TIGER LAND
Wargrave fired. His shot struck the panther rather far back, wounding but not disabling it. It swung round to face its assailant. Seeing Frank it promptly charged. The second cartridge took it in front of the shoulder and raked its body from end to end. Coughing blood the beast rolled over and over, biting its paws, clawing savagely at the earth, trying to rise and falling back in fury, while Frank rapidly reloaded and stepped between it and the children. But the convulsions became fewer and less violent, the limbs stiffened, the beautiful black and yellow body sank inert to the ground. The tail twitched a little. A few tremors shook the panther. Then it lay still.
The subaltern turned eagerly to the children.
"It's Frank. Look, Eileen, it's Frank," cried Brian. "He's killed the nasty dog."
The little girl, who had sunk to the ground, struggled to her feet and with her brother was swept up in a joyous embrace by the subaltern. Then, bidding the boy hold on to the sleeve of the arm carrying the gun, Wargrave started back with Eileen perched on his shoulder. As they passed the panther's body she looked down at it and clapped her hands.
"He's deaded. Nasty, bad dog!" she cried.
Striking a path through the undergrowth the subaltern climbed down the steep ravine that lay between the hill and the Political Officer's bungalow. As he struggled up the steep side of the nullah he heard their mother calling the children with a note of inquietude in her voice; and he answered her with a reassuring shout. Coming up on the level behind the low stone wall of the garden he found Mrs. Dermot and Muriel anxiously awaiting him.
"Mumsie! Hallo, Mumsie! Here's me. Fwank shooted bad dog," cried Eileen, waving her arms and kicking her bearer violently in her excitement.
"Yes, Mumsie, Frank killded the nasty dog that wanted to eat us," added Brian.
Wargrave passed the children over the wall into the anxious arms outstretched for them, then vaulted into the garden.
"What has happened, Mr. Wargrave?" asked Mrs. Dermot, pressing her children to her nervously. "What is this about your shooting a dog?"
The subaltern told the story briefly.
"Oh, my babies! My babies!" cried the mother with tears in her eyes, clasping the mites to her breast and kissing them frantically. The little woman who had many times faced death undauntedly at her husband's side broke down utterly at the thought of her children's peril.
She overwhelmed Wargrave with her thanks, while Muriel complimented him on his promptness and presence of mind and then scolded the urchins for their disobedience in wandering away from the garden by themselves. But the unrepentant pair smiled genially at her from the shelter of their mother's arms and assured her that "Fwankie" would always take care of them. Their mother, even when she grew more composed, could not be severe after so nearly losing them; but although unwilling to terrify them by a recital of the awful fate from which the subaltern had saved them by the merest chance, she impressed upon them again and again her oft-repeated warning that they must never leave the garden alone.
But they were not awed; so, bidding them thank and kiss him, she bore them off to bed, her eyes still full of tears.
Wargrave sent a servant to fetch his orderly and the detachment mochi, or cobbler, to skin the panther, the news of the death of which soon spread. So Major Hunt and Burke joined Miss Benson and the subaltern when they went to look at its body, and numbers of sepoys streamed up from the Fort to view the animal, which had long been notorious in the station. Lamps had to be brought to finish the skinning of it; and the hide, when taken off, was carried in triumph to the Mess compound to be cured.
On the following afternoon on the tennis-court in a corner of the parade ground Miss Benson was left with Burke and Wargrave when Mrs. Dermot had taken her children home at sunset.
"You've completely won her heart," the girl said to the subaltern, pointing with her racquet to the disappearing form of her friend. "Nothing's too good for you for saving these precious mites. But she'll never let them out of her sight again until their big nurse returns."
"You mean their elephant? Well, of course he's a marvellously well-trained animal; but is he really so reliable that he can always be trusted to look after those children?"
"Badshah is something very much more than a well-trained animal. Perhaps some time out in the jungle you may understand why the natives regard him as sacred and call Colonel Dermot the 'God of the Elephants.' You don't know Badshah as we do."
"Well, old Burke here has told me some strange yarns about him. But, as he's always pulling my leg, I never know when to believe him."
The doctor grinned.
"We won't waste words on him, Captain Burke," said the girl. "It's time to go home now."
They escorted her to the Dermots' bungalow, where the doctor lingered for a few more minutes in her society, while Wargrave climbed up to the Mess and went to look at the panther's skin pegged out on the ground under a thick coating of ashes and now as hard as a board after a day's exposure to the burning sun.
A few days later Miss Benson left the station to rejoin her father in one of the three or four isolated wooden bungalows built to accommodate the Forest Officer in different parts of his district, each one lost and lonely in the silent jungle. For days after her departure Burke was visibly depressed; and Wargrave, too, missed the bright and attractive girl who had enlivened the quiet little station during her stay.
