The Three Sapphires

by William Alexander Fraser

THE THREE SAPPHIRES

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PART ONE

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Chapter I

From where they were on the marble terrace that reached from the palace to a little lake—the Lake of the Golden Coin—Lord Victor Gilfain and Captain Swinton could see the intricate maze of Darpore City's lights down on the plain, six miles away.

Over the feather-topped sal forest behind the palace a gorgeous moon was flooding the earth with light, turning to ribbons of gold the circling ripples on the jade lake, where mahseer and burbel splashed in play.

Rajah Darpore was leaning lazily against the fretwork marble balustrade just where the ghat steps dipped down under the water. He was really Prince Ananda, the shazada, for down in the city of glittering lights still lived his father, the maharajah; but it had become customary to address the prince as rajah.

A servant came and took their empty sherry glasses.

Prince Ananda was saying in his soft Oriental voice that the Oxford training had set to truer rhythm: "After that gallop up in the tonga I always find it restful to come out here and have my sherry and bitters before dinner."

"It's ripping; I mean that." And Lord Victor Gilfain stretched his slim arm toward the blinking lights of Darpore.

"I hope you're comfortable in the bungalow," the prince said solicitously. "I hadn't time when you arrived this morning to see just how you were placed. I haven't any bungalows up here, either; they're all in the cantonments."

"We're fitted up regal," Lord Victor answered; "horses, servants—everything."

"Well, I'm very glad you came," Ananda said. "At Oxford we often talked about the shooting you were to have here, didn't we?"

"Rather."

"But I never thought Earl Craig would let you come. Having lived in India in his younger days, I fancied he'd be gun-shy of the country."

Lord Victor laughed. "I got marching orders from the gov'nor."

The prince tapped a cigarette on the marble rail, lighted it from the fireball a watchful servant glided into range with, blew a puff of smoke out toward the little lake, and, with a smile, murmured dreamily: "I wonder if I knew the girl?"

"You didn't, old chap; though you've pipped the gov'nor's idea all right. Swinton here is my keeper; he's supposed to be immune."

"Well, you're safe at Darpore. There's absolutely nobody here just now. Everybody's in Calcutta."

"I fancy the gov'nor cabled out to ask about that before he packed me off." And Gilfain chuckled, a tribute to his reputation for gallantry.

"I should say you're in good hands, too." Ananda's white teeth showed in a smile that irritated Swinton. When Prince Ananda had met them at the train Swinton had seen his black eyes narrow in a hard look. He had been wondering if the prince knew his real position—that he was Captain Herbert, of the secret service. But that was impossible. Probably the prince was mistrustful of all Europeans.

Then Ananda resumed, in an introspective way: "That's England all over; they're as much afraid of breaking caste by marrying lower down as we are here. In fact"—Darpore raised his hand and pointed to the distant city—"the maharajah is sitting yonder, probably in his glass prayer room, listening to some wandering troubadour singing the amorous love songs of 'Krishna and the Milkmaids,' and his mind is quite at rest, knowing that the Brahman caste is so strong that it protects itself in the way of misalliance."

"But you?" Lord Victor blurted out boyishly. "Damn it, prince, you put your caste under the pillow at Oxford!"

Ananda laughed. "Personally it is still under the pillow. You see, when I crossed the 'black water' I broke my caste. When the time comes that it is necessary for the welfare of Darpore state that I take it on again—well, I may. To tell you the truth, the maharajah is not a Brahman at all; he's something very much greater, if he'd only think so; he's a rajput of the Kshatri caste, the warrior caste."

Swinton, sitting back in his chair, had closed his eyes, experiencing a curious pantomimic effect in listening to the English voice leisurely drawling these curiously startling sentiments; then when he opened them suddenly there was the lithe figure of the Oriental, the Indian prince. It didn't ring true; there was a disturbing something about it that kept his nerves tingling. Perhaps it was that he had come to delicately investigate.

"And this," Ananda continued, indicating the palace and the sal forest beyond. "I mean my desire for this and not that"—and the ruby point of his cigarette enveloped with a sweeping gesture the city in the plain—"is because of a Raj Gond cross away back. They were primitive nature worshippers—tiger gods and all that. Listen!" He held up a finger, his eyes tense, as from high up on the hills, deep in the forest, came the hoarse, grating call of a leopard. Immediately from just behind the palace the call was taken up and answered by another leopard.

"By Jove!" Gilfain sprang to his feet.

The prince laughed. "That's one of my captives; I've got quite a menagerie. We'll see them in the day, first time you're out. That's the Raj Gond taint. I couldn't stand it down there, so the maharajah let me build this bungalow up here. This whole plateau we're on contains a buried city. Who built it or who lived in it nobody knows. The marble you see in the palace was all taken from the buildings beneath the roots of these sal trees. I'll show you something; we've got time before the others arrive for dinner."

He led the two men down wide, marble steps to the water's edge, and indicated a cable, the end of which, coming up out of the lake, crept into the bank beneath a large marble slab.

"What's it attached to?" Lord Victor asked.

"This lake is artificial. If it were daylight, and we were up on the bank, we could see seven of them. The story of this cable runs that when the king of this city that is buried was dying he commanded that all his jewels and weapons and his body be placed in a golden boat and sunk in the centre of this lake. They say the boat is attached to the other end of this cable; I don't know."

"Has anybody ever tried to pull it up?" Swinton asked, still feeling that he was helping on the pantomime.

"Yes; once an avaricious nawab got together several elephants and many men, and, fastening to the cable, started to pull the boat up. It came easily at first, but just when they all got very careless and were starting to rush it the magic thing slipped back, pulling them in, and they were all drowned. There's a legend that if a holy man stands here at midnight of a full moon when the mhowa tree is in bloom, with the three sacred sapphires of our mythology in his hand, the king will rise in his golden boat if the holy man has been ordained of the gods to be a leader of his people."

Back on the terrace, Prince Ananda asked: "Were you in the service out here, captain?" Very inconsequential was the tone of this query that was so pointed in reality.

"I was on the Bombay side for a time; my health petered out, and I had to go back to Belati."

"I see the lights of Major Finnerty's dogcart coming up the hill," Ananda announced.

"Coming to dinner with us—any ladies, prince?" Lord Victor queried.

"No; this is what I call a pilkana or play dinner. After we've dined I'm going to show you some Indian tamasha. I asked Finnerty because he's great on these jungle friends of mine—should be able to find you some tiger; I don't shoot."

The moon showed an apologetic smile curving the lips clear of his brilliant white teeth as Ananda, turning to Swinton, added: "I never kill any of them myself; I'm a Buddhist in that way."

"Do you believe in reincarnation, prince?" Gilfain questioned.

"I'm afraid I don't believe in anything that's not demonstrable; but I do know that it is a good thing to not take life. Finnerty is the government keddah sahib here, and I'm going to ask his help in giving you some sport, Gilfain. My private archæologist, Doctor Boelke, is coming for dinner also. The trouble about him is the more he drinks the more Teutonically sombre he becomes."

The prince excused himself, saying: "I think they're pretty well coming together."

The two men could hear a heavy tonga clatter up, followed by the light, whirring grind of dogcart wheels and a medley of voices. As a group came through the palace, Swinton could hear the heavy guttural of a German's "Ach, Gott!" about something unpleasing.

There was a brief introduction and an immediate departure to the dining room.

After dinner, as they sat at little tables on the moonlit terrace over their coffee and cheroots, Major Finnerty, taking from his pocket an oval stone the size of a hen's egg, said: "I've got a curiosity, prince; I wonder if you can read the inscription on it."

"What is it, major?" Darpore asked as he held it toward an electric lamp on the table.

"It's a very fine sapphire in the rough. Where the end has been cut it is of the deepest pigeon blue."

"I can't read the characters because they are Persian, and I only know the Devanagari, but Professor Boelke can," and Ananda passed it to the German.

"Yes, it is Persian," Doctor Boelke said. With a pencil he wrote on a piece of paper some strange-looking characters. "It means Rikaz, and is nothing of mystery."

Swinton, who was watching the German's eyes, felt that they were passing some hidden meaning to the prince.

"Rikaz means a mine," Doctor Boelke continued; "a place vhere stones or metal are found; dot's all."

Swinton intercepted the stone on its way back, and after examining it passed it on.

"Dot is a big sapphire, major," Boelke said; "vhere did you get it? And for vat is der hole on der other end from der inscription?"

"It's a curious story," Finnerty answered. "A jungle hethni—female elephant—came down out of the forest and walked right in on us, by Jove! I'll describe Burra Moti; that's what we call her, the Big Pearl. She's a female with large tusks; she has four toes on each hind foot, and I haven't another elephant that has more than three. She's different in other ways; has two fingers on the end of her trunk instead of one; she has immense ears and a hollow back; she never lies down."

Doctor Boelke leaned forward, adjusted his big glasses, and said: "My friend, you haf described an African elephant."

"Yes," the major answered; "that's what Burra Moti is."

"I admit it's some mystery," Finnerty said slowly; "it has bothered me. All I know is that Burra Moti, who is undoubtedly an African, came down out of the jungle to the keddah because she was going to calve. What taught her that she'd be safe with her calf in the keddah I don't know; where she came from I don't know. Around her neck was a strap of sambur skin to which was attached a bell, and morning and evening, at a certain hour, Burra Moti would reach up with her trunk and ring the bell. Last evening the mahout didn't hear it at the usual hour—eight o'clock—so he went down to where Burra Moti stood under a big tamarind tree and found a native—looked to be a hillman—crushed flat where she had put her big foot on him. Beside him lay the bell, and the strap had been cut with a sharp knife. The bell was flattened out of shape, Moti in her rage evidently having stepped on it. The clapper of that bell was this sapphire, hung by the little hole in the end."

"By Jove!" Lord Victor ejaculated. "My gov'nor would give a few sovs for that Sapphire; he's entirely daffy on the subject of Indian curios."

"If it's for sale I'll give a thousand rupees for it, major," the prince added.

"I've got to fix that bell up again for Burra Moti," Finnerty answered; "she's been in a towering rage all day—keeps slipping her trunk up to her neck like a woman looking for a necklace she has lost."

"Oh, I say!" Gilfain expostulated. "Rather tallish order, old chap, don't you think? Almost too deuced human, what?"

Major Finnerty turned in his leisurely way to Gilfain: "If a chap spends several years with elephants he'll come devilish near believing in reincarnation, my young friend." Then, addressing Darpore more particularly, he added: "I want to tell you one extraordinary thing Burra Moti did when her calf was born. The little one was as though it were dead, not breathing. With her front foot the mother pressed the calf's chest in and out gently—artificial respiration if you like, gentlemen—and kept it up until the calf breathed naturally. But I'm sorry to say the little one died next day."

Swinton waited for some comment on the sapphire-clappered bell. He now asked: "Do you suppose, major, it was just a bell that the thief wanted?"

"No; that native had never been seen around the lines before. It's not likely he would slip into a strange place and take chances of being killed for a thing of not much value—a bell."

"Perhaps it's one of those bally sacred things," Lord Victor interjected.

Swinton saw Ananda's eyes send a swift glance to the German's face.

"Well," Finnerty said meditatively, "I think the thief knew of the sapphire stone in that bell, and it may have belonged to some temple; I mean Burra Moti may have been a sacred elephant."

"If that were the case," Darpore objected, "they'd come and claim the elephant."

"The stone being in the rough, there must be a mine near where the elephant was equipped with the bell," Swinton suggested.

"I had an idea," Finnerty said, "that if I rode Burra Moti off into the jungle and let her drift she might go back to where she came from; I might find the mine that way."

As Finnerty ceased speaking the high-pitched voice of a woman singing floated down to them from higher up on the hill. Ananda clapped his hands; a servant slipped from a door in the palace, and, salaaming deeply, listened to an order from the prince. When he re-entered the palace the row of lights that had illumined the terrace went out, leaving the sitters in the full glamour of a glorious moon.

Ananda made a gesture toward the hill from which the weird chant came. "That is the Afghan love song," he explained. "The girl represents a princess who was in love with a common soldier. After a great battle she went out on the plain, searching for him among the wounded and slain; so now this girl will come down in her singing search."

The listeners could now make out the weird music of the many-stringed fiddle that a companion played as accompaniment to the girl's voice. The prince swept his hand toward the great disk of silver that had lifted above the sal trees, saying: "My people believe that luminous, dead planet up there is the soul, purusha, of Brahm the Creator; fitting light for the path of a princess who is singing out of the desolation of her soul."

Nearer and nearer came the wailing plaint of the girl looking for her dead soldier. Once its vibrant tone stirred the leopard in his cage, and he called: "Wough-wa, wough-wa, wah!"

"That's 'Pard's' mating call," the prince explained. "Even he, jungle devil, feels something in that love song—in the sorrowing voice that does not anger him."

A peacock, wakened from his sleep by the leopard, sent out a warning call to jungle dwellers that a killer was afoot. "Meough, meough, meough!" he cried in shrill discordancy.

The song of love-search drifted in from the sal trees, through the mango tope beyond the palace, along the banks of the Lake of the Golden Coin, and up the ghat steps to the terrace.

In the moonlight the girl's face, as she came slowly up the steps, was beautiful; her grace of movement was exquisite. Followed by the musician, she passed along the terrace with no notice of the prince or his guests. At the far end, she dropped to her knees beside a figure that had lain there—her slain soldier lover. She lifted his head into her lap, and the song rose in an intensity of lament; then it died down to a croon; the desolate woman's head drooped until her luxuriant hair shrouded the soldier's face. Suddenly the crooning chant was stilled; the girl's face thrust up through its veil of hair, and the eyes, showing a gleam of madness in the moonlight, swept the vault above.

"She has become crazed by the death of her lover," the prince explained softly. As the girl commenced a low chant he added: "She now asks of the gods what she must do to receive back his life. She thinks, in her madness, they answer that if she dances so that it pleases Krishna the soldier will be restored to life."

Tenderly the girl laid the head of her lover down, kissing him on the staring eyes, and then commenced a slow, sinuous dance, the violin, with its myriad wire strings, pulsating with sobs. The soft, enveloping moon shimmer lent a mystic touch of unreality to the elfin form that seemed to float in rhythmic waves against the dark background of the sal forest. Faster and faster grew the dance, more and more weird the wail of the violin, and the plaint from the girl for her lover's life became a frenzied cry. Now she had failed; her strength was gone; death still held in its cold fingers the heart of her lover; she reeled in exhausted delirium, but, as she would have fallen, the lover rose from death and caught her to his breast.

But the gift of the gods—his life—had been but transitional—a bitter mockery—for the princess lay dead against his pulsing heart. Smothering the unresponsive eyes and lips with kisses, he gently placed the girl upon the ground, and, standing erect, defied the gods—called them to combat.

Prince Ananda interpreted the words and gestures of the gladiator as the moonlight painted in gold and copper his bronze form.

In answer to his challenge a sinister form glided from the shadow of the wall.

"Bhairava, the evil black god, who rides abroad at night," Ananda explained, adding, as the combat began: "They are two Punjabi wrestlers. The lover is Balwant Singh, which means 'Strong Lion;' Bhairava, whom you see is so grotesquely painted black, is Jai Singh, 'Lion of Victory.'"

The struggle was Homeric, as Balwant Singh, the muscles on his back rising in ridges, strove to conquer the black god. In vain his strength, for the god, sinuous as a serpent, slipped from the lover's grasp with ease. At last Jai Singh's black arm lay across the lover's throat, anchored to the shoulder by a hand grip; there was a quick twist to the arm, a choking gasp from Balwant Singh, and, with startling suddenness, he was on his back, both shoulders pinned to the mat.

The tragic drama was at an end. The lover, slain by the gods he had defied, lay beside his dead princess.

"Ripping!" Lord Victor cried. "In Drury Lane that would cause no end of a sensation as a pantomime. Hello! By Jove! I say!"

For even as the young man cackled, some heavy shadow, some mystic trick of the Orient, had faded from their eyes the three figures of the drama.

Prince Ananda, with a soft laugh at Gilfain's astonishment, said: "Bharitava, the evil god, has spirited the lover and the princess away."

"My friends, dot to me brings of importance a question," Doctor Boelke commented. "How is it dot a few Englishmen rule hundreds of millions, and we see dot der Hindus are stronger as der white man; no Englishman could wrestle those men."

"I fancy it's hardly a question of what we call brute force where England governs," Swinton claimed.

"Oh, of course!" And Doctor Boelke laughed. "England alvays ruling people because of philanthropy. Ah, yes, I hear dot!"

"Do you mean to say, sir"—and Lord Victor's voice was pitched to a high treble of indignation—"that we have no wrestlers at home as good as these Hindu chaps? Damn it, sir, it's rot! A man like Fitzalban, who was at Oxford in my last year, would simply disjoint these chaps like wooden dolls."

The doctor puffed his billowy cheeks in disdain, and Finnerty contributed: "Don't underrate these Punjabi wrestlers, my young friend; there are devilish few professionals even who can take a fall out of them."

"The major should know," and Darpore nodded pleasantly; "he has grappled with the best that come out of the Punjab."

Gilfain, his spirit still ruffled by the Prussian's sneer at England, declared peevishly: "I wish there was a chance to test the bally thing; I'd bet a hundred pounds on the Englishman, even if I'd never seen him wrestle."

Boelke, with a sibilant smack of his lips, retorted: "You are quite safe, my young frient, with your hundred pounds, because, you see, there is no Englishman here to put der poor Hindu on his back."

"I'm not quite so sure about that, Herr Doctor."

Boelke turned in his chair at the deliberate, challenging tone of Finnerty's voice. He looked at the major, then gave vent to an unpleasant laugh.

"There is one thing a Britisher does not allow to pass—a sneer at England by a German." Finnerty hung over the word "German."

"Vell," the doctor asked innocently, "you vil prove I am wrong by wrestling der Punjabi, or are we to fight a duel?" And again came the disagreeable laugh.

"If the prince has no objection, I don't know why I shouldn't take a fall out of one of these chaps. It's a game I'm very fond of."

"And, Herr Doctor, I'll have you on for the hundred," Lord Victor cried eagerly.

"Just as you like, major," the prince said. "There'll be no loss of caste, especially if we sit on our sporting friend over there and curb his betting propensities."

"Right you are, rajah," Finnerty concurred. "We wrestle just to prove that Britain is not the poor old effete thing the Herr Doctor thinks she is."

Prince Ananda sent for his secretary, Baboo Chunder Sen, and when the baboo came said: "Ask Jai Singh if he would like to try a fall with the major sahib."

Balwant Singh came back with the baboo when he had delivered this message. Salaaming, he said: "Huzoor, the keddah sahib has his name in our land, the Land of the Five Rivers. We who call men of strength brothers say that he is one of us. No one from my land has come back boasting that he has conquered the sahib. Jai Singh, in the favor of the gods, has achieved to victory over me, so Jai Singh will meet with the sahib."

"Fine!" Finnerty commented. "I'll need wrestling togs, prince."

"The baboo will take you to my room and get a suit for you."

Finnerty put the sapphire in a silver cigarette box that was on the table, saying: "I'll leave this here," and followed Chunder Sen into the palace.

"Devilish sporting, I call it; Finnerty is Irish, but he's a Britisher," Gilfain proclaimed. "He'll jolly well play rugby with your friend, Herr Boelke."

"In my country ve do not shout until der victory is obtained; ve vill see," and the doctor puffed noisily at his cheroot.

But the fish eyes of the professor were conveying to Prince Ananda malevolent messages, Swinton fancied. The whole thing had left a disturbing impression on his mind; Boelke's manner suggested a pre-arrangement with the prince.

The doctor's unpleasing physical contour would have furnished strong evidence against him on any charge of moral obliquity. He sat on the chair like a large-paunched gorilla, his round head topping the fatty mound like a coconut. His heavy-jowled face held a pair of cold, fishy eyes; coarse hair rose in an aggressive hedge from the seamed, low forehead, and white patches showed through the iron-grey thatch where little nicks had been made in the scalp by duelling swords at Heidelberg. He was a large man, but the suggestion of physical strength was destroyed by a depressing obeseness.

A tall, fine-looking rajput came across the terrace toward Darpore.

"Ah, Darna Singh," the prince greeted, rising; "you are just in time to see a kushti that will delight your warrior heart. This is my brother-in-law, Nawab Darna Singh," he continued, turning to Swinton and Gilfain and repeating their entitled names.

The rajput salaamed with grave dignity, saying the honour pleased him.

"Have a seat," Ananda proffered.

"I have intruded, rajah," Darna Singh explained, "because there is trouble at the temple. The mahanta is at the gate——"

"Show him in, Darna. I can't see him privately just now; the keddah sahib and Jai Singh are going to make kushti."

While the rajput went to the gate for the mahanta, Prince Ananda said apologetically: "Even a prince must show deference to the keeper of the temple."

Darna Singh returned, accompanied by an animated skeleton of mummy hue. Draping the skin-covered bones was a loin cloth and a thread that hung diagonally from one shoulder to the waist.

With a deep salaam, the mahanta, trembling with indignation, panted: "Dharama comes in the morning with his Buddhistic devils to desecrate the temple by placing in it that brass Buddha—accursed image!—he has brought from the land of Japan."

"Ah!" The exclamation was from Lord Victor as Finnerty appeared.

"Here, Darna," Ananda cried, "hold the mahanta till this is over; I don't want to miss it."

Darna Singh led the Brahmin beyond the table at which the sahibs were grouped, explaining that Prince Ananda would speak to him presently.

Now Finnerty, coming into the light, slipped a robe from his shoulders and stood beside Jai Singh, looking like a sculptured form of ivory.

Swinton caught his breath in a gasp of admiration; he had never seen such a superb being. Jai Singh, that a moment before had seemed of matchless mould, now suffered by comparison. Each move of the Irishman was like the shifting of a supple gladiator. The shoulders, the loins, the overlapping muscles of his arms were like those of Hercules.

Lord Victor was muttering: "My word! Poor old decadent England—what!"

Several times as he sat there Swinton had felt vibrant thrills, as if eyes that blazed with intensity were on him, and always as he had turned in answer to the unseen influence he had instinctively looked to a jalousied balcony above them. Now he caught the glint of white fingers between the leaves of the lattice as if a hand vibrated them. He could have sworn Finnerty's erect head had drooped in recognition.

From the first grapple there was evident savagery on the part of Jai Singh. He had toyed leisurely with Balwant; now he bore in like a savage beast.

"By gad!" Lord Victor growled once, "that Hindu bounder is fighting foul!"

