The Elephant God Part 22

He turned to his host.

"I must ask you, Mr. Daleham (Fred looked up in surprise at the formality of the mode of address) to promise to divulge nothing of what I say to your friend, Mr. Chunerb.u.t.ty."

"Not tell Chunerb.u.t.ty, sir?" repeated the young planter in astonishment.

"No; the matter is one which must not be mentioned to any but Europeans."

"Oh, but I a.s.sure you, Major, Chunerb.u.t.ty's thoroughly loyal and reliable,"

said Daleham warmly.

"I repeat that you are not to give him the least inkling of what I am going to say," replied Dermot in a quiet but stern voice. "As I have already told you, I am speaking officially."

The boy was impressed and a little awed by his manner.

"Oh, certainly, sir. I give you my word that I shan't mention it to him."

"Very well. The fact is, gentlemen, that we are on the track of a vast conspiracy against British rule in India, and have reason to believe that the activity of the disloyalists in Bengal has spread to this district. We suspect that the Brahmins who, very much to the surprise of any one acquainted with the ways of their caste, are working as coolies on your gardens, are really emissaries of the seditionists."

"By George, is that really so, Major?" asked a young planter in a doubting tone. "We have a couple of these Bengalis on our place, and they seem such quiet, harmless chaps."

"The Major is quite right. I know it," said one of the oldest men present.

"I confess that it didn't occur to me as strange that Brahmins should take such low-caste work until he told me. But I have found since, as others of us have, that these men are the secret cause of all the trouble and unrest that we have had lately among our coolies, to whom they preach sedition and revolution."

Several other estate managers corroborated his statement.

"But surely, sir, you don't suspect Chunerb.u.t.ty of being mixed up in this?"

asked Daleham. "He's been a friend of mine for a long time. I lived with him in London, and I'm certain he is quite loyal and pro-British."

"I know nothing of him, Daleham," replied the soldier. "But he is a Bengali Brahmin, one of the race and caste that are responsible for most of the sedition in India, and we must take precautions."

"I'd stake my life on him," exclaimed the boy hotly. "He's been a good friend to me, and I'll answer for him."

Dermot did not trouble to argue the matter further with him, but said to the company generally:

"This outrageous attempt to carry off Miss Daleham--"

"Oh, but you said yourself, sir, that the ruffians were Bhuttias," broke in the boy, still nourishing a grievance at the mistrust of his friend.

Dermot turned to him again.

"Do Bhuttias talk to each other in Bengali? The leader gave his orders in that language to one man--who, by the way, was the only one he spoke to--and that man pa.s.sed them on to the others in Bhutanese."

This statement caused a sensation in the company.

"By Jove, is that a fact, Dermot?" cried Payne.

"Yes. These two were the men I shot. Do Bhuttias, unless they have just looted a garden successfully--and we know these fellows had not--carry sums like this?" And Dermot threw on the supper-table a cloth in which coins were wrapped. "Open that, Payne, and count the money, please."

All bent forward and watched as the planter opened the knot fastening the cloth and poured out a stream of bright rupees, the silver coin of India roughly equivalent to a florin. There was silence while he counted them.

"A hundred," he said.

Dermot laid on the table a new automatic pistol and several clips of cartridges.

"Bhuttias from across the border do not possess weapons like these, as you know. Nor do they carry English-made pocket-books with contents like those this one has."

He handed a leather case to Granger who opened it and took out a packet of bank notes and counted them. "Eight hundred and fifty rupees," he said.

The men around him looked at the notes and at each other. A young engineer whistled and said: "Whew! It pays to be a brigand. I'll turn robber myself, I think. Poor but honest man that I am I have never gazed on so much wealth before. Hullo! What's that bit of string?"

Dermot had taken from his pocket the cord that he had cut from the corpse of the second raider and laid it on the table.

"Perhaps some of you may not be sufficiently well acquainted with Indian customs to know what this is."

"I'm blessed if I am, Major," said the engineer. "What is it?"

"It's the _janeo_, or sacred cord worn by the three highest of the original Hindu castes as a symbol of their second or spiritual birth and to mark the distinction between their n.o.ble twice-born selves and the lower caste once-born Sudras. You see it is made up of three strings of spun cotton to symbolise the Hindu _Trimurti_ (Trinity), Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, and also Earth, Air, and Heaven, the three worlds pervaded by their essence."

"Oh, I see. But where did you get it?" asked the engineer.

"Off the body of the second man that I shot, together with the pistol and pocket-book. Now, Bhuttias do not wear the _janeo_, not being Hindus. But high-caste Hindus do--and a Brahmin would never be without it."

"Oh, no. So you mean that the man wasn't a Bhuttia?"

"This is the last exhibit, as they say in the Law Courts," said Dermot, producing a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. "You don't find Bhuttias wearing these."

"By Jove, no," said Granger, taking them up and trying them. "d.a.m.ned good gla.s.ses, these, and cost a bit, too."

Dermot turned towards Daleham.

"Do you remember showing me on this garden one day a coolie whom you said was a B.A. of Calcutta University?"

"Yes; he was called Narain Da.s.s," replied Fred. "We spoke to him, you recollect, Major? He talked excellent English of the _babu_ sort."

"What has happened to him?"

"I don't know. He disappeared a short time ago. Deserted, I suppose, though I don't see why he should. He was getting on well here."

Dermot smiled grimly and touched the cord and spectacles.

"The man who wore these, who led the Bhuttias in the raid, was Narain Da.s.s."

These was a moment's amazed silence in the room. Then a hubbub arose, and there was a chorus of exclamations and questions.

"Good Heavens, is it possible, Major? He appeared to be such a decent, civil chap," exclaimed Daleham.

"His face seemed familiar to me, as he lay dead on the ground," replied Dermot. "I couldn't place him, though, until I found the spectacles. I put them on his nose, and then I knew him. His hair was cropped close, he was wearing Bhuttia clothes, but it was Narain Da.s.s, the University graduate who was working as a coolie for a few _annas_ a day."