The Three Sapphires Part 19

"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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s is from Ananda's place--he outfitted the thief."

Finnerty replaced the gla.s.s 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."

Chapter XII

Finnerty had slept an hour when he was wakened by the raucous voice of a peac.o.c.k 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, pa.s.sing 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. h.e.l.lo, 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 sh.e.l.l 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 circ.u.mstantial 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 p.r.o.nghorn."

"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 e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "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 ent.i.tled 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 a.s.sistants were also a.s.sembled, 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."