Finnerty had gone to his hands and knees in defence. The Punjabi, lying along the arched back, thrust his right hand under the major's armpit as if seeking for a half-Nelson; but his hand, creeping up to the neck, straightened out to thrust two fingers into Finnerty's nostrils, the big thumb wedged against the latter's windpipe. In a flash the white man was in a vise, for Jai Singh had gripped the wrist of his fouling arm with his left hand, and was pressing the forearm upon the back of his opponent's neck.

In his foul endeavour Jai Singh had lost defence. A hand took him by the left wrist, a corkscrew twist broke his hold, and he commenced to go over forward in tortured slowness, drawn by the wracking pain of his twisted joints. One of his shoulder blades lay against the mat when, by a mighty wrench, he freed his wrist and pirouetted on his round bullet head clear of Finnerty's clutch.

Again, as they stood hand to shoulder, making a feint as if to grapple, Jai Singh tried a foul. The heel of Finnerty's palm, thrust with dynamic force upward, caught him under the chin with such power that he all but turned a complete somersault backward.

This was too much for Lord Victor. With a cry of "Well bowled, old top!" he sprang to his feet, in his excitement careening his glass of whisky and soda, the liquid splashing across the fat legs of Doctor Boelke.

Like a hippopotamus emerging from a pool, Boelke reared upward; the table, at a thrust from his hand, reeled groggily on its frail legs and then volplaned, shooting its contents over the marble floor.

"Never mind," Prince Ananda admonished; "leave it to the servants."

Finnerty was wrestling with caution—waiting for the inevitable careless chance that would give him victory.

Jai Singh's foul tactics confirmed Swinton's suspicion that the bout was a prearranged plot; the Punjabi was acting under orders. The captain had served in the Punjab and knew that native wrestlers were not given to such practices. He watched Prince Ananda, but the latter's immobile face gave no sign of disapproval.

A startled gasp from Lord Victor caused him to look at the wrestlers. He had seen enough of wrestling to know what had happened. Jai Singh's weight rested on one leg he had crooked behind Finnerty's knee joint, and he was pulling up against this wedge the major's foot by a hold on the big toe. It was a barred hold in amateur wrestling; a chance to administer pain, instead of an exhibition of strength or agility. The captain felt, with a sense of defeat, that Finnerty must yield to the pain or have his leg broken.

There was a hideous grin of triumph on the face of Jai Singh. Then, almost before Swinton's brain could register these startling things, the leer of victory vanished; the Punjabi's lips framed some startled cry; his hands fell to his side; his torso drooped forward, and he collapsed as though his legs were paralysed.

Finnerty half rose and turned the Punjabi over on his back, pressing his shoulders to the mat; then he took the black nose between finger and thumb and tweaked it.

"Topping! Ripping!" Gilfain shouted the words. "It was coming to the cad!"

The others sat numbed to silence by the extraordinary suddenness of the collapse. Each one understood the debasing retribution the keddah sahib had meted out to his foul-fighting opponent.

Swinton, watching, saw consternation pall the heavy-jowled face of the Prussian. The debonair air had fallen away from the prince. To hide his chagrin he called Darna Singh to bring the mahanta to him. He spoke rapidly in a low voice to the priest, and when he had finished, the latter departed, accompanied by Darna Singh.

When Finnerty came back to them Prince Ananda had regained his sangfroid; he smiled a greeting, holding out his hand, and said: "You deserve to win."

"I should say so!" Gilfain added. "That rotter would have been mobbed at a bout in London."

Boelke mumbled: "You are very strong, major."

Finnerty, peeping into the silver box that had been replaced by the servants on the table, asked: "Any of you chaps got that bell clapper? I left it here."

Nobody had; nobody knew anything about it. Instinctively each one felt his pockets to be sure that, in the excitement of the struggle, he hadn't put it away; then each one remembered that he hadn't seen it since the major deposited it in the silver box.

"The table was upset," Swinton said. "Look on the floor."

Even Prince Ananda joined in the search. Then the servants were questioned. They knew nothing of its whereabouts; all denied that they had seen the keddah sahib put it in the box.

A little constraint crept into the search. Prince Ananda's brother-in-law and the temple priest had been there and had departed; the prince's servants had been going and coming.

"It may have rolled off the terrace into the water," Prince Ananda suggested. "In the morning I'll have the lake searched at this point."

"It doesn't matter," Finnerty declared.

"It does, my dear major," Ananda objected. "I'll put pressure on the servants, for I'm very much afraid one of them has stolen it. At any rate, you've been looted in my house, and if I don't find your sapphire you shall have the finest jewel Hamilton Company can send up from Calcutta."

"My young friend was too enthusiastic," Doctor Boelke said with a mirthless grin; "he has also soaked my legs."

The savage wrestling bout and the mysterious loss of the sapphire brought a depressing vacuity of speech. The guests were soon waiting in the courtyard for the tonga.

Swinton stepped over to where Finnerty waited in his dogcart while a servant lighted the lamps, saying: "Prince Ananda has arranged that we are to call on the maharajah at ten o'clock to-morrow, and I'd like to ride over to see your elephants later on."

"Come for tiffin," the major invited.

As the tonga carrying Lord Victor and Swinton was starting, Ananda said: "I've told the driver to show you the Maha Bodhi Temple and a pagoda on your way; it is there that Prince Sakya Singha attained to the Buddha. Good night."

Halfway down the tonga stopped, and their eyes picked up, off to the right, a ravishing sight. A gloomed hill, rising like a plinth of black marble, held on its top a fairy-lined structure. Like a gossamer web or a proportioned fern, a wooden temple lay against the moonlit sky; beside it, towering high to a slender spire, was the pagoda, its gold-leafed wall softened to burnished silver by the gentling moon. A breeze stirred a thousand bells that hung in a golden umbrella above the spire, and the soft tinkle-tinkle-tinkle of their many tongues was like the song of falling waters on a pebbled bed till hushed by a giant gong that sent its booming notes reverberating across the hills as some temple priest beat with muffled club its bronzed side.

"Devilish serene sort of thing, don't you think?" Lord Victor managed to put his poetic emotions into that much prose banality.

The driver, not understanding the English words, said in Hindustani: "There will be much war there to-morrow when they fight over their gods."

As if his forecast had wakened evil genii of strife up in the hills, the fierce blare of a conch shell, joined in clamour by clanging temple bells, came across the valley, shattering its holy calm.

"My aunt! What a beastly din!" Lord Victor exclaimed.

"War," the driver announced indifferently.

Human voices pitched to the acute scale of contending demons now sat astride the sound waves.

"Gad! Dharama has stolen a march on the mahanta and is sneaking in his Buddha by moonlight," Swinton declared.

The tumult grew in intensity; torches flashed and dimmed in and out about the temple like evil eyes.

"Shall we take a peep, old top?" Lord Victor asked, eagerness in his voice.

Swinton spoke to the driver, asking about the road, and learned that, turning off to the right at that point, it wound down the mountainside and up the other hill to the temple.

Just at that instant there came from down the road the clatter of galloping hoofs and the whirling bang of reckless wheels. In seconds the keddah sahib's dogcart swirled into view; he reined up, throwing his horse almost on his haunches.

"That mongrel Buddhist, Dharama, is up to his deviltry; I've got to stop him!"

He was gone.

At a sharp order from Swinton the tonga followed, the driver, eager to see the fray, carrying them along at perilous speed. At each sharp turn, with its sheer drop of a hundred feet or more on the outside, the tonga swung around, careening to one of its two wheels, the other spinning idly in the air. The little ruby eyes in the back of the dogcart's lamps twinkling ahead seemed to inspire their driver with reckless rivalry.

When they arrived at the temple the battle had reached its climax. The brass Buddha, its yellow face with the sightless eyes of meditation staring up in oblivious quietude to the skies, was lying all alone just within the temple gate. Without, Dharama and his Buddhists battled the smaller force of the mahanta, who led it with fanatical fervour.

They saw the keddah sahib towering above the fighting mob, his spread arms raised as if exhorting them to desist from strife. The combatants broke against his body like stormy waves, his words were drowned by the tumult of the passion cries.

Swinton and Lord Victor dropped from the tonga, and as they ran toward the riot something happened. A native close to Dharama struck at Finnerty with a long fighting staff, the blow falling on an arm the Irishman thrust forward as guard. Like an enraged bull bison, the keddah sahib charged. Dharama and the man who had struck were caught by the throats and their heads knocked together as though they were puppets; then Dharama was twisted about, and the foot of the big Irishman lifted him with a sweeping kick. He catapulted out of the fray. Then the keddah sahib's fists smote here and there, until, discouraged by the fate of their leader and the new re-enforcements—for Lord Victor and Captain Swinton were now busy—the Buddhists broke and fled.

"Faith, it's a busy night, captain!" Finnerty exclaimed as he wiped perspiration from his forehead. He turned to the mahanta, and, pointing to the yellow god, said: "Roll that thing down the hill!"

In a frenzy of delight the temple adherents laid hands upon the brass Buddha. It took their united strength to drag and roll it to the edge of the sloping hillside a hundred feet away. The sahibs stood on the brink, watching the image that glinted in the moonlight as it tumbled grotesquely over and over down the declivity till it plunged into the muddy waters of Gupti Nala.

"There'll be no more trouble over installing that idol in the temple for some time," Finnerty chuckled.

Then they climbed into tonga and dogcart, and sped homeward.

---

Chapter II

The bungalow Swinton and Lord Victor occupied was in a large, brick-walled compound, in the cantonments, that was known as the Dak Compound, because it contained three bungalows the maharajah maintained for visiting guests.

The tonga, finishing its clattering trip from the Maha Bodhi Temple, swung through the big gate to a circular driveway, bordered by a yellow-and-green mottled wall of crotons, here and there ablaze with the flaming blood-red hibiscus and its scarlet rival, the Shoe flower. Swinton took a deep draft of the perfumed air that drifted lazily from pink-cheeked oleander and jasmine; then he cursed, for a brackish taint of hookah killed in his nostrils the sweet perfume.

To his right lay one of the guest bungalows, and a light, hanging on the veranda, showed a billowy form of large proportions filling an armchair. Somebody must have arrived, for the bungalow had been empty, the captain mentally noted.

In bed, Swinton drifted from a tangle of queries into slumber. Why had the German drawn Finnerty into wrestling the Punjabi? Why had some one stolen the uncut sapphire? What was behind the prince's pose in religion? Who was the woman behind the lattice—yes, it was a woman——Then Swinton drowsed off.

It is soul racking to awaken in a strange room, startled from sleep by unplaceable sounds, to experience that hopeless lostness, to mentally grope for a door or a window in the way of a familiar mark to assist one's location. When Captain Swinton was thrust out of deep slumber by a demoniac tumult he came into consciousness in just such an environment. Lost souls torturing in Hades could not have given expression to more vocal agony than the clamour that rent the night.

Swinton was on his feet before he had mentally arranged his habitat. He groped in the gloom for something of substance in the sea of uncertainty; his hands fell upon the table, and, miraculously, a match box. Then he lighted a lamp, pushed out into the passage, and saw Lord Victor's pajamaed figure coming toward him.

"What a bally row!" the latter complained sleepily. "Must be slaughter!"

Out on the veranda, they located the vocal barrage; it was being fired from the bungalow in which they had seen the bulky figure in white. Perhaps the vociferous one had seen their light, for he was crying: "Oh, my lord and master, save me! Tiger is biting to my death! I am too fearful to explore across the compound. Heroic masters, come with guns!"

"Oh, I say! What a devilish shindy!" Lord Victor contributed petulantly. "Is that bounder pulling our legs?"

"It's a baboo, and a baboo has no sense of humour; he doesn't pull legs," the captain answered. "But he does get badly funked."

Another voice had joined issue. Swinton knew it for a "chee-chee" voice, a half-caste's.

"Yes, sar," the new pleader thrust out across the compound; "we are without firearms, but a prowling tiger is waiting to devour us."

He was interrupted by a bellowing scream from his companion, an agonised cry of fright. As if in lordly reproach, the clamour was drowned by a reverberating growl: "Waugh-h-h!"

"Gad, man! Devilish like a leopard!" And the captain darted into his room to reappear with a magazine rifle. A bearer came running in from the cook-house, a lighted lantern in his hand, at that instant.

"Here, Gilfain," Swinton called, "grab the lantern. If it's a leopard he'll slink away when he sees the light, so we may not get a shot. Come on!" He was dropping cartridges into the magazine of his rifle. "Pardus is probably sneaking around after a goat or a dog. Come on; keep close behind me so the light shines ahead."

"I'm game, old chappie," Lord Gilfain answered cheerily. "Push on; this is spiffen!"

The gravel was cruel to their bare feet, but in the heat of the hunt they put this away for future reference. As they neared the other bungalow the captain suddenly stopped and threw his gun to his shoulder; then he lowered it, saying: "Thought I saw something slip into the bushes, but I don't want to pot a native."

They reached the bungalow, and as Swinton pushed open a wooden door he was greeted by wordy tumult. Screamed phrases issued from a bedroom that opened off the room in which they stood.

"Go away, jungle devil! O Lord! I shall be eated!"

"Don't be an ass! Come out here!" the captain commanded.

The person did. One peep through the door to see that the English voice did not belong to a ghost, and a baboo charged out to throw his arms around the sahib, sobbing: "Oh, my lord, I am safe! I will pray always for you."

Pushed off by Swinton, he collapsed in a chair, weeping in the relief of his terror.

The baboo's prodigal gratitude had obliterated a companion who had followed him from the room. Now the latter stood in the radiancy of Lord Victor's lantern, saying: "Baboo Lall Mohun Dass has been awed by a large tiger, but we have beat the cat off."

The speaker was a slim, very dark half-caste clad in white trousers and jaran coat.

"It is Mr. Perreira." And Baboo Dass stopped sobbing while he made this momentous announcement.

"What's all the outcry about, baboo?" the captain asked.

"Sar," Baboo Dass answered, "I will narrative from the beginning: I am coming from Calcutta to-day, and Mr. Perreira is old friend, college chum, he is come here to spend evening in familiar intercourse. We are talking too late of pranks we execute against high authority in college. Kuda be thanked! I have close the window because reading that mosquito bring malaria—ugh!" With a yell the baboo sprang to his feet; Perreira, leaning against the centre table, had knocked off a metal ornament. "Excuse me, masters, I am upset by that debased tiger." He collapsed into a chair.

"What happened?" Swinton queried sharply, for his feet were beginning to sting from the trip over the gravel.

"We hear mysterious noise—tap, tap; some spirit is tickle the window. I look, and there, masters, spying at me is some old fellow of evil countenance; like a guru, with grey whiskers and big horn spectacles. But his eyes—O Kuda! Very brave I stand up and say, 'Go away, you old reprobate!' because he is prying."

"Oh, my aunt!" Gilfain muttered.

"Then that old villain that is an evil spirit changes himself into a tiger and grins at me. Fangs like a shark has got—horrible! I call loudly for help because I have not firearms. Then I hear my lord's voice out here in the room and I am saved."

"Yes, sar, that is true," Perreira affirmed. "I am not flustered, but hold the windows so tiger not climbing in."

Lord Victor, raising the lantern, looked into the captain's eyes. "What do you make of these two bounders?"

"You'd better go back to bed, baboo," Swinton advised; "you've just had a nightmare—eaten too much curry."

But Baboo Dass swore he had seen a beast with his hands on the window.

"We'll soon prove it. If the tiger stood up there, he will have left his pugs in the sand," Swinton declared as he moved toward the door. He was followed by the baboo and Perreira, who hung close as they went down the steps and around the wall.

As Gilfain passed the lantern close to the sandy soil beneath the window, Swinton gave a gasp of astonishment, for there were footprints of a tiger, the largest he had ever seen; their position, the marks of the claws in the earth, indicated that the great cat had actually stood up to look into the room.

"Well, he's gone now, anyway," the captain said, turning back to the driveway. "You'd better go to bed, baboo; he won't trouble you any more to-night."

But Mohun Dass wept and prayed for the sahib to stay and protect him; he would go mad in the bungalow without firearms.

"I say, Swinton," Lord Victor interposed, "these poor chaps' nerves seem pretty well shimmered, don't you think? Shall we take them over to our bungalow and give them a brandy?"

The captain hesitated; he didn't like baboos. But when Perreira acclaimed: "Yes, sar, a peg will stimulate our hearts—thank you, kind gentleman; and his highness, the rajah, will thank you for saving me, for I am important artisan," his dead-blue eyes glinted.

"Come on, then!" he said, picking his way gingerly over the gravel.

Inside the bungalow, Swinton tossed his keys to the bearer, saying: "Bring——" He turned to Perreira: "What will you have, brandy or whisky?"

The half-caste smacked his bluish lips. "Any one is good, sar."

But Lall Mohun Dass interposed: "Salaam, my preserver, I am a man because of religious scruples teetotal, and whisky is convivial beverage; but brandy is medicinal, prescribed by doctor."

Swinton nodded to the bearer, and when the latter, unlocking the liquor cabinet, brought the brandy and glasses, he said: "Put it on the table and go." Then, at a suggestion, Perreira poured copious drafts for himself and Baboo Dass.

As the water of life scorched its way through the thin veins of the half-caste he underwent a metamorphosis. The face that had looked so pinched and blue grey with fear took on a warmer copper tint; his eyes that had been lustreless warmed till they glowed; his shoulders squared up; the jaran coat sagged less.

"Ah, sahib, you are kind gentleman." Without invitation, he dragged a chair to the table and sat down. At a nod from Swinton, the baboo drew up another. The captain and Lord Victor sat down, the latter rather puzzled over his companion's mood. He knew Swinton's rigid ideas about association with the natives; particularly what he called the "greasy Bengali baboo."

The brandy had quieted Mohun Dass' terror. His eyes that had constantly sought the open door with apprehension now hovered benignantly upon the bottle that still graced the centre of the table.

"Yes, sar, kind gentleman," Perreira said; "if I'd had a hooker of brandy like that and a gun like that 'Certus Cordite'"—he pointed to the weapon Swinton had deposited on the floor—"I would go out and blow that fool tiger to hell."

Baboo Dass gave a fatty laugh. "Do not believe him, kind gentlemans—he make ungodly boast; he was crawled under the bed."

"And you, baboo?" Perreira questioned. "Major sahib——"

"I am not a major," Swinton corrected; "we are just two Englishmen who have come out here for some shooting."

This statement had a curious effect on Mohun Dass. All his class stood in awe of the military, but toward the globe-trotting, sporting Englishman they could hardly conceal their natural arrogance. A look of assured familiarity crept into his fat countenance; he showed his white teeth with the little, reddish lines between them, due to pan chewing. "You are globe-trotter gentlemans—I know. Will you writing book, too?"

The captain nodded.

"You will get Forbes Hindustani dictionary and spell bungalow 'bangla,' and the book will stink like the lamp because of academic propensity. Never mind, kind gentleman, the publics will think you know about India and caste, too."

The captain noting Perreira's eyes devouring the bottle shoved it toward the half-caste. Gilfain, with a sigh of not understanding, rose, went along to their rooms, and returned with slippers and some cheroots.

Perreira had helped himself and the baboo to another generous drink, the latter protesting weakly.

"I see you know about guns, Perreira," Swinton said, lifting the rifle to his knee. "How do you happen to know this is a Cordite?"

"Cordite? Ha, ha!" And the half-caste's cackle was a triumphant note. He put a pair of attenuated fingers into the top pocket of his jaran coat and drew from beneath a very dirty handkerchief a lump of something that resembled an unbaked biscuit. He flipped it to the table as though he were tossing a box of cigarettes. "Yes, sars, that is cordite—dynamite, whatever you like to call him."

"Good God! I say, you silly ass!" And Lord Victor, pushing back his chair, stood up.

Baboo Dass, who had been sitting with his feet curled up under his fat thighs, tumbled from the chair, and, standing back from the table, cried: "Mera bap! Tigers eating and explosives producing eruption of death. O Kuda, my poor families!"

Swinton checked an involuntary movement of retreat, and the compelling void of his eyes drew from the half-caste an explanation:

"Take seat, kind gentlemans and Baboo Lall Mohun Dass. This thing is innocent as baby of explosion. It is cordite not yet finish. I was in the government cordite factory here in——" He checked, looked over his shoulder toward the front door, and then continued: "Yes, sar, I was gov'ment expert man to mix cordite. If you don't believe, listen, gentlemans. Cordite is fifty-eight parts nitroglycerin, thirty-seven parts guncotton, five parts mineral jelly, and, of course, acetone is used as solvent. Now all that is mix by hand, and while these parts explode like hell when separate, when they are mix they are no harm. And I was expert for mixing. I am expert on smokeless powder and all kinds of guns because I am home in England working for Curtis & Harper Co. in their factory. That why Rajah Darpore engage me."

Swinton's eyes twitched three times, but he gave no other sign.

Baboo Dass drew himself into the conversation. "This mans, Perreira, been at school in Howrah with me, but I am now B. A., and trusted head krannie for Hamilton Company, jewel——"

With a gasp he stopped and thrust a hand under his jacket; then explained: "Sahib, I forgetting something because of strict attention to tiger business. You are honourable gentleman who has save my life, so I will show the satanic thing, and you can write story about some ghost jewels."

He unclasped from his neck a heavy platinum chain, and, first casting a furtive glance toward the door, drew forth a pear-shaped casket of the same metal, saying: "You see, sar, not so glorified in splendour as to seduce thieves, but inside is marvel of thing."

He thrust the casket toward Swinton, and laughed in toper glee when the captain explored vainly its smooth shell for a manner of opening it. "Allow me, sar," and, Baboo Dass touching some hidden mechanism, the shell opened like a pea pod, exposing to the startled captain's eyes an exact mate to the sapphire Finnerty had lost.

Lord Victor, his unschooled eyes popping like a lobster's, began: "Oh, I say——" Then he broke off with a yelp of pain, for Swinton's heel had all but smashed his big toe beneath the table.

"I am bringing for the maharajah," Baboo Dass explained. "The old boy is gourmand for articles of vertu."

"Articles of virtue!" And Perreira leered foolishly. "Prince Ananda is the Johnnie to collect articles of virtue; he imports from Europe."

"Mr. Perreira is gay young dog!" Baboo Daas leaned heavily across the table. "Perhaps Shazada Ananda is in big hurry to sit on the throne."

"There's always a woman at the bottom of these things, sir," and Perreira twisted his eyes into an owllike look of wisdom.

