CHAPTER XVII
A TRAP
In the forenoon of the fifth day of the Durgá-Puja Festival the Dewan and Chunerbutty sat on the thick carpet of the Rajah's apartment, which was in that part of the Palace facing the wing given up to the visitors. It formed one of the sides of the square surrounding the paved courtyard below, which was rarely entered. Only one door led into it from the buildings which lined it on three sides, a door under the Rajah's suite of apartments.
That potentate was sprawling on a pile of soft cushions, glaring malevolently at his Chief Minister, whom he hated and feared.
"Curses on thee, Dewan-ji!" he muttered, turning uneasily and groaning with the pain of movement. For he was badly bruised, sore, and shaken, from his treatment by the crowd on the previous day.
"Why on me, O Maharaj?" asked the Dewan, looking at him steadily and with hardly-veiled contempt.
"Because thine was the idea of this foolish celebration yesterday. Mother Durgá was angry with me for introducing this foreign way of worship," answered the superstitious atheist, conveniently forgetting that the idea was his own. "It will cost me large sums to these greedy priests, if she is not to punish me further."
"Not for that reason, but for another, is the Holy Mother enraged, O Maharaj," replied his Minister. "For the lack of a sweeter sacrifice than we offered her yesterday."
"What is that?" demanded the Rajah suspiciously. He distrusted his Dewan more than any one else in his service.
"Canst thou ask? Thou who bearest on thy forehead the badge of the Sáktas?"
"Thou meanest a human sacrifice?"
"I do."
"I have given Durgá many," grumbled the Rajah. "But if she be greedy, let her have more. There are girls in my zenana that I would gladly be rid of."
"The Holy Mother demands a worthier offering than some wanton that thou hast wearied of."
Chunerbutty spoke for the first time.
"She wants the blood of one of the accursed race; of a Feringhi; of this soldier and spy."
The Rajah shifted uneasily on his cushions. He hated but he feared the white men, and he had not implicit faith in the Dewan's talk of their speedy overthrow.
"Mother Durgá has rejected him," he said. "Have ye not all tried to slay him and failed?"
The Dewan nodded his head slowly and stared at the carpet.
"There is some strange and evil influence that sets my plans at naught."
"The gods, if there be gods as you Brahmins say, protect him. I think evil will come to us if we harm him. And can we? Did he not lie down with the hooded death itself, a cobra, young, active, full of venom, and rise unhurt?"
"True. But perhaps the snake had escaped from the bed before the Feringhi entered it," said the Dewan meditatively.
"To guard against that, did they not fasten the karait in his shoe?"
"He may have discovered it in time," said the engineer. "Englishmen fear snakes greatly and always look out for them."
"Ha! and did he not eat and drink the poisoned meal prepared for him by our skilfullest physician?"
There was no answer to this. The mystery of Dermot's escape from death was beyond their understanding.
"There is certainly something strange about him," said Chunerbutty. "At least, so it is reported in our district, though to me he seems a fool. But there all races and castes fear him. Curious tales are told of him. Some say that Gunesh, the Elephant-headed One, protects him. Others hold that he is Gunesh himself. Can it be so?"
The Dewan smiled.
"Since when hast thou believed in the gods again?" he asked.
"Well, it is hard to know what is true or false. If there be no gods, perhaps there are devils. My Christian friends are more impressed by the latter."
The Rajah shook his head doubtfully.
"Perhaps he is a devil. Who knows? They told me that he summoned a host of devils in the form of elephants to slay my soldiers. Pah! it is all nonsense. There are no such things."
With startling distinctness the shrill trumpeting of an elephant rang through the room.
"Mother Kali preserve me!" shrieked the superstitious Rajah, flinging himself in terror on his face. "That was no mortal elephant. Was it Gunesh that spoke?" He lifted his head timidly. "It is a warning. Spare the Feringhi. Let him go."
"Spare him? Knowest thou, O Maharaj, that the girl thou dost desire loves him? But an hour ago I heard her tell him that she wished to speak with him alone," said Chunerbutty.
"Alone with him? The shameless one! Curses on him! Let him die," cried the jealous Rajah, his fright forgotten.
The Dewan smiled.
"There was no need to fear the cry of that elephant," he said. "It was your favourite, Shiva-ji. He is seized with the male-madness. They have penned him in the stone-walled enclosure yonder. He killed his mahout this morning."
