Part 18 (1/2)
The elephant brought the threatening foot to the ground but stood, with curled trunk and ears c.o.c.ked forward, ready to annihilate him if the invisible speaker gave the word. The girl shrank against the great animal, clinging to it and looking with horror at the prostrate man. The _Amban_ slowly dragged his bruised body from the ground and staggered shaken and dizzy out of the garden.
Muriel kissed the soft trunk and laid her cheek against it, and it curved to touch her hair with a gentle caress. Then she fled into the bungalow to find Colonel Dermot on the verandah grimly watching the Chinaman stumbling blindly up the steep road. His wife beside him opened her arms to the shaken girl.
”He shall pay for that some day, Muriel,” said the Political Officer sternly. ”But not yet.”
An hour later the two women watched the snaking line crawl up the steep face of the mountains, and through field-gla.s.ses they could distinguish Badshah with his master on his neck, the _Deb Zimpun_ and his followers and the tall form of the Chinaman, until all vanished from sight in the trees clothing the upper hills.
Benson and Carter left that afternoon, Muriel remaining to spend a longer time with her friend and, as she told Wargrave, to try and regain the affections of the children which he had stolen from her.
Frank was thinking of her next day as he was standing on the Mess verandah after tea, cleaning his fowling-piece, when on a wooded spur running down from the mountains and sheltering the little station on the west he heard a jungle-c.o.c.k crowing in the undergrowth not four hundred yards away. Seizing a handful of cartridges he loaded his gun and, running down the steps and across the garden, plunged into the jungle.
He walked cautiously, his rope-soled boots enabling him to move silently, and stopped occasionally to listen for the bird's crow or the telltale pattering over the dried leaves. Peering into the undergrowth and searching the ground he crept quietly forward. Suddenly his heart seemed to leap to his throat. In a patch of dust he saw the unmistakable _pug_ (footprint) of a large panther. One claw had indented a new-fallen leaf, showing that the animal had very recently pa.s.sed. Wargrave halted and thought hard. He had only his shotgun, but the sun was near its setting and if he returned to the Mess to get his rifle--which was taken to pieces and locked up in its case--darkness would probably fall before he could overtake the panther, which was possibly moving on ahead of him. So he resolved not to turn back, but opened the breech of his gun and extracted the cartridges. With his knife he cut their thick cases almost through all round at the wad, dividing the powder from the shot.
For he knew that thus treated and fired the whole upper portion of the cartridges would be shot out of the barrels like solid bullets and carry forty yards without breaking up and scattering the shot.
Reloading he advanced cautiously, frequently losing and refinding the trail. Creeping through a clump of thin bushes he stopped suddenly, frozen with horror and dread.
In an open patch of woodland the two Dermot children stood by a tree, the girl huddled against the trunk, while the little boy had placed himself in front of her and, with a small stick in his hand, was bravely facing in her defence an animal crouching on the ground not twenty yards away. It was a large panther. Belly to earth, tail las.h.i.+ng from side to side, it was crawling slowly, imperceptibly nearer its prey. With ears flattened against the skull and lips drawn back to bare the gleaming fangs in a devilish grin it snarled at the brave child whose dauntless att.i.tude doubtless puzzled it.
”Don't cry, Eileen. I won't let it hurt you,” said the little boy encouragingly. ”Go 'way, nasty dog!”
He raised his little stick above his head. A boy should always protect a girl, his father had often said, so he was not going to let the beast harm his tiny sister. The panther crouched lower. The watcher in the bushes saw the powerful limbs gathering under the spotted body for the fatal spring. Every muscle and sinew was tense for the last rush and leap, as the subaltern raised his gun.
CHAPTER IX
TIGER LAND
Wargrave fired. His shot struck the panther rather far back, wounding but not disabling it. It swung round to face its a.s.sailant. Seeing Frank it promptly charged. The second cartridge took it in front of the shoulder and raked its body from end to end. Coughing blood the beast rolled over and over, biting its paws, clawing savagely at the earth, trying to rise and falling back in fury, while Frank rapidly reloaded and stepped between it and the children. But the convulsions became fewer and less violent, the limbs stiffened, the beautiful black and yellow body sank inert to the ground. The tail twitched a little. A few tremors shook the panther. Then it lay still.
The subaltern turned eagerly to the children.
”It's Frank. Look, Eileen, it's Frank,” cried Brian. ”He's killed the nasty dog.”
The little girl, who had sunk to the ground, struggled to her feet and with her brother was swept up in a joyous embrace by the subaltern.
Then, bidding the boy hold on to the sleeve of the arm carrying the gun, Wargrave started back with Eileen perched on his shoulder. As they pa.s.sed the panther's body she looked down at it and clapped her hands.
”He's deaded. Nasty, bad dog!” she cried.
Striking a path through the undergrowth the subaltern climbed down the steep ravine that lay between the hill and the Political Officer's bungalow. As he struggled up the steep side of the _nullah_ he heard their mother calling the children with a note of inquietude in her voice; and he answered her with a rea.s.suring shout. Coming up on the level behind the low stone wall of the garden he found Mrs. Dermot and Muriel anxiously awaiting him.
”Mumsie! Hallo, Mumsie! Here's me. Fw.a.n.k shooted bad dog,” cried Eileen, waving her arms and kicking her bearer violently in her excitement.
”Yes, Mumsie, Frank killded the nasty dog that wanted to eat us,” added Brian.
Wargrave pa.s.sed the children over the wall into the anxious arms outstretched for them, then vaulted into the garden.
”What has happened, Mr. Wargrave?” asked Mrs. Dermot, pressing her children to her nervously. ”What is this about your shooting a dog?”
The subaltern told the story briefly.