THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE
As Muriel passed through the door Wargrave started to follow her; but Violet cried peremptorily:
"Frank, stay here. Please realise that I come first now. Sit down."
He obeyed mechanically. She went on petulantly:
"These emotional scenes are rather exhausting. Do you mind calling the hotel 'boy' and ordering a cocktail for me? You ought to have one yourself. I suppose, like all men, you hate scenes. Then you should be grateful to me for saving you from that spiteful little jungle cat."
Going to the verandah outside the room he called a hotel servant and gave him the order, then returned to his chair and sat down wearily. He stared at the floor in silence. He had sent the girl that he loved away utterly humiliated; and he knew that, with her proud spirit, the shame of his rejection of her would cut her to the heart. He cursed himself for bringing this pain to her. It was all his fault. Not only had he had no right to speak of love to her while he was bound to another woman, but he ought never to have sought her society as he had done, never striven to gain her friendship, for by doing so he had unconsciously won her love. The harm was done long before he spoke to her of his feelings. What a selfish brute he was to thus cause two women to suffer!
Presently he remembered that his moodiness, his silence, were uncomplimentary, cruel, to Violet. She was right in saying that she came first. Indeed she was the only one to be considered now. The other had passed out of his life. It might be that they should meet again some day in their restricted world, but while he could he must try to avoid her. There was only Violet left.
He looked up to find his companion's eyes fixed on him with an undefinable expression. He roused himself with an effort that was not lost on the woman watching him.
"So you have told your husband," he said. "Well, now we must arrange what we are going to do."
"We won't discuss our plans at this moment," replied Violet. "I'm not in the mood for it." Then after a pause she added bitterly, "I must give you time to recover from the shock of the abrupt ending to your little jungle romance."
Before he could reply the servant appeared with a tray.
"Ah, thank goodness, here are the cocktails. There's only one. Aren't you having one, too? It will do you good. No?"
She sipped her cocktail slowly. When she had finished it she got up from her chair, saying:
"I'll get ready to go to the Amusement Club. Will you wait for me here? You needn't change—we won't play tennis to-day; for we've got this dinner and dance on to-night and I don't want to tire myself. I shan't be long."
As she passed his chair she tapped his cheek and said:
"Don't look so miserable, my dear boy. You'll soon get over the loss of your jungle girl. There, you may kiss my hand as a sign of your return to your allegiance."
But when she entered her bedroom she did not at once proceed to get ready to go out, but unlocked her dressing-case and, taking out of it a letter, sat down to read it for the tenth time since she had received it that morning. Yet it was short and concise. It was from Rosenthal and addressed from the Mess of the 2nd (Duke's Own) Hussars in Bangalore; for, as it told her, he had returned to his regiment as his leave had expired. It was the first that had come from him since she had left Poona, although, as he said in it, he had obtained her new address from the Goanese clerk in the Munster Hotel office on the day of her flight, thanks to the persuasive powers of a fifty-rupee note.
He told her that although her abrupt departure had puzzled him and he could not understand why she had tried to conceal her whereabouts from him, he wished her to realise that if it were an attempt to escape from him it was useless. He could bide his time, for sooner or later he would get her.
Violet smiled as she read his confident words, although they caused a little shiver of fear to run through her. Then she rose, locked the letter away and put on her hat.
Not until after lunch next day was Wargrave able to find time to go to the Oriental Hotel, not to see Muriel, he sternly told himself, but to pay a visit to Mrs. Dermot. When he was shown up to her sitting-room he had to wait for some time before Noreen entered; and he was struck at once by the coldness of her greeting. It was evident that she was very displeased with him. She said no word about Muriel; and Wargrave felt curiously averse to mentioning her name.
At last he summed up courage to ask her. With as near an approach to frigidity of manner as she could show to a man to whom she was so indebted Noreen replied:
"Muriel has left Darjeeling."
"Left Darjeeling? Where for? Where has she gone?" he exclaimed in surprise.
"To her father."
"But why? She wasn't to have left for weeks yet," said Wargrave.