"Killed Ebrahim? Curse him! If he had not cost me twenty thousand rupees I would have him shot," growled the Rajah savagely. "Killed Ebrahim, my best mahout? Why could he not have slain this accursed Feringhi if he had the blood-lust on him?"
"In the name of Siva the Great One!" exclaimed the Dewan piously. "It is a good thought. Listen to me, Maharaj! Listen, thou renegade" (this to Chunerbutty, who dared not resent the old man's insults).
The three heads came together.
After lunch that day Dermot sat smoking in his room. Although it had no punkah and the heat was great, he had escaped to it from the crowded lounge to be able to think quietly. But his thoughts were not of the attempts on his life and the probability that they would be repeated. His mind was filled with Noreen to the temporary exclusion of all other subjects. She puzzled him. He had supposed her engaged, or practically engaged, to Charlesworth. Yet she had come away from Darjeeling at its gayest time and here seemed to be engrossed with Chunerbutty. She was always with him or he with her. He never left her side. She sat by him at every meal. She had gone alone with him in his howdah to the Moti Mahal, when every other elephant had carried more than two persons. He knew that she had always regarded the Hindu as a friend, but he had not thought that she was so attracted to him. Certainly now she did not appear content away from him. What would Charlesworth, who hated natives, think of it?
As for himself, their former friendship seemed dead. He had naturally been hurt when she had not waited in the hotel at Darjeeling, though she knew that he was coming to say good-bye to her. But perhaps Charlesworth had kept her out, so he could not blame her. But why had she deliberately avoided him here in the Palace? What was the reason of her unfriendliness? Yet that morning in the lounge after breakfast he had chanced to pass her where she stood beside Chunerbutty, who was speaking to a servant. She had detained him for a moment to tell him that she wished to see him alone some time, for she wanted his advice. She seemed rather mysterious about it, and he remembered that she had spoken in a low tone, as if she did not desire any one else to hear what she was saying.
What did it all mean? Well, if he could help her with advice or anything else he would. He had not realised how fond he was of her until this estrangement between them had arisen.
As he sat puzzling over the problem the servant who waited on him entered the room and salaamed.
"Ghurrib Parwar! (Protector of the Poor.) I bring a message for Your Honour. The English missie baba sends salaams and wishes to speak with you."
Dermot sprang up hastily.
"Where is she, Rama? In the lounge?"
"No, Huzoor. The missie baba is in the Red Garden."
"Where is that?"
"It is the Rajah's own private garden, through there." The servant pointed down to the gateway in the high wall of the courtyard below. He had opened the shutter of the window by which they were standing. "I will guide Your Honour. We must go through that door over there under His Highness's apartments."
"Bahut atcha, Rama. I will come with you. Give me my topi," cried Dermot, feeling light-hearted all at once. Perhaps the misunderstanding between Noreen and him would be cleared up now. He took his sun-hat from the man and followed him out of the room.
Noreen was greatly perplexed about the insult, as she considered it, of the Rajah's offer of the necklace. She feared to tell her brother, who might be angry with her for suspecting his friend of condoning an impertinence to her. Equally she felt that she could not confide in Ida or any one else, lest she should be misjudged and thought to have encouraged the engineer and his patron. To whom could she turn, sure of not being misunderstood? If only Dermot had remained her friend!
She was torn with longings to know the truth about his relations with Ida. The uncertainty was unbearable. That morning in her room she had boldly attacked Ida and asked her frankly. The other woman made light of the whole affair, pretended that Noreen had misunderstood her on that night in Darjeeling, and laughed at the idea of any one imagining that she had ever been in love with Dermot.
The girl was more puzzled than ever. Her heart ached for an hour or two alone with her one-time friend of the forest. O to be out with him on Badshah in the silent jungle, no matter what dangers encircled them! Perhaps there the cloud between them would vanish. But could she not speak to him here in the Palace? He seemed to be no longer fascinated with Ida, if indeed he ever had been. She could tell him of the Rajah's insult. He would advise her what to do, for she was sure that he would not misjudge her. And perhaps—who knew?—her confiding in him might break down the wall that separated them. She forgot that it had been built by her own resentment and anger, and that she had eluded his attempts to approach her. Even now she felt that she could not speak to him before others.
Growing desperate, she had that morning snatched at the opportunity to ask him for an interview. Chunerbutty, who seemed always to cling to her now with the persistence of a leech, had as usual been with her, but his attention had been distracted from her for a moment. She hoped that the Hindu had not overheard her. Yet what did it matter if he had? Dermot had understood and nodded, as he passed on with the old, friendly look in his eyes. Perhaps all would come right.
