The Jungle Girl Part 23

Suddenly from the Fort came the noise of heavy blows and a crash, instantly followed by a shot and then fierce cries.

"Oh, my G.o.d! What is happening?" murmured the girl, her hand on her heart.

Presently there came the sound of running feet, and heavy boots clattered up the rocky road towards the Mess past the gate.

Then the butler's voice rang out in challenge:

"_Kohn jatha_? (Who goes there?)"

A panting voice answered:

"Wargrave Sahib _murgya_. Doctor Sahib _ko bulana ko jatha_"--(Wargrave Sahib is killed. I go to call the Doctor Sahib)--and the sepoy ran on in the darkness.

"O G.o.d! O G.o.d!" cried the girl, and tried to break from her friend's clasp. "Let me go! Let me go!"

"Where to?" asked Noreen, holding the frenzied girl with all her strength.

"To him. He's dead. Didn't you hear? He's dead. I must go to him."

She struggled madly and beat fiercely at the hands that held her.

"Let me go! Let me go! Oh, he's dead," she wailed. "Dead. And I loved him so. Oh, be merciful! Let me go to him!" and suddenly her strength gave way and she collapsed into Noreen's arms, weeping bitterly.

They heard the clattering steps meet others coming down the hill and a hurried conversation ensue. Noreen recognised one of the voices. Then both men came running down.

"It's the doctor," said Mrs. Dermot. "Come to the gate and we'll ask him what has happened."

"Mr. Macdonald! Mr. Macdonald!" she cried as the hurrying footsteps drew near.

"Who's that? Mrs. Dermot? For G.o.d's sake get into the house. There's a man running amuck. Wargrave's killed. I'm wanted"; and the doctor, taking no thought of danger to himself when there was need of his skill, ran on into the darkness.

"I must--I will go!" cried Muriel.

"Very well. Perhaps it's not true. We must know. We may be able to help," replied her friend.

And with a word to Sher Afzul to guard her babies from danger she seized Muriel's hand, and the two girls ran towards the Fort in the track that Wargrave had followed to his death, it seemed.

Pistol in hand Wargrave had raced across the parade ground. At the gate of the Fort he was challenged; and when he answered an Indian officer came out of the darkness to him.

"Sahib," he said hurriedly. "Havildar Mahommed Ashraf Khan has been shot in his bed in barracks. The sentry over the magazine is missing with his rifle."

Wargrave entered the Fort. Opposite the guard-room the detachment was falling in rapidly, the men carrying their rifles and running up from their barrack-rooms in various stages of undress. By the flickering light of a lantern held up for him a non-commissioned officer was calling the roll, and his voice rumbled along in monotonous tones. The guard were standing under arms.

"Put out that lamp!" cried the subaltern sharply. It would only serve to light up other marks for the invisible a.s.sa.s.sin if, like most men who run _amok_, he meant to keep on killing until slain himself. "No; take it into the guard-room and shut the door."

In the darkness the silence was intense, broken only by the heavy breathing of the unseen men and the clattering of the feet of some late-comer. Suddenly there rang out through the night the most appalling sound that had ever a.s.sailed Wargrave's ears. It was as the cry of a lost soul in all the agony of the d.a.m.ned, an eerie, unearthly wail that froze the blood in the listeners' veins. In the invisible ranks men shuddered and clutched at their neighbours.

"_Khuda ke Nam men, kiya hai?_ (In the Name of G.o.d, what is that?)"

gasped the subaltern.

The Indian officer at his side answered in a low voice:

"It is Ashraf Khan crying out in pain, Sahib. He is not yet dead."

"_Subhedar_ sahib, come with me," said Wargrave. "Let your _jemadar_ (lieutenant) take the men one by one into the guard-room and examine the rifles to see if any have been fired. We don't know yet if the missing sentry did the deed."

The _Subhedar_ (company commander) gave the order to his subordinate and followed Wargrave to the barrack-room in which the crime had been committed. The sight that met the subaltern's eyes was one that he was not easily to forget.

The high-roofed chamber was in darkness save at one end where a small lamp cast weird shadows on the walls and vaulting ceiling. At this end and under the flickering light a group of figures stood round a bed on which a man was writhing in agony. He was struggling in delirious frenzy to hurl himself to the stone floor, and was only held down by the united efforts of three men. From a bullet wound in his bared chest the life-blood welled with every movement of his tortured body. He had been shot in the back as he lay asleep. The lips covered with a b.l.o.o.d.y froth were drawn back tightly over the white teeth clenched in agony, and red foam lay on the black beard. Out of the sweat-bathed, ghastly face the eyes glared in frenzy. The features were contorted with pain. Again and again the wild shrieks like the howl of a mad thing rang through the long room and out into the night.

