The Three Sapphires Part 34

Swinton, galvanised out of his habitual control, added fiercely: "And, you young a.s.s! You knew who the girl was; we saw you at Jadoo Pool--we saved your life. If I'd known that it was Marie Foley I'd have dogged every footstep she took----"

"But you knew when you had her here," Lord Victor objected, momentarily forgetting his part in that episode.

"Yes, by Heaven, I did, and I can thank your sprawling interference for her escape! Why didn't you tell us that it was the girl who had stolen these state papers?"

"I've got a floaty idea that this lack of mutual confidence originated with your honourable self, Captain--Captain Herbert, as I now learn your name is. Do you think the earl would have countenanced my accepting the hospitality of a prince accompanied by a government spy?"

"You've answered your own question, Lord Victor," Swinton said quietly.

"Earl Craig belongs to the old school, the Exeter Hall crowd who believe the Oriental is an Occidental--India for the Indians is their motto--and that the Hun is a civilised gentleman, not as some of us know him, a rapacious brute who seeks to dominate the world. It is that cabal, the Haldane tribe, in psychic affinity with the soulless Hun, that makes it possible for this cuckoo creature, Boelke, to plant his eggs of sedition in the Darpore nest. Earl Craig would not have been a party to my way of unmasking or clearing the Darpores, father and son; he'd call it un-English. But I may say I did not come out here to watch you; there was no suspicion that you would come in contact with the stolen paper.

My mission was concerned with some arms that are headed for India. I hope you see why it was thought advisable to keep you in ignorance of my status."

Lord Victor did not a.s.similate this rapidly worded statement as quickly as it was offered. He pondered a little, and then said: "I did not know that Marie Foley was here, and she got no end of a surprise when I turned up. It was all a bally fluke her arranging to meet me; she funked it when that gold cigarette case was handed her by Prince Ananda with the information that I had found it. She thought I had recognised it, which I hadn't; at least it dangled in my memory, but I hadn't connected it with her. She rode down the hill, and when she saw me coming along dropped a note so that I saw it fall--devilish clever, I call it--making an appointment at Jadoo Pool, and there she made me promise not to denounce her."

"Somewhat easy, I fancy," Swinton said sarcastically; "threw the glamour of love over you."

"You dear old bachelor! You have very visionary ideas of that matter.

She doesn't care two straws for me; it was purely a matter of 'on honour' business, because she gave me her solemn word that she hadn't stolen the doc.u.ment, and that she hadn't brought it out to Darpore. As to the 'grand pa.s.sion,' I have a floaty idea that the handsome major, with his trick of life-saving, has taken Marie's fancy."

Finnerty blushed, but Swinton said gloomily: "You see the result of believing her. She was just too fiendishly cunning; she hadn't the paper, but knew that her traitor father was bringing it and that she, comparatively immune from search, could safely carry it to the last lap of its journey. She knew that we were liable to intercept the father and very probably search him."

"Looks like it," Finnerty commented. "I didn't know that Foley had a daughter; I heard he'd been cashiered."

"He raced himself out of the army--gambled too heavily," Swinton explained; "then, it being the only thing he cared for, went at it professionally till he raced himself out of England. After that he drifted to Austria and married a Viennese, reported to be of n.o.ble family. Whether it was a chance to plant a spy in England or that the woman really fell in love with him I don't know. Marie, of course, is the daughter, and between them the Foleys stole that doc.u.ment through a chance that came because of Lord Victor's fancy for the girl."

Swinton had spoken without any feeling in his voice--automatically, like a witness giving evidence. Gilfain seemed to understand this, for he made no comment. But Finnerty said lugubriously: "Devilish nasty mess, and we've been dished." He picked up the 10-bore, and, going over to his horse, strapped it under his saddle flap, saying: "We'd better jog back."

Chapter XX

Two legs of the mental triangle somewhat folded together as it dribbled down the forest path, Finnerty and Swinton riding in the lead and Lord Victor, with the depressing conviction that he had muddled things, behind.

"It's pretty well cleared up," Swinton remarked in a tone that just reached Finnerty.

"And looks rather bad for us being able to handle the situation without telegraphing headquarters," the major answered despondently.

"Small chance for that," and Swinton laughed in bitterness. "Our new Nana Sahib, Ananda, will have the wires cut or the operator under control; we'll get no word out of here until the thing has happened."

Finnerty also realised how completely they had been blanked. "By heavens, we've got to spike the guns ourselves! We'd better be killed in the attempt than be censured by government," he declared.

"I think so. They've left it to us so far, and the blame is really on our shoulders, old man."

"We'll never get the paper," Finnerty said with conviction.

"I agree with you in that, but we've got to get the machine guns and their ammunition; without them they'd be an unarmed rabble, and no great harm could be done before a regiment from Dumdum or Lucknow could be thrown in here. It's a crazy scheme of Ananda's, anyway, but the Mad Mullah in the Sudan cost many a British life because he was held too lightly at first and got guns."

Finnerty had been restlessly eyeing the trail they travelled. Now he worded the reason, which he had carried unplaced in words before: "Going and coming I've been looking for tracks left by that party of gun runners the Banjara told about, but I've seen none. This path that the girl followed is not the main trail leading up through Safed Jan Pa.s.s, and those accursed Huns, with their usual German thoroughness, built that drawbridge at the old temple so that Foley could slip in without a chance of being met. The whole thing is as clear as mud; he was to wait there till the girl came for the doc.u.ment. When we get lower down we'll cut across the jungle to the regular trail--it's an old elephant highway--and check up."

"We've got to get into that underground fort," Swinton said with solemn determination in his voice. "Jadoo Cave has got something to do with the entrance."

A disconcerting thought struck Finnerty. "The minute we show up we'll be surrounded by spies. They're in my bungalow all the time; we'll not get a chance."

There was a warning cough from behind, and then Lord Victor, urging his horse closer, said: "Don't bar me, you fellows, from anything that's on; I don't want to be 'sent to Coventry.' If it's a question of fight, for G.o.d's sake give me a gun. I'd rather have you d.a.m.n me like a bargee than be left out. I can't bally well plan anything--I'm not up to it--but I'm an Englishman."

"My dear boy," Finnerty answered, "we know that. If we'd taken you in at the start we'd have given you a better chance, but we all make blunders."

It was about four o'clock when Finnerty, halting, said: "I know where I'm at now; the other trail lies due west, and if we keep our faces full on Old Sol we'll make it."

Through the jungle without a path their progress was slow. At times they were turned into big detours by interlaced walls of running elephant creeper and vast hedges of the _sahbar kirao_, the "have-patience plant"

that, with its hooked spikes, was like a fence of barbed wire. Their minds, tortured by the impending calamity, were oblivious to the clamour of the jungle. A bear that had climbed a dead tree inhabited by bees scuttled down to the ground, an animated beehive, his face glued with honey, his paws dripping with it, and his thick fur palpitating with the beat of a million tiny wings. He humped away in a shuffling lope, unmolested; not even a laugh followed his grotesque form.

It was five o'clock when they struck the Safed Jan Trail and swung southward, Finnerty's eyes taking up the reading of its page. "Ah!" he cried suddenly, and, pulling his horse to a standstill, he dropped to the ground.

In the new partnership he turned rather to Lord Victor, saying: "We've been told that machine guns and ammunition have been run into Darpore over the same Chittagong route we think Mad Foley used, only they've come along this trail from the pa.s.s." He dipped his thumb into one of the numerous deep heel prints, adding: "See! The carriers were heavy loaded and there were many."

From the varied weathering of the tracks it was apparent that carriers had pa.s.sed at different intervals of time.

The major remounted, and they had ridden half an hour when his horse p.r.i.c.ked his ears and the muscles of his neck quivered in an action of discovery. Finnerty slipped his 10-bore from its holding straps, pa.s.sed his bridle rein to Swinton, and, dropping to the ground, went stealthily around a bend in the path. He saw nothing--no entrapping armed natives--but a voice came to him from its unseen owner, saying softly: "Salaam! I am the herdsman, and am here for speech with the sahib."

"All right. Come forth!" the major answered.

From a thick screen of brush the Banjara stepped out, saying: "My brother is beyond on the trail, and from his perch in a tree he has given the call of a bird that I might know it was the keddah sahib that pa.s.sed; he will soon be here."

Finnerty called, and Swinton and Lord Victor came forward. Presently the fellow arrived, and, at a word from the herdsman, said: "Nawab Darna Singh sends salaams to the keddah sahib."

Finnerty stared in amazement. "Why should he have sent you, knowing that a Banjara does not kiss the hand that has beaten him like a dog?"

"Because of that, huzoor. Darna Singh is also treated like a dog, for he is put in a cage, and those who are beaten join together against the whip."

"Why is Darna Singh caged?"

The man cast an uneasy glance toward Lord Victor and hesitated. Sensing the reason for this, Finnerty said: "Speak the truth and fear not."

"We of this country know that the sahibs are quick to anger if the mem-sahibs are spoken of, but it is because of the young mem-sahib that Darna Singh suffers. There is to be war, and Darna Singh came to know--though it may be a lie--that the mem-sahib would be made maharani--perhaps not a _gudi maharani_--and his sister would be taken with a fever and die. And it may be that in a pa.s.sion over this he sought to end the matter with a thrust of a knife, but I have heard that Rajah Ananda received but a slight cut."

"I'm d.a.m.ned sorry for that, for the nawab has a strong arm."

"Darna Singh was indeed unlucky, sahib, for Rajah Ananda had been taught in Belati to strike with the hand and that saved him."

"Where is the Nawab caged?"

"Below; where the guns are."

Finnerty caught a quick flash of the eye from Swinton.

"And if that is the truth, that you come from him must be a lie, for a jailer does not give entrance to friends of the prisoner."