She had seen him leave the lounge after lunch, but she remained there confident that he would return. She felt she could not talk to the others so she withdrew to a table near one of the shuttered windows and pretended to read the newspapers on it.
Payne was there, deep in the perusal of an article in an English journal on the disturbed state of India. Mrs. Rice, impervious to snubs, was trying to impress the openly bored Ida with accounts of the gay and fashionable life of Balham. The men were scattered about the room in groups, some discussing in low tones the occurrences of the day before at the Moti Mahal, others talking of the illuminations and fireworks which were to wind up their entertainment in Lalpuri on this the last night of their stay. For all were leaving on the morrow.
Suddenly there was a wild outcry outside. Loud cries, the shouts of men, the terrifying trumpeting of an elephant, resounded through the courtyard below and echoed weirdly from the walls of the buildings. A piercing shriek of agony rang high above the tumult of sound and chilled the blood of the listeners in the lounge.
Payne tore fiercely at the stiff wooden shutters of the window near him, which led out to the long balcony. Suddenly they burst open and he sprang out.
"Good God!" he cried in horror. "Look! Look! Dermot's done for!"
The soldier had followed Rama, who led him through an unfamiliar part of the Palace along low passages, down narrow winding staircases, through painted rooms, in some of which female garments flung carelessly on the cushions seemed to indicate that they were passing through a portion of the zenana. Finally they reached a marble-paved hall on the ground-floor, where two attendants, the first persons whom they had seen on their way, lounged near a small door. They were evidently the porters and appeared to expect them, for they opened the door at Rama's approach. Through it Dermot followed his guide out into the courtyard on which he had often looked from the balcony of his room. He looked up at the lounge, two stories above his head, its long casements shuttered against the heat. Then he noticed that in none of the buildings surrounding the court were there any windows lower than the second story, and the only entrance into it from the Palace was the small door through which he had just passed. Almost at the moment he stepped into the courtyard a familiar sound greeted his ears. It was the trumpeting of an elephant. But there was a strange note of rage and excitement in it, and he thought of the remarks of the mahouts the previous day on the return from the Moti Mahal. Probably the must elephant of which they spoke was chained somewhere close by.
As he crossed the courtyard he chanced to glance up at the shuttered windows of the apartments which he had been told were occupied by the Rajah. At that moment one of them was opened and a white cloth waved from it by an unseen hand. He wondered was it a signal. He stooped to fasten a bootlace, and Rama, who was making for the gateway in the high wall forming the fourth side of the courtyard, called impatiently to him to hasten. The servant's tone was impertinent, and Dermot looked up in surprise.
Then suddenly Hell broke loose. From the direction in which they were proceeding came fierce shouts of men, yells of terror, and the angry trumpeting of an elephant mingled with the groaning of iron dragged over stone and the crashing of splintered wood. Rama, who was a few yards ahead, turned and ran past the white man, his face livid. Dermot looked after him in surprise. The man had dashed back to the little door and was beating on it madly with his fists. It was opened to admit him and then hastily closed. The soldier heard the rusty bolts grinding home in their sockets.
Scenting danger and fearing a trap he stood still in the middle of the courtyard.
The uproar continued and drew nearer. Suddenly it was dominated by a blood-curdling shriek of agony. Through the wide gateway he saw five or six men fleeing across the farther courtyard, which was surrounded by a high wall. Behind them rushed a huge tusker elephant, ears and tail cocked, eyes aflame with rage. He overtook one man, struck him down with his trunk, trod him to pulp, and then pursued the others. Some of them, crazed with terror, tried to climb the walls. The savage brute struck them down one after another, gored them or trampled them to death.
Three terrified wretches fled through the gateway into the courtyard in which Dermot was standing. One stumbled and the elephant caught him up. The demented man turned on it and tried to beat it off with his bare hands. With a scream of fury the maddened beast drove his blood-stained tusk into the wretch's body, pitched him aloft, then hurled him to the ground and gored him again and again. The dying shriek that burst from the labouring lungs turned Dermot's blood cold. The body was kicked, trampled on, and then torn limb from limb.
The two other men had dashed wildly across the courtyard. One reached the small door and was beating madly on it with bleeding knuckles, but it remained implacably closed. The other, driven mad by fear, was running round and round the courtyard like a caged animal, stopping occasionally to raise imploring hands and eyes to the windows of the Palace, which were now filled with spectators. Even the roofs were crowded with natives looking down on the tragedy being enacted below.