Mrs. Dermot looked at him angrily.
"Why? Need you ask? I should have thought commonsense would have told you. I don't think we'll talk about it, please. As I said before, I've washed my hands of the whole affair."
Further conversation on the subject was rendered impossible by the irruption of her children, who rushed at Wargrave and reproached him for not being to see them lately.
During the next few days Violet baffled every attempt that Frank made to discuss their future course of action. The constant succession of gaieties, the balls, theatricals, concerts, races, gymkhanas, that filled every afternoon and evening of the Darjeeling Season, took up all her time. Whenever he tried to talk matters over with her she invariably replied that there was no hurry, even when he pointed out that Major Norton might arrive any day in consequence of her letter. That he had not already done so was inexplicable to Wargrave; and the subaltern could only believe her assurance that her husband accepted her loss with equanimity. It never occurred to Frank to doubt that she had written the letter.
But one morning matters came to a crisis. When Violet and Wargrave returned to the hotel from their ride before breakfast a telegram was handed to the latter. He found it to be an official message from Colonel Dermot, which ran:
"Please return forthwith to Ranga Duar. I start for Europe on sick leave to-day."
Frank stared at it in surprise. He had heard nothing of his superior officer being ill. It must be something very serious to necessitate his being sent to Europe. The news was an unpleasant shock to him; for he genuinely liked and respected the Political Officer.
Then it occurred to him that this order to return brought everything to a head. Violet saw that he was perturbed.
"What is it, Frank?" she asked.
"I'll tell you upstairs, dear," he said.
In her sitting-room he handed her the telegram.
"I must leave to-day. Will you be ready to come with me?" he asked.
"What? To-day? My dear boy, it's impossible," she replied.
"But I must go. You see, it's imperative. The Colonel's already gone."
"Yes, I see you must. But—well, I simply couldn't be ready," said Violet calmly. "Besides, I'm singing at the concert to-morrow night; and there's the dance at Government House the night after. I must follow you later."
"But that means your travelling alone," he argued. "Wouldn't it be much pleasanter for you to come with me?"
"Don't worry about me for goodness' sake, Frank. I'm not a helpless person. I came across India by myself to get here; and surely I'll be able to manage to do a twenty-four hours' journey alone."
"Very well, dear," he replied with an inward, unacknowledged feeling of relief that the decisive step had not to be taken yet. "I'll come down from Ranga Duar with an elephant to meet you at the railway station when you arrive. Now, while you're changing for breakfast, I'll rush round to the Oriental and see if Mrs. Dermot has more news."
When he reached the hotel he found Noreen busily packing. She was pale and evidently deeply distressed, although outwardly calm and collected.
"You have heard?" she asked, as he entered her sitting-room.
"Only that your husband is starting for England on sick leave and that I'm to return at once. What's the matter? I hope it's not serious."
"Mr. Macdonald wires that Kevin must go at once to England for an operation. He says I'm not to worry, as there is no immediate danger. But of course I can't help being alarmed. It's all so sudden. I didn't know that Kevin was ill. Mr. Macdonald is travelling with him to the junction on the main line where the children and I are to meet them. Isn't it kind of him? I'm so glad to know my husband will have someone with him until I come."
"We'll meet at the railway station after lunch, then," said Wargrave. "We'll be together as far as the junction."
Mrs. Dermot hesitated.
"Are you travelling alone?" she asked.
Frank flushed as he replied:
"Yes. She—Violet is to follow later."
Noreen made no comment; and having learned all that he could he returned to his hotel.
He dreaded the ordeal of the parting with Mrs. Norton, but when the time came for it he found his fear of a distressing scene quite uncalled for. She said goodbye to him in a pleasantly friendly, though somewhat casual, manner, and did not offer to accompany him to the station as she had a previous engagement. And long before the little train had zig-zagged down the seven thousand feet to the foot of the Himalayas she had dismissed him from her mind.
