CHAPTER XV: THE FEAST OF THE GODDESS KALI

The Rains were nearing their end, and with them the Darjeeling Season was drawing to a close. To Noreen Daleham it had lost its savour since Dermot’s departure. Her feelings towards Ida had undergone a radical change; her admiration of and affection for her old schoolfellow had vanished. Her eyes were opened, and she now saw plainly the true character of the woman whom once she was proud to call her friend. The girl wondered that she could have ever been deceived, for she now understood the many innuendoes that had been made in her hearing against Mrs. Smith, as well as many things in that lady’s own behaviour that had perplexed her at the time.

But towards the man her feelings were frankly anger and contempt. He had rudely awakened her from a beautiful dream; for that she could never forgive him. Her idol was shattered, never again to be made whole, so she vowed in the bitterness of her desolate soul. It was not friendship that she had felt for him—she realised that now. It was love. She had given him her whole heart in a girl’s first, pure, ideal love. And he had despised the gift and trampled it in the mire of unholy passion. She knew that it was the love of her life. Never could any man be to her what he had been.

But what did it matter to Dermot? she thought bitterly. She had passed out of his life. She had never been anything in it. He had been amused for an idle moment by her simplicity, tool that she was. What he had done, had risked for her, he would have done and risked for any other woman. Why did he not write to her after his departure as he might have done? She almost hoped that he would, so that she could answer him and pour out on him, if only on paper, the scorn and disgust that filled her. But no; she would not do that. The more dignified course would be to ignore his letter altogether. If only she could hurt him she felt that she would accept any other man’s offer of marriage. But even then he wouldn’t care. He had always stood aside in Darjeeling and let others strive for her favour. And she was put to the test, for first Charlesworth and then Melville had proposed to her.

Though Noreen’s heart was frozen towards her quondam friend, Ida never perceived the fact. For the elder woman was so thoroughly satisfied with herself that it never occurred to her that any one whom she honoured with her liking could do aught but be devoted to her in return. And against the granite of her self-sufficiency the iron of the girl’s proud anger broke until at length, baffled by the other’s conceit, Noreen drifted back into the semblance of her former friendliness. And Ida never remarked any difference.

A hundred miles away Dermot roamed the hills and forest again. The interdict of the Rains was lifted, and the game was afoot once more.

The portents of the coming storm were intensified. Much that the Divisional Commander, General Heyland, had revealed to him in their confidential interviews at Darjeeling was being corroborated by happenings in other parts of the Peninsula, in Afghanistan, in China, and elsewhere. Signs were not wanting on the border that Dermot had to guard. Messengers crossing and re-crossing the Bhutan frontier were increasing in numbers and frequency; and he had at length succeeded in tracking some of them to a destination that first gave him a clue to the seat and identity of the organisers of the conspiracy in Bengal.

For one or two Bhutanese had been traced to the capital of the Native State of Lalpuri, and others, having got into Indian territory, had been met by Hindus who were subsequently followed to the same ill-famed town. But once inside the maze of its bazaars their trail was hopelessly lost. It was useless to appeal to the authorities of the State. Their reputation and the character of their ruler were so bad that it was highly probable that the Rajah and all his counsellors were implicated in the plot. But how to bring it home to them Dermot did not know. By his secret instructions several of the messengers to and from Bhutan were the victims of apparent highway robbery in the hills. But no search of them revealed anything compromising, no treasonable correspondence between enemies within and without. The men would not speak, and he could not sanction the proposals made to him by which they should be induced so to do.

The planters began to report to him a marked increase in the mutinous spirit exhibited by their coolies; arms were found in the possession of these men, and there was reason to fear a combined rising of the labourers on all the estates of the Duars. Dermot advised Rice to send his wife to England, but the lady showed no desire to return to her loudly-regretted London suburb.

Every time that the Major met Daleham he expected to be told of Noreen’s engagement, perhaps even her wedding. But he heard nothing. When he found that Fred was beginning to arrange for her return to Malpura and that—instigated by Chunerbutty—he refused to consider the advisability of her remaining away until conditions were better in the Terai, Dermot persuaded him to replace his untrustworthy Bengali house-servants by reliable Mussulman domestics, warlike Punjaubis, whom the soldier procured. They were men not unused to firearms, and capable of defending the bungalow if necessary.

He and Badshah, who was happy to have his man with him again, kept indefatigable watch and ward along the frontier. Sometimes Dermot assembled the herd, which had learned to obey him almost like a pack of hounds, and, concealed among them, penetrated across the border into Bhutan and explored hidden spots where hostile troops might be concentrated. Only rarely a wandering Bhuttia chanced to see him, and then the terrified man would veil his eyes, fearing to behold the doings of the terrible Elephant God.