"You see, sar," the baboo elucidated, "Prince Ananda has give this to the maharajah, and it is accursed agent of evil; because of it I am nearly eated of a tiger."

On the sapphire was the same inscription Swinton had seen on the stolen stone.

"That is Persian characters, sahib," Baboo Dass declared ponderously. "It is used for 'mine,' but in learned way madun is proper name for mine, and Rikaz, this word, means buried treasure. I am learned in dead languages—Sanskrit, Pali. It is sacred stone. If you possessing patience, sahib, I will narrative obscure histories of Buddhism."

"Oh, my aunt!" The already bored Lord Victor yawned.

But Captain Swinton declared earnestly: "If you do, baboo, I will place your name in my book as an authority."

Mohun Dass' breast swelled with prospective glory.

"I say, old chappie, if we're to sit out the act I'm going to have a B. and S.," and Gilfain reached for the bottle.

"We'll all have one," declared the captain to the delight of Perreira.

"Kind sar," Baboo Dass pleaded, "do not speak these things to-morrow, for my caste frowning against bacchanalian feast."

"We promise, old top!" Lord Victor declared solemnly, and Swinton mentally added: "The Lord forbid!"

"Now, sar," began Baboo Dass, "in Buddhist book 'Paramamsa Maju,' is describe the Logha, the earth, telling it rests on three great sapphires, and beneath is big rock and plenty oceans. And according to that book is three sacred sapphires knocking around loose. If any man have them three together he is the true Buddha and rules all India. Prince Sakya Singha got those sapphires and became Buddha; that was up on the hill where is Maha Bodhi Temple. The sapphires got hole because one is to hang in the temple, one hangs on a sacred elephant that guard the temple, and one round the Buddha's neck."

Baboo Dass lifted his glass, his heavy ox eyes peering over its top at Swinton, who was thinking of Finnerty's elephant that had the sapphire.

Baboo Dass resumed: "And here, kind gentleman, is the hell of dilemma, for one sapphire is Brahm, the Creator; one Vishnu, the Preserver; and one Siva, the Destroyer. So, if a man got one he don't know if it is loadstone for good fortune or it brings him to damnation."

"But, baboo," Swinton objected, "those are Brahman gods, and Buddhists have practically no gods."

"Sar, Buddhism is kind of revolted Brahmanism, and in the north the two is mixed."

The baboo pointed gingerly at the sapphire in its platinum case: "That is the Siva stone, I believe. Maharajah Darpore is sending to my company in Calcutta by special agent for them to find other two stones like it. See, sahib, he is foxy old boy. We make that chain and casket—his order. That special agent disappeared forever—he is vanish the next day; the workman that fitted the stone in the case died of cholera; some devil tried to steal the sapphire; all the workmen get a secret it is evil god and they strike. The manager, Rombey Sahib, swear plenty blasphemy and command me: 'Baboo Dass, you are brave mans, take the damn thing to old Darpore and tell his banker I must have rupees twenty thousand; they owe us sixty thousand.' Rombey Sahib knows I will give the dewan a commission, and the old thief will write a money order."

"What did the maharajah want of the three sapphires?" Swinton asked innocently.

Baboo Dass leaned across the table, and in a gurgling whisper said: "Because of this foolish belief that he would rule all India. The Buddhists would think he was a Buddha. That word Rikaz means, in theologic way, that in the man possesses the three sapphires is buried the treasure of holy knowledge."

Swinton, turning his head at a faint sound, saw his bearer standing in the back doorway.

"Did master call?" the servant asked.

"No. Go!"

Trembling with apprehension, Baboo Dass slipped the case back in his breast. A revulsion of bibulous despondency took possession of him; he slipped a white cotton sock from one of the feet he had pulled from their shoes in his exuberancy, and wiped his eyes.

"Baboo Dass is right," Perreira declared, thrusting into the gap. "On the hill I am working like mole in the ground, but I got my eyeteeth looking when I am in the light. I am Britisher—Piccadilly Circus is home for me—if I work for native prince I don't sell my mess of pottage."

Perreira tapped the breast pocket of his jaran coat. "I got little book here——" The half-caste gulped; a wave of sea green swept over his face; he gurgled "Sick," and made a reeling dash for the verandah. At the door, he recoiled with a yell of terror. The baboo dived under the table.

Thinking it was the tiger, Swinton grabbed his rifle and sprang to the door, discovering a native standing against the wall.

"What do you want?" the captain asked in rapid English.

"Sahib, I am the night chowkidar of the compound."

"Sit on the steps there!" Swinton commanded.

Back at the table, he said: "Baboo, you and Perreira go back to your bungalow now with the chowkidar, but I warn you he understands English."

Trembling, Perreira whispered: "That man spy. Please lending me rupees two."

Baboo Dass revived to encourage the deal, saying: "Mr. Perreira is honest man; I endorse for him rupees five thousand."

Suspecting that the requested loan had something to do with the eavesdropping chowkidar, Captain Swinton went to his room, returning with the silver, which he slipped quietly into Perreira's palm, saying in a low voice: "Come to see me again." He stood watching the three figures pass down the moonlit road, and saw Perreira touch the chowkidar; then their hands met.

Going to their rooms, Lord Victor said: "Don't see how the devil you had the patience, captain. Are you really going to do a book and were mugging up?"

"I may get something out of it," the captain answered enigmatically.

---

Chapter III

Captain Swinton had told his bearer to call him early, his life in India having taught him the full value of the glorious early morning for a ride. Lord Victor had balked at the idea of a grey-dawn pleasure trip on horseback, and Swinton had not pressed the point, for he very much desired to make a little tour of inspection off his own bat, a contemplative ride free from the inane comments of his young charge.

At the first soft drawn-out "Sah-h-i-b!" of his bearer, the captain was up with soldierly precision. His eyes lighted with pleasure when he saw the saddle horse that had been provided for him from the maharajah's stable. He was a fine, upstanding brown Arab, the eyes full and set wide. When Swinton patted the velvet muzzle the Arab gave a little sigh of satisfaction, expressing content; he liked to carry men who loved horses.

The bearer, officiously solicitous, had rubbed his cloth over the saddle and bridle reins, and, examining the result, said: "Huzoor, you have clean leathers; it is well. Also the steed has lucky marks and his name is Shabaz."

Shabaz broke into a free-swinging canter as the captain took the road that stretched, like a red ribbon laid on a carpet of green, toward the hill, whereon, high up, gleamed a flat pearl, the palace of Prince Ananda.

On the hillside was a delicate tracery of waving bamboos, through which peeped cliffs of various hues—rose-coloured, ebon black, pearl grey, vermilion red; and over all was a purple haze where the golden shafts of the rising sun shot through lazy-rising vapours of the moist plain. The cliffs resembled castle walls rising from the buried city, mushrooming themselves into sudden arrogance. To the north a river wound its sinuous way through plains of sand, a silver serpent creeping over a cloth of gold. Back from either side of the river lay patches of wheat and barley, their jade green and golden bronze holding of grain suggesting gigantic plates of metal set out in the morning sun to dry.

To the westward of the river lay Darpore City, looking like a box of scattered toys. Beyond the white palace the sal-covered hills lay heavy, mysterious, sombre, as if in rebuke to the eastern sky palpitating with the radiancy that flooded it from the great golden ball of heat that swept upward in regal majesty.

Yawning caves studding a ravine which cut its climbing way up the hillside shattered the poetic spell which had driven from Swinton's mind his real object in that solitary ride. The cave mouths suggested entrances to military underground passages. He was certain that the pearllike palace was a place of intrigue. The contour of the great hill conveyed the impression of a stronghold—a mighty fort, easy of defence. Indeed, as Swinton knew, that was what it had been. Its history, the story of Fort Kargez, was in the India office, and Prince Ananda must have lied the night before when he said he did not know what city lay beneath the palace.

Fort Kargez had been the stronghold of Joghendra Bahi, a Hindu rajah, when the Pathan emperor, Sher Ghaz, had swept through India to the undulating plains of Darpore.

Gazing at the formidable hill, Swinton chuckled over the wily Pathan's manner of capturing Fort Kargez by diplomacy. He had made friends with Rajah Bahi, asking the favour of leaving his harem and vast store of jewels in that gentleman's safe custody till his return from conquering Bengal.

Such a bait naturally appealed to the covetous Hindu. But the palanquins that carried the fair maids and the wealth of jewels had also hidden within enough men to hold the gate while a horde of Pathans rushed the fort. But Rajah Bahi and many of his soldiers had escaped to the underground passages, and either by accident or design—for the vaults had been mined—they were blown up, turning the fort over like a pancake, burying the Pathan soldiers and the vast loot of gold and jewels. Then the jungle crept in, as it always does, and smothered the jagged surface beneath which lay the ruined walls. Many of the artificial lakes remained; they were just without the fort.

Climbing the zigzag roadway, Swinton fell to wondering if all the prince's talk of a desire for removal from the bustle of Darpore City was simply a blind; if his real object weren't a systematic exploration for the vast store of wealth in the buried city and also the preparation of a rebel stronghold.

On the plateau, he took a road that forked to the right, leading between hedges of swordlike aloes to the palace gardens. At a gateway in a brick wall, his guide dropped to his haunches, saying: "There is but one gate, sahib; I will wait here."

Turning a corner of an oleander-bordered path, Swinton suddenly pulled Shabaz to a halt. Twenty yards away a girl sat a grey stallion, the poise of her head suggesting that she had heard the beat of his horse's hoofs. A ripple of wind carried the scent of the Arab to the grey stallion; he arched his tapering neck and swung his head, the eyes gleaming with a desire for combat. A small gloved hand, with a quick slip of the rein, laid the curb chain against his jaw; a spur raked his flank, and, springing from its touch, he disappeared around a turn. Piqued, his query of the night before, "Who was the woman?" recalled to his mind, Swinton followed the large hoofprints of the grey. They led to within six feet of the garden wall, where they suddenly vanished; they led neither to the right nor to the left of the sweeping path.

"Good old land of mystery!" the captain muttered as, slipping from his saddle, he read out the enigma. Back, the greater stride told that the grey had gone to a rushing gallop. Here, six feet from the wall, he had taken off in a mighty leap; two holes cupped from the roadbed by the push of his hind feet told this tale. Swinton could just chin the wall—and he was a tall man. On the far side was a fern-covered terrace that fell away three feet to a roadbed, and just beyond the road the rim of a void a hundred feet deep showed.

"No end of nerve; she almost deserves to preserve her incognito," Captain Swinton thought, remounting Shabaz.

On his way out the captain passed a heavy iron gate that connected the garden with the palace. And from beyond was now coming a babel of animal voices from the zoo. Mingling with the soft perfume of roses a strong odour of cooking curry reminded him of breakfast. At the gate he picked up his man, and, riding leisurely along, sought to learn from that wizened old Hindu the horsewoman's name.

There came a keen look of cautious concealment into the man's little eyes as he answered: "Sahib, the lady I know not, neither is it of profit for one of my labour to converse about fine people, but as to the grey stallion we in the stables allude to him as Sheitan."

"He jumps well, Radha."

"Ha, sahib; all that he does is performed with strength, even when he tore an arm out of Stoll Sahib—he of the Indigo."

"How comes the lady to ride such an evil horse?" the captain asked.

"The stallion's name is Djalma, sahib, which means the favour of sacred Kuda, but to the mem-sahib he comes from the maharani's stable, which is a different thing."

"To bring her harm, even as Stoll Sahib came by it?"

But Radha parried this talk of cause leading to effect by speech relating to Djalma. "It might be that the matter of Stoll Sahib's hand was but an accident—I know not; but of evil omens, as twisted in the hair of a horse, we horsemen of repute all know. The grey stallion carries three marks of ill favour. Beneath the saddle he has the shadow maker, and that means gloom for his owner; at the knee is a curl, with the tail of the curl running down to the fetlock—that means the withdrawal of the peg. That is to say, sahib, that his owner's rope pegs will have to be knocked out for lack of horses to tie to them."

"He seems a bad lot, Radha," Swinton remarked as the attendant stopped to pick a thorn from his foot.

"Worst of all," the little man added dolefully, "is the wall eye."

"Has the grey stallion that?"

A smile of satisfaction wreathed the puckered lips of Radha. "The sahib knows, and does the sahib remember the proverb?"

"That not one will be left alive in your house if you possess a horse with one white eye?" the captain said.

They now slipped from the hill road to the plain, and the Arab broke into a swinging canter.

The captain's breakfast was waiting, so was Gilfain and also—which caused him to swear as he slipped from the saddle—was Baboo Lall Mohun Dass.

In the genial morning sun the baboo looked more heroic in his spotless muslin and embroidered velvet cap sitting jauntily atop his heavy, black, well-oiled hair.

"Wanting to speak to master, sar, this morning," he said. "After debauch, in the morning wisdom smiles like benign god. I am showing to master last night property of maharajah, and he is terrible old boy for raising hell; I am hear the sahib will make call of honour, and, sar, I am beseeching you will not confide to his highness them peccadillos."

"All right, baboo. But excuse me; I've got to have a tub and breakfast."

When Lord Victor and Captain Swinton had finished their breakfast a huge barouche of archaic structure, drawn by a pair of gaunt Waler horses, arrived to take them to the maharajah. On the box seat were two liveried coachmen, while behind rode the syces.

As they rolled along the red road through the cantonments they overtook Baboo Mohun Dass plugging along in an elephantine strut beneath a gaudy green umbrella. When they drew abreast he salaamed and said: "Masters, kind gentlemen!" The coachman drew the horses to a walk, and the baboo, keeping pace, asked: "Will you, kind gentlemans, if you see a vehicle, please send to meet me? I have commanded that one be sent for me, but a humbugging fellow betray my interest, so I am pedestrian." His big, bovine eyes rested hungrily on the capacious, leather-cushioned seat alluringly vacant in the chariot.

"All right, baboo!" Then Swinton raised his eyes to the coachman, who was looking over his shoulder, and ordered: "Hurry!"

The big-framed, alien horses, always tired in that climate, were whipped up, and a rising cloud of dust hid the carriage from Baboo Dass' glaring eyes.

Indignation drove a shower of perspiration through the baboo's greasy pores. He turned toward the sal-covered hills, and in loud resentment appealed to Kali, the dispenser of cholera, beseeching the goddess to punish the sahibs.

Baboo Dass was startled by a voice, a soft, feminine voice, that issued from a carriage that had approached unheard. He deserted the evil goddess and turned to the woman in the carriage. She was attractive; many gold bangles graced her slender arms; on her fingers were rings that held in setting divers stones, even diamonds. A large mirror ring indicated that she was coquettish, and yet a certain modesty told that she was not from Amritsar Bazaar.

Her voice had asked: "What illness troubles you, baboo?"

Now, as he salaamed, she offered him a ride into Darpore town.

Baboo Dass climbed into the vehicle, expressing his gratitude, explaining, as they bowled along, that he was a man of affairs, having business with the maharajah that morning, and that by mischance he had been forced to walk. In reciprocal confidence the lady explained she was the wife of a Marwari banker.

The baboo's resentment welled up afresh; also a little boasting might impress his pleasing companion. "To think, lady," he said, "last night we are roystering together, those two sahibs, who are lords, and me, who am a man of importance in Hamilton Company, and now they are coming in the maharajah's carriage and they pass me as if I am some low-caste fellow in their own country that works with his hands."

"That is the way of the foreigners," the Marwari woman answered softly; "they will put the yoke on your neck and say 'Thank you.' On their lips are the words of friendship, in their hand is the knotted whip."

"When they see I am important man with his highness they will not feel so elegant."

"I will take you to the drawbridge where it crosses the moat to the gate in the big wall," the Marwari woman offered.

"It is undignified for a man of my importance to approach the palace on foot," declared Baboo Dass.

The Marwari woman smiled, her stained red lips parting mischievously. "But also, Baboo Dass, it would not be proper for you to arrive with me. I have a way to arrange it that will save both our good standing. We will drive to my place of banking, then my carriage will take you to the palace, and the sahibs will not see you walk in."

The baboo was delighted. In India opulent people did not call on rajahs afoot; also the carriage was a prosperous-looking vehicle, and the two country-bred horses were well fed.

As they neared the palace, that lay hidden behind massive brick walls, they left the main thoroughfare, and, after divers turnings, entered a street so narrow that their vehicle passed the mud-walled shops with difficulty. A sharp turn, and the carriage stopped in a little court.

Four burly natives rose up from the mud step on which they had been sitting, and, at a word from the Marwari woman, seized her companion. The baboo struggled and sought to cry out for help, but the lady's soft hand deftly twisted a handkerchief into his mouth, hushing his clamour. He was torn from the carriage none too gently, hustled through an open door, and clapped into a chair, where he was firmly held by his four attendants.

A little old man seized a cup wherein was a piece of soap, and with his brush beat up a lather, saying softly: "Do not struggle, baboo; it is for your good. These fevers burn the liver and affect the brain; in no time I will have taken the accursed fever from your head."

Then with a scissors he nimbly clipped the profuse locks of the baboo's head, the latter, having managed to spit out the handkerchief, protesting that it was an outrage, that he was a jewel merchant from Calcutta waiting upon the rajah.

"Yes, yes," the little man told the four stalwarts as he whipped at the lather, "it is even so; his wife spoke of a strange fancy he was possessed of that he was a dealer in jewels, whereas he is but a clerk. And no wonder, with a fever in the blood and with a crown of hair such as a mountain sheep wears."

Then he lathered the scalp, stroked the razor on the skin of his forearm, and proceeded to scrape.

The baboo yelled and struggled; the razor took a nick out of his scalp. At last the blue-grey poll, bearing many red nicks, was clear of hair, and he was released. His first thought was of the jewel. His searching palm fell flat against his chest; it was gone! With a cry of despair he made for the door; the carriage had vanished.

Whirling about, he accused his captors of the theft. The barber, to soothe the fever-demented one, said: "Of a surety, baboo, your wife has taken the jewel because it was an evil stone that but increased the fever that was in your blood."

The plot dawned upon Baboo Dass. He flung out the door and made for the palace.

"It does not matter," the barber said; "his wife is a woman of business, and this morning when she spoke of bringing the sick man she paid in advance." He put in the palm of each of the four a rupee, adding: "The afflicted man will now go home and sleep, his head being cooler, and the fever will go out of his blood, for so the doctor told his wife, who is a woman of method."

---

Chapter IV

Prince Ananda had welcomed Lord Victor and Captain Swinton on a wide, black-marble verandah from which two marvellously carved doors gave them entrance through a lordly hall to a majestic reception chamber.

"This is the 'Cavern of Lies,'" Ananda said, with a smile, "for here come all who wish to do up the governor—and he's pliant. That, for instance"—he pointed to a billowy sea of glass prisms which hid the ceiling—countless chandeliers jostling each other like huge snowflakes.

"No end of an idea, I call it—fetching!" Lord Victor acclaimed.

Prince Ananda laughed. "The governor went into a big china shop in Calcutta one day when Maharajah Jobungha was there. The two maharajahs are not any too friendly, I may say, and when the governor was told Jobungha had already bought something he took a fancy to, he pointed to the other side of the store, which happened to be the lot of glass junk you see above, and told the shop manager to send the whole thing to Darpore. Ah, here comes the maharajah!" the prince added.

At the far end of the reception room heavy silk curtains had been parted by a gold-and-crimson uniformed servant, who announced in a rich, full voice: "His highness, the Maharajah of Darpore! Salaam, all who are in his noble presence!"

A king had stepped into the room; a reawakened, bronze-skinned Roman gladiator was coming down the centre of the room, his head thrown up like some lordly animal. He was regal in the splendour of his robes. Above the massive torso of the king, with its velvet jacket buttoned by emeralds, the glossy black beard, luxuriantly full, as fine as a woman's hair, was drawn up over the ears, its Rembrandt black throwing into relief a rose tint that flushed the olive-skinned cheek. Deep in the shadow of a massive brow were brilliant, fearless eyes that softened as they fell on Ananda's face. In the gold-edged head-dress a clasp of gold held blue-white diamonds that gleamed like a cascade of falling water. A short sword was thrust in a silk sash, its ruby-studded hilt glinting like red wine.

When Prince Ananda presented Swinton and Lord Gilfain, the latter as the son of Earl Craig, the maharajah's face lighted up; he held out his hand impulsively with simple dignity, saying in Hindustani: "Sit down, sahibs. The young lord's father was my brother; at court his ear heard my heartbeat."

A turmoil of vocal strife fell upon their ears from without. The baboo had arrived.

"Oh, murder!" Swinton groaned, recognising the Dass voice demanding admittance.

The rabble sound was coming down the hall as ineffectually two attendants clung to the ponderous Bengali, mad with his affliction. The words: "The maharajah's jewel is stolen!" caused Prince Ananda to dart to the door. Seeing him, the servants released their grasp of Baboo Dass, and the prince, not daring to leave the king's presence, allowed the half-crazed man to enter the room, where he groveled before the maharajah, bumping his forehead to the marble floor and clawing at the royal feet.

When, at the king's command, the baboo rose, Lord Victor clapped his hand over his mouth to smother his mirth, gasping: "Oh, my aunt! That head!"

Like the rattle of a machine gun, Baboo Dass poured out his tale of wo. When he had finished, the maharajah said calmly: "It doesn't matter," and with a graceful sweep of his hand suggested that Baboo Dass might retire.

Once more the baboo's voice bubbled forth.

"Begone!" And the handsome face of the maharajah took on a tigerish look. For a second it was terrifying; the change was electric. Baboo Dass recoiled and fled.

Then the maharajah's voice was soft, like a rich-toned organ, as he said in Hindustani: "India has two afflictions—famine and the Bengali."

Beside the rajah was a magnificently carved teakwood chair, a padlocked gold chain across the arms indicating that it was not to be used. The carving was marvellous, each side representing a combat between a tiger and a huge python, the graceful curve of whose form constituted the arm. At a question of interest from Gilfain, Prince Ananda spoke in Urdu to his father. The latter nodded, and Ananda, crossing to a silver cabinet, unlocked it and returned bearing a gold casket, upon the top of which was inset a large pearl. Within the casket was a half-smoked cigarette.

As if carried away by the sight of this the maharajah, speaking in Hindustani, which he saw Swinton understood, said: "That cigarette was smoked by the Prince of Wales sitting in this chair which has since been locked. He shook hands with me, sahib; we were friends; he, the son of the empress, and I a king, who was also a son to the empress."

