Part 29 (1/2)

”That doesn't matter, Lady Hickle,” said the lad blithely. ”All you'll have to do'll be to bob up and down in the tiger-gra.s.s in the approved style; keep your trigger away from the bush, and so as to feel thoroughly creepy, your eye out for pugs; which, in case some of you don't know, means tiger-tracks, not the dog with the beastly curly tail--and--oh, jolly!--here come the Talbots--just in time for the _khubber_ which means tiger-news for those whose Hindustani is not as perfect as mine. Mrs. Talbot, don't pa.s.s us by, we have plenty of room and some superb sausages.”

Edna Talbot laughingly sank into a chair next Leonie whom she liked, and immediately became enthralled in the discussion.

Honest, sweet little woman, with an honest plodding husband in a native regiment, inhabiting the dreary crumbling fort, without a murmur, whilst living in hopes of better things to come. Soft-voiced, considerate towards her native servants who wors.h.i.+pped her, one of the finest shots in India, and a true upholder of the British Raj in word, action, and clothes.

A perfect oasis, in fact, among the desert of her sisters, who storm in season and out at their native staff, before whom they likewise show themselves in ill-considered neglige, with their unbrushed hair down their backs, and their bare feet thrust into the evening shoes of last night's dance.

So it came about without any undue fuss that, after surviving the excruciating heat of the railway journey, three sahibs, two mem-sahibs, and their servants steamed out of Kulna in two launches to Tiger's Point, where awaited them the finest _s.h.i.+kari_ in all Bengal, with an adequate retinue in which was included a _chukler_ or skin dresser.

And who would notice the look in an ayah's eyes as she wiped her beloved mem-sahib's ant-ridden bunk with cotton-waste soaked in kerosene, and who on earth would connect the jungle guide with the British Museum.

CHAPTER x.x.x

”A mighty hunter, and his prey was man!”--_Pope_.

It was the second evening and they were nearing the ruined temple.

Walking silently and in single file along a faintly discernible track is an eerie proceeding if you are not used to the Sunderbunds.

True, in this jungle there are no serpent-like creepers festooned from tree to tree to impede your progress, or luxuriant and rank vegetation to hide snakes and other poisonous reptiles; neither is there a canopy of thick dark leaves above to obliterate the light of day, or the stars at night.

But the s.p.a.ce between the crowding sundri trees which predominate, is packed with an undergrowth of light shrubs through which you have to force and tear your way if you lose the track; and you trip and twist your ankle at every step on the abominable sundri breathers which thrust themselves through the soil at every inch, and vary in thickness from a stick of vermicelli to a good stout bough.

”Look,” will whisper your _s.h.i.+kari_ as he sinks silently to the ground; and look you do with all your eye-power, and yet fail to see the spotted deer gazing at you, motionless from sheer fright, only a few yards away in the undergrowth, so at one is the animal's colouring with the dappled shadows on the leaves.

What depths of humiliation you plumb when the deer flees to safety through the trees and your _s.h.i.+kari_ sighs.

Leonie as a gun had proved a dire, undiluted failure.

As a companion no one could beat her. Nothing tired her, nothing dismayed her. The terrific heat, the untoward hours and meals, the sting of mosquito, and the rip of the thorn left her unmoved.

She and Edna Talbot had gleefully climbed the ladder up to one of the two _suapattah_ huts, which are a kind of shelter of leaves built for the sundri wood collector upon high platforms near the water, and in which they had pa.s.sed their first vermin-stricken night. They had climbed cheerfully down the next morning without a word of complaint about the hours of torture they had endured as they sat at the hut door in the light of the moon, whiling away the time until the jungle c.o.c.ks should crow by watching various shapes come down to the creek to drink.

But the first time a deer, hypnotised by fear or curiosity, had stood stock-still before her, simply asking for death, Leonie put her gun down and shook her head.

”I can't,” she said st.u.r.dily. ”I simply _could not_ kill except in self-defence.”

And although young Dean sighed lugubriously over his lady's defalcation, Jan Cuxson adored her utterly for her womanliness, and translated the remark the head _s.h.i.+kari_ made as he handed back to the mem-sahib the rifle he had examined.

”He says he knows that in time of need you would be brave, and would have no fear even of a man-eater, but he says that you _must_ carry your rifle because you can never tell in the jungle what may be awaiting you round the next corner.”

As none of the party knew that the temple stood well hidden but quite close to the edge of one of the smallest creeks, open only to the narrowest native craft, they had no idea they were being taken there by a most circuitous route; and the _s.h.i.+kari_ who did know thought that the silent guide was doing it purposely in order to give the sahibs an opportunity to add yet more to the ever-increasing bag of odds-and-ends, also to his backsheesch later on.

They were all longing to get to the ruins; more than desirous for their evening meal; aching to remove their boots, and the dust, and other evidence of a hard day's tramp.

”We are almost there, mem-sahib,” said the very fine old _s.h.i.+kari_ who, by the way, is a real personage, as he noticed a certain lack of elasticity in Leonie's movements. ”Let us hasten, because at the fall of the shadows, all that is evil will come down to the waters, and behold! as this jungle is cut across and yet across with water-ways, the evil ones may even cross the sahibs' path.”

”How much farther is it?”