A fortnight later Colonel Dermot returned from Bhutan; and his gratitude to the subaltern for the rescue of his children was sincere and heart-felt. He was only too glad to take the young man out into the jungle on every possible occasion and continue his instruction in the ways of the forest. This companionship and the sport were particularly beneficial to Wargrave just then. For they served to take him out of himself and raise him from the state of depression into which he was falling, thanks to Violet's letters, the tone of which was becoming more bitter each time she wrote.
Her reply to his long and cheery epistle describing Ranga Duar's unusual burst of gaiety during the Envoy's visit and his own rescue of the children was as follows:
"You do not seem to miss me much among your new friends. While I am leading a most unhappy and miserable life here you appear to be enjoying yourself and giving little thought to me. You are lucky to have two such very beautiful ladies to make much of you; and I daresay they think you a wonderful hero for saving the little brats who, if they are like most children, would not be much loss. Their mother seems extremely friendly to you for such a devoted wife as you try to make her out to be. Or perhaps it is the girl you admire most; this marvellous young lady who shoots tigers and apparently manages the whole Terai Forest. You say you love me; but you don't seem to be pining very much for me. While each day that comes since you left me is a fresh agony to me, you appear to contrive to be quite happy without me."
This letter stung Wargrave like the lash of a whip across the face. To do Violet justice no sooner had she sent it than she regretted it. But deeply hurt as he was by the bitter words he forgave her; for he felt that her life was indeed miserable and that he was unconsciously in a great measure to blame for its being so. But it maddened him to realise his present helplessness to alter matters. He was more than willing to sacrifice himself to help her; but it would be a long time before he could hope to save enough to pay his debts and make a home for her. Whether it was wicked or not to take away another man's wife did not occur to him; all that he knew was that a woman was unhappy and he alone could help her. It seemed to him that the sin—if sin there were—was the husband's, who starved her heart and rendered her miserable.
In his distress work and sport proved his salvation. He threw himself heart and soul into his duty, and whenever there was nothing for him to do with the detachment Major Hunt encouraged him to go with the Political Officer into the jungle. For little as he suspected it the senior guessed the young man's trouble and watched him sympathisingly.
One never-to-be-forgotten day as Wargrave was returning from afternoon parade Colonel Dermot called to him from his gate and showed him a telegram. It ran: "Tiger marked down. Come immediately dâk bungalow, Madpur Duar. Muriel."
As the subaltern perused it with delight the Colonel said:
"Ask your C.O. for leave. Then, if he gives it, get something substantial to eat in the Mess and be ready to start at once. Madpur Duar is thirty odd miles away; and we'll have to travel all night. Come to my bungalow as soon as you can."
Half an hour later the two were trudging down the road to the peelkhana carrying their rifles. Badshah, with a howdah roped on to his pad, plodded behind them; for it is far more comfortable to walk down a steep descent than be carried down it by an elephant. At the foot of the hills they mounted and were borne away into the gathering shadows of the long road through the forest. As they proceeded their talk was all of tigers; for in India, though there be bigger and more splendid game in the land, its traditional animal never fails to interest, and to Wargrave on his way to his first tiger-shoot all other topics were insignificant.
The sun went down and darkness settled on the forest. The talk died away and no sound was heard but the soft padding of their elephant's huge feet in the dust of the road. The subaltern soon found the howdah infinitely more trying than a seat on the pad when Badshah was in motion; for the plunging gait of the animal jerked him backwards and forwards and threw him against the wooden rails if he forgot to hold himself at arm's length from them. The discomfort spoiled his appreciation of the strange, attractive experience of being borne by night through the sleepless forest, where in the dark hours only the bird and the monkey repose; and even to them the creeping menace of the climbing snake affrights the one and the wheeling shapes of the night-flying birds of prey scare the other. But on the ground all are awake. The glimmering whiteness of the road was occasionally blotted by the scurrying forms of animals, hunted and hunters, dashing across it. Once a tiny shriek in the distance broke the silence of the jungle.
"A wild elephant," said Colonel Dermot.
Then followed the loud crashing of rending boughs and falling trees.
"That's a herd feeding. They graze until about ten o'clock and then sleep on well into the small hours, wake and begin to feed again at dawn," continued the Political Officer.
Once a wild, unearthly wailing cry that seemed to come from every direction at once startled the subaltern:
"Good Heavens! what's that?" he exclaimed, gripping his rifle and trying to pierce the darkness around them.
"Only a Giant Owl," was the reply. "It's an uncanny noise. There!"
Right over their heads it rang out again; and the stars above them were blotted out for a moment by a dark, circling shape above the tree-tops.