His voice had grown rich and soft and full; the fierce, black, warlike rajput eyes were luminous as though tears lay behind. The maharajah remained silent while Swinton translated this to Lord Victor. "Ah, sahibs, if kings could sit down together and explain, there would not be war nor distrust nor oppression. When your father"—he turned his face toward Gilfain—"was a councillor in Calcutta, close to the viceroy, I had honour; when I crossed the bridge from Howra as many guns would speak welcome from Fort William as did for Maharajah Jobungha. But now I go no more to Calcutta."

If Swinton had been troubled in his analysis of the prince's motives and character, he now swam in a sea of similar tribulation. The maharajah was big. Was he capable of gigantic subtlety, such as his words would veil? He could see that Prince Ananda was abstracted; his face had lost its jaunty, debonair look; worry lines mapped its surface. The loss of the sapphire had hit Ananda hard, but if the robbery had affected the king, he was subtle in a remarkable sense, for he gave no sign.

The maharajah now rose, clapped his hands, and when a servant appeared gave a rapid order. The servant disappeared, and almost immediately returned with a silver salver upon which were two long gold chains of delicate workmanship and an open bottle of attar of rose. The maharajah placed a chain about the neck of each sahib, and sprinkled them with the attar, saying, with a trace of a smile curving his handsome lips: "Sometimes, sahibs, this ceremony is just etiquette, but to-day my heart pains with pleasure because the son of my friend is here." He held out his hand, adding: "Prince Ananda must see that you have the best our land affords."

---

Chapter V

Swinton was glad when he saw his dogcart turn into the compound to take him to the keddah sahib's for tiffin. Lord Victor had been hypnotised by the splendour of Maharajah Darpore; he went around the bungalow giving vent to ebullitions of praise. "My aunt, but the old Johnnie is a corker! And all the tommyrot one hears at home about another mutiny brewing! Damn it, Swinton, the war chiefs who want every bally Englishman trained to carry a gun like a Prussian ought to be put in the Tower!"

An hour of this sort of thing, and with a silent whoop of joy the captain clambered into his dogcart and sped away, as he bowled along his mind troubled by the maharajah angle of the espionage game.

After tiffin with the major, and out on the verandah, where they were clear of the servant's ears, Swinton asked: "Who is the mysterious lady that rides a grey Persian?"

He was conscious of a quick turn of Finnerty's head; a half-checked movement of the hand that held a lighted match to a cheroot, and as the keddah sahib proceeded to finish the ignition he described the woman and her flight over the brick wall.

"She's Doctor Boelke's niece; she has been here about a month," Finnerty answered, when Captain Swinton had finished.

"I wonder why she risked her neck to avoid me, major?"

"Well, she's German for one thing, and I suppose she knows there's a growing tension between the two peoples."

Captain Swinton allowed a smile to surprise his always set face. "Do you know why I am here, major; that is, have you had advice?"

"Yes," the major answered.

"Very good," Captain Swinton declared. "I'll give you some data. Lord Victor's father, Earl Craig, is under-secretary to India. There was some extraordinary jumble of a state document intended for the Viceroy of India. Whether its misleading phraseology was carelessness or traitorous work on the part of a clerk, nobody knows, but it read that the sircar was to practically conscript Indians—Mussulman and Hindu alike—to fight against the Turks and Germans in the war that we all feel is about to come. This paper bore the official seal; had even been signed. Then Earl Craig's copy of it disappeared—was stolen from Lord Victor, who was acting as his secretary. A girl, with whom the young man was infatuated, was supposed to have taken it for the Prussians for use in India. The girl disappeared, and Lord Victor was sent out here for fear he would get in communication with her again. Neither Lord Victor nor the earl knows I am a secret-service man. Maharajah Darpore is marked 'low visibility' in the viceroy's book of rajah rating, and, as Earl Craig wanted an Anglo-Indian as a companion to his son, this seemed a good chance to investigate quietly. There's another little matter," the captain continued quietly as he drew from his pocket a sapphire in the rough.

"Where the devil did you get that, captain? I thought that old professor pirate had stolen it," Finnerty gasped.

"That's not the stone you lost last night, major."

Finnerty looked at Swinton incredulously as the latter handed him the sapphire, for it was exactly like the stolen stone, even to the inscription.

"Let me explain," Captain Swinton said. "Some time since one Akka, a hillman, came down out of Kululand into Simla leading a donkey that carried two bags of sapphires in the rough. Nobody knew what they were, so, of course, he found it hard to sell his blue stones. That night the stones disappeared, and Akka was found in the morning at the bottom of an abyss with a jade-handled knife sticking in his back. He must have dropped over the rocks so quickly the killer hadn't time to withdraw his knife. About Akka's neck, hidden under his dirty felt coat, was hung this sapphire, and it was given to me, as I was put on the case. I took a trip up into Kululand with a hillman who claimed to have come in with Akka as guide. I got a very fine bharal head—almost a record pair of horns—and a bullet in my left leg that still gives me a limp at times, but as to sapphires in the rough I never saw another until last night."

Finnerty laughed. "India is one devil of a place for mystery."

Swinton related the incidents of the night before, and Baboo Dass' story of the three sapphires, adding: "Of course that's Hindu mythology up to date, the attributing of miraculous powers of good and evil to those blue stones."

Finnerty shifted uneasily in his chair; then, with a little, apologetic smile, said: "I'm getting less dogmatic about beliefs and their trimmings—absolute superstition, I suppose—and if a sapphire, or anything else, were associated in my mind with disaster I'd chuck the devilish thing in the river."

"At any rate, major, the main thing, so far as my mission is concerned, is that if Prince Ananda happens to get possession of the three sapphires every Buddhist—which means all the fighting Nepalese—will believe the expected Buddha has arrived."

"By gad! And the three sapphires are in Darpore—the one that was stolen from me last night, the one stolen from Baboo Dass, and this one."

"Prince Ananda has yours; I saw Boelke purposely tip over that table. But who stole the one from the baboo I don't know; it couldn't have been a raj agent, for it belonged to the maharajah."

"Where did they come from?" Finnerty queried.

"Yours, of course, was on Burra Moti's neck, and she must have been attached to some temple; Akka probably murdered some lama who had this one about his neck; where Prince Ananda got the third one I don't know."

"By Jove!" Finnerty ejaculated. "It was a hillman that Moti put her foot on. He had been sent to steal that bell, as he couldn't carry the elephant."

"Here's another thing," Captain Swinton said. "In the United States there has been arrested a clique of Hindus who have sold a great quantity of rare old jewels, gold ornaments, and sapphires in the rough. Machine guns and ammunition were bought with the money obtained, and quite a consignment is somewhere on the road now between China and India."

"Great Scott! Up this way—to come in through Nepal?"

"The stuff was shipped from San Francisco to Hongkong, and though the British government had every road leading out of that city watched, they never got track of it. Our men there think it was transshipped in Hongkong harbour and is being brought around to India by water."

"Does the government think the maharajah is mixed up in this?"

"I'm here to find out. He mystified me to-day. Gilfain thinks he's magnificent—as natural as a child. But he's too big for me to judge; I can't docket him like I can Ananda. He was as regally disinterested over the disappearance of that sapphire as the Duke of Buckingham was when his famous string of black pearls broke and scattered over the floor at the Tuileries; but the prince was seething."

Finnerty waved his cheroot in the direction of the palace hill. "The trouble is up there. Ananda is wily; he's like a moon bear he has there in a cage that smiles and invites you to tickle the back of his neck; then, before you know it, the first joint of a finger is gone."

A little lull in the talk between Swinton and Finnerty was broken by a turmoil that wound its volcanic force around the bungalow from the stables. Finnerty sprang to his feet as a pair of Rampore hounds reached the drive, galloping toward a tall native at whose heels came a big hunting dog.

"Faith, I was just in time," Finnerty said as he led the two hounds to the verandah, a finger under each collar; "they'd soon have chewed up that Banjara's dog."

The Rampores were very like an English greyhound that had been shaved; they were perhaps coarser, a little heavier in the jaw. A panting keeper now appeared, and the dogs were leashed.

Seeing this, the native approached, and in a deep, sombre voice said: "Salaam, Sahib Bahadur!" Having announced himself, the Banjara came up the steps and squatted on his heels; the long male-bamboo staff he carried betokened he was a herdsman.

"What do you want, Lumbani?" Finnerty queried.

"Yes, sahib, I am a Banjara of the Lumbani caste. The sahib who is so strong is also wise in the ways of my people."

"I wonder what this will cost me in wasted time," the major lamented in English. "I judge his soul is weighted with matters of deep import." Then, in Hindustani: "That's a true Banjara dog, Lumbani."

"Yes, sahib, he is one of that great breed. Also in the sahib's hands are two thoroughbred Rampores; they be true dogs of the Tazi breed, the breed that came from Tazi who slept by the bedside of Nawab Faiz Mahomed five generations since. The sahib must be in high favour with the Nawab of Rampore, for such dogs are only given in esteem; they are not got as one buys bullocks."

"What is it you want?" queried Finnerty.

The Banjara looked at Swinton; he coughed; then he loosened the loin cloth that pinched at his lean stomach.

"This dog, sahib—Banda is the noble creature's name—has the yellow eyes that Krishna is pleased with; that is a true sign of a Banjara." He held out his hand, and Banda came up the steps to crouch at his side.

At this intrusion of the native's dog, the patrician Rampores sprang the full length of their leash with all the ferocity that is inherent in this breed. A pariah dog would have slunk away in affright, but the Banjara's yellow eyes gleamed with fighting defiance; he rose on his powerful, straight legs, and his long fangs shone between curled lips.

"Good stuff!" Finnerty commented, and to his groom added: "Take the hounds away. He's a sure-enough Banjara, Swinton," he resumed in English. "Look at that terrier cast in the face, as though there were a streak of Irish or Airedale in him."

Indeed, the dog was a beauty, with his piercing bright eyes set in the long, flat head that carried punishing jaws studded with strong teeth. The neck was long, rising from flat, sloping shoulders, backed up by well-rounded ribs and arched loins leading to well-developed quarters. The chest was narrow and deep, and the flanks tucked up.

"They're game, too," Finnerty declared. He turned to the owner. "Will Banda tackle a panther?"

"He and his sons have been in at the death of more than one; they will follow a leopard into a cave."

"How much will you take for him?" Swinton asked.

The native looked his scorn. He turned to Finnerty as though his sarcasm might be wasted upon this sahib who thought a Banjara would sell one of the famous breed. "Perhaps the strange sahib will go to Umar Khan, at Shahpur, and buy one of the Salt Range horses—a mare of the Unmool breed. When he has I will sell him Banda."

Swinton laughed, and, taking a rupee from his pocket, passed it to the native, saying: "Food for Banda. The sarcasm was worth it," he added in English, "an Unmool mare being above price."

"All this talk of the dogs," Finnerty declared, "is that our friend has something on his mind. He was studying you, but you've broken the ice with your silver hammer."

The native salaamed, tucked the rupee in his loin cloth, and the questioning, furtive look that had been in his eyes disappeared. He turned to the major:

"Huzoor, I am a man of many buffaloes, robbing none, going in peace with my herds up into the hills in the hot weather when the new grass comes green and strong from the ashes of the fire that has been set out in the spring, and coming back to the plains when the weather is cold."

"Where is your country?" Finnerty queried.

"Where my grain bags and my cooking pots are is my country, my fathers holding that all lands were theirs to travel in. For fifteen years in this moon have I remained down yonder by the river with my herd, just where the heavy kagar grass makes good hunting for tiger, and always on good terms of friendship with him."

"Gad! I thought so," Finnerty ejaculated. "We'll get news of a kill in a minute."

"If we met in the path—that is, your slave and tiger—I would say: 'Khudawand, pass here, for the thorns in the bush are bad for thy feet,' and if tiger was inclined he would pass, or he would turn. Often lying on the broad back of a buffalo as we crossed where the muck is deep I would see tiger lying in wait for pig or chinkara, and I would call, 'Kudawand, good hunting!' Then what think you, sahib, if after years of such living in peace, this depraved outcast, begotten of a hyena, makes the kill of a cow?"

"A tiger, like a woman, is to be watched," Finnerty declared, quoting a tribal adage.

"And all in the way of evil temper, sahib, for the cow lies yonder with no mark beyond a broken neck, while in the jungles rajah tiger is growling abuse. A young cow, sahib, in full milk. For the sake of God, sahib, come and slay the brute."

The Banjara had worked himself into a passion; tears of rage stood in his eyes. "And to think that I had saved the life of this depraved one," he wailed.

"You saved the tiger's life, Lumbani?"

"Surely, sahib. Of the Banjaras some are Mussulmans—outcasts that lot are—and some are Hindus, as is your servant, so we are careful in the matter of a kill, lest we slay one of our own people who has returned. This slayer of my cow always took pleasure in being near the buffalo. Why, huzoor, I have seen him up in the hills looking as though he had felt lonesome without the herd. Noting that, it was in my mind that perhaps a Banjara herdsman had been born again as a tiger. That is why I saved his life from the red dogs of the jungle; nothing can stand before them when they are many. From the back of a buffalo I saw one of these jungle devils standing on high ground, beckoning, with his tail stuck up like a flag, to others of his kind."

"I've seen that trick," Finnerty commented.

"The tiger had been caught in a snare of the Naga people as he came to partake of a goat they had tied up, as he thought, for his eating; the sahib knows of what like a snare is to retain a tiger. A strong-growing bamboo, young and with great spring, had been bent down and held by a trip so that tiger, putting his paw in the noose, it sprang up, and there he was dancing around like a Nautch girl on the rope that held his wrist, being a loose bamboo too big for a grip of his teeth; it spun around on the rope. The red dogs, hearing his roars, knew he was trapped, and were gathering to settle an old dispute as to the eating of a kill. They would have made an end of him. A mongoose kills a cobra because he is too quick for the snake, and they were too quick for the tiger; so, taking pity upon him as an old friend, with my staff I drove them off; then, climbing into the bamboos, cut the rope."

"Did you tackle them alone, Lumbani?"

"Surely, sahib; jungle dogs run from a man that is not afraid."

Finnerty's shikarri, Mahadua the Ahnd, who had come to the verandah, now said: "The tiger this herder of buffalo tells of is 'Pundit Bagh;' he is well known to all."

"And you never brought word that we might make the hunt," Finnerty reproached.

"Sahib, we Ahnd people when we know a tiger is possessed of a spirit do not seek to destroy that one."

"Why is he called Pundit? Is he the ghost of a teacher?"

"This is the story of Pundit Bagh, sahib: Long ago there was a pundit that had a drug that would change him into an animal, and if he took another it would change him back again."

The Ahnd's little bead eyes watched his master's face furtively.

"One day as the pundit and his wife were walking through the jungle a leopard stepped out in the path to destroy them. He gave his wife one powder to hold, saying: 'I will take this one and change into a tiger, and when I have frightened the leopard away give me the other that I may change back to myself.' But the poor woman when she saw her tiger husband spring on the leopard dropped the powder and ran away; so the pundit has remained a tiger, and is so cunning that it will be small use to make the hunt."

"But coming and going as he must, Mahadua, how know you it is the same one?"

"By the spectacles of the pundit, sahib; there is but one tiger that wears them."

Finnerty laughed. "Does he never drop them, little man?"

"Sahib, they are but black rings around his eyes—such as are on the back of a cobra's head—like unto the horn glasses the pundit wore."

"Baboo Dass declared the tiger that peeped in his window wore spectacles; it must have been this same legendary chap," Swinton remarked.

An old man came running up the road, between its walls of pipal trees, beating his mouth with the palm of his hand in a staccato lament. At the verandah he fell to his knees and clasped Finnerty's feet, crying: "Oh, sahib, Ramia has been mauled by a tiger the size of an elephant, and from the fields all have run away. Come, sahib, and slay him."

"Pundit Bagh keeps busy," the major said; "but by the time we make all our arrangements it will be near evening, and if we wound him we can't follow up in the dark. Go back and keep watch on the tiger; to-morrow we will make the hunt," he told the old man.

To the Hindu to-morrow meant never; when people did not mean to do things they said "to-morrow." Perhaps the sahib was afraid; perhaps he had presented the tiger in too fearful a light, so he hedged. "Come, protector of the poor, come even now, for we are afraid to go into the grass for Ramia. The tiger is not big—he is old and lame; one ball from the sahib's gun will kill him. Indeed, sahib, he is an old tiger without teeth."

Finnerty laughed; but the Banjara flamed into wrath at this trifling. "Son of filth! Skinner of dead cattle! Think'st thou the sahib is afraid? And did an old, toothless tiger kill a buffalo of mine? Begone! When the sahib goes to the hunt, he goes."

The Ahnd now said: "Have patience, man of buffaloes; perhaps another, a leopard, is the guilty one. Pundit Bagh acts not thus; in fact, in the little village of Picklapara, which he guards, more than once when the villagers have made offering to him of a goat has he driven away a leopard that had carried off an old woman or a child."

"Fool! Does a leopard break the neck of a bullock? Does he not slit the throat for the blood? And always does not a leopard first tear open the stomach and eat the heart and the liver? I say it was the tiger," and the Banjara glared at Mahadua.

"It was a small, old tiger," the Hindu declared again.

"Seems a bit of luck; evidently 'Stripes' is inviting trouble," Swinton observed.

"You'll want Lord Victor to have a chance at this first tiger, I suppose, captain?"

"If not too much trouble."

"I fancy our best way will be to make the hunt from elephants," Finnerty said musingly. "We can beat him out of the grass." He spoke to the old Hindu sternly: "Tell me the truth. Is Ramia still with the tiger?"

The Hindu blinked his eyes in fear. "It may be, huzoor, that he ran away to his home, but there is a big cut in his shoulder where the beast smote him."

"Sahib," the Banjara advised, "if the Presence will go on foot, even as he does many times, I will go with him, carrying the spare gun; the tiger knows me well and will wait till we are able to pull his whiskers."

"These Banjaras haven't a bit of fear," Finnerty commented. "Is it good ground for elephants?" he asked.

The Banjara's face clouded. "Sahib, the elephants make much noise. Perhaps the tiger will escape; perhaps if he comes out in an evil way of mind the elephant will run away."

"Well, Swinton, if you'll ride back and get Gilfain—what guns have you?"

"I've a Certus Cordite and my old .450 Express."

"Good as any. Soft-nosed bullets?"

"Yes, I have some."

"Well, use them; we'll be pretty close, and you'll want a stopping bullet if the old chap charges. What's Gilfain got?"

"A battery—a little of everything, from a .22 Mannlicher up to a double-barrel, ten-bore Paradox."

"Tell him to bring the Paradox—it won't take as much sighting as the rifle; Gilfain has probably done considerable grouse shooting. He's almost sure to miss his first tiger; nerves go to pieces generally. I'll get two elephants—you and Lord Victor in one howdah, and I'll take Mahadua in the other."

"If you've got a bullet-proof howdah I'd use it, major; I've seen that young man do some bally fool things."

"I wish I could take Burra Moti," Finnerty said regretfully; "she's a good hunting elephant, but without her bell I couldn't depend on her."

"Use the stone I've got for a clapper."

"No, thanks."

"Why not? It will be under your eye all the time. You can take it off at night and put it in your box. Besides, nobody will suspect that there's another sapphire in the bell."

"I won't have time to have a goldsmith beat the bell into shape to-day."

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Chapter VI

Swinton drove back to get Lord Victor. When his two elephants were ready, Finnerty, with the Banjara marching at his side, took the road that, halfway to Darpore City, forked off into a wide stretch of dusty plain that was cut here and there by small streams and backwaters; these latter places growing a heavy rush grass that made good cover for both the tiger and his prey—swamp deer and pig.

Swinton and Lord Victor were at the fork in the road, the latter attired in a wondrous Bond Street outfit. "Awfully good of you, old chap," he bubbled. "Devilish quick work, I call it; I'll feel like cabling the governor in the morning if I bag that man-killer."

"If I had Burra Moti under me, I'd think that we as good as had the tiger padded," the major declared; "but I don't know anything about my mount to-day. I don't know whether he'll stand a charge or bolt. Keep your feet under those iron straps; they're the stirrups, Lord Victor."

"Right-o."

They went down off the hill, with its big rhododendron trees, and out onto the wide plain, directed by the Banjara. In an hour they came to a small stream fringed by green rushes; along this for half a mile, and the Banjara pointed with his bamboo to a heavy, oval clump of grass, saying: "The outcast of the jungle is in that cover, sahib."

"Now this is the plan," Finnerty outlined to Swinton. "Stripes is evidently pretty well fed, and hasn't been shot at, so he's cheeky. He won't leave that grass in this hot sun unless he has to—that's tiger in general—but this cuss may have some variations. He's quite aware that we're here. Hark back on this road that we've come by till you reach that old, dry river bed, and go down that till you come to a nala that runs out of this big patch of grass. I'll wait till you're posted there, then I'll beat in slowly through the grass from this side, not making much fuss so that Stripes won't think I'm driving him. When he breaks cover from the other end he'll make for that nala. Don't shoot till you're sure of your shot; just behind the shoulder, if possible, but raking forward—that's the spot."

"Sahib," and the Banjara pointed with his bamboo to where a small bird was circling and darting with angry cries above the canes.

"Yes, that's where he is," Finnerty declared; "that's a bulbul—pugnacious little cuss—trying to drive Stripes away."

Finnerty waited until he was quite sure Swinton and his companion would be in position; then at a command his mahout prodded the elephant with a hooked spear, crying: "Dut-dut, king of all elephants, dut-dut!"

With a fretful squeak of objection the elephant, curling his trunk between his tusks for its safety, forged ponderously ahead. Like a streamer from the topmast of a yacht the bulbul, weaving back and forth, showed Finnerty the tiger was on the move. The major did not hurry him, knowing that if pressed too close he might break back, thinking he was being driven into a trap.

The Banjara, anxious to see the finish of the beast that had slain his cow, worked his way along the grass patch, watching the bulbul and Finnerty's howdah, which just showed above the canes. As the tiger stealthily slipped away from the advancing elephant other jungle dwellers in the kagar grass moved forward to escape from the killer. Knowledge of this movement of game came scenting the wind that smote on the Banjara hound's nostrils. He was a hunting dog; his very living depended on it. He saw a honey badger slip from the reeds and disappear in a hole in a bank; he caught a glimpse of a mouse deer; and all the time his master was shaping his course and timing it by the bulbul. Where there were so many small dwellers of the jungle afoot there surely would be some eating, so the hound slipped into the cane and drifted ahead of the tiger.

