Rung Ho! Part 11

She watched the fat Hindoo, and made sure that she would recognize him anywhere again. Then, by a trail that no one would have guessed at and few could have followed, she made her way to Jaimihr's palace--three miles away from Howrah's--where a dozen sulky-looking sepoys lolled, dismounted, by the wooden gate. There was neither sight nor sound of mounted men, and the gate was shut; but in the middle of the roadway there was smoking dung, and there was a suspicion of overacting about the indifference of the guardians of the entrance.

There was no overacting, though, in what Joanna did. n.o.body would have dreamed that she was playing any kind of part, or interested in anything at all except the coppers that she begged for. She squatted in the roadway, ink-black and clear-cut in the now blazing sunlight, alternately flattering them and pretending to a knowledge of unguessed-at witchcraft.

She was there still at midday when they changed the guard. She was there when night fell, still squatting in the roadway, still exchanging repartee and hints at the supernatural with armed men who shuddered now and then between their bursts of mockery. The sore, suffering dogs that sniff through the night for worse eyesores than themselves whimpered and watched her. The guard changed and the moon paled, but she stayed on; and whatever her purpose, or whatever information she obtained in fragments amid the raillery, she did not return to the mission house.

It was not until Rosemary McClean returned and dismounted by the door that she realized Joanna had not kept pace. Even then she thought little of it; the old woman often lingered on the homeward way when the chance of her being needed was remote. Two or three hours pa.s.sed before the suspicion rose that anything might have happened to Joanna, and even then she might not have been remembered had not Duncan McClean asked for her.

"I have changed my mind," he said, calling Rosemary into the long, low living-room. It was darkened to exclude the hot wind and the glare, and he looked like a ghost as he rose to meet her. "I have decided that my duty is to get away from this place for your sake and for the sake of the cause I have at heart. We are doing no good here. I can do most by going to the Resident, or even to somebody higher up than he, and laying my case before him personally. Send for Joanna, and tell her to go and bring Mahommed Gunga's man."

It was then that they missed Joanna and began to search for her. But no Joanna came. It was then that Rosemary McClean rehea.r.s.ed with her father her former conversation with Mahommed Gunga and part, at least, of her recent one with Ali Partab, and the missionary started off himself to find the horseman whom Mahommed Gunga had so thoughtfully left behind.

But he very naturally found no Ali Partab. What he did discover was that he was followed--that a guard, unarmed but obvious, was placed around the mission house--that his servants deserted one by one--that no more children came to the mission school.

He decided to take chances and ride off with his daughter in the night.

But the ponies went mysteriously lame, and n.o.body would lend or sell him horses on any terms at all. He did his best to get a letter through to anywhere where there were British, but n.o.body would take it. And then Jaimihr came, swaggering with his escort, to offer him and his daughter the hospitality of his palace.

He declined that offer a little testily, for the insolence behind the offer was less than half concealed. Jaimihr sneered as he rode away.

"Perhaps a month or two of undisturbed enjoyment will induce the padre-sahib to change his mind about my invitation!" he said nastily.

And he made no secret then, as he ordered them about before he went, that the men who lounged and watched at every vantage-point were his.

CHAPTER X

They looked into my eyes and laughed,-- But, what when I was gone?

Have strong men made me one of them?

Or do I ride alone?

ON the morning after Mahommed Gunga's daring experiment with Cunningham's nervous system he was anxious to say the least of it; and that is only another way of saying that he was irritable. He watched the Englishman at breakfast, on the dak-bungalow veranda, with a sideways restless glance that gave the lie a dozen times over to his a.s.sumed air of irascible authority.

"We will see now what we will see," he muttered to himself. "These who know such a lot imagine that the test is made. They forget that there be many brave men of whom but a few are fit to lead. Now--now--we will see!" And he kept on repeating that a.s.surance to himself, with the air of a man who would like to be a.s.sured, but is not, while he ostentatiously found fault with every single thing on which his eyes lit.

"One would think that the Risaldar-sahib were afraid of consequences!"

whispered the youngest of his followers, stung to the quick by a quite unmerited rebuke. "Does he fear that Chota-Cunnigan will beat him?"

White men have been known--often--to do stupider things than that, and particularly young white men who have not yet learned to gauge proportions accurately; so there was nothing really ridiculous in the suggestion. A young white man who has had his temper worked up to the boiling-point, his nerves deliberately racked, and then has been subjected to the visit of a driven tiger, may be confidently expected to exhibit all the faults of which his character is capable.

To make the situation even more ticklish, Cunningham's servant, in his zeal for his master's comfort, had forgotten to sham sickness, and instead of limping was in abominably active evidence. He was even doing more than was expected of him. Ralph Cunningham had said nothing to him--had not needed to; every single thing that a pampered sahib could imagine that he needed was done for him in the proper order, without noise or awkwardness, and the Risaldar cursed as he watched the clockwork-perfect service. He had hoped for a lapse that might call forth some pointer, either by way of irritation or amus.e.m.e.nt, as to how young Cunningham was taking things.

But not a thing went wrong and not a sign of any sort gave Cunningham.

The youngster did not smile either to himself darkly or at his servant.

He lit his after-breakfast cigar and smoked it peacefully, as though he had spent an absolutely normal night, without even a dream to worry him, and if he eyed Mahommed Gunga at all, he did it so naturally, and with so little interest, that no deductions could be drawn from it. He was neither more nor less than a sahib at his ease--which was disconcerting, very, to the Oriental mind.