Dermot realised that he had been trapped. There was no escape. He looked up at the Rajah's windows. One had been pushed open, and he thought that he could see the Dewan and his master watching him. He determined that he would not afford them the gratification of seeing him run round and round the walls of the courtyard like a rat in a trap until death overtook him. So, when the elephant at last drew off from its victim and stood irresolute for a moment, he turned to face it.
It seemed to him that he heard his voice called, faintly and from far away, but all his faculties were intent on watching the death that approached him in such hideous guise. Dermot's thoughts flew to Badshah for a moment, but swung back to centre on the coming annihilation. With flaming eyes, trunk curled, and head thrown up, the elephant charged.
For one brief instant the man felt an insane desire to flee but, mastering it, he faced the on-rushing brute. A minute more, and all would be over. The soldier was unconscious of the shouts that rent the air, of the spectators crowding the balconies and windows. He felt perfectly cool now and had but one regret—that he had not been able to see Noreen again, as she had wished, before he died.
He drew a deep breath, his last perhaps before Death reached him, and took a step forward to meet his doom.
But at his movement a miracle happened. Not five yards from him the charging elephant suddenly tried to check its rush, flung all its weight back and, unable to halt, slid forward with stiffened fore-legs over the paving-stones. When at last it stopped one tusk was actually touching the man. Tail, ears, and trunk drooped, and it backed with every evidence of terror. Some instinct had warned it at the last moment that this man was sacred to the mammoth tribe.
Like a flash enlightenment came to Dermot. Once again a mysterious power had saved him. The elephant knew and feared him. Yet he seemed as one in a dream. He looked up at the native portion of the Palace and became aware of the spectators on the roofs, the staring faces at the windows, the eyes of the women peering at him through the latticed casements of the zenana. The Rajah and the Dewan, all caution forgotten in their excitement, had thrown open the shutters from behind which they had hoped to witness his death, and were leaning out in full view.
Dermot laughed grimly, and the thought came to him to impress these treacherous foes more forcibly. He walked towards the shrinking elephant, raised his hand, and commanded it to kneel. The animal obeyed submissively. The soldier swung himself on to its neck, and the animal rose to its feet again.
He guided it across the courtyard until it stood under the window from which the Rajah and the Dewan stared down at him in amazement and superstitious dread. Then he said to the animal:
"Salaam kuro! (Salute!)"
It raised its trunk and trumpeted in the royal salutation. With a mocking smile, Dermot lifted his hat to the shrinking pair of murderers and turned the elephant away.
Then for the first time he became aware that the balcony of the lounge was crowded with his fellow-countrymen. Ida and Mrs. Rice were sobbing hysterically on each other's shoulders. Noreen, clinging to her brother, whose arm was about her, was staring down at him with a set, white face. And as he looked up and saw them the men went mad. They burst into a roar of cheering, of greeting, and applause that drove the Rajah and his Minister into hiding again, for the shouts had something of menace in them.
Dermot took off his hat in acknowledgment of the cheers and, seeing the Hindu engineer shrinking behind the others with an expression of amazed terror on his face, called to him:
"Would you kindly send one of your friends to open the door, Mr. Chunerbutty? It seems to have got shut by some unfortunate accident."
He brought the elephant to its knees and dismounted. Then as it rose he pointed to the gateway and said in the mahout's tongue:
"Return to your stall."
The animal walked away submissively. The two surviving natives shrank against the buildings in deadly fear, but the animal disappeared quietly.
Dermot went to the door and waited. Soon he heard the key turned in the lock and the rusty bolts drawn back. The door was then flung open by one of the porters, while the others huddled against the wall, for Barclay stood in front of them with a pistol raised. He sprang forward and seized Dermot's hand.
"Heaven and earth! How are you alive?" he cried. "I thought the devils had got you this time. I was tempted to shoot these swine here for being so long in opening the door."
There was a clatter of boots on the marble floor, as Payne and Granger, followed by the rest of the Englishmen, ran up the hall, cheering. They crowded round Dermot, nearly shook his arm off, thumped him on the back, and overwhelmed him with congratulations.
As Dermot thanked them he said:
"I didn't know that you fellows were looking on, otherwise I wouldn't have done that little bit of gallery-play. But I had a reason for it." "Yes; we know," said Payne significantly. "Barclay told us."
Then they dragged him protesting upstairs to the lounge, that the women might congratulate him too; which they did each in her own fashion. Ida was effusive and sentimental, Mrs. Rice fatuous, and Noreen timid and almost stiff. The girl, who had endured an agony worse than many deaths, could not voice her feelings, and her congratulations seemed curt and cold to others besides Dermot.
She had no opportunity of speaking to him apart, even for a minute, for the men surrounded him and insisted on toasting him and questioning him until it was time to dress for dinner. And even then they formed a guard of honour and escorted him to his room.
Noreen, utterly worn out by her sleepless nights and the storm of emotions that had shaken her, was unable to come down to dinner, and at her brother's wish went to bed instead. And so she did not learn that Dermot was leaving the Palace at the early hour of four o'clock in the morning.
That night as Dermot and Barclay went upstairs together the police officer said:
"I wonder if they'll dare to try anything against you tonight, Major. I should say they'd give you a miss in baulk, for they must believe you invulnerable. Still, I'm going with you to your room to see."
When they reached it and threw open the door a figure half rose from the floor. Barclay's hand went out to it with levelled pistol, but the words arrested him.
"Khodawund! (Lord of the World!) Forgive me! I did not know. I did not know."
It was the treacherous Rama who had tried to lead Dermot to his death. He lay face to the ground.
"Damned liar!" growled Barclay in English.
"Did not know that thou wert leading me under the feet of the must elephant?" demanded Dermot incredulously.
"Aye, that I knew of course, Huzoor. How can I deceive thee? But thee I knew not; though the elephant Shiva-ji did, even in his madness. It is not my fault. I am not of this country. I am a man of the Punjaub. I know naught of the gods of Bengal."
Barclay had heard from the planters the belief in Dermot's divinity which was universal in their district, and perceived that the legend had reached this man. He was quick to see the advantages that they could reap from his superstitious fears. He signed to Dermot to be silent and said in solemn tones:
"Rama, thou hast grievously offended the gods. Thou knowest the truth at last?"
"I do, Sahib. The talk through the Palace, aye, throughout the city, is all of the God of the Elephants, of the Terrible One who feeds his herd of demons on the flesh of men. The temple of Gunesh will be full indeed tonight. But alas! I am an ignorant man. I knew not that the holy one took form among the gora-logue (white folk)."
"The gods know no country. The truth, Rama, the truth," said Barclay impressively. "Else thou art lost. Shiva-ji, mayhap, is hungry and needs his meal of flesh."
"Ai! sahib, say not so," wailed the terror-stricken man. "He has feasted well today. With my own eyes I saw him feed on Man Singh the Rajput."
Natives believe that an elephant, when it seizes in its mouth the limbs of a man that it has killed and is about to tear in pieces, eats his flesh. In dread of a like doom, of the terrible vengeance of this mysterious Being, god, man, or demon, perhaps all three, from whom death shrank aside, whom neither poison of food nor venom of snake could harm, who used mad, man-slaying elephants as steeds, Rama unburdened his soul. He told how the Dewan's confidential man had bade him carry out the attempts on Dermot's life. He showed them that the Major's suspicions when he saw the Rajah's soldiery were correct, and that from Lalpuri came the inspiration of the carrying-off of Noreen. He told them of a party of these same soldiers that had gone on a secret mission into the Great Jungle, from which but a few came back after awful sufferings, and the strange tales whispered in the bazaar as to the fate of their comrades.
He disclosed more. He spoke of mysterious travellers from many lands that came to the Palace to confer with the Dewan—Chinese, Afghans, Bhutanese, Indians of many castes and races, white men not of the sahib-logue. He said enough to convince his hearers that many threads of the world-wide conspiracy against the British Raj led to Lalpuri. There was not proof enough yet for the Government of India to take action against its rulers, perhaps, but sufficient to show where the arch-conspirators of Bengal were to be sought for.
Rama left the room, not pardoned indeed, but with the promise of punishment suspended as long as he was true to the oath he had sworn by the Blessed Water of the Ganges, to be true slave and bearer of news when Dermot needed him.
Long after he left, the two sat and talked of the strange happenings of the last few days, and disclosed to each other what they knew of the treason that stalked the land, for each was servant of the Crown and his knowledge might help the other. And when the hoot of Payne's motor-horn in the outer courtyard told them that it was time for Dermot to go, they said good-bye in the outwardly careless fashion of the Briton who has looked into another's eyes and found him true man and friend.
Then through the darkness into the dawn Dermot sped away with his companions from the City of Shame and the Palace of Death.
And Noreen woke later to learn that the man she loved had left her again without farewell, that the fog of misunderstanding between them was not yet lifted.