Hour after hour went by as they were borne along through the night; and Wargrave bruised and battered by the howdah-rails, fell constantly against them, so overcome with sleep was he. At last to his relief his companion called a halt for a few hours' rest; and they brought the elephant to his knees, dismounted and stripped him of howdah and pad. Sitting on the latter they supped on sandwiches and coffee from Thermos flasks, and then stretched themselves to sleep, while Badshah standing over them grazed on the grasses and branches within reach. Wargrave was dropping off to sleep when he was roused by the sharp, staccato bark of a khakur buck repeated several times. The tired man lost consciousness and was sunk in profound slumber when the silence of the forest was shattered by a snorting, braying roar that rang through the jungle with alarming suddenness.
Wargrave sprang up and groped for his rifle. But his companion lay tranquilly on the pad.
"It's all right. It's only a tiger that's missed his spring and is angry about it," he said sleepily. "Lie down again."
"Only a tiger, sir?" repeated Wargrave. "But it sounded close by."
"Yes, but Badshah will look after us. Don't worry"; and the Colonel turned over and fell asleep.
It was a little time, however, before Frank followed his example, and he had his rifle under his hand when he did. But the dark bulk of the elephant towering over them comforted him as he sank to sleep.
A couple of hours later they were on their way again. It was broad daylight before they emerged from the jungle. It seemed strange to be out once more in the wide-stretching, open and cultivated plains and to look back on the great forest and, beyond it, to the mountains towering to the sky. Before them lay the flat expanse of the hedgeless, fertile fields dotted here and there with clusters of trimly-built huts or thick groves of bamboos and seamed with the lines of deep nullahs, the tops of the trees in them barely showing above the level and marking their winding course.
The dâk bungalow at Madpur Duar was soon reached, a single-storied building with a couple of trees shading the well behind it and a group of elephants and their mahouts. On the verandah Benson and his daughter were standing, the girl dressed in a khaki drill coat and skirt over breeches and soft leather gaiters, and waving a welcome to Badshah's riders.
After a hurried breakfast the latter were ready to start for the day's sport. By then a line of ten female elephants, the tallest carrying a howdah, the rest only their pads, was drawn up before the bungalow; and at a word from their mahouts their trunks went up in the air and the animals trumpeted in salute as the party came out on the verandah.
"We borrowed Mr. Carter's and the Settlement Officer's elephants for the beat," said Miss Benson, as, wearing a big pith sunhat and carrying a double-barrelled .400 cordite rifle, she led the way down the verandah steps.
It had been arranged that she was to take Wargrave with her in her howdah, while her father accompanied Colonel Dermot on Badshah. Her big elephant knelt down and a ladder was laid against its side, up which she climbed, followed by the subaltern. When all were mounted she led the way across the plain. Although the ground was everywhere level and just there uncultivated the elephants tailed off in single file as is the habit of their kind, wild or domesticated, each stepping with precise care into the footprints of the one in front of it. Here in the Plains the heat was intense; and Wargrave, shading his eyes from the blinding glare, thought enviously of the coolness up in the mountains that he had left. As they moved along Muriel explained to him how the beat was to be conducted.
Where the southern fringe of the Terai Jungle borders the cultivated country it is a favourite haunt of tigers, which from its shelter carry on war against the farmers' cattle. Creeping down the ravines seaming the soft soil and worn by the streams that flow through the forest from the hills they pull down the cows grazing or coming to drink in the nullahs, which are filled with small trees and scrubs affording good cover. A tiger, when it has killed, drags the carcase of its prey into shade near water, eats a hearty meal of about eighty pounds of flesh, drinks and then sleeps until it is ready to feed again. If disturbed it retreats up the ravine to the forest.
So, beating for one with elephants here, the sportsmen place themselves on their howdah-bearing animals between the jungle and the spot where the tiger is known to be lying up, and the beater elephants enter the scrub from the far side and shepherd him gently towards the guns.
Pointing to a distant line of tree-tops showing above the level plain she said:
"There is the nullah in which, about a mile farther on, a cow was killed yesterday. I hope the tiger is still lying up in it. We'll soon see."
They reached the ravine, which was twenty or thirty feet deep and contained a little stream flowing through tangled scrub, and moved along parallel to it and about a couple of hundred yards away. Presently the girl pointed to a tall tree growing in it and a quarter of a mile ahead of them. Its upper branches were bending under the weight of numbers of foul-looking bald-headed vultures, squawking, huddled together, jostling each other on their perches and pecking angrily at their neighbours with irritable cries. Some circled in the air and occasionally swooped down towards the ground only to rocket up again affrightedly to the sky; for the tiger lay by its kill and resented the approach of any daring bird that aspired to share the feast. Muriel hurriedly explained how the conduct of the birds indicated the beast's presence.