He smoked the cigar to a finish, without a word or sign that he wished to give audience. Then his eyes lit for the first time on the tiger-skin that was pegged out tight, raw side upward, for the sun to sterilize; he threw the b.u.t.t of his cigar away and strolled out to examine the skin without a sign to Mahommed Gunga, counted the claws one by one to make sure that no superst.i.tious native had purloined any of them, and returned to his chair on the veranda without a word.

"Is he vindictive, then?" wondered Mahommed Gunga. "Is he a mean man?

Will he bear malice and get even with me later on? If so--"

"Present my compliments to Mahommed Gunga-sahib, and ask him to be good enough to--"

The Risaldar heard the order, and was on his way to the veranda before the servant started to convey the message. He took no chances on a reprimand about his shoes, for he swaggered up in riding-boots, which no soldier can be asked to take off before he treads on a private floor; and he saluted as a soldier, all dignity. It was the only way by which he could be sure to keep the muscles of his face from telling tales.

"Huzoor?"

"Morning, Mahommed Gunga. Take a seat, won't you?"

A camp-chair creaked under the descending Rajput's weight, and creaked again as he remembered to settle himself less stiffly--less guiltily.

"I say, I'm going to ask you chaps to do me a favor. You don't mind obliging me now and then, do you?"

The youngster leaned forward confidentially, one elbow on his knee, and looked half-serious, as though what he had to ask were more important than the ordinary.

"Sahib, there is nothing that we will not do."

"Ah! Then you won't mind my mentioning this, I'm sure. Next time you want to kennel a tiger in my bedroom, d'you mind giving me notice in advance? It's not the stink I mind, nor being waked up; it's the deuced awful risk of hurting somebody. Besides--look how I spoilt that tiger's mask! The skins I've always admired at home had been shot where it didn't show so badly."

There was not even the symptom of a smile on Cunningham's face. He looked straight into Mahommed Gunga's eyes, and spoke as one man talking calm common sense to another. He raised his hand as the Rajput began to stammer an apology.

"No. Don't apologize. If you'll forgive me for shooting your pet tiger, I'll overlook the rest of it. If I'd known that you kept him in there o' nights, I'd have chosen another room, that's all--some room where I couldn't smell him, and where I shouldn't run the risk of killing an inoffensive man. Why, I might have shot you! Think how sorry I'd have been!"

The Risaldar did not quite know what to say; so, wiser than most, he said nothing.

"Oh, and one other matter. I don't speak much of the language yet, so, would you mind translating to my servant that the next time he goes sick without giving me notice, and without putting oil in my lamp, I'll have him fed to the tiger before he's brought into my room? Just tell him that quietly, will you? Say it slowly so that it sinks in. Thanks."

Straight-faced as Cunningham himself, the Risaldar tongue-lashed the servant with harsh, tooth-rasping words that brought him up to attention. Whether he interpreted or not the exact meaning of what Cunningham had said, he at least produced the desired effect; the servant mumbled apologetic nothings and slunk off the veranda backward--to go away and hold his sides with laughter at the back of the dak-bungalow. There Mahommed Gunga found him afterward and administered a thrashing--not, as he was careful to explain, for disobedience, but for having dared to be amused at the Risaldar's discomfiture.

But there was still one point that weighed heavily on Mahommed Gunga's mind as the servant shuffled off and left him alone face to face with Cunningham. There is as a very general rule not more than one man-eating tiger in a neighborhood, and not even the greenest specimen of subaltern new brought from home would be likely to mistake one for the other kind.

The man-eater was dead, and there was an engagement to shoot one that very morning. He hesitated--said nothing for the moment--and wondered whether his best course would be to go ahead and pretend to beat out the jungle and tell some lie or other about the tiger having got away. But Ralph Cunningham, with serious gray eyes fixed full on his, saved him the trouble of deciding.

"If it's all one to you, Mahommed Gunga," he said, the corner of his mouth just flickering, "we'll move on from here at once. This is a beastly old bungalow to sleep in, and shooting tigers don't seem so terribly exciting to me. Besides, the climate here must be rotten for the horses."

"As you wish, sahib."

"Very well--if the choice rests with me, I wish it. It might--ah--save the villagers a lot of hard work beating through the jungle, mightn't it--besides, there'll be other tigers on the road."

"Innumerable tigers, sahib."

"Good. Will you order a start then?"

The Risaldar departed round the corner of the bungalow, and a minute or two later Cunningham's ears caught the sound of a riding-switch, l.u.s.tily applied, and of m.u.f.fled groans. He suspected readily enough what was going on, particularly since his servant was not in evidence, but he dared not laugh on the veranda. He went inside, and made believe to be busy with his bag before he relaxed the muscles of his face.

"Now, I wonder whether I handled that situation rightly?" he asked himself between chuckles. "One thing I know--if that old ruffian plays another trick on me--one more of any kind--Ill show my teeth. There's a thing known as the limit!"

He would not have wondered, though, if he could have overheard Mahommed Gunga less than an hour later. The Risaldar had stayed behind to make sure nothing had been forgotten, and one of his men remained with him.

"There be sahibs and then sahibs," said Mahommed Gunga. "Two kinds are the worst--those who strike readily in anger and use bad language when annoyed, and those whose lips are thin and who save their vengeance to be wreaked later on. They are worse, either of them, than the sahib who is usually drunk."