"And you say there was no sign from the tiger, but that Hantee Sahib knew when the instant was past?" the famous marksman repeated curiously.
Carlin nodded.
"But how did he know?"
"Ask him," she said.
"Huh," he muttered. "I might as well enquire of the Dane beastie."
CHAPTER XVI
Fever Birds
Carlin had been listless for a day or two. This was several weeks after her forty-two hours on Mitha Baba. They were still living in Malcolm M'Cord's bungalow. Skag woke in the night, not with a dream, but rather with a memory. He was broad awake and recalled an incident that had entirely escaped his day-thoughts for a long time. It had to do with that hard-testing period, just after his meeting with Carlin, when he had journeyed to Poona to confer with the eldest brother, Roderick Deal, and had been forced to wait more than a month. In that interval he had learned about hyenas at first hand, through the plight of Beatrice Hichens and the children; also his servant Bhanah had come to him, and the Great Dane, Nels; still it had been a vague stretch of days, in retrospect.
It was during the return-trip to Hurda that the thing happened which held him now as he lay broad awake. Toward twilight, as the train halted at one of the civil stations, a white-covered cot was lifted aboard. There was a kind of silence about that station. The mountains were near on the left hand which was to the West. The white glare of Indian day had softened into delicate rose. A haze of orange and bronze lay upon the lower slopes of the mountains, magically enriching the greens; and the blue against which the mountains were contoured, was pure and immense and still. It was difficult to remember the fret and pain and discolouration of a world bathed in so vast a peace. . . .
At first he thought that the body on the cot was in its shroud. The hush about it and from the mountains touched him with a feeling that he had not quite known before, the depth of it having to do with Carlin. Then he saw, back of the natives who had lifted the cot, yet not too near, the figure of an Englishman of the Military—standing quietly by, as if casually ordering a platoon of soldiers in the duty of loading the train. Now Skag looked at the man's face. It had nothing to do with the lax grace of the officer's figure. This was the face of a man who could endure anything without a cry—a narrow face, tanned and a bit hard possibly from years of self-repression—a silent man, doubtless loved for the feeling around him, rather than because of what he was accustomed to say or do—a face stricken now to the verge of chaos—unchanging anguish of fear and loneliness and sorrow imprinted from within. A strange white glow, that had nothing to do with the tan, shone forth from the skin—etheric disruption, subtler than the breakdown of mere cells. This man would put a bullet in his brain if pressed too far, but he would not cry out. Just now he was close to his limit.