expenses. It seemed to him that only by her presence could he be saved from being a traitor to his word.

As soon as he had sent the letter he went to his Commanding Officer and told him everything. It was not until he was actually explaining his conduct that he realised that he should have obtained his permission before inviting Violet to come, for Major Hunt, as Commandant of the Station, had the power to forbid her residing in or even entering it.

The senior officer listened in silence. When the subaltern had finished he said: