The Three Sapphires Part 25

"We've got to fix up that ankle right away," he declared, rising.

"Oh, don't bother, old chap; I'll just bathe it."

"Worst thing you could do," Swinton declared professionally. "I've got a powerful white liniment; it stings like the juice of Hades. Probably peel the bark off, but it will prevent swelling."

With a sigh Lord Victor surrendered, and Swinton, bringing out his bottle, rubbed the romancer's ankle until he groaned--not from an imaginative pain. Then the limb was bound up in a bandage that all but checked the circulation.

"Feel better now; that give you relief?" And Swinton's voice was as solicitously tender as a mother's.

"Oh, yes--thanks!" And inwardly the exasperated patient swore.

Of course a whiskey and soda was part of the treatment, doctor and patient both taking the medicine. As they sipped, the patient asked cautiously: "What did you and the major do in the evening?"

"Oh, we took a stroll up on the hill."

"Eh, what! Oh, heavens--my ankle!" The guilty conscience had all but betrayed its possessor. "Go up to see the prince?" he asked, his voice holding an a.s.sumed casualness.

"We didn't go quite that far." Gilfain breathed easier. "Finnerty is a great chap on birds' nests, and we saw some rather curious ones."

Lord Victor, in sudden inspiration, put his hand on Swinton's arm and gave it a knowing pinch. "You didn't happen to meet fraulein, old boy, did you?" And he laughed.

"Not bad, by Jove!" Swinton confided to himself; then aloud: "I'm not interested; also I'm going to bed. I believe I'll take a gun early in the morning and see if I can pick up the tracks of that leopard."

"What leopard?"

"The one that--that--charged your pony."

"Oh, yes, of course. But Lord bless me, man, he may be miles away by the morning."

"Come on, Gilfain; I'll give you an arm in to bed. You hadn't better get up in the morning. In fact, you'd better lie up all day to-morrow; in this hot climate a wrench like that may produce black inflammation."

"Black inflammation sounds good, anyway," Swinton thought as the young man, leaning heavily on his arm, hobbled to his bedroom.

Swinton fell asleep pondering over the proverbial thought that no man can serve two masters, he being that no man in his now divided duty. In the earl's interests he should remove that n.o.bleman's son from the vicinity of Fraulein Marie at once. A most dangerous woman she was, no doubt. In the interest of his real master, the government, he should stay on the spot and nip Ananda's intrigue.

Chapter XV

Swinton had left instructions to be wakened before the first raucous-voiced crow had opened his piratical beak, so, in the chill dawn half light, a grey mist from the river bed still hovering like a shroud over the plain, the voice of his bearer calling softly: "Sahe-e-b!

Sahe-e-b!" brought him out of a deep slumber. Dressing, he chuckled over the apocryphal sprained ankle that had relieved him of Lord Victor's company or offer of it. Pa.s.sing that young n.o.bleman's room, lamp in hand, he saw, through the open door, a very red ankle, devoid of its bandage, hanging over the bed. Swinton chuckled, muttering: "Bad patient!"

His horse was waiting, and with a rifle across the saddle he went up the hill, meeting Finnerty, with whom was Mahadua, at the appointed place.

"We'll leave our gee-gees here with the syces," Finnerty said, "and Mahadua will take us by a shortcut path along the edge of the hill to Jadoo Pool."

At Jadoo Pool, they rested while Mahadua, as keen as a "black tracker,"

searched the ground for the leopard's trail.

Finnerty had imparted to the shikari nothing beyond the fact that a leopard had been seen in that immediate vicinity, and it was supposed he was wounded. The shikari had declared emphatically that it would prove to be the leopard with the man-eater's rosettes, and, no doubt, was the animal that came out of the cave, giving rise to the belief that a ghost homed there.

First, Mahadua pa.s.sed to the plastic clay banks of the little stream that trickled into the pool; there he picked up the pugs of a leopard, following them unerringly to where the cunning brute had backed away and circled when he saw Finnerty in the machan. On this circling trail a stick freshly turned, a nestlike hollow in the loose leaves where a soft paw had pushed, guided the tracker, so close to instinct in his faculties, till he came upon blood spots and torn-up earth where the leopard had been shot.

For twenty minutes Finnerty and Swinton waited, and then Mahadua came back, saying: "Chita has been shot in a hind leg, for his jumps in running are not big, and though he went to the deep jungle at first he is now back at the cave."

As they went up Jadoo Nala there were no blood spots on its stony bed, but Mahadua explained: "Chita remained hid in the jungle for a time, and the bleeding stopped."

Coming to the doorlike entrance of the cave, Finnerty peered cautiously in, and, seeing nothing, pa.s.sed beyond, his eyes searching for tracks. A dozen paces and a sibilant whistle from behind whirled him about to see Mahadua facing the opening, his little axe poised for a blow of defence.

When Finnerty, c.o.c.king both barrels of his Paradox, raced back, the shikari said: "Chita stuck his head out to look at the sahib's back, but when I whistled he disappeared."

"Was it 'Spots' or a black leopard, Mahadua?"

"Black, sahib," he answered.

"A black leopard is the most vicious thing on earth," Finnerty said in English, his gun holding guard, "and one wounded and in a cave is a matter for consideration."

"He won't come out; that's sure," Swinton commented.

"Not before night--if we're here--and we can't afford the time to wait that long."

"Smoke him out," Swinton suggested.

"Difficult; smoke won't go where you want it to, but I'll ask Mahadua if it's possible."

"The cave is too big," the shikari replied to the query.

"How big?" Swinton asked with sudden interest.

"I don't know," and the native's eyes were evasive. "I have heard it said that the cave went far in, but I have no desire to go into the home of the spirits."

"My Rampore hounds would draw him," Finnerty said thoughtfully; "but I don't want to get them mauled--perhaps killed."

The name Rampore conveyed to Mahadua the sahib's meaning, though the English words were unintelligible. "The Banjara would send in dogs if the sahib would pay him well," he suggested.

"He would not risk his Banjara hounds," the major objected.

"True, huzoor, but he also has 'bobbery' dogs--half Banjara breed--and they being trained to the hunt will go in after the wounded chita."

"It's a good idea, Swinton," Finnerty declared. "We've done the very thing I was bucking about last night; we've set adrift a wounded leopard who'll likely turn man-eater if he doesn't die and we'll be responsible for every native he kills."

"We've simply got to finish him off," Swinton concurred.

"We must. If you'll wait here with the shikari, keeping your eye on that hole so he doesn't sneak away, I'll pick up my horse and gallop down to get the Banjara and his 'bobbery pack.'"

Perhaps the going of Finnerty, with his large virility, had taken something of mental sustenance from the shikari, for he now lost somewhat his buoyant nonchalance.