The Three Sapphires Part 24

To Finnerty came with full horror a memory of the Banjara's words: "See the black leopard drink at the pool to-night."

Silently shifting his 10-bore till its muzzle ranged the side along which the thing crept, he uncovered the glowworm, and a little speck of luminous light showed that it was still alive.

Swinton, who sat facing the other way, feeling that there was something stirring, drew his gun across his knee.

A minute, two minutes--they seemed years to Finnerty--then he heard, deeper in the jungle, a bush swish as if it had been pushed, and in relief he muttered: "The brute must have seen my movement and has gone away."

For a full minute of dread suspense the silence held, save for the rasping cicada and a droning voice beneath; then, from beyond where those below stood, some noise came out of the gloom--it might have been a small branch falling or the scamper of a startled jungle rat. Holding his eyes on the spot, Finnerty saw two round b.a.l.l.s of light gleam--yellow green, as if tiny mirrors reflected the moonlight. They disappeared, then glowed again; they rose and fell. With a chill at his heart he knew that the beast, with devilish cunning, had circled, and now approached from the side farthest from the machan. Swinging his gun, with a prayer that the current was on, he turned the electric b.u.t.ton; a splash of white light cut the jungle gloom, and where his eyes searched was outlined in strong relief, crouched for a spring, a black leopard.

Turned up to the sudden glare, ghastly in the white light, was the face of Lord Victor; at his side, clutching his arm, with her eyes riveted on the leopard, stood Marie.

Values flashed through Finnerty's mind with lightning speed. He had expected the jungle dweller to flee when the electric glare lit up the scene, but the leopard was unafraid; he even crept a pace closer to those below. His forepaws gripped nervously at the ground in a churning movement; his tail stiffened; but before he could rise in a flying tackle a stream of red light belched from Swinton's gun; there was a coughing roar telling of a hit, and the leopard, turned by the shot, bounded into the jungle, his crashing progress growing fainter as he fled. Then darkness closed out the scene of almost tragedy, for Finnerty had turned the switch.

On the point of calling in a.s.surance, Swinton was checked by the sudden death of the light; he understood the major's motive.

The two sat still, while Finnerty, his grasp on Swinton's shoulder, whispered into his ear: "The leopard is wounded; he won't turn now that he has started to run; let them get away without knowing who saw them, for they're in no danger."

There came the sound of feet going with stumbling speed up the path as Marie, dreading discovery more than the terrors of the jungle path, clutching Gilfain's hand, fled.

After a little, Finnerty said: "Fancy we may go back now. I wonder how much of this business the Banjara knew; how much of it is a twist of fate upsetting somebody's plans." And as they climbed the hill path from Jadoo Nala he continued: "Tomorrow morning we'll follow the pugs of that black devil; there'll be blood enough for the shikari to track him down, I think; he'll have stiffened up from his wound by then and we'll get him."

With irrelevance the captain blurted, in a voice filled with disgust: "That young a.s.s!"

Finnerty laughed softly. "The dear old earl sent him to India to be out of the way of skirts. It can't be done!"

"But how did he get a meeting with that foolish virgin; he's only been here three days! And how did the Banjara know, and how did--oh, one's life here is a d.a.m.n big query mark!"

"I should say that there's been a note written, either by the girl to his giddy lordship or vice versa; Darna Singh has made the mistake of supposing Prince Ananda was the man she was to meet; that's why the black leopard was turned loose."

"Do you think it really was the prince's beast?"

"Yes; that's why he didn't run when the light flashed. He's accustomed to it in the zoo grounds. But it was a fiendish caper, and Gilfain is fortunate."

"I think it proves the girl is a spy; she probably, at the prince's suggestion, led the young fool on. I'm glad he doesn't know anything about----" Swinton broke off suddenly, as the heavy gloom of the forest interior was brushed aside like a curtain, disclosing to their eyes a fairy scene--the prince's palace.

The moon, which had leaped high above the barrier of the forest, poured a flood of yellow light across the open plateau, gilding with gold leaf the mosquelike dome roof of a turret and shimmering a white marble minaret till it sparkled like a fretwork thing of silver. The Lake of the Golden Coin was a maze of ribboned colours where the mahseer rose to its surface in play or in pursuit of night flies. A dreamy quiet lay over all the ma.s.s of gleaming white and purple shadow as they swung to the road that circled the gardens. Coming to the big teakwood gate, Finnerty clutched the captain's arm, bringing him to a halt as a sigh from its rusty hinges told it had just been closed by some one.

"I saw him," Finnerty whispered as they pa.s.sed on. "It was Ananda, I swear."

Over the walls floated the perfume of rose and jasmine and tuberose; so sensuous, so drugged the heavy night air that it suggested unreality, mysticism, dreams, and beyond, rounding a curve, to their nostrils came the pungent, acrid smell of a hookah from the servants' quarters. Even deeper of the Orient, of the subtle duplicity of things, was this.