With tear-filled eyes and heart torn with pity Wargrave looked down at him in silence. Ashraf Khan was one of his best men. "But where is the doctor sahib?" he asked the native officer suddenly.

The _subhedar_ stared and shook his head. In the excitement no one had thought of sending for the medical officer. Wargrave turned to one of the men around the bed.

"Mahbub Khan, run hard to the Mess and call the doctor sahib. Here, stop!" He remembered that Macdonald did not possess a revolver. For all one knew he might encounter the murderer on his way. Wargrave thrust Mrs. Dermot's pistol into the sepoy's hand, saying, "Give the sahib that."

The man, who was barefoot, ran out of the chamber and went to his own barrack-room for his shoes, for the road was rocky and covered with sharp stones. The subaltern turned away with a sigh from the bedside of his poor comrade. He could do nothing now but avenge him. As he walked away from the group he trod on an empty cartridge case and picked it up.

It had recently been fired. It told its tale; for it showed that the a.s.sa.s.sin had reloaded over his victim and intended that the killing should not end there. If he were the missing sentry then he had nine more cartridges left--nine human lives in his blood-stained hand. And as the subaltern crossed the verandah outside the barrack-room the _jemadar_ met him and reported that all the rifles of the detachment had been examined and found clean except the missing weapon of the sentry, a young Pathan sepoy called Gul Mahommed. It was remembered that the dying _havildar_ (sergeant) had reprimanded him hotly on the previous day for appearing on parade with accoutrements dirty. So little a cause was needed to send a man to his death!

The first thing to be done now was to hunt for the murderer. While he went free no one's life was safe. Wargrave shuddered at the thought of danger coming to Muriel or her friend, and he hoped that they were safely shut in their house. It was a difficult problem to know where to begin the search. The Fort was full of hiding-places, especially at night. And already the a.s.sa.s.sin might have escaped over the low wall surrounding it. As Wargrave stood perplexed another Indian officer ran up, accompanied by two men with rifles.

"Sahib! Sahib!" he whispered excitedly. "The murderer is in my room, the one next that in which Ashraf Kahn was shot. I left the door wide open when I ran out. It is now shut and bolted from the inside and someone is moving about in it."

The subaltern went along the verandah to the door and tried it. It was firmly fastened.

"Here, sahib!" cried a sepoy who ran up with a comrade carrying a heavy log.

"_Shahbash_! (Well done!) Break in the door," said Wargrave.

Other men, who had come up, seized the long log and dashed it violently against the door. The bolt held, but the frail hinges gave way and the door fell in.

"Stand back!" cried Wargrave.

It seemed certain death to enter the room in which a murderer lurked in darkness, armed with a rifle and fixed bayonet and resolved to sell his life dearly. But the subaltern did not hesitate. He was the only sahib there and of course it was his duty to go in. He could not ask his men to risk a danger that he s.h.i.+rked himself. That is not the officer's way, whose motto must ever be "Follow where I lead."

Wargrave sprang into the room unarmed. He was outlined against the faint light outside. A spurt of flame lit the darkness; and the subaltern, as he tripped over the raised threshold, felt that he was shot. He staggered on. A rifle lunged forward and the bayonet stabbed him in the side; but with a desperate effort he closed with his unseen a.s.sailant and grappled fiercely with him. Struggling to overpower the a.s.sa.s.sin before his ebbing strength left him he fought madly. The Indian officers and sepoys blocking up the doorway could see nothing; but they could hear the choking gasps, the panting breaths, the muttered curses and the stamping feet of the combatants locked in the death-grapple. They could not interfere, they dared not fire. In impotent fury they shouted:

"Bring lamps! Bring lamps!"

Then, groaning in their powerlessness to aid their beloved officer, they listened, as a light danced over the stones from a lantern in the hand of a running sepoy. The moment it came and lit up the scene they rushed on the murderer wrestling fiercely with Wargrave and dragged him off as the subaltern collapsed and fell to the ground. The glare of the lantern shone on his white face.

"The sahib is dead!" cried a sepoy, and sprang at the murderer who was struggling in the grip of the two powerfully-built Indian officers.

Others followed him, and his captors had to fight hard and use all their authority to keep the prisoner from being killed by the bare hands of his maddened comrades. Only the arrival of the armed men of the guard saved him.

Frenzied with grief the sepoys bent over their officer lying motionless and apparently dead on the stone floor. They loved him. Many of them wept openly and unashamed. The _subhedar_ knelt beside him and opened his s.h.i.+rt. The blood had soaked through the white mess-jacket that Wargrave wore.