The constant work and preoccupation kept Dermot from dwelling much on Noreen. Nevertheless, he thought often of the girl and hoped that she would be happy when she married the man she was said to have chosen. He felt no jealousy of Charlesworth; on the contrary, he admired him as a good sportsman and a manly fellow, as well as he could judge from the little that he had seen of him. The very fact that the girl who was his friend had chosen the Rifleman as her husband, according to Mrs. Smith, made him ready to like the man. He was not in love with the girl and had no desire to marry, for he was wedded to his profession and had always held that a soldier married was a soldier marred.

Thus while Dermot thought far seldomer of Noreen, whom he acknowledged to himself he liked more than any other woman he had ever met, she, who assured herself every day that she hated and despised him, could not keep him out of her mind. And all the more so as she began to have doubts of the truth of Ida’s story. For the girl, who could not resist watching her friend’s post every day, much as she despised herself for doing it, observed that no letter ever came to Mrs. Smith in Dermot’s handwriting. And, although Ida had talked much and sentimentally of him for days after his departure, she appeared to forget him soon, and before long was engrossed in a good-looking young civilian from Calcutta. Bain had long since left Darjeeling.

Could it all have been a figment of the woman’s imagination and vanity?—for Noreen now realised how colossally vain she was. Had she misunderstood or, worse still, misrepresented him? But that thought was almost more painful to the girl than the certainty of his guilt. For if it were true, how cruelly, how vilely unjust she had been to the man who had saved her at the peril of his life, the man who had called her his friend, who had trusted in her loyalty! No, no; better that he were proved worthless, dishonourable. That thought were easier to bear.

Sometimes the girl almost wished that she could see him again so that she might ask him the truth. She could learn nothing now from Ida, who calmly ignored all attempts to extract information from her. Yet how could she question him, Noreen asked herself. She could not even hint to him that she had any knowledge of the affair, for her friend had divulged it to her in confidence. If only she were back at Malpura! He might come to her again there and perhaps of his own free will tell her what to believe of him. But when in a letter she broached the subject of her return to her brother, Fred bade her wait, for he hoped that he might be able to join her in Darjeeling for a few days during the Puja holidays.

During the great festival of Durgá-Puja, or the Dússera, as it is variously called, no Hindu works if he can help it, especially in Bengal. As all Government and private offices in Calcutta are closed for it, every European there, who can, escapes to Darjeeling, twenty-four hours away by rail, and the Season in that hill-station dies in a final blaze of splendour and gaiety in the mad rush of revelry of the Puja holidays. And Fred hoped that he might he there to see its ending, if Parry would keep sober long enough to let his assistant get away for a few days. When he returned, Daleham wrote, he would bring Noreen back with him.

Dermot’s activities on the frontier were not passing unmarked by the chief conspirators in Lalpuri. His measures against their messengers focussed attention on him. The Dewan, a far better judge of men and things than Chunerbutty, did not make the mistake of despising him merely because he was a soldier. The old man realised that it was not wise to count British officers fools. He knew too well how efficient the Indian Military Intelligence Department had proved itself. So he began to collect information about this white man who might seriously inconvenience them or derange their plans. And he came to the conclusion that the inquisitive soldier must be put out of the way.

Assassination can be raised to a fine art in a Native State—where a man’s life is worth far less than a cow’s if the State be a Hindu one—provided that the prying eyes of British Political Officers are not turned that way. True, Dermot was in British territory, but in such an uncivilised part of it that his removal ought not to be difficult considering his habit of wandering alone about the hills and jungle.

So thought the Dewan. But the old man found to his surprise that it was very difficult to put his hand on any one willing to attempt Dermot’s life. No sum however large could tempt any Bhuttia on either side of the border-line, or any Hindu in the Duars. Even the Brahmin extremists acting as missionaries on the tea-gardens fought shy of him. Superstition was his sure shield.

Then the Dewan fell back on the bazaar of Lalpuri City. But in that den of criminals there was not one cut-throat that did not know of the terrible Elephant God-Man and the appalling vengeance that he had wreaked on the Rajah’s soldiers in the forest. The Dewan might cajole or threaten, but there was not one ruffian in the bazaar who did not prefer to risk his anger to the certainty of the hideous fate awaiting the rash mortal that crossed the path of this dread being who fed his magic elephants on the living flesh of his foes.

The Dewan was not baffled. If the local villains failed him an assassin must be imported from elsewhere. So the extremist leaders in Calcutta, being appealed to, sent more than one fanatical young Brahmin from that city to Lalpuri, where they were put in the way to remove Dermot. But when in bazaar or Palace his reputation reached their ears they drew back. One was sent direct from Calcutta to the Terai, so that he would not be scared by the foolish tales of the men of Lalpuri. But his first enquiries among the countryfolk as to where to find Dermot brought him such illuminating information that, not daring to return unsuccessful to those who had sent him, he turned against his own breast the weapon that he had meant for the British officer.

Then the Dewan sent for Chunerbutty and took counsel with him, as being more conversant with European ways. And the result was a cunning and elaborate plot, such as from its very tortuousness and complexity would appeal to the heart of an