"He put a finger on his lips and closed his eyes when he passed the rupee, and thinking the going abroad to eat the air by the mem-sahib of no importance to master I said nothing."
Neither did Finnerty say anything of this to either Lord Victor or Swinton. But he made up his mind that he would also go up into the hills that day. It was his duty.
Persistently his mind revolted at the thought of denouncing the girl. In some moments of self-analysis his heart warmed in confessional, but this feeling, traitorous to his duty, he put in the storehouse of locked-away impulses. He had never even whispered into words these troublous thoughts. It took some mastering, did the transient glint of pleasing womanhood into his barren jungle life, for the big man was an Irish dreamer, a Celt whose emotions responded to the subtle tonic of beauty and charm. Ever since he had taken Marie in his arms to put her in the howdah he had felt her head against his shoulder; had seen the heavy sweep of black hair that was curiously shot with silver.
Finnerty could see an uneasy look in Lord Victor's eyes as that young man watched him coming back out of the jungle with Mahadua. Why had the youngster talked with the girl on the grey stallion—why had he not let her pass? Why had he given the shikari a rupee to say nothing of the meeting? There was some mystery behind the whole thing. She had come back late the previous evening, and now she was going up into the hills at this early hour.
The elephant Finnerty had sent for had not arrived; perhaps the half-drunken messengers had lain down in the jungle to sleep off the arak. But at last the tusker appeared. It was during this wait that Finnerty proposed to Swinton that they should go up into the hills. He saw Lord Victor start and look up, apprehension in his eyes, when he broached the matter, but though the latter advanced many reasons why they should not make the journey he did not accept the major's polite release of his company; he stuck. Indeed, Finnerty was hoping Gilfain would decide to return to Darpore, for the young man's presence would hamper their work of investigation.
He knew that the grey stallion's hoofprints would be picked up on the path that led to the hills when they came to the spot where the girl, having finished her detour, would swing her mount back to the beaten way, so he rode with his eyes on the ground. He first discerned them faintly cupping some hard, stony ground, but he said nothing, riding in silence till, where the trail lay across a stretch of mellow, black soil, imprints of the wide hoofs were indented as though inverted saucers had cut a quaint design. Here he halted and cried in assumed surprise: "By Jove! Somebody rides abroad early this morning!"
But his assumption of surprise was not more consummate than Gilfain's, for the latter's face held a baby expression of inquiring wonderment as he said: "Floaty sort of idea, I'd call it, for any one to jog up into these primeval glades for pleasure."
Swinton, who knew the stallion's hoofprints from a former study of them, raised his eyes to Finnerty's, there reading that the major also knew who the rider was.
Now by this adventitious lead their task was simplified, and Finnerty clung tenaciously to the telltale tracks. This fact gradually dawned upon Lord Victor, and he became uneasy, dreading to come upon the girl while with his two companions.
They had ridden for an hour, always upward, the timber growing lighter, the ground rockier, and open spots of jungle more frequent, when, on a lean, gravelled ridge, Finnerty stopped, and, dismounting, searched the ground for traces of a horse that had passed.