The wind that had been blowing across the grass now took a slant and came riffling the feathered tops of the heavy cane from the opposite point, carrying a taint of the Gilfain party.

The tiger, who had been slowly working his way in that direction, stopping every few feet to look back over his shoulder, threw up his head and read the warning message—the sahib scent that was so different from that of the coconut-oiled natives.

The sun, slanting in between the reeds, threw shadow streaks of gold and brown and black. The tiger knew what that meant—that with his synthetic-striped skin he was all but invisible at ten paces. He circled to the left, and when he had found a thick tangle of cane that promised cover, burrowed into it like a jungle pig. With his head flat to his forepaws, hiding his white ruff—so like the chin whisker of an old man—he easily might be passed without discovery.

The bulbul eyed this performance thoughtfully; a tiger lying down for a sleep was something not to waste time over. With a little tweak of triumph he settled for an instant on the bare arm of a leafless, leper-marked dalbergia tree; then, catching sight of something he disliked even more than a tiger, and still in a warlike mood, he continued on with the dog.

When Gilfain's mahout pointed with his goad to the bulbul's squawking approach, the Englishman cocked both barrels of his Paradox and waited.

The dog gradually worked up to the edge of the cane, and lay down just within its cover, ready for a sudden spring on any small animal that might come ahead of the tiger.

"There is the tiger, just within the tall grass. He has seen us and will not come out," the mahout advised.

"What shall we do, captain?" Lord Victor asked. "Go in and beat him out?"

"No; he'll break back or take to the side for it. If we wait till Finnerty beats up, the tiger will make a dash across to that other big stretch of heavy grass on our right. There's a game path between the two, and he'll stick to that."

"But I can't hit him on the gallop—not in a vital spot."

"If you get a chance at him before he breaks cover let go; if you don't bowl him over I'll take a pot shot."

Suddenly Lord Victor, quivering with excitement, his heart beating a tattoo that drowned something Swinton whispered, drew a bead on a patch of rufous fur that showed between the quivering reeds.

Back in the canes sounded a squealing trumpet note from Finnerty's elephant. With his keen scent he had discovered the tiger. Their elephant answered the call, and Lord Victor, fearing the animal his gun covered would break back, pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, and by chance, his aim was good.

A howl of canine agony followed the report, and the Banjara's dog pitched headfirst out of the cover, sat up on his haunches, looked at them in a stupid, dazed way, then raised his head and howled from the pain of a red-dripping wound in his shoulder.

Pandemonium broke loose. Down in the cane there was the coughing roar of a charging tiger; the squeal of a frightened elephant; the bark of a gun; and out to one side the harsh voice of the Banjara calling, the growing cadence of his tones suggesting he was approaching with alacrity.

Lord Victor, a presentiment of ribald retribution because of his too excellent marksmanship flashing through his mind, sprang to his feet just as the elephant, excited by all these wondrous noises, commenced a ponderous buck; that is to say, an attempt to bolt. At the first stride a huge foot went into the soft, black cotton soil, and the young nobleman, thrown off his balance, dove headfirst out of the howdah. The soft muck saved him from a broken neck; it also nearly smothered him. Eyes, nose, mouth full—it was squirted in large quantities down his spine.

Swinton started to swear, angered by the mess Lord Victor had made of things; but when that young man pulled himself like a mud turtle out of the ooze and stood up, the reproach trailed off into a spasm of choking laughter. But the Banjara arriving on the scene checked this hilarity; indeed it was probably Gilfain's grotesque appearance that saved his life.

Finnerty, too, hove hugely onto the scene, a little rivulet of blood streaming from his elephant's trunk. "Were there two tigers?" he called as he emerged from the cane.

His circling eye fell upon the black-mucked nobleman. "Gad, man, what's happened?" he queried, clapping a hand to his mouth to smother his laughter. Then he saw the dog and its owner, and hastily dropping from the howdah pushed over beside Lord Victor, saying: "Get back on your elephant."

"Look, huzoor!" And the Banjara spread his big palm in a denunciatory way toward the dying dog. "I, having had my buffalo slain by a tiger that I had befriended, and bringing the word to the sahib that he might obtain a cherished skin, now have this accursed trial thrust upon me. Why should the young of the sahibs go forth to do a man's work, huzoor?"

"It was an accident," the major replied. "Come to the bungalow to-night and you will be given the price of two dogs."

"Better make it the price of five dogs, major," Swinton called.

"I'll pay for a whole pack of hounds; I'll stock a kennel for him. I was too devilish quick on the trigger." Lord Victor emptied the black muck from his ears.

The Banjara, not understanding English, looked suspiciously at Finnerty, who hedged: "The sahib says you will be given the price of three dogs."

"Sahib, how shall we fix the price of Banda, that is a Banjara? Such are not sold. I have dogs that are just dogs, and if I had known that this sahib was young in the ways of the hunt I would have brought them for his practice. And was there a kill of tiger, or did the sahib also shoot somebody's dog?"

"Be careful!" Finnerty took a step toward the ironical one, who backed up. Then the major said in a mollifying way: "We'll kill the tiger to-morrow."

Muttering "Kul, kul—it is always to-morrow for a difficult work," the herdsman took under his arm his wounded dog and strode angrily away.

"Too devilish bad! He's fond of that cur," Lord Victor said mournfully.

"I had a corking good chance at Stripes," Finnerty offered, "but I muddled it when my elephant almost stepped on the smooth old cuss, who was lying doggo; he got up with a roar of astonishment and took a swipe at the beast's trunk. I was holding the ten-bore, loaded with shot to fire across the cane should Stripes try to break back, and, rattled by his sudden charge, I blazed away, peppering him with bird shot. So, you see, Gilfain, we're all liable to blunder in this game. We'll go back now and take up the hunt to-morrow."

As they went back Mahadua put his hand on Finnerty's foot and asked: "Did you see the spectacles on Pundit Bagh?"

Finnerty nodded, for he had seen the black rings when the tiger lifted his head.

"And did sahib put down the ball gun and take up the one that is for birds and shoot over Pundit's head because he, too, thinks that it is the spirit of a man?"

"It is not good to offend the gods, Mahadua, if one is to live with them, so we will save the killing of the pundit for the young sahib who soon goes back to Inglistan, where the anger of the gods cannot follow him," Finnerty answered solemnly.

In the other howdah, Lord Victor, in whose mind rankled the dog's shooting, brought up in extenuation this same matter of Finnerty's confessed blunder, for he had not caught the chivalry of the major's lie. "I didn't miss like the major, anyway," he began.

"No, you didn't—unfortunately." Swinton was holding a cheroot to a lighted match.

"Really, captain, I wasn't so bad. Fancy an old hunter like him getting fuzzled and banging at a tiger with bird shot."

Swinton shot a furtive look at the thin, long-nosed face that was still piebald with patches of caked lava; then he turned his eyes away and gazed out over the plain with its coloured grass and wild indigo scrub. A pair of swooping jheel birds cut across, piping shrilly: "Did you do it, did you do it!"

"That'll be a corking fine yarn for the club when I get back," Lord Victor added.

"And will you tell them about the dog you shot?"

"Rather! I didn't miss, and the major did."

Swinton turned his brown eyes on the cheerful egoist. "Gilfain, you're young, therefore not hopeless."

"I say, old chap, what's the sequel to that moralising?"

"That probably before you get out of India you'll understand just how good a sportsman Major Finnerty is."

Their elephant had been traversing a well-worn path along the bottom of a hollow, and where it left the nala to reach the plain they suddenly came upon the Banjara's encampment. It was a tiny village of dark-coloured tents; to one side of this was a herd of buffalo that had come in from the plain to be milked. They could see the herdsman sitting moodily on his black blanket, and beside him lay the dead dog.

The young Englishman viewed not without alarm the women who wore belts beneath which were stuck old-fashioned pistols and knives. This was the Banjara custom, but the guilty man feared it was a special course of punishment for him.

Finnerty's elephant had overtaken them, and now again the major had to explain that the dog would be paid for three times over, and the tiger would be surely shot on the morrow.

At this promise, a ponderous woman who had the airs of a gipsy queen pointed to the slayer of the dog and said: "Tomorrow the sahib will hunt again!"

The youngsters whooped with joy, catching the satire.

Finnerty ordered the march resumed.

At a turn, Mahadua pointed to some little red-and-white flags that fluttered above a square plinth of clay upon which was the crude painting of a vermilion tiger, saying: "That is the shrine of Pundit Bagh, and if the sahib wishes to slay him, it being necessary in the law of the jungle, it might avert evil if sacrifice were made at the shrine."

"An offering of sweetmeats and silver?"

"No, huzoor. If a goat is purchased by the sahib and a bottle of arrack, Mahadua will take the goat to the shrine, pour the wine on his head till he has bowed three times to the god, and cut his throat so that the blood falls upon the shrine to appease the god. Also I will hang up a foot of the goat."

"What becomes of the goat?" the major asked.

"We will make kabobs of the flesh in the little village yonder, and hold a feast to-night."

Finnerty remained silent, and the Ahnd, to secure a feast, fell back upon tangible arguments. "Sahib, if the villagers are full with feasting and happy because of a little arrack warm in their stomachs, they will not go forth in the early morning with conch horns and axes to beat upon trees to drive Pundit Bagh up into the hills so he may not be slain."

"All right, Mahadua, I'll furnish the goat."

---

PART TWO

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Chapter VII

They had come to where the open plain gave way to patches of jungle and rolling land clad with oak and rhododendron.

The other elephant came alongside, and Finnerty suggested: "We might walk back to my bungalow from here on the chance of getting some game for the pot. There's quail, grey and painted pheasants, green pigeon, and perhaps a peacock—I heard one call up in the jungle. I've got shells loaded with number six for my 10-bore."

"Good!" Swinton answered. "I'm cramped sitting here."

"I'm game," Lord Victor agreed.

Finnerty sent the elephants on, keeping Mahadua, the shikari.

A hot sun was shooting rapidly down close to the horizon, glaring like a flaming dirigible. A nightjar was swooping through the air like a swallow, uttering his weird evening call, "Chyeece, chyeece, chyeece!" as they went through a fringe of dwarf bamboos and up into the shadow of the trees.

Here Finnerty checked, saying: "I'm afraid I'll have to keep in the lead." He lifted a foot, showing a boot made of soft sambar skin with a cotton sole. "Every creature in the jungle is on the qui vive, and for stalking on foot one has to wear these silent creepers."

They had not travelled far along the narrow jungle path that had been worn smooth by the bare feet of natives crossing from village to village when Finnerty stood rigid and beckoned gently with a forefinger; and when they had reached his side they could hear the jabber of monkeys scolding angrily far up the path. Between them and the jungle discord was a large monkey sitting on the limb of a tree, with his face turned away and his long tail hanging down.

Finnerty put a finger to his lips, and, slipping forward with the soft stealthiness of a leopard, undetected by the monkey, who was intent on his companions' squabble, gave the tail a pull. The startled and enraged lungur whisked about and thrust his black face, with its fringe of silver-grey whiskers, forward pugnaciously, pouring out a volley of simian oaths. Seeing a sahib, he stopped with a gasping cry of fright and raced up the tree to take a diving flight to another.

"No end of a funny caper!" Lord Victor laughed.

"No use of keeping quiet now," the major declared; "those noisy devils have stirred up everything. If I were following up a tiger I'd know they had spotted him."

"Behold, sahib!" And Mahadua pointed to the trunk of the rhododendron.

When Finnerty had closely examined some marks about the height of his head in the tree, he said: "Even if our friend Pundit Bagh hasn't an evil spirit, he has a sense of humour; he's sharpened his claws here, and not long ago, either."

"Really? Oh, I say, old top, you're spoofing. No end of a good draw, though." And Lord Victor chuckled.

"I'm in earnest," Finnerty declared crisply. "A rhododendron has a bark like rough sandpaper—it's a favourite whetstone for the cat tribe; and this was a big tiger, as you can judge by the height of the marks."

"There are no pugs on the path, sahib," Mahadua advised, after a search.

"We'll keep close together for a bit," Finnerty advised, starting on.

At Finnerty's elbow the shikari whispered: "Tell the sahibs to talk, so that we come not in a startling way upon the Pundit, that he may escape in peace."

The major conveyed this message to his companions.

For a hundred yards they walked through a jungle that was now silent save for their voices and the slip of their feet on the smooth earth. From a tangle of raspberry bushes ahead a king crow rose in excited flight.

"That's a bird that always gets in a rage when tiger is about," Finnerty explained; "so keep your eye open—the jungle's thick here."

The major had taken a knife from his pocket, and he now ran its sharp blade around two 10-bore shells, just between the wads which separated the powder from the shot, saying, as he slipped first the shot half and next the powder half into his gun: "That is now practically a ball cartridge, for the shot packet will carry like a bullet for a good many yards. I don't think we'll see him, though. Ah! Mistaken!"

A magnificent striped creature slipped without noise from some thick undergrowth twenty yards ahead, and now stood across the path, his huge head turned so that the questioning yellow eyes were full upon them.

"Pundit Bagh—see his spectacles, sahib!" Mahadua gasped.

The curious black oval markings added to the sinister malignity of the unblinking eyes.

"Don't move, you chaps; he's only bluffing. If you weaken he'll charge," Finnerty cautioned.

"I will speak to Pundit Bagh," Mahadua said, stepping a pace forward. "Kudawand, Protector of the Village, go in peace. Did not the sahib this day give you back your life? Did not the sahib put down the rifle and take up the bird gun and shoot in the air over your head? Go in peace, Kudawand, lest the sahib now smite thee with the ball gun."

"Have you a box of matches, Swinton?" the major asked, a quick thought coming to him that probably the tiger, in his migrations to the hills, had learned to dread the fire line of the burning grass.

Something of this scheme registered in Swinton's brain, for he answered: "I've got a newspaper, too."

"Give the paper and matches to Mahadua." Then to the servant he added: "Roll the paper like a torch and light it."

The tiger watched this performance with interest. There is no dweller of the jungle but is a victim of curiosity—the unusual will always arrest their attention; and the tiger's attitude assured Finnerty that he really had no fixed purpose; it would take very little to make him either attack or retreat. If it had not been for the Banjara's buffalo, killed out of pure deviltry, and the mauled native, Finnerty would have had no hesitation in thinking the tiger would turn from the path if they kept steadily advancing.

When Mahadua struck a match on the box, its snapping hiss and flare of light caused an uneasy shift of the spectacled eyes. When the paper showed its larger flame, the look of distrust and suspicion increased; the bristled lips twisted in a nervous snarl; the powerful tail that had been swinging in complacent threatening from side to side now stilled and dropped.

"Move on!" Finnerty commanded, stepping slowly forward, the 10-bore held waist-high, both fingers on the triggers.

Mahadua, holding the burning paper straight in front of him, kept pace with his master, Swinton and Lord Victor following close.

The sinister ominousness of this performance, its silent aggression, wakened in the tiger's wary mind the dominant thought of his lifetime—caution, suspicion of a trap. It was a supreme test of unheated courage between two magnificent creatures, each of his own species—the gigantic man and the regal tiger; and the physical advantage was with the beast. Step by step, slow-measured, Finnerty and the shikari pressed forward. The Pundit now swung his lithe body with sinuous grace till he stood aggressively straight in the path, his head lowered so that a little furrow showed between his shoulder blades and the red-green eyes slanted evilly upward through the spectacles.

Finnerty read the sign. If the tiger crouched flat to earth, ready for a spring, it would be well to halt and try still further his courage by calmly waiting his attack. The big tail had ceased its rhythmic swing, but did not stiffen in ferocity; it curved downward. Even that beat of the pulse of events Finnerty gauged.

At ten yards Lord Victor had ceased to breathe; he wanted to scream under the cracking strain. He felt a hand on his arm—it was Swinton's. The paper torch palpitated in the native's trembling hand; but he faltered not, though the vicious eyes were ever on him and the fire. Nine yards, eight yards—all a hell of silent, nervous strain. Seven yards—the tiger turned in a slow, voluptuous glide, his ominous eyes still on the torchbearer, and slipped through the bushes to the jungle beyond.

Finnerty quickened his pace to a fast walk, saying: "Put the light out—save the paper."

Presently Mahadua touched Finnerty's elbow and held up a hand. Listening, the major heard the "miouw" of a peacock—not the usual, droning note, but a sharp, angry screech. Immediately the alarmed belling of a sambar came from the direction in which the peacock had called, followed by a short, muffled roar from the tiger.

"Missed him!" Finnerty commented. He turned to his companions. "Our shooting has been spoiled; we'll just push on to my bungalow."

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Chapter VIII

Captain Swinton and Lord Victor remained with Finnerty for dinner, and after that meal, sitting on the verandah, the latter asked: "What sort of bally charm did that shikari repeat when he made that ripping address to the tiger, major?"

Finnerty looked at Swinton and the latter nodded violently; but the major answered curtly: "I forget."

"Oh, I say! I want to know, old top—it'll go well when I tell the story in London." He turned to Swinton. "Captain, perhaps your memory is better."

"If you must know," Swinton answered, in mock resignation—for he was most anxious to interpret the native's words—"Mahadua told the tiger to play the game, for Finnerty had purposely put down his rifle, taken up the shotgun, and fired over his head to spare his life."

"That's when you made the fumble in the howdah, eh, major? It would have been quite on the cards for him to have mauled you to-day. You should have potted him when you had a chance on the elephant."

Tried beyond patience by Gilfain's obtuse egotism, Swinton blurted: "Mahadua lied to the tiger; he was concealing the fact that Major Finnerty spared his life that you might have the glory of the kill later on."

"But, I say, this is no end of a draw; the major told us he got rattled and pumped bird shot into Stripes."

With a sigh, Swinton gave up the hopeless task; and Finnerty, to change the venue, said:

"I don't think we were in any danger, really. A tiger is considerable of a gentleman; all he asks is to be left alone to kill his legitimate prey. And if it weren't for him the wild pig and deer would eat up the crops of the poor."

"But tigers kill a lot of human beings," Lord Victor contended.

"About two in every million are killed annually by tigers in India—that's statistical. Wolves, leopards, hyenas kill far more. Also a very few tigers do the killing, and generally it was man's fault in the first place. A griffin comes out to the service, makes a bad shot in the dark, and the tiger is wounded; the rankling wound makes him ferocious and he kills any human that comes within his reach. If he recovers he may be incapacitated for killing game—who are either strong or swift—and, driven by hunger, he takes the easiest mark, man."

The Banjara had come up the road unnoticed. He now stood at the steps, and, with his black ayes fixed on Lord Victor, said, in heavy gravity: "Salaam, shikari sahib."

"Will you pay the beggar for that dog, major? I'll send the money over," Lord Victor said, missing the sarcasm.

When, after much bargaining, the blood debt had been wiped out at twenty rupees, the Banjara, ringing each coin by a spin in the air with his thumb nail, broached the matter of his deferred revenge.

"What of the slaying of that debased killer of my cow, O sahib?" he asked. "I will tie up a young buffalo, so be it the sahib will pay for it, and, as the tiger has got in this way of amusing himself, he will come. But"—and he cast a scornful glance at Lord Victor—"do you make the kill, major sahib?"

"It is too late. We will take a dozen elephants to-morrow and make a wide beat, driving the tiger up to the guns."

But the native shook his head. "The sahib knows that if the elephants are not trained to the hunt they are no good, and tiger knows it. When he smells that it is a trap, he will break back, and some of the elephants will not stand. But if the sahib will pay me and my brothers we will take all our buffalo and drive tiger ahead of them. He will not break back through the buffalo, for I will take them first to smell of the blood of the cow he has slain."

"A good idea," Finnerty declared; "the buffalo make great beaters—Stripes won't face them. All right!" he told the Banjara. "I'll post the sahibs on elephants. Get your men and buffalo ready for two o'clock—it will take me till that time to get things ready."

"The tiger will be in the same grass, huzoor," the Banjara said; "but if the young sahib shoot a buffalo or another dog, that also he will be required to pay for. My brothers will be behind the buffalo, walking slowly, that they do not come too sudden upon the tiger, and they are men of passion."

Then the herdsman went clanking down the road, feeling that he had done all that could be done in the way of insurance.

They sat for an hour planning a grand hunt for the next day. Prince Ananda must be invited; as they were shooting over his grounds, it was only proper courtesy. The prince would bring his own elephant, of course, but reliable hunting elephants were scarce. The one Lord Victor and Swinton had used that day had shown either a white feather or too excitable a temperament; he would only do to put on the side of the cane belt as a stop to keep the tiger from cutting out. Finnerty's elephant had proved fairly steady, but he needed another; he would give that one to Swinton and Lord Victor and in the morning get a goldsmith to beat out Moti's bell, putting a metal clapper in it. The maharajah had elephants, but none well trained for a drive, because the maharajah never shot anything.

Before leaving Swinton took the major into the bungalow and gave him the sapphire to use in the bell should it be necessary, insisting that it was as safe with Finnerty as it was with him. At any rate, he did not value it highly, not placing any faith in its miraculous power.

The moon had risen when the two drove back to their bungalow in the major's dogcart. As they swung to enter the gate, the horse recoiled with a snort of fear; the check was so sudden that Swinton, to avoid a headfirst dive, jumped, cannoning into a native, who, his face covered by his loin cloth, dashed from the compound. Instinctively Swinton grabbed the fleeing man; but the latter, with a dexterous loosening twist of his garment, left it in the captain's hands and sped away. On the ground lay a white envelope and a small notebook that had fallen from a fold of the cloth, and these Swinton put in his pocket, saying: "That man has been up to some deviltry." To Finnerty's syce he added: "Take the tom-tom back; we'll walk to the bungalow."

"I say, old chap," cried Lord Victor, "don't you know this is no end of a risky caper; that urban tiger dashed that fellow—what!"

"We'd be in a hat if we stuck to the tom-tom in that event; that flooey-headed horse would kill us if the tiger didn't."

At that instant the captain's foot caught something that projected from the crotons. A look disclosed a pair of legs. There was something familiar about these white-trousered limbs that terminated in canvas shoes, and their owner must be either very drunk or dead. Swinton grasped the projecting feet and pulled their owner to the drive, where he lay on his back, the moonlight glinting the glazed eyes. It was Perreira—and he was dead. His neck showed an abrasion as though a rope had scorched it; and when Swinton lifted the dead man's shoulders the head hung limp like the head of a rag doll.