The truth was that the gay and admired Mrs. Norton, caught up in the whirlwind of social amusement in a lively hill-station, was not the woman who passed weary days of ennui in the company of a dull and unattractive husband in a small, dead-and-alive station. Nor was the dejected man who so plainly showed that he was pining for someone else the good-looking, heart-whole subaltern who had fascinated her in the boredom of existence in Rohar. Was he worth incurring social damnation for? Would his companionship—for she knew that she had not his love—make up for a life of loneliness, debt and poverty in a frontier outpost? If she were resolved on giving up her present assured position—and Violet felt that existence with Norton would be more than ever unendurable after the exciting pleasures of Poona and Darjeeling—would it not be wiser to do so for someone who could amply compensate her for the sacrifice? Love in a cottage—or its Indian equivalent, a subaltern's comfortless bungalow—did not appeal to her. Her statement that she had written to tell her husband that she was leaving for Wargrave was false. It had served the purpose for which it was made, and that was the defeat of her rival. So now, content with her victory, she put all burdensome thought from her and dined, danced and flirted to her heart's content in the gaieties of the Darjeeling Season.
When Wargrave reached Ranga Duar the little outpost seemed strangely forlorn without the Dermots and their children. Major Hunt and Macdonald welcomed him warmly. The latter informed him that he had insisted on the Colonel going to England for his operation because the Political Officer had not been out of India for seven years and needed the change, and besides he would receive more care and attention in a London nursing-home than in an Indian hospital. The trouble was intestinal but there was no immediate danger to his life.
Another familiar figure was missing. Before departing Dermot had released Badshah and left him to wander in freedom in the jungle, unwilling that his faithful companion of years should be servant to anyone else and confident that the elephant would come back to him when he returned to the Terai. Major Hunt placed one of the detachment elephants at Wargrave's disposal whenever he required it to take him on his tours along the frontier. And Frank needed it constantly. For, as soon as the news of Colonel Dermot's departure spread, the lawless spirits that for fear of him had not ventured for five years to disturb the peace of the Border, began to show signs of restlessness. The Political Officer's strong personality and the reputation of divinity that he enjoyed had kept them in check. But now that he was gone they thought that they could defy with impunity the young sahib who replaced him.
So the Assistant had not long to wait for an opportunity to show his mettle. Dermot had not been gone a fortnight before one or two raids were attempted on British villages by lawless mountaineers from across the Bhutan frontier. Wargrave soon proved that the mantle of Colonel Dermot had not fallen on unworthy shoulders. Single-handed he intercepted and faced a party of Bhutanese swordsmen swooping down from the hills on a tea-garden in search of loot, shot the leader and two of his followers and put the rest to flight. With a handful of sepoys of the Military Police he surprised a Bhuttia village in the No Man's Land along the border-line and captured a notorious outlaw who had plundered in Indian territory and had sent him a defiant challenge.
Wargrave was glad of the excitement and the occupation, for they kept him from brooding over his troubles and worrying about the future. He had not time to puzzle over Violet's silence. She had not written to him since their parting. As a matter of fact she seldom thought of him, so engrossed was she in the pursuit of pleasure. Admittedly the prettiest woman in Darjeeling that season she received enough attention and admiration to turn any woman's head; and she enjoyed it all to the full. Although she had answered Rosenthal's letter from Bangalore he had not written again; but she felt that he was not forgetting her. She thought oftener of him than of Wargrave; for the vision of the great riches that she might one day share with him fascinated her. It haunted her dreams sleeping and waking. Often she let her fancy stray to the existence that he had promised would be hers when he was the possessor of his father's fortune, a life of luxury in the gayest cities of the world with all that immense wealth could bestow, a life infinitely better worth living than her present one. Would she ever be given the chance of it?
The question was speedily and unexpectedly answered. One morning after breakfast she received a telegram from Rosenthal. It said:
"My father is dead. I sail from Bombay for South Africa on Friday to settle up his affairs. Will you come?"