"If he were not there they'd be down tearing the carcase to pieces," she said, as she held up her hand and halted the file behind her.
"The beater elephants had better stop here, Colonel," she called out to Dermot. "There is a way down and across the nullah, by which you can take Badshah to the far side. We will remain on this."
The Political Officer, who had seen and realised the significance of the vultures, waved his hand and moved off at once. Muriel called up the mahouts and bade them enter the ravine and begin the beat in about ten minutes, then told her driver to go on. Half a mile beyond the tree she ordered him to halt and take up a position close to the edge of the nullah, into which they could look down. Below them the bottom was clear of scrub which ended fifty yards away. Dermot stopped opposite; and both elephants were turned to face towards the spot where the tiger was judged to be.
"Mr Wargrave, get to the front of the howdah and be ready," she said in a low tone.
The subaltern protested chivalrously against taking the best place.
"Oh, it's all right. We've brought you out to get the tiger; so you must do as you're told. If he breaks out this side take the first shot," she said peremptorily.
He submitted and took up his position with cocked rifle. As the nullah wound a good deal the tops of the trees in it prevented them from seeing if the beater-elephants had gone in; but in a few minutes they heard distant shouts and the crashing of the undergrowth as the big animals forced their way through the scrub.
"Be ready, Mr. Wargrave," whispered the girl. "Sometimes a tiger starts on the run at the first sound."
His nerves a-quiver and his heart beating violently the subaltern held his rifle at the ready, as the noise of the beaters drew nearer. Again and again he brought the butt to his shoulder, only to lower it when he realised that it was a false alarm. The sounds of the beat grew louder and closer, and still there was no sign of the tiger. Frank's heart sank. He saw the vultures stir uneasily and some rise into the air as the elephants passed under them.
At last through the trees he began to catch occasional glimpses of the mahouts, and he lost hope. But suddenly from the scrub below them in the nullah a number of small birds flew up; and the next instant the edge of the bushes nearest them was parted stealthily and a tiger slunk cautiously out in the bottom of the ravine.
Wargrave's rifle went up to his shoulder; and he fired. A startled roar from the beast told that it was hit; but it bounded in a flash across the ravine and up the steep bank on their side not forty yards from them. As it scrambled swiftly over the edge it caught sight of the elephant and with a deep "wough!" charged straight at it.
Frank fired again, and his bullet struck up the dust, missing the swift-rushing animal by a couple of feet. The next moment with a roar the tiger sprang at the elephant. With one leap it landed with its hind paws on the elephant's head, its fore-feet on the front rail of the howdah, standing right over the mahout who crouched in terror on the neck. The savage, snarling, yellow-and-black mask was thrust almost into Wargrave's face, and from the open red mouth lined with fierce white fangs he could feel the hot breath on his cheek as he tugged frantically at the under-lever of his rifle to open the breech and re-load. In another moment the tiger would have been on top of them in the howdah when a gun-barrel shot past the subaltern and pushed him aside. The muzzle of Muriel's rifle was pressed almost against the brute's skull as she fired.
Frank hardly heard the report. All he knew was that the snarling face disappeared as quickly as it had come. The whole thing was an affair of seconds. Shot through the brain the tiger dropped back to the ground with a heavy thud and fell dead beside the staunch elephant which had never moved all through the terrible ordeal.
A cry of relief and a prayer to Allah burst from the grey-bearded Mahommedan mahout, as he straightened himself; and Wargrave turned with glowing face and outstretched hand to the girl.
"Oh, well done! Splendidly done!" he cried. "You saved me from being lugged bodily out of the howdah or at least from being mauled. This lever jammed and I couldn't re-load."
Her eyes shining and face beaming with excitement she shook his hand.
"Wasn't it thrilling? I thought he'd have got both of us." Then to the mahout she continued in Urdu, "Gul Dad, are you hurt?"
The man was solemnly feeling himself all over. He stared at a rent in the shoulder of his coat, torn by the tiger's claw. It was the only injury that he had suffered. He put his finger on it and grumbled:
"Missie-baba, the shaitan (devil) has torn my coat."
In the reaction from the strain the girl and Wargrave went off in peals of laughter at his words.
"But are you not wounded?" Miss Benson repeated. "Has it not clawed you?"
The mahout shook his head.
"No, missie-baba; but it was my new coat," he insisted.[1]
Frank looked down at the tiger stretched motionless on the yellow grass.
"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 passengers 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 coon."
"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 muff."
"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:
"Ahré, 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 dâk 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 glass 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 gratitude 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 assistant 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.