"That old Thug trick!" Swinton declared. "Somebody caught him from behind with a towel across the throat, threw him to the ground, put a foot on his back, and with one twist broke his neck."

"Murdered!" Lord Victor gasped.

"Yes. That native I met at the gate did the trick." Raising his voice, the captain called: "Chowkidar! Watchman!"

There was an answer from somewhere in the compound, and the evil-faced native they had seen the night before came hurrying to where they stood.

"If the half-caste sahib is dead he must have fallen from a horse and broke his neck," the watchman declared.

"Call the servants and carry him into the bungalow where the baboo is; then go at once down to the police and tell who killed this man," Swinton commanded.

At that instant Baboo Dass, who, startled by the clamour, had waited in fear on the verandah, now ploughed through the bushes, saying: "Please, sar, I will be frighted if defunct body is brought within. This place is too much evil-spirited. If tiger is not devour I am head-shaved like a felon and burglared of jewel."

But Swinton turned away and proceeded with Lord Victor to their bungalow, leaving Baboo Dass wrangling with the watchman.

Lord Victor was in a captious mood over the rapid succession of stirring episodes. "No end of a somnolent old India—what!" he said ironically, sitting on Swinton's bed. "I'm bally well dashed with all the floaty creeps. We've only been here twenty-four hours, and we've dined with the rajah, seen a topping wrestling bout, been at a temple riot, chevied a tiger out of our front yard, entertained a baboo flooey on Hindu gods, had a drive for a tiger——"

"Shot a Banjara dog," Swinton interrupted, because he wanted to go to bed.

"Rather! And made a devilish good shot. Then we were spoofed by Stripes, and found a murdered man on the doorstep. A tallish order, I call all that. Going some—what!"

Swinton yawned sleepily, and when Lord Victor had gone to his room he took from his pocket the notebook and letter he had picked up. The letter was addressed to himself and contained two rupees. The notebook contained curious, ambiguous entries. To a casual reader they would have meant nothing, but to Swinton they were a key to a great deal. With a small screw driver he took the shoulder plate from the butt of a gun, and, wedging the book in the hollow with some paper, replaced the plate.

Undoubtedly the little black book had something to do with Perreira's death. He would have been closely watched since the watchman had listened on the verandah the night before, and it would be known he was coming to see the captain.

---

Chapter IX

Next morning Swinton again rode alone, Lord Victor declaring he would have enough exercise in the hunt that day.

As Shabaz came out of his loping canter and steadied to a leisurely gait up the palace hill, Rada, the groom, overtook his master.

"Put a hand on the stirrup," Swinton commanded, "for the hill is long and your legs are the legs of experience."

"As the sahib wishes; but I know little of her who rides the grey stallion," Rada replied, grasping the iron. Swinton chuckled at the naïve admission that the servant took it for granted he was to talk, being thus favoured.

"It is the way of my people," Rada resumed, when his breath came easier, "that when we make speech with a sahib we watch his eyes for a sign, and if it is one of displeasure we then tell lies to avert his anger; but with the captain sahib this may not be done."

"Why, Rada?"

"Sahib knows the karait—the snake with an eye that is all red?"

"Deadly as a cobra."

"Yes, sahib; and our people say that if one looks for a long time into that red eye that never shifts nor blinks nor gives a sign, he will go mad."

"Delightful! And mine are like that, Rada?"

"No, sahib; only so far as that they give no sign. So if I make speech that is displeasing, the presence must command me to be still."

After a time Rada said: "The Missie Baba will not ride the grey stallion to-day?"

"Why not?"

"I know not, except that she has reported that the stallion is lame; but the groom says he is not lame."

Reaching the plateau, Swinton followed a road that swung around the Place of Roses. Over the brick wall floated the sweet perfume of myriad flowers, to give place presently to the tang of animal life as they came to the tiger garden. A jungle clamour vibrated the morning air; cockatoos and parrakeets called shrilly beyond the brick wall; a hornbill sent forth his raucous screech; pigeons of all colours, green, blue, grey, fluttered free in the air, waiting for the grain that would presently be scattered by the keepers. The unpleasant, sputtering laugh of a hyena, raucously grating, mingled with the full, rich-toned monologue of leopards that paced restlessly their cages, eager for their meal of blood-dripping meat.

Then the road crawled restfully into the cool of a noble sal forest. To the right it branched presently, and he caught the glint of white marble splitting the emerald green.

"The lady who rides the grey stallion lives yonder with the large sahib who is her uncle," Rada explained; and as they came to a path on the left a little beyond, he continued: "This leads to Jadoo Nala, wherein is a pool."

Captain Swinton turned Shabaz into the path, following it to the edge of the plateau and down its winding course to the pool.

Pointing to a machan in a pipal tree that overhung the pool, Rada said: "That is the rajah's, but no one makes a kill here—it is but for the pleasure of the eye. Knowing this, the dwellers of the jungle come to drink of the waters that are sweet with salt, and depart in peace; though it is said that at times a spirit, in the shape of an evil leopard, creeps from yonder cave and makes the kill of a deer or a sambar. In the cave yonder, Buddha, who was once of our faith, lamented on the sins of the world till his tears made the stream sweet with salt, and so it has remained. The cave is an abode of evil spirits; lights have been seen, and deep noises heard such as the hill gods make."

"Who comes to the pool, Rada—for there is the machan?"

Rada lifted his small, black, twitching eyes to the placid, opaque ones of Swinton. "The sahib knows what talk over a hookah is, each one trying to show great knowledge; but it is whispered at such times that the Missie Baba, who fears neither horse nor spirit, comes here at night."

"For what purpose—to meet some one?"

"Of that Rada knows nothing; that the evil gossips say it is the rajah is perhaps a lie."

Swinton turned Shabaz up the path, and at the top rode a little tour of inspection, following a road that circled above the winding stream. Overlooking the Jadoo cave and the path that wound down the hillside was a heavy wall built of stone that had been taken from the buried city.

"Most delightful place to plant a machine gun, or even a 'three-inch,'" the captain muttered.

A reverberating tiger roar shook the earth as Swinton rounded the Place of Roses on his way back, and past its wall he came suddenly upon Lord Victor in active controversy with a lop-eared native horse he was more or less astride of. Evidently the sudden tiger call had frightened the horse, for he was whirling, with his long ewe neck stretched high in air, his lop ears almost brushing the clinging rider's face. Lord Victor had lost his stirrups; he was practically over the pommel of the saddle, sitting the razor-bladed wither. A country bred's neck is like a piece of rubber hose, and Anglo-Indians have learned to sit tight and let him have his head; but Lord Victor climbed up the reins, pulling the brute's head into his lap, and when to save himself he threw an arm around the lean neck, down went the head and he was sent flying, to sprawl on his back, where he lay eyeing the smiling captain.

Having unseated his rider, the country bred, forgetting all about the tiger, stood looking with complacent vacuity at the groom, who now held him by the rein.

"Thought you weren't riding this morning," Swinton remarked, as they went down the hill.

"Changed my mind. You didn't happen to see a young lady on a grey stallion this morning, did you, old chap?"

"I did not. And the earl expects you to ride away from spins, not after them, out here."

"The governor is optimistic. This is only curiosity—to see the girl Ananda is going to make his queen."

"Where did you hear that rot?"

"The usual source—my bearer."

"Bad form. It's all idle gossip, too; she's the niece of old Boelke."

"Oh, now I know why you ride up on the hill every morning. Did your bearer tell you? Earl Craig expects you to keep away from skirts while——By Jove! What's the bally shindy—are they planting another brass god in the temple?"

Lord Victor's sudden change in discourse had been caused by sounds of strife that came from a Hindu village that lay between Maha Bodhi Hill and Darpore City.

"The men of the temple and others who are followers of Mahadeo live yonder in Chota Darpore," Rada said.

As eager as a boy at the clang of a fire bell, Lord Victor, his eyes alight with sporting fervour, cried: "Come on, captain; every bally hour in this land of the poppy has its spiffing thrill."

Arrived on the scene, a unique battle lay before their eyes. The centre of the conflict was a silk-skinned, terrified little cow tied to a stake. A fanatical Mussulman priest, ordained to the bloodletting, waited with a sharp knife behind a battling line of Allah men for a chance to slit the cow's throat. With the followers of Mohammed were ranged the adherents of Buddha in a battle line that checked the Hindus, who, with fierce cries of "Maro, maro!" fought to rescue the cow and stop this offence against their gods—the slaying of a sacred animal.

Heads cracked beneath the fall of staves, and red blood spurted from a knife thrust or the cut of a tulwar. Swinton smiled grimly as he saw here and there a man in a green-and-gold jacket bring his baton down on the neck of a Mussulman—always a Mussulman, for these men of the green-and-gold jackets were the Hindu police of the maharajah.

Encouraged by their gaunt leader, the Hindus charged fiercely, and, seizing the cow, bore it toward their village, fighting a rear-guard action as the Mussulmans, with cries of "Allah! Allah!" charged over the bodies of men who lay in the silent indifference of death, or writhed in pain. There was a desperate mêlée, a maelstrom of fanatical fiends, out of which the Mussulmans emerged with the sacrificial victim to fight their way backward to the slaughter mound.

The tinkle of a bell, the "phrut-phrut" of an elephant, caused Swinton to turn toward the road. It was Finnerty on Burra Moti.

The mahout, at a command from the major, drove Moti into the fray, where she, with gentle, admonishing touches from the mahout's feet against her ears, picked up one combatant after another, tossing them without serious injury to one side. But the fanatics, religion-crazed, closed in again in Moti's wake and smote as before. One Mussulman, whose red-dyed beard bespoke one who had been to Mecca, threw a heavy Pathan knife at Finnerty, just missing his mark.

Suddenly a shrill voice rose in a screaming command; there was terror in the voice that came from the lips of a gigantic Tibetan priest, who stood with extended arm pointing to the tinkling bell on Moti's neck. As though strong wind had swept a field of grain, the Buddhists ceased the combat and stood with bowed heads. Even the Mussulmans, realising from the priest's attitude that it was something of holy import, rested from warfare.

"It is the sacred elephant of the Zyaat of Buddha Gautama!" the priest said, when the tumult had stilled.

Then spoke Finnerty, seizing upon this miraculous chance: "Cease from strife! You who are of Chota Darpore, go back to your village; you who are followers of the Prophet, the grace of Allah be upon you, go your way, for even some of you are servants of mine at the keddah. As to the disciples of Buddha, the bell on the sacred elephant recalls them to peace. I will take away from strife the cow, so that there be no killing."

He called to one of his Mussulmans, saying: "Come you, Amir Khan, and take the cow to the keddah."

The scarlet-whiskered Pathan who had thrown the knife stepped forward, and in his rough voice said: "Sahib, these infidels, these black men, have desecrated the shrine of Sheik Farid by tying there a pig, therefore it is injustice if we be not allowed to crack a few heads and spill the blood of a cow on the doorstep of their village."

"You threw the knife, Hadjii; you're a poor marksman," Finnerty answered.

"Yes, sahib, it was an unlucky throw; but a man fell against my elbow at that point, or the sahib would have received my gift. Perhaps the next time I will have better luck."

With a smile at the Pathan's grim humour, Finnerty said: "The spirit of a saint like Sheik Farid is not disturbed by the acts of infidels. I will speak to the rajah and have the village fined a matter of many rupees to be paid to your people, Hadjii."

From the Buddhists, who stood in a semicircle eyeing Burra Moti with reverence, a priest came forward, saying: "We have fought with the idolators because the shrine rests on the 'Rock of Buddha,' and so is sacred to us, too. The sahib has seen in the flat rock the footprint of Prince Sakya Sinha where he stood and became Buddha?"

"But Buddha commanded peace, not strife," Finnerty reminded the priest.

At that instant Burra Moti, undoubtedly bored by inaction, reached back with her trunk and tinkled the bell. It was like a voice crying out of the temple. The Buddhists in silence went away; Amir Khan, at a command, departed with the cow of discord.

Burra Moti was turned, and, with Lord Victor and Swinton riding at his side, Finnerty swept regally down the road.

"Your elephant seems deuced happy, major; she's got a tooty little gurgle that suggests it. Where did you find your sapphire bell clapper?" Lord Victor queried.

"Oh, this isn't——" Finnerty caught the import of Swinton's gasping cough in time to switch, adding: "This is a clapper the old goldsmith fixed up for me, and it's doing beautifully. Moti is like a woman that has found a necklace she had lost." This latter for Captain Swinton's edification.

"Why doesn't Prince Ananda sit on these bally fire-eating worshippers—why do you have to keep them in hand, major?" Lord Victor wanted to know.

Finnerty pondered for a minute. He could have told the captain in a very few words his idea of Ananda's reasons for keeping out of the matter, but with Lord Victor he would have to answer cautiously.

"The rajah's police wallahs were there," he answered; "but they're never any good. As for my part in it, the Maha Bodhi Temple is really under government supervision, being practically a national Buddhist institution. The government never interferes with either Hindus or the Buddhists there unless it might be in just such a case as this, to stop a riot. To tell you the truth, I've rather exceeded my authority, acting without an invitation from the maharajah or an order from the government; however, as it was a drawn battle, nobody will appeal to the powers. The keddah is something in the same way," Finnerty added, as they jogged along; "it's in Darpore territory, but the government has an arrangement with the maharajah, as this is an ideal spot as a centre for our elephant catching all through the Siwalik Hills."

At the fork in the roads the major called back: "After you've had breakfast, get your hunting kit all ready, captain. I'll meet you with the elephants at the same place as yesterday, at one o'clock. We mustn't keep the old Banjara waiting—we're to be on the ground at two—his buffalo might stir up Stripes before we arrive."

---

Chapter X

There was a scowl on his face as Lord Victor, looking so pink and white after his bath, sat down to breakfast, growling: "There's a bally London fog of that attar fume in my room; somebody's been pawing my letter case, kit bag—everything. It isn't my bearer, for he smells chiefly of dried fish and opium."

"The attar would suggest a woman—a jealous woman looking for love letters; but you haven't been here long enough, Gilfain," the captain remarked.

A servant entered with a broiled fish, and Swinton switched Lord Victor to a trivial discussion of food. When the servant reappeared later with curry, the captain said: "Leave it on the table, Abdul, and sit without." Then, rising, he added: "I'll be back in a minute.

"My stuff has been censored, too," he said, on his return.

"What's the devilish idea—loot?"

"No; nothing missing."

"Who's doing it—servants?"

"This is India, youth; here we don't bother chasing 'who;' we lock up everything, or destroy it."

"I'm going to dash the bearer with an exam," Lord Victor said decidedly.

"You'd get nothing but lies; you'd draw blank."

The captain lapsed into a moody silence, completing a diagnosis of this disturbing matter mentally. The attar suggested that somebody on intimate terms with Prince Ananda had investigated. Doctor Boelke would do it; he could read papers written in English and assimilate their contents. If Swinton were under suspicion, Prince Ananda would look for proofs as to whether he was a secret-service man or just the companion of Lord Victor.

Later, when, with Finnerty, they arrived at the hunt-ground, the Banjara, who was waiting, said: "My brothers have taken the buffalo to the west of the big growth of tall grass wherein is the slayer of my cow, because from that side blows the wind and it will carry the scent of the buffalo, and the tiger will move forward, not catching in his nostrils word of the guns which the sahib knows well how to place. When the sahib is ready, I will give the call of a buffalo, and my brothers will make the drive. Where will be the place of the young sahib, that I may remain near in the way of advice lest he shoot one of my people, or even a buffalo?"

"Where will the tiger break to, Lumbani?" Finnerty asked.

The Banjara stretched his long arm toward the north. "At that side of the cane fields lies a nala that carries a path up into the sal forest, and the tiger knows it well. If he is not annoyed with hurry, he will come that way out of the cane; and if the young sahib's elephant is stationed in the nala, the tiger will come so close that even he can make the kill."

"That's the idea," Finnerty declared. "Swinton, you and Lord Victor take your elephant to the nala—the Banjara will show you the very spot to stand; I'll post the prince on our left when he arrives; I'll keep the centre, and if the tiger is coming my way I can turn him off with old Moti—I'll shoo him over to you. Here comes the prince now. Heavens, you'd think he was going to a marriage procession! Look at the gorgeous howdah! And he has got old Boelke and the girl, too."

The howdah was a regal affair, such as native princes affect on state occasions. The girl was almost hidden by the gilded sides of its canopied top; indeed, her features were completely masked by a veil draped from the rim of her helmet. The heavy figure of Doctor Boelke bulged from the front of the howdah.

"Where are we stationed, major?" Ananda called, the mahout checking their elephant some distance away.

"To the left, beyond the pipal tree."

Swinton chuckled, observing Gilfain stretching his long neck as the prince's elephant plodded on; evidently there was to be no introduction.

"We'd better get placed at once," Finnerty declared; "the buffalo may get out of hand—anything may happen. The elephants that will act as stops are already in place on the two sides; I sent them on ahead. The natives on their backs will keep tapping on gongs to prevent the tiger from breaking through the sides; if he does break through, they'll blow shrill blasts on their conch shells. Away you go, Swinton!"

And at an order from the mahout, their elephant trudged over to the point of honour, accompanied by the Banjara. In a few minutes his voice rose in the plaintive squeak of a buffalo, and in answer down the wind that rustled the feathered tops of the cane came a mild clamour of buffaloes, being driven, and men's voices crying:

"Dut, dut! Gar! Aoi-aoi!"

The buffalo were in a huge fan, advancing in a crescent troupe slowly, so that the tiger, not suddenly overrun, would keep slipping along in front.

Finnerty sat with his .450 Express across his knee, his eyes fixed on Gilfain, whose head he could just see above the bank of the nala, which was shallow where it struck the plain.

The turmoil of buffalo noises and their drivers' cries, drawing near, had increased in the cane. To the left, on one of the stop elephants, a native beat vigorously on his brass gong, followed by voices crying from a stop elephant: "The tiger passes!" Then a conch shell sent out its warning screech.

"Gad! He's broken through!" Finnerty growled.

Prince Ananda, thinking the tiger was escaping, had the elephant driven forward to give Boelke a shot at the fleeing beast; but just as they reached the grass there was a coughing roar, a flashing turmoil of brown and gold in the sun, and the elephant, terrified by the ferocious onslaught, whirled just as Boelke's rifle barked. Straight back for the fringe of trees where Finnerty waited the elephant raced, the tiger clinging to his rump and striving to reach the howdah.

Burra Moti knew the elephant was running away, and, at a command, shuffled forward with the intent of peeling the tiger from his perch with her trunk. But the fleeing animal, taking Moti for a new enemy, swerved to the right under the pipal, a long arm of which swept away the howdah, leaving Herr Boelke sprawled on the limb like a huge gorilla and yelling: "Ach, Gott! Hel-lp!"

The tiger was carried away in the wreck, and now, thirty feet away, was crouched, his tail lashing from side to side.

The girl had struggled to her feet and stood dazed, clinging to the wrecked howdah. The tiger was in a nasty mood; he would charge the first move the girl made, Finnerty knew, and nothing but a miracle shot through the heart or brain could stop him in time to save her. Ordering the mahout to pick the girl up, he dropped to the ground. Holding his gun from the hip, both barrels cocked, he slipped past the girl to stand between her and the snarling brute, saying: "Keep cool! Keep your face to the tiger and step back; the elephant will pick you up."

His blue, fearless, Irish eye lay along the gun barrels, looking into the yellow eyes of the tiger as he spoke to the girl. Well he knew how straight his shot must be, or that flat, sloping forehead, with its thick plate of bone, would glance the bullet like armour plate.

A little cry of pain, the thud of a falling body, told him that the girl had gone down at the first step. For a fraction of a second his eye had wavered from the gun-sight, and the tiger, with a hoarse growl, rose in his catapult charge. Both barrels of Finnerty's rifle blazed as he was swept backward by a push from Moti's trunk, and the tiger landed upon two gleaming ivory swords that, with a twist of the mighty head, threw him twenty feet into the scrub.

With a roar of disgruntled anger he bounded away toward cover in the cane, pursued by Gilfain, whose mahout had driven the elephant across at the sound of the tiger's charge.

Finnerty, telling the mahout to make Moti kneel, turned to the girl, who sat with a hand clasping an ankle, her face white with pain; and as he lifted her like a child, like a child she whispered with breaking passion: "You, you! God—why should it be you again?"

Then Finnerty commanded the mahout to retrieve Herr Boelke from his perch, pick up the prince, who had scuttled off some distance when he fell, and take them home.

When the prince had been lifted to the howdah on a curl of Moti's trunk, he waved his hand to the major, calling: "Devilish plucky, old chap; thanks for the elephant."

The elephant bearing Lord Victor and the captain returned, and the major tossed up a gold cigarette case he had found beside the broken howdah, saying: "You can give that to Prince Ananda; fancy he dropped it."

It looked familiar to Lord Victor. "Yes," he said, "I'm sure it's his. I know I've seen it at Oxford."

Plodding homeward in the solemn dejection of an unsuccessful hunt, even the ears of their elephant flapping disconsolately like sails of a windless boat, Finnerty suggested: "If you chaps would like it, we can swing around to your bungalow across the plain."

"Topping!" Lord Victor cried. "I'm so despondent I want a peg."

At the bungalow Finnerty alighted for a whisky and soda; and Gilfain, after reading a note his servant had handed him, advised:

"The prince wants me at the palace for dinner, and a confab over old Oxford days; the note came after we had gone to the hunt. Devilish fuzzy order, I call it—what! I can't leave you to dine alone, old boy."

"The captain can come with me—the very thing!" Major Finnerty declared eagerly.

The arrangement suited Swinton perfectly; it would give him an unplanned chance to talk with the major. And Gilfain would, of course, have to honour the prince's invitation.

---

It was a somewhat tame dinner for two; though Ananda plied his lordship with wine of an alluring vintage, for he had a "hare to catch," as the native proverb has it. He was most anxious to discover as much as possible about Captain Swinton's mission. By a curious chance he had learned who Lord Victor's companion was—that he was Captain Herbert, a secret-service man.

But Lord Victor was automatically unresponsive to the several subtle leads of his host for the simple reason that he didn't even know that Captain Swinton was in reality Captain Herbert; and as to the mission—any mission—why, it was to shoot game, to keep out of England for a season. Prince Ananda was puzzled. Either Lord Victor was cleverer than he had been at Oxford, or he knew absolutely nothing. Indeed, the subject of Captain Swinton bored Gilfain; he saw enough of his companion in the day. He was wishing Ananda would say something about the mysterious lady.