She stared at the paper almost uncomprehendingly for a few moments. Then the meaning of the message dawned on her. She sat down at her writing-table and thought hard. She had little time in which to make up her mind; for if she wished to reach Bombay before Rosenthal sailed she would have to leave Darjeeling that afternoon. What should she do? Should she go? She found a pencil and a telegraph form and addressed the latter to the Hussar. Then she hesitated. But she was not long in coming to a decision. With a firm hand she wrote the one word "Yes" and signed her name. Then she rose from the table, called a hotel servant, despatched the telegram and went to her bedroom to pack. And the same train that took her away from Darjeeling carried a letter from her to Wargrave.
But the subaltern did not receive it until more than a week afterwards, when he returned to Ranga Duar with Tashi after chasing back across the Border a mongrel pack of dácoits—brigands—who had been harrying Bhuttia villages in British territory. The letter lay on the table in the room which he still occupied in the Mess, although he was no longer an officer of the detachment, together with a pile of correspondence that had accumulated during his absence. Recognising Violet's writing on the envelope he tore it open anxiously. He rapidly scanned the first page, stared at it incredulously, read it again carefully and then finished the letter. It ran:
"My dear Frank,
"I am going to relieve your mind of a great weight and send you into the seventh heaven of delight by giving you the glad news that you are never likely to see me again. Before the week is ended I shall have left India for ever with someone who can give me all I want and not condemn me to a poverty-stricken existence in a wretched little jungle station, which is all that you had to offer me. I know it was not your fault and you are really a dear boy. I was very fond of you; but you did not love me and we would have been very miserable together. For you would be always pining for your jungle girl and I would have hated you for it. Now we part good friends and she is welcome to you. I ought to tell you that I did not really write to my husband as I said I did.
"I wish you luck—won't you wish me the same?
"Yours affectionately,
"VIOLET."
When he had thoroughly grasped the meaning of this extraordinary letter he forgave her everything in the joy of knowing that she had set him free. He did not speculate as to the man with whom she was going; his thoughts flew at once to Muriel. But his delight was tempered by the fear that his liberty had come too late to be of service to him with her. Would she ever forgive him? His heart sank when he remembered her indignation, her bitter words when they parted. Surely no woman who had been so humiliated could pardon the man who had brought such shame upon her. Yet how could he have acted otherwise? It was natural that the girl should blame him; but how could he have been false to his plighted word and desert the one who held his promise? If only he could see Muriel and plead with her. Perhaps in time she might bring herself to forgive him. But how was he to meet her? Now that Mrs. Dermot had gone to England, the girl would not come again to Ranga Duar. She was, he knew, accompanying her father in his tour of the forests of the districts in his charge. How could he go to their camp or lonely bungalow in the jungle and force his presence on her? What was he to do?
Longing for someone to confide in, someone to advise him, he went to Major Hunt and told him the whole story. The older man rejoiced in learning of the subaltern's release from his entanglement, but, knowing Miss Benson well, shook his head doubtfully over the chances of her forgiving Wargrave. Nevertheless, unwilling to kill the young man's hope, he affected a confidence that he was far from feeling and bade him take courage. He advised him to arrange a few days' shooting in the neighbourhood of the Bensons when he could spare the time from his duties. The father would be sure to offer him hospitality and the daughter could not well avoid him. In the meantime he might write and plead his cause on paper.
Wargrave sat up half the night composing a letter to Muriel. Sheet after sheet was torn up in disgust before he was even tolerably satisfied. But the laboured result was never sent. Next morning after breakfast as he sat smoking in the Mess with Major Hunt and the doctor his servant entered to tell him that a forest guard wanted to see him. A wild hope flashed through his mind that perhaps Muriel had sent him a message. But on going out to the back verandah where the man awaited him he was handed an envelope "On His Majesty's Service," addressed in a strange handwriting. He opened it and glanced carelessly at the letter, but the first lines riveted his attention.
"Forest Officer's Bungalow, Barwana Section.
"From the District Superintendent of Police, Bengal Civil Police.
"To the Assistant Political Officer, Ranga Duar.