Swinton spat on the roadway, and Finnerty, knowing it as a token of disgust, muttered: "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves."

As they dipped down a hill toward the path that led to Finnerty's bungalow they came upon Lord Victor's horse leisurely dawdling along, stopping at times for a juicy snack from some succulent bush, and altogether loafing, a broken rein dangling from the bit to occasionally bring him up with a jerk as he stepped on it. At their approach he scuttled off into the jungle.

"Gilfain's nag!" Finnerty commented. "Wishing to keep this meeting secret, he's left the syce at home and tied the pony to a tree up there somewhere; the shot probably frightened it."

"What's the horse doing on this road?" Swinton asked.

"It's a shorter cut down to the maharajah's stables in Darpore town than by the tonga road. Lord Victor will have to walk; we couldn't catch that harebrained weed even if we wanted to."

"Come on, major," Swinton cried, pushing forward; "I've got an idea. You give me a horse and I'll gallop back to my bungalow, getting there ahead of the young a.s.s."

"I see," Finnerty grunted as they strode swiftly along. "You'll tell his lordship that you've been in bed for hours, and let him guess who was his audience at Jadoo Pool. The Banjara didn't deliver that note or his lordship wouldn't have been there."

As they hurried along, Swinton panted: "Devil of a hole for a flirtation; he must be an enthusiast!"

They swung into the bungalow, and Finnerty sent the watchman to have a syce bring "Phyu," adding that if there was delay a most proper beating would eventuate. As the watchman hurried away on his mission the major said: "Phyu is a Shan pony; he's only thirteen hands, but you can gallop him down that hill without fear of bucking his shins, and you couldn't do that with an Arab."

While they waited, Finnerty explained: "The girl made that appointment for some reason. She would know that n.o.body would see them together there, as natives don't travel that path at night, and she would know that tiger and leopard do not ordinarily come to the pool."

"How did the Banjara know?"

"India, my dear boy--and servants; but he only half knew at that; he thought it would be the prince. I think even if Lord Victor did kill his dog, having been paid for it, had he known a sahib was the proposed victim he would have told us."

A grey, st.u.r.dy Shan pony, led by a running syce, dashed around the bungalow, and as Swinton mounted, Finnerty said: "I'll send for Mahadua right away and make ready for a peep-o'-day follow-up of that wounded leopard; we can't let him roam to kill natives. Meet me at the top of the tonga road at daybreak. In the meantime--well, you know how to handle his lordship."

Then the captain pounded down the mountain road at an unreasonable rate, though his speed was really unnecessary, for, clad in pajamas, he had half finished a long cheroot in an armchair on the verandah when he saw the form of Gilfain coming wearily up the gravelled road.

When Swinton knocked the ash from his cheroot, disclosing the lighted end, the pedestrian acquired an instantaneous limp; his rather lethargic mentality was quickened by an inspiration, and he hobbled up the steps and along the verandah at a pathetic pace.

"Been long home, anxious guardian?" he gasped, sinking into a chair.

"About an hour," Swinton answered blithely.

"I got moony lonesome," Lord Victor explained as the smoker evinced no curiosity.

"And went for a walk, eh? Where did you go--down to the bazaar?"

Even to Gilfain's unperceptive mind the opening for a sweeping lie seemed a trifle too wide. Indeed, the fact that he had on riding boots was rather against this proposition. He didn't answer at once, a twinge in his newly injured ankle giving him an opportunity for a pause.

"You didn't see my syce about, did you?" he asked as a feeler.

"No; why--weren't you walking?"

"No; I went for a bit of a ride--down by the river--and just where the road forks over by that nala where we took the elephant after the tiger something sprang out of the jungle, let an awful roar out of him, and that fool country bred of mine bolted--he's a superb a.s.s of a horse--jinked at a shadow, and went over a cut bank into a little stream kind of a place; I came a cropper, with my foot caught in a stirrup, and was dragged a bit. In fact, I went by-by for a few minutes. How the devil my foot came out of the stirrup I don't know. When I came to that three-toed creature they call a horse had vanished, and it's taken me rather well over an hour to limp back."

Then the cripple, holding his ankle in both hands across his knee, leaned back in his chair with eyes closed as if in agony, inwardly muttering: "Gad! I wonder if that bally romance hangs together."

"Was it a tiger or a leopard?" Swinton asked in an even voice.

"I--I rather fancy it was a leopard. I didn't see overmuch of the silly brute, my mount being in such an ecstasy of fright."

"What about the syce; perhaps the leopard nailed him?" the captain asked solicitously.

"Hardly think it; I didn't see the bloomer after I left the bungalow.

Oh!" It was the ankle.

This cry of pain galvanised Swinton into compa.s.sion; it also gave him an idea of how to mete out retribution to the awful liar beside him.