It was when the cigarettes were brought that he remembered the gold case. Drawing it from his pocket, he said: "Oh, devilish stupid! I forgot—brought your cigarette case."

But Ananda disclaimed the ownership. "That's not mine," he said.

"Rather! Finnerty picked it up at the broken howdah. It's the same one you had at Oxford, I think; I remember seeing it, anyway."

Prince Ananda took the gold case and examined it thoughtfully; then said: "By Jove! I didn't know I'd lost it; thought it was in my shooting togs. Thanks, old chap."

Of course, as it had been found at the howdah, it must belong to the girl—the Herr Boelke smoked cheroots—though the prince did not remember having seen it with her. But he said nothing as to its true ownership as he slipped it into his pocket.

Lord Victor, somewhat puzzled by Ananda's denial of ownership and then the admittance of it, concluded that the prince was still upset by the cropper he had come off the elephant.

But all down the hill, on his return, this curious incident kept recurring to him. He wasn't a man to follow problems to a conclusion, however, and it simply hung in his mind as a fogging event. Just as he was falling asleep, wondering why the captain had not returned, it suddenly dawned upon him with awakening force that perhaps the gold case belonged to the girl. Of course it did, he decided. The prince had treated the case as a stranger; his face had shown that he did not recognise it. And yet Gilfain had seen it in England, as he thought, in the prince's possession. He fell asleep, unequal to the task of wallowing through such a morass of mystery.

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Chapter XI

After Finnerty and Swinton left Gilfain in the evening, the major said: "If you don't mind, we'll stick to this elephant and ride on to the keddah, where I'll take the bell off Moti; I won't take a chance of having the sapphire stolen by leaving it there all night. I am worrying now over letting Prince Ananda have Moti—I forgot all about the stone, really."

"Worked beautifully to-day, didn't it?" Swinton commented.

"Yes. I fancy it saved the girl's life, at least; for if I'd not had Moti I'd have lost out on the mix-up with Stripes. I'll get a metal clapper to-morrow, but I doubt its answering; it will clang, and the sapphire has a clinking note like ice in a glass. And, while an elephant hasn't very good eyesight, he's got an abnormally acute sense of hearing. Moti would twig the slightest variation in the tone of that bell that she's probably worn for a hundred years or more—maybe a thousand, for all I know. There's a belief among the natives that a large elephant has been wandering around northern India for a thousand years; it is called the 'Khaki Hethi'—brown elephant."

Swinton looked curiously at the major. "Do you believe that?"

"Each year in this wonderland I believe more; that is, I accept more without looking for proofs. It is the easiest way. Yes," he added, in a reflective way, "I'll have trouble with Moti, I'm afraid; elephants are the most suspicious creatures on earth, and she is particularly distrustful."

"Don't bother about the sapphire," Swinton objected.

"Oh, yes, I will. I've got to take off the bell, anyway, to find some substitute. If I don't, somebody'll poison Moti if they can't get the sapphire any other way."

At the keddah the two dismounted and walked over to where Moti was under her tamarind tree. Swinton became aware of the extraordinary affection the big creature had for Finnerty. She fondled his cheek with the fingers of her trunk, and put it over his shoulder, giving utterance to little guttural chuckles of satisfaction, as though she were saying: "We fooled the tiger, didn't we?"

Finnerty called to a native to bring him some ghie cakes—little white cookies of rice flour and honey that had been cooked in boiling ghie, butter made from buffalo's milk—and when they were brought he gave the delighted elephant one. She smacked her lips and winked at Finnerty—at least to Swinton her actions were thus.

In obedience to the mahout she knelt down; but as Finnerty unlaced the leather band that held the bell she cocked her ears apprehensively and waved her big head back and forth in nervous rhythm. Patting her forehead, Finnerty gave Moti the bell, and she clanged it in expostulation. Then he took it away, giving her a ghie cake. Several times he repeated this, retaining the bell longer each time, and always talking to her in his soft, rich voice.

Finally, telling the mahout to call him if Moti gave trouble, he said: "We can walk to the bungalow from here; it isn't far, captain."

After dinner, as they sat on the verandah, Finnerty's bearer appeared, and, prefaced by a prayerful salaam, said: "Huzoor, my mother is sick, and your slave asks that he may stay with her to-night. The sahib's bed is all prepared, and in the morning I will bring the tea and toast."

"All right," the major said laconically; and as the bearer went on his mission of mercy he added: "Glad he's gone. I've a queer feeling of distrust of that chap, though he's a good boy. He never took his eye off that bell till it was locked up in my box. The mahout told me at the keddah that Rajah Ananda was particularly pleased with Moti; had a look at the bell and petted her when they got to the palace." Finnerty laughed, but Swinton cursed softly.

"That means," he said, "that we've got to look out."

"Yes; can't use the sapphire on Moti again."

Finnerty rose, stretched his bulk, travelled to both ends of the verandah, and looked about.

Swinton was struck by the extraordinary quiet of the big man's movements. He walked on the balls of his feet—the athlete's tread—with the graceful strength of a tiger. Coming back, he turned with catlike quickness and slipped into the bungalow, returning presently, drawing his chair close to Swinton as he sat down.

"You remember my tussle with the Punjabi wrestler?"

Swinton laughed. "Rather!"

"It wasn't a Punjabi—a European."

The captain gasped his astonishment.

"One of Boelke's imported Huns." Finnerty gave a dry chuckle. "Ananda isn't the only man that can get information. I knew there was a Prussian wrestler here, and that he was keeping fit for a bout with somebody; I had a suspicion that somebody was myself. You see"—and the major crossed his long legs—"in spite of all our talk about moral force in governing, physical superiority is what always appeals to the governed—Ananda knows that deuced well. Now, hereabouts I have quite an influence over the natives, because, while I give them a little more than justice in any dispute, I can put their best man on his back."

"And Ananda, not being able to have you removed, wanted to shatter your prestige?"

"He thought that if I were humiliated in being beaten by a supposed native I'd ask to be transferred."

"Then it was all a plot, the other bout furnishing Boelke a chance to taunt you?"

"Yes, and clever. That final scene in the 'love song' doesn't belong there at all—I mean where the lover is resuscitated to challenge the gods to combat; that emanated in Ananda's brain; and when I saw the second wrestler come out painted black to represent Bhairava, I was convinced there was deviltry afloat and that it was the Hun."

Swinton laughed. "He got a surprise, major, though he was a dirty fighter. I saw the toe hold, but didn't see what happened to him."

"I gave him a paralysing something I had learned from a Jap in Calcutta. If you stand up, I'll show you."

Finnerty clutched the captain's hip, and, with the tip of a finger, gave a quick pressure on a nerve in the "crest of the ilium" bone. The effect was extraordinary; a dulling numbness shot with galvanic force to the base of Swinton's skull—needles penetrated his stomach.

"Marvellous!" the captain gasped, as he almost collapsed back into his chair.

The major smiled. "That was a new one on my Hun friend, for I cracked him there with the knuckles—almost brought the bone away."

"How many Huns has Boelke got?" Swinton asked.

"I don't know—three or four, and they're all service men; one can tell the walk of a Prussian, soldier or officer. Nominally, they are archæological men. Our paternal government actually supplied the prince with Doctor Boelke, for he was in government service in Madras Presidency, exploring old ruins."

"The prince is subtle."

"He is. All this temple row is his. This Dharama who wants to put the brass Buddha in is really a half-caste—a tool of the prince's. Ananda's plan is so full of mystery, neither I nor any one else can get head or tail of it. He doesn't appear in these rows, therefore the Buddhists think he is not a bigoted Hindu. So do the Mussulmans; and no doubt he will tell these two sects that I, as the British raj representative, fought against them. I think he's trying to get these two fighting peoples, the Mussulmans and the Nepalese, with him against the British if he comes out as a liberator. He's planning a propaganda so big that these three sects will bury their differences under a leader who does not stand for Brahmanism alone. I believe he's almost insane on this idea that he can unite the natives, Mussulmans, Hindus, and Buddhists, against the British raj. He bids for the Mussulman support by removing himself from that nest of Brahmanism, the maharajah's palace in the old fort, and secretly letting it be understood the Brahman's sway, with their tithe of a sixth of Darpore revenue, will cease when he sits on the guddi. There is an Asoka pillar in the Place of Roses that doesn't belong there; he stole it from a temple, I fancy. On its polished sides is a line of weathering showing that it was buried deeper than it is now for centuries. He put it there to show the Buddhists that his palace is in a sacred place—the true spot where Buddha received knowledge. He knows that his own people will stick to his rule—they can't do anything else—and he hopes to win the Buddhists by a crazy pose that he is the new Buddha—a war Buddha, ordained to the task of giving them liberty."

"With German help?"

"Yes, if the rumours of war between Germany and Britain come true and all Europe flames into a blaze, you'll see Ananda strike."

"Gad! If we could only nip him—find him with the guns!"

"That's what he's afraid of; that's why he wants to get rid of me."

"I have a feeling that he wishes I had not come," Swinton said. "I fancy he suspects me. It's all mystery and suspicion. He'll hear about the Buddhists' veneration for Burra Moti and you'll have her stolen next."

"Not without the sapphire in the bell—I won't put it in again. And I warn you, captain, that you'll stand a good chance of getting a Thug's towel about your neck, for they'll know you have one of the sapphires."

"Yes; the servants have it on their tongues now—they've been spying on us, I know."

"That reminds me!" Finnerty rose, went to his room, opened his steel box, turned up the low-burning lamp, and unlaced the sapphire from the bell. Raising his head, he caught a glint of a shadowy something on the window; it was a shift of light, as though a face had been suddenly withdrawn.

"Damn it!" the major growled, locking the box.

"Either somebody is peering over my shoulder all the time or this mystery is getting on to my nerves."

He went along to the verandah, and, putting the sapphire into Swinton's palm, hiding its transference with his own hand, said: "Slip that quietly into your pocket, and when you get home hide it."

"I don't value it much," Swinton answered.

With an uncertain laugh, Finnerty declared: "I'd throw it in the sea. Like the baboo, I think it's an evil god. I mean, it will be if Ananda gets the three sapphires together; he'll play up their miracle power; they'll be worth fifty thousand sepoys to him."

They smoked in silence till Swinton broke it: "I found a little notebook the murderer of Perreira dropped that evidently belonged to a British officer, though leaves had been torn out here and there for the purpose of destroying his identity. The man himself didn't do this, for there were entries in a different hand at the pages these leaves had been torn from—sort of memos, bearing on the destroyed matter."

"If the identity were destroyed, captain, how do you know an officer owned it?"

"For one thing, he had used an army code, though changed so that I could only make out bits of it; and in two or three places the other has written the word 'captain.' One entry in code that I've partly worked out is significant: 'Darpore, March.' And that entry, I gather from other words surrounding it, was written in England. The second handwriting wasn't Perreira's; I have his on that envelope he addressed to me. The latter entries are in a woman's hand."

Strangely there was no comment from Finnerty. He had pulled the cheroot box toward him and was lighting a fresh smoke.

"What do you really know about the Boelke girl, major?" the captain asked pointedly, his blue-coloured wax disks of eyes fixed in their placid, opaque way on Finnerty, who, throwing away the match he had held interminably to his cheroot, turned to answer: "She popped into Darpore one day, and I don't think even Doctor Boelke, who is supposed to be her uncle, expected her. You know India, captain—nothing that pertains to the sahibs can be kept quiet—and I hadn't heard a word of her coming. Boelke gave out that she had been living in Calcutta while he was up here, but I don't believe that; I think she came straight from Europe. I probably would not have met the girl—Marie is her name—but for an accident. Up on an elephant path that leads to an elephant highway, a great, broad trail, we have elephant traps—pits ten feet deep, covered over with bamboos, leaves, and earth that completely hide their presence. One day I was riding along this trail, inspecting, when I heard, just beyond a sharp turn in the path, a devil of a row, and, driving my mount forward, was just in time to throw myself off, grab that grey stallion by the nostrils, and choke him to a standstill. He had put a hoof through a pit covering and gone to his knees, the sudden lurch throwing the girl over his head; and there she was, her foot caught in a stirrup, being dragged in a circle by the crazed beast, for she was gamely hanging onto the rein."

"She'd have been trampled to death only for you. And to-day you saved her life again."

The major gave a dry laugh. "I think she was in a temper over it, too."

"What's this station gossip about Ananda's intentions?"

"The girl doesn't seem like that; to me she's the greatest mystery in all this fogged thing. She speaks just like an English girl."

"Perhaps she's one of Ananda's London flames, and the relationship with Boelke is only claimed in a chaperoning sense. He couldn't marry her, having a princess now."

"Rajahs arrange their domestic matters to suit themselves. Much can be done with a pinch of datura, or a little cobra venom collected in a piece of raw meat that has been put with a cobra in a pot that sits over a slow fire. But if Ananda tries that game——You saw his brother-in-law, Darna Singh?"

Swinton nodded. "A Rajput!"

"Yes. Well, Darna Singh would stick a knife in the prince, knowing that he would become regent till Ananda's little son came of age; that is, of course, after the maharajah had been settled, for in spite of all his magnificent appearance he's just a shell—the usual thing, brandy in champagne and all the rest of it."

The trembling whistle of a small owl coming from behind the bungalow caused Finnerty to turn his head and listen intently. He rose and slipped along the wall to the end rail, where he stood silently for two minutes. Then he dropped over the rail and came back to Swinton from the other end, having circled the bungalow.

"An owl, wasn't it?" the captain asked.

"No; it was the call of an owl badly done by a native. There's some game on."

As he ceased speaking, there came floating up the road from a mango thicket the dreary, monotonous "tonk, tonk, tonk, tonk!" of the little, green-coated coppersmith bird. It sounded as if some one tapped on a hollow pipe.

"What about that? Is that a bird?" Swinton whispered.

"A two-legged bird." They both laughed softly. "I mean a native. If it had been a coppersmith bird, he wouldn't have stopped at four notes; he'd have kept it up. That fellow is tapping off on a piece of metal an answer to the owl."

"Here comes my tom-tom," Swinton said, as a groom, leading a horse in the shafts of a dogcart, appeared, coming up the road. Rising, he touched Finnerty on the arm and went into the bungalow, where, taking the sapphire from his pocket, he said: "I wish you'd put this in your box for to-night; I've got a curious, flabby streak of depression—as if I'd lose the thing."

"Have a peg—there's the Scotch on the table—while I put it away," and the major darted into his room.

"That's not my horse; I've been driving a chestnut," Swinton exclaimed, when they stood beside a cow-hocked, hog-maned bay whose eyes showed an evil spread of white.

"Yes, sahib; other pony going lame," the groom explained.

"One of those devilish, fiddle-headed Cabul ponies—less brains than a coolie," Finnerty growled. "You'll have to watch him going downhill, or he'll put you over the kud; I never saw one yet that wouldn't shy at a shadow." He stood watching the scuttling first rush of the horse, the groom madly scrambling to the back seat, till they had vanished around a corner.

The watchman, having heard his master's guest depart, now came from the servants' quarters to place his charpoy beside the door for his nightly sleep. Throwing away his cheroot and taking a loaded malacca cane from a rack, Finnerty said: "Gutra, there are rogues about; sit you in my room while I make a search."

Reaching the mango thicket, he stood behind a tree from where his eye could command the moon-lighted compound that surrounded the bungalow. At that instant from down the road floated up the call of a voice; there was a crash, and the high-pitched scream of a horse in terror. Finnerty was off; rounding a turn, he came head on into a fleeing syce, who was knocked flat, to lie there, crying: "Oh, my lord, the sahib is eaten by a tiger!"

Finnerty grabbed the native and yanked him to his feet. "Stop the lies! Tell me what's happened! Where is the sahib?"

"Have mercy on me, a poor man, huzoor; the tiger sprang from the jungle and took the sahib in his mouth like a leg of a chicken and went back into the jungle. I tried to frighten the tiger away by beating him with my hands; then I am running to tell you, my lord."

But Finnerty was speeding on before the man had finished.

Where the road swept sharply around the edge of a cliff, Finnerty almost stepped on Swinton, lying quite still beside a white boulder on the road. With a groan, he knelt beside the captain, apprehension numbing his brain; but the latter's heart was beating with the even pulsation of a perfect motor. He tipped back an eyelid; the dull blue eyes were as if their owner slept. He ran his fingers along the scalp, and just behind an ear found a soft, puffy lump, but no blood.

"Good old chap! You've just got a concussion—that's all," welled in relief from the Irishman.

Some chafing of the hands, a little pumping of the lungs by lifting the torso gently up and down, and, with preliminary, spasmodic jerks, Swinton sat up, rubbed his eyes, looked at Finnerty, and asked: "What time is it? I—I've been asleep——" Then, memory coming faster than his hesitating words, he rose to his feet, saying: "The pony and cart went over the kud."

"That Cabuli donkey thought the boulder a crouching wolf and shied, eh? The syce said a tiger had eaten you."

"He never saw the chita. Back around the turn I felt the dogcart tip up and knew the syce had jumped down, as I thought, to run ahead to see that the road was clear at this narrow turn. When I saw the boulder I looked around for him to take the pony's head, but he had vanished. As I walked the Cabuli up to the boulder, he suddenly went crazy with fright, and at that instant, with a snarling rasp, a chita shot from the bank just above our heads there, and, lighting on my pony's back, carried him over, the sudden whirl of the cart pitching me on my head."

"And you went out?"

"No, I didn't; not just then. I staggered to my feet—I remember that distinctly—and something hit me. That time I did go out."

"Good heavens—a plant! The syce, knowing what was going to happen, funked it and bolted—feared the leopard might make a mistake in his man."

"Looks like it."

"Then, as you didn't go over the bank, somebody tapped you from behind, thinking you had the sapphire in your pocket. We'll go back to the bungalow and come out in the morning and have a look."

As they tramped along, Finnerty remarked: "You said a hunting chita. There are none of them in these jungles; it must have been a leopard."

"No; I could see quite distinctly in the moonlight his upstanding, feathered ears and his long, lank body. I had a year at Jhodpore, and went out after antelope many a time with a hunting chita chained on a cart till we got within striking distance."

"Gad! That's why the brute took the pony for it—force of habit. And they sent that fool Cabuli—they knew he'd go crazy and topple over the bank. The stone was placed in the road, too."

As they went up on the verandah, Finnerty turned sharply, and, putting his hand on Swinton's arm, said: "Gad, man! That's why Ananda asked Lord Victor to dinner and left you out of it; he knew you'd dine with me here. They either meant to put you out of action or got to know you owned the sapphire that was used on Moti to-day and hoped to get it off your body."

"Looks rather fishy, I must say. The prince would not take a chance on an inquiry over the death of an officer unless, as in this case, it could not be taken for anything but an accident."

"The chita was his; he's got a couple in his zoo—well-trained hunting chitas the Nawab of Chackla gave him—and there are no wild ones about. It was a lucky touch of superstition that prompted you to have me put the sapphire back in my box; I saw a face at my window when I took it from the bell to give you. But we sold them out. How's your head?"

"It aches. Think I'd like to turn in, if you've got a charpoy for me."

Finnerty wakened from a sound sleep with a sense of alarm in his mind, drowsily associating this with the sequel of the frightened horse; then, coming wider awake, he realised that he was in bed and there was something unusual in the room. He was facing the wall, and a slight noise came over his shoulder from the table on which was his cash box. A mouse, a snake, even a lizard, of which there were plenty in the bungalow, would make as much noise. Turning his head and body with a caution bred of the solemn night hour, his bed creaked as the weight of his big frame changed. By the table there was the distinct click of something against tin, followed by the swish of a body moving swiftly toward the door. Finnerty sprang from the bed with a cry of "Thief! Thief!" meant to arouse the watchman. Just ahead of him, through the living room, a man fled, and out onto the verandah. Following, with a rush like a bull in the night gloom, Finnerty's foot caught in the watchman's charpoy, which had been pulled across the door, and he came down, the force of his catapult fall carrying him to the steps, where his outstretched hand was cut by broken glass. The thief having placed the charpoy where it was, had taken it in his stride, vaulted the verandah rail, avoiding the steps, whipped around the corner of the bungalow, and disappeared.

Scrambling to his feet, Finnerty was just in time to throw his arms around Swinton and bring him to an expostulating standstill.

"Glass!" Finnerty panted. "This way!" He darted to the wall of the bungalow, wrenched down two hog spears that were crossed below a boar's head, and, handing one to Captain Swinton, sprang over the end rail of the verandah, followed by the latter. They were just in time to see the brown figure of an all but naked native flitting like a shadow in the moonlight through a narrow gateway in the compound wall. From the jungle beyond the other wall came the clamorous voice of a native, calling for help; but Finnerty swung toward the gate, saying: "That's a decoy call to save the thief. He's gone this way."

As the two men, racing, passed from the compound, they swung into a native jungle path that led off toward the hills. There was little sense in their pursuit; it was purely the fighting instinct—Finnerty's Irish was up. A hundred yards along the path, as they raced through a growth of bamboos, something happened that by the merest chance did not spill one of their lives. Finnerty overshot a noose that was pegged out on the path, but Swinton's foot went into it, tipping free a green bamboo, four inches thick, that swept the path waist-high, catching Finnerty before it had gained momentum, his retarding bulk saving the captain from a broken spine. As it was, he, too, was swept off his feet.

Picking himself up, the major said: "If I had put my foot in that noose I'd been cut in two. It's the old hillman's tiger trap—only there's no spear fastened to the bamboo. We can go back now; the thief is pretty well on his way to Nepal."

A cry of terror came from up the path, followed by silence.

"Something has happened the thief," Finnerty said. "Come on, captain!"

Again they hurried along, but warily now. Where a wax-leafed wild mango blanked the moonlight from their path, Finnerty's foot caught in a soft something that, as it rolled from the thrust, gleamed white. He sprang to one side; it was a blooded body—either a big snake or a man. Thus does the mind of a man of the open work with quick certainty.

The wind shifted a long limb of the mango and a moon shaft fell upon the face of Baboo Lall Mohun Dass. Beside him, sprawled face down, the body of a native, naked but for a loin cloth. Cautiously Finnerty touched this with his spear. There was no movement; even the baboo lay as one dead. The major's spearhead clicked against something on the native's back, and, reaching down, he found the handle of a knife, its blade driven to the hilt.

Finnerty held the knife in the moonlight toward Swinton, saying: "It's the 'Happy Despatch,' a little knife the Nepal hillmen carry for the last thrust—generally for themselves when they're cornered."