"Sir,
"Three days ago a party of Chinamen attacked and severely injured the Deputy Conservator of Forests, Mr. Benson, in this bungalow, and abducted his daughter. They were ten or twelve in number and well armed, and over-awed the servants and forest employees. They have been tracked towards the Bhutan Frontier and, I fear, have crossed it by this. There was, unfortunately, much delay in the information reaching me while I was touring the district south of the forest; and I have only just arrived here. I hasten to acquaint you with the occurrence as I am powerless if the ruffians have crossed into Bhutan. Please request the Officer Commanding Military Police Detachment to send out parties to try to cut off the raiders from the passes through the mountains, although I fear it is too late. Can you meet me here and confer with me? Please bring the Medical Officer of the detachment with you, as Mr. Benson is in a bad state and no civil surgeon is available for a great distance from here.
"Your obedient servant, Edward Lawrence. D.S.P."
Horror-stricken, Wargrave questioned the forest guard. The man had not been at the bungalow at the time of the outrage and could not greatly supplement the information contained in the letter. The story that he had learned from the servants was to the effect that a party of Chinamen had arrived at Mr. Benson's bungalow and asked for employment as carpenters. There was nothing unusual in this, as Chinese from the Southern Provinces frequently make their way on foot through Tibet and Bhutan over the mountains in search of work on the tea-gardens or in Calcutta. Apparently they had suddenly struck the old man down and surprised Miss Benson before she could offer any resistance. Producing fire-arms they had terrified the servants. They had a mule hidden in the jungle and on this the girl was placed and led off. Long after they had disappeared some of the forest guards had timidly followed their track for some distance and found that it led towards the Bhutan Frontier.
When Wargrave had extracted from the man all the information that he could he rushed into the Mess and acquainted the two officers in it with the terrible news. Like him they were horrified at the outrage. Major Hunt went at once to the Fort to order out parties of the detachment in accordance with the District Superintendent's request; and Macdonald got ready to proceed to the Forest Officer's bungalow forty miles away.
The Assistant Political Officer despatched a cipher telegram to the Foreign Department, Government of India, at Simla, informing them of the occurrence and of his intention to investigate the affair personally, and, if possible, rescue Miss Benson. He knew that the Heads of the Department, although they would not sanction or approve officially of his crossing the frontier in pursuit of the raiders, as it would be contrary to the Treaty with the Bhutanese Government, would not enquire too closely into his movements. But whether they liked it or not he intended to follow the abductors if necessary into the heart of Bhutan, Treaty or no Treaty.
His first step was to send for Tashi and order him to prepare the disguise that he intended to use. His rifle he left behind, but armed himself with a brace of long-barrelled automatic pistols to which their wooden holsters clipped on to form butts, thus converting them into carbines accurate up to a range of a hundred and fifty or two hundred yards. He found a third for Tashi in Colonel Dermot's armoury, which was at his disposal.
Night had fallen long before the detachment elephant that bore Wargrave, Macdonald, Tashi and the forest guard as well as its own mahout, reached the bungalow where the District Superintendent of Police awaited them. The doctor found Benson suffering from a wound in the head, with concussion and fever. Frank interrogated the servants carefully and elicited from them one fresh fact about the outrage that shed a flood of light on its motive and its author. It was that the leader of the party was pock-marked and blind in the right eye; and this at once confirmed Frank's suspicion that the instigator of Muriel's abduction was the Chinese Amban, whose parting threat to the girl had thus materialised.
At daybreak Wargrave and Tashi started on foot accompanied by a forest guard to put them on the track of the gang. This led up towards the Bhutan Frontier, which runs among the hills at an average elevation of six thousand feet above the sea. As the Assistant Political Officer anticipated, the party had headed for the portion of the border under the control of the Amban's friend, the Penlop of Tuna. Enquiries among the inhabitants of the mountain villages resulted in several of them coming forward with the information that they had seen a small body of armed Chinese escorting a cloaked and shrouded figure on a mule and climbing up towards Bhutan. Two of the Government Secret Service agents among these Bhuttias had followed them cautiously to the frontier and seen them received there by a party of the Tuna Penlop's armed retainers. These men reported that the watch on all the passes into Bhutan was stricter than ever, and, as one of them phrased it, not even a rat could creep through unobserved.
This discouraging intelligence was a further proof of Amban's guilt. But Frank realised that it would not be sufficient to justify the Government of India claiming redress from the Republic of China; and, indeed, diplomatic procedure was much too slow to be of any use in the rescue of the girl. An appeal to the Maharajah of Bhutan would be equally fruitless; for his powerful vassal the Tuna Penlop was practically in rebellion against him and defied his authority. The sole hope of saving Muriel lay in Wargrave's prompt action.
Yet try as the subaltern would, he and Tashi were unable at any point to pierce the cordon of guards along the frontier. Generally they got away unseen; but on one occasion they were discovered and had to flee back into British territory under a shower of arrows. Fortunately fire-arms are scarce in Bhutan; and the Tuna Penlop's soldiers possessed only bows.
It was imperative that Wargrave and his follower should be circumspect in their movements, and by day they hid in caves or in the jungle clothing the slopes of the higher hills, to escape observation by Bhutanese spies. When they had exhausted the food that they had brought with them and failed to procure any more from their Secret Service agents in the villages, Tashi gathered bananas, dug up edible tubers like the charpattia or charlong, and snared jungle-fowl and Monal pheasants. Having obtained a bow and a sheaf of arrows from a village he sometimes succeeded in killing a gooral, the active little wild goat found in the lower hills, the flesh of which is excellent.
As day after day went by and found them no nearer success in crossing the frontier Wargrave began to lose heart. He was harassed by anxiety over Muriel's fate and feared that he would never be able to rescue her. At times he grew desperate and but for his companion's remonstrances would have tried to fight his way through the border guards, although in his saner moments he knew that it would be sheer madness.
Besides danger from human enemies the two men were menaced by peril from wild beasts as well. Panthers prowled among the hills, great Himalayan bears, a blow from the paw of one of which would crack a man's skull, wandered on the jungle-clad slopes and, though not carnivorous, were always ready to attack human beings. Herds of wild elephants, which had scaled the mountains into Bhutan at the beginning of the Monsoon to reach the northern face of the Himalayas and escape the heavy rains that deluge the southern slopes and also to avoid the insects that plague them in the jungle at that season, were commencing to return to the Terai. Often Wargrave and Tashi had to climb trees to let a herd go by; and each time as he watched them the subaltern thought longingly of Colonel Dermot and Badshah. If he had them to help him how easily he could burst the barrier between him and the land that held the girl whom he loved and who needed him so!
Late one afternoon, as the two men were making their way through bamboo jungle at the foot of high cliffs close to a pass into Ghutan which they had not yet attempted, they blundered into the middle of a herd of elephants feeding. There was no tree in which they could take refuge, and before they were able to make their escape they found themselves surrounded on every side. A number of cow-elephants, which, having young calves with them, were very savage, pressed threateningly towards the men, who tried to force their way into the dense growths of the bamboos and so put a frail barrier between themselves and the menacing beasts. They knew that their pistols would be useless, and they had already given themselves up for lost when the huge animals which were apparently about to charge them, suddenly stopped and drew aside to allow a monstrous bull-elephant to pass through. It was a single-tusker, and it advanced steadily towards the men. Frank stared at it incredulously. Could it be——? Yes, it was. He was sure of it. It was Badshah.
And the elephant knew him and came towards him. In the sudden revulsion of feeling and his relief at knowing that they were safe Frank almost lost his head. A mad hope surged through him. He stretched out his arms imploringly to the great beast and cried impulsively:
"Oh, Badshah! Hum-ko madad do! (Help us!)"
To his amazement the animal seemed to understand. It sank slowly to its knees as though inviting him to mount it.
"Sahib! Sahib! He offers us his aid," cried Tashi excitedly, and he scrambled up after Wargrave who had climbed on to the broad shoulders.
The subaltern leaned forward and, touching the huge forehead, pointed in the direction of Bhutan. Badshah turned and moved off towards the pass through the mountains, while the herd followed; and Frank thrilled with the hope that at last he was about to break through the barrier of foes between him and the girl he loved.