"It has a jade handle," Swinton added. "It's an exact duplicate of the knife they found in Akka's back at the bottom of the ravine in Simla."

"This is the thief we've chased," Finnerty declared, as he turned the body over; "but the sapphire is not in his loin cloth."

Swinton was kneeling beside Baboo Dass. "This chap is not dead," he said; "he's had a blow on the head."

"Search him for the sapphire," Finnerty called from where he was examining a curious network of vines plaited through some overhanging bamboos. This formed a perfect cul-de-sac into which perhaps the thief had run and then been stabbed by some one in waiting.

"It isn't on the baboo," Swinton announced, "and he's coming to. I fancy the man that left the knife sticking in the first thief is thief number two; must be a kind of religious quid pro quo, this exchange of a jade-handled knife for the sapphire."

Baboo Dass now sat up; and, returning consciousness picturing the forms of Swinton and Finnerty, remembrance brought back the assault, and he yelled in terror, crying: "Spare me—spare my life! Take the sapphire!"

"Don't be frightened, baboo," Swinton soothed. "The man who struck you is gone."

Realising who his rescuers were, Baboo Dass gave way to tears of relief, and in this momentary abstraction framed an alibi. "Kind masters," he said presently, "I am coming by the path to your bungalow for purpose of beseeching favour, and am hearing too much strife—loud cry of 'Thief!' also profane expostulation in Hindustani word of hell. Here two men is fight, and I am foolish fellow to take up arms for peace. Oh, my master, one villain is smote me and I swoon."

"You're a fine liar, baboo," Finnerty declared crisply.

"No, master, not——"

"Shut up! I mean, tell me why you sent this thief, who is dead, to steal the sapphire?"

"Not inciting to theft, sar; this thief is himself steal the sapphire."

"How do you know he stole a sapphire?" Swinton asked quietly.

Baboo Dass gasped. Perhaps his mind was still rather confused from the blow—he had been trapped so easily.

"Perhaps there was no other," Finnerty suggested seductively. "I believe you murdered this man, baboo; I fear you'll swing for it."

This was too much. "Oh, my master," he pleaded, "do not take action in the courts against me for felonious assault or otherwise. I, too, am victim of assault and battery when this poor mans is slain. I will tell, sars, why I have arrange to take back my sapphire in this manner."

"Your sapphire?" Finnerty questioned.

"Yes, sar—the sapphire that I am suffer the head shave for. Good authority is tell me it is in the bell on the elephant when Rajah Ananda is go to the palace."

"Phe-e-ew!" Finnerty whistled. "I see! Mister Rajah, eh? Did he tell you that I had the sapphire you lost?"

"Please, sar, I am poor man; let the good authority be incognito."

"Why didn't you come and ask for the sapphire?" Finnerty questioned.

"Master, if I come and say you have the sapphire has been looted from me with head shave, that is not polite—you are shove me with foot from verandah because of accusation."

"Listen, baboo!" the major said, not unkindly. "Prince Ananda has duped you. He made you believe that I had your sapphire, which is a lie, because it was another. Then he persuaded you to hire a thief to steal it——"

"Not persuading, sahib; he make threats. I will lose my place with Hamilton Company, also the Marwari woman who plotted to me the head shave is murdered, and I am fearful of knife."

"A fine mess of things, now, major," Swinton observed. "Looks to me as if that woman stole Baboo Dass' sapphire for the priests; then Ananda had her murdered, recovered the jewel, and put our friend, here, up to stealing this last one; that would give him the three."

"I think you're right, captain." Finnerty turned to the baboo. "You bribed this thief to steal the stone out of my box, some servant having told you it was there, and you waited on the trail here for him."

Finnerty had forgotten about the bamboo trap; now it came to his memory with angering force. "You black hound!" he stormed. "You were a party to putting up that bamboo trap that might have killed us!"

But the baboo denied all knowledge of ways and means; the thief had represented himself as a man quite capable of arranging all details—all Baboo Dass was to do was hand over twenty rupees when the thief delivered the sapphire on the jungle path. At any rate, he was now very dead and could not dispute this story.

"Sahib, I am too much afraid; this evil jewel is bring too much trouble. I will go back to Calcutta. Please, sar, forgive because I am too polite to make demand for the sapphire."

Finnerty pondered for a minute. There was absolutely nothing further to do in the matter. No doubt a temple man had got Swinton's sapphire now and they probably would never see it again.

He turned to the native. "I think you had better go away, baboo; Darpore is not a healthy place for men who cross our gentle friend up on the hill."

"Thank you, kind gentlemans. Please, if I can saunter to the road with the sahibs because of jungle terrors."

Eager in pursuit, the men had run blithely over the ground in their bare feet; now they hobbled back, discussing the extraordinarily complete plans the thief had made beforehand. The broken glass on the step was an old dodge, but the utilisation of a tiger trap to kill a pursuer was a new one.

While they had been away, the servant had found Gutra, securely bound and gagged, lying in the compound, where he had been carried. He had been wakened, he declared, by the thrusting of a cloth into his mouth, but was unable to give an alarm.

As Finnerty gazed ruefully into his empty box, he said: "I knew the thief was after the sapphire; that's why I raced to get him. Too devilish bad, captain!"

"I don't understand why he took a chance of opening the box here; the usual way is to take it to the jungle and rifle it there," Swinton said.

"Oh, I was clever," Finnerty laughed. "See, I put four screw nails through the bottom of the box into this heavy table, knowing their ways, and somebody who knew all about that and had opportunity to fit a key did the job, or helped. The watchman hadn't anything to do with it. They're all thieves, but they won't steal from their own masters or village."

Finnerty had the broken glass that littered the steps brought in, saying, as he picked out a gold-draped bottle neck: "A man is known by the bottle he drinks from. The villagers don't drink champagne to any large extent, and there are several pieces of this caste. Here's half a bottle that once held Exshaw's Best Brandy, such as rajahs put in a glass of champagne to give it nip. Here's a piece of a soda-water bottle stamped 'Thompson, Calcutta,' and everybody in Darpore but Ananda drinks up-country stuff."

"Which means," Swinton summed up, "that the glass is from Ananda's place—he outfitted the thief."

Finnerty replaced the glass in the basket, putting it under the table; then, as he faced about, he saw that Swinton, leaning back against the pillow, was sound asleep. He slipped into a warm dressing-gown, turned out the light, left the room noiselessly, and curled up in an armchair on the verandah, muttering: "It must be near morning; it would be a sin to disturb him."

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Chapter XII

Finnerty had slept an hour when he was wakened by the raucous voice of a peacock greeting dawn with his unpleasant call from high up in the sal forest. A cold grey pallor was creeping into the eastern sky as the major, still feeling the holding lethargy of the disturbed night, closed his eyes for a little more of oblivion. But Life, clamorous, vociferous, peopling the hills, the trees, the plain, sent forth its myriad acclaim, as a warming flush swept with eager haste up the vaulted dome, flung from a molten ball that topped the forest line with amazing speed.

A flock of parrakeets swooped like swallows through the air with high-pitched cries; from the feathered foliage of a tamarind came the monotonous drool, "Ko-el—ko-el—ko-el—ke-e-e-e-el!" of the koel bird, harbinger of the "hot spell;" a crow, nesting in a banyan, rose from her eggs, and, with a frightened cry, fled through the air as a hawk cuckoo swooped with shrill whistle as if to strike. The cuckoo, dumping from the nest a couple of the crow's white eggs, settled down to deposit her own embryo chick. From the kennels came the joyous bark of Rampore hounds, and from a native village filtered up the yapping cries of pariah dogs.

Far up the road that wound past the bungalow sounded the squealing skirl of wooden axles in wooden wheels, and the cries of the bullock driver, "Dut, dut, dut, Dowlet! Dut, dut—chelao Rajah!" followed by the curious noise that the driver made with his lips while he twisted the tails of his bullocks to urge them on.

Finnerty thought of the stone on the road, and, passing into the bungalow, wakened Swinton. "Sorry, old boy, but we'd better have a look at that stone—there are carts coming down the hill."

"Bless me! Almost dropped off to sleep, I'm afraid!" and the captain sat up.

When they arrived at the scene of Swinton's adventure, Finnerty, peering over the embankment, said: "The dogcart is hung up in a tree halfway down. I expect you'll find that chita at the bottom, kicked to death by the Cabuli."

Swinton, indicating an abrasion on the boulder that might have been left by the iron tire of a wheel, said: "My cart didn't strike this, and there are no other iron-wheel marks on the road; just part of this beastly plot—to be used as evidence that the stone put me over the bank."

"They even rolled the boulder down to leave an accidental trail. There's not a footprint of a native, though. Hello, by Jove!" Finnerty was examining two bamboos growing from the bank above the road. "See that?" and his finger lay on an encircling mark where a strap had worn a smooth little gutter in the bamboo shell two feet from the ground. Both bamboos, standing four feet apart, showed this line of friction. "Here's where they held the chita in leash, and, when you arrived, took off his hood and slipped the straps. We'll just roll that boulder off the road and go back to breakfast."

"Oh, Lord!" the major exclaimed, as, midway of their breakfast, there came the angry trumpeting of an elephant. "That's Moti, and she wants her bell. She's an ugly devil when she starts; but, while I don't mind losing some sleep, I must eat."

"The devil of it is that all this circumstantial evidence we're gathering isn't worth a rap so far as the real issue is concerned," the captain said from the depths of a brown study.

"I understand," Finnerty answered. "It proves who is trying to get rid of us, but the government is not interested in our private affairs—it wants to check Ananda's state intrigues."

"And also we won't mention any of these things to our young friend whom I hear outside," Swinton added, as the voice of Lord Victor superseded the beat of hoofs on the road.

As he swung into the breakfast room, Gilfain explained cheerily: "Thought I'd ride around this way to see what had happened; my bearer heard in the bazaar Swinton had been eaten by a tiger—but you weren't, old top, were you?"

"My dogcart went wrong," Swinton answered, "so I stayed with the major."

"What made me think something might have happened was that the bally forest here is pretty well impregnated with leopards and things—one of Ananda's hunting chitas escaped last evening and he was worrying about it at dinner; says he's a treacherous brute, has turned sour on his work, and is as liable to spring on a man as on a pronghorn."

"Was the prince anxious about me in particular?" the captain asked innocently.

"Oh, no; he didn't say anything, at least."

Finnerty sprang to his feet as a big gong boomed a tattoo over at the keddah. "Trouble!" he ejaculated. "Elephant on the rampage—likely Moti."

The bungalow buzzed like a hive of disturbed bees. A bearer came with Finnerty's helmet and a leather belt in which hung a .45 Webley revolver; a saddled horse swung around the bungalow, led by a running syce.

The major turned to Swinton. "Like to go?"

"Rather!"

Finnerty sprang down the steps, caught the bridle rein, and said: "Bring Akbar for the sahib, quick!"

Soon a bay Arab was brought by his own syce. "Come on, Gilfain, and see the sport!" And Finnerty swung to the saddle. "It's not far, but the rule when the alarm gong sounds is that my horse is brought; one never knows how far he may go before he comes back." To the bearer he added: "Bring my 8-bore and plenty of ball cartridges to the keddah."

When they arrived at the elephant lines, the natives were in a fever of unrest. Mahadua had answered the gong summons and was waiting, his small, wizened face carrying myriad wrinkles of excited interest. Moti's mahout was squatted at the tamarind to which she had been chained, the broken chain in his lap wet from tears that were streaming down the old fellow's cheeks.

"Look you, sahib!" he cried. "The chain has been cut with a file."

"Where is Moti?" Finnerty queried.

"She is down in the cane," a native answered; "I have just come from there."

"She has gone up into the sal forest," another maintained. "I was coming down the hill and had to flee from the path, for she is must."

"Huzoor, the elephant has stripped the roof from my house," a third, a native from Picklapara village, declared. "All the village has been laid flat and a hundred people killed. Will the sircar pay me for the loss of my house, for surely it is a government elephant and we are poor people?"

Finnerty turned to the shikari. "Mahadua, which way has Moti gone?"

"These men are all liars, sahib—it is their manner of speech. Moti went near to Picklapara and the people all ran away; but she is now up on the hills."

The mahout stopped his droning lament long enough to say: "Sahib, Moti is not to be blamed, for she is drunk; she knows not where evil begins, because a man came in the night and gave her a ball of bhang wrapped up in sweets."

"We've got to capture the old girl before she kills some natives," Finnerty declared. "If you chaps don't mind a wait, I'll get things ready and you'll see better sport than killing something."

First the major had some "foot tacks" brought. They were sharp-pointed steel things with a broad base, looking like enormous carpet tacks. Placed on the path, if Moti stepped on one she would probably come in to the keddah to have her foot dressed. Four Moormen, natives of the Ceylon hills, were selected. These men were entitled to be called panakhans, for each one had noosed by the leg a wild elephant that had been captured, and very lithe and brave they looked as they stepped out, a rawhide noose over the shoulder of each. A small army of assistants were also assembled, and Raj Bahadar, a huge bull elephant.

Finnerty sent the men and Raj Bahadar on ahead, saying that Moti might perhaps make up to the bull and not clear off to the deep jungle. Giving them a start of fifteen minutes, the three sahibs, Mahadua, and a man to carry the major's 8-bore elephant gun followed. They travelled for an hour up through graceful bamboos and on into the rolling hills, coming upon the tusker and the natives waiting.

Gothya, the mahout, salaamed, saying:

"We have heard something that moves with noise in the jungle, and, not wishing to frighten Moti, we have waited for the sahib."

"It was a bison," one of the men declared. "Twice have I seen his broad, black back."

"Sahib," the mahout suggested, "it may be that it was a tiger, for Raj Bahadar has taken the wind with his trunk many times, after his manner when there are tiger about."

"Fools, all of you!" Finnerty said angrily. "You are wasting time."

"Sahib"—it was Mahadua's plaintive voice—"these men, who are fitted for smoking opium in the bazaar, will most surely waste the sahib's time. It is better that we go in front."

"I think you're right," Finnerty declared. "Go you in front, Mahadua, for you make little noise; the ears of an elephant are sharp, and we ride horses, but we will keep you in sight." He turned to the mahout. "At a distance bring along Bahadur and the men."

The shikari grinned with delight; he salaamed the major in gratitude. To lead a hunt! He was in the seventh heaven.

As noiseless as a brown shadow, he slipped through the jungle, and yet so free of pace that at times he had to wait lest the sahibs should lose his trail. Once they lost him for a little; when they came within sight he was standing with a hand up, and when they reached his side he said: "Sahib, sometimes a fool trips over the truth, and those two, who are assuredly fools in the jungle, have both spoken true words, for I have seen the hoofprints of a mighty bison and also the pugs of Pundit Bagh who has a foot like a rice pot. I will carry the 8-bore, and if the sahib will walk he may get good hunting; the matter of Moti can wait."

"You'd better dismount, Lord Victor, and take the shot," Finnerty advised. "A tiger is evidently stalking the bison, so perhaps will be a little off guard. The syces will bring along the ponies."

Swinton dismounted also, saying: "I'll prowl along with you, major, if you don't object."

As Lord Victor slipped from his horse, Finnerty said: "If you don't mind, I'll give you a couple of pointers about still stalking, for if you're quiet you have a good chance of bagging either a tiger or a bull bison. I can't do anything to help you; you've got to depend on yourself and the gun."

"Thanks, old chap; just tell me what I should do."

"You will keep Mahadua in sight. If you hear anything in the jungle that would cause you to look around, don't turn your neck while you are moving, but stand perfectly still—that will prevent a noisy, false step. Don't try to step on a log in crossing it—you might slip; but sit on it and swing your legs over if you can't stride it. When Mahadua holds up a finger that he sees something, don't take a step without looking where you are going to place your foot, and don't step on a stick or a stone. If it is the tiger, don't shoot if he is coming toward you—not until he has just passed; then rake him from behind the shoulder, and he'll keep going—he won't turn to charge. If you wound him when he's coming on, it's a hundred to one he'll charge and maul you, even while he's dying. As to the bull, shoot him any old way that brings him down, for the bison's ferocity is good fiction."

Finnerty had given this lesson in almost a whisper. Now he thrust the 8-bore into Lord Victor's hand, saying: "This shoots true, flat-sighted, up to fifty yards; but don't try to pick off that tiger at over twenty. The gun is deuced heavy—it weighs fifteen pounds—so don't tire your arms carrying it at the ready. It fires a charge of twelve drams of powder, so hold it tight to your shoulder or it'll break a bone. It throws a three-ounce, hollow-nosed bullet that'll mushroom in either a tiger or a bison, and he'll stop."

Mahadua took up the trail again, not following all the windings and zigzag angles of its erratic way, for they were now breasting a hill and he knew that the bull, finding the flies troublesome, would seek the top plateau so that the breeze would blow these pests away. The wind was favourable—on their faces—for the wise old bull travelled into it, knowing that it would carry to him a danger taint if the tiger waited in ambush.

"We'll carry on for a little longer," Finnerty said; "but if we find the bull is heading up into the sal forest we'll give it up and go after Moti; she won't be far away, I fancy."

They followed the bison's trail, that had now straightened out as he fled from the thing that had disturbed his rest, for fifteen minutes, and Mahadua was just dipping over the plateau's far edge when a turmoil of noises came floating up from the valley beyond—a turmoil of combat between large animals. Quickening their pace, Finnerty and Swinton saw, as they reached the slope, Mahadua wiring his way into a wall of bamboo that hung like a screen on a shelving bank.

"Come on!" Finnerty commanded. "There's such a fiendish shindy down there we won't be heard, and the wind is from that quarter."

Creeping through the bamboos, they saw Mahadua, one hand in the air as a sign of caution, peering down into the hollow. Finnerty gasped with surging delight as his eyes fell upon the regal picture that lay against the jungle background. A mighty bull bison, his black back as broad as a table, stood at bay with lowered head, his red-streaked, flashing eyes watching a huge tiger that crouched, ready to spring, a dozen feet away.

"Pundit Bagh—see his spectacles, sahib!" the guide whispered.

The torn-up ground told the battle had waged for some time. With a warning finger to his lips, Finnerty sat quivering with the joy of having stumbled upon the life desire of every hunter of big game in India—the chance to witness a combat between a full-grown tiger and a bull bison. On one side ferocity, devilish cunning, strength, muscles like piano wire, and lightning speed; on the other, enormous power, cool courage, and dagger horns that if once well placed would disembowel the cat.

Every wary twist of the crouching tiger's head, every quiver of his rippling muscles, every false feint of the pads that dug restlessly at the sward, showed that he had no intention of being caught in a death grapple with the giant bull; he was like a wrestler waiting for a grip on the other's neck, his lips curled in a taunting sneer.

With a snort of defiance the bison suddenly charged; and Pundit Bagh, his yellow fangs bared in a savage growl, vaulted lightly to the top of a flat rock, taking a swipe with spread claws at the bull's eyes as he passed. The bull, anticipating this move, had suddenly lowered his head, catching the blow on a strong, curved horn, and the Pundit sat on the rock holding the injured paw in the air, a comical look of surprise in his spectacled eyes. As the bison swung about, the tiger, slipping from the rock, faced him again, twenty feet away.

Spellbound by the atmosphere of this Homeric duel, the sahibs had crouched, motionless, scarcely breathing, held by intense interest. Now, suddenly recalling his hunting mission, Lord Victor drew the 8-bore forward; but Mahadua's little black eyes looked into Finnerty's in pathetic pleading, and the latter placed his big palm softly on the hand that held the gun. Lord Victor had been trained to understand the chivalry of sport, and he nodded. A smile hovered on his lips as he held up the spread fingers of two hands and then pointed toward the bison.

Finnerty understood, and, leaning forward, whispered: "You're on for ten rupees, and I back Stripes."

"Sahib!" So low the tone of Mahadua's voice that it barely reached their ears; and following the line of a pointed finger they saw on the rounded knob of a little hill across the valley a red jungle dog, his erected tail weaving back and forth in an unmistakable signal.

"He's flagging the pack," Finnerty whispered. "Now we'll see these devils at work."

Whimpering cries from here and there across the valley told that these dreaded brutes, drawn by the tiger's angry roars, were gathering to be in at a death.

The keen-eared bull had heard the yapping pack, and as his head turned for the fraction of a second Pundit Bagh stole three catlike steps forward; but as the horns came into defence he crouched, belly to earth, his stealthy feline nature teaching him that his only hope against his adversary's vast bulk was some trick made possible by waiting a charge.

Like Medusa's hair which changed into serpents, the screening jungle thrust forth its many sinuous tentacles. Lean, red, black-nosed heads appeared from thorny bush and spiked grass, and step by step gaunt bodies came out into the arena. Some sat on their haunches, dripping tongues lapping at yellow fangs as though their owners already drank blood; others, uttering whimpering notes of anticipation, prowled in a semicircle, their movements causing Pundit Bagh to hug closer the bank with its jutting rocks.

Both combatants in the presence of this new danger stayed for a little their battle; they knew that the one that went down first would have the pack against him.

Finnerty whispered: "The cunning devils will wait, and if Pundit Bagh wins out, but is used up—which he will be—the dogs will drive him away and eat his dinner. If he's killed, they will devour him when the bison departs."

"I wouldn't have missed this for a thousand guineas!" Lord Victor panted in a husky whisper.

Finnerty, patting the gun, said: "We'll probably have to settle it with this yet; so have it ready for a quick throw to your shoulder." He picked up a stick from the ground and thrust an end into a clump of growing bamboos, adding: "There! That 8-bore is mighty heavy; rest it across this stick. We won't shoot the bison, no matter what happens; he's like a gentleman assailed by a footpad. It will be Stripes or the dogs; so take your time drawing a bead—I'll tell you when it's necessary."

As if during this little lull following the jungle pack's advent the bison had thought along the same lines as Major Finnerty, and had come to the conclusion that if he turned tail dogs and tiger would pull him down, lowered his head, and, with a defiant snort, charged. A stride, and Pundit Bagh, who had plotted as he crouched, shot into the air, a quivering mass of gold and bronze in the sunlight. But he had waited the fraction of a second too long; he missed the neck, landing on the high, grizzled wither. Like a flash his mighty arms were about the bull, and his huge jaws, wide-spread, snapped for a grip that, if secured, would break the vertebra—it would go like a pipestem in the closing of that vise of arms and jaw. But the little shift from wither to neck caused him to miss the spine; his fangs tore through flesh and he was crushed against a rock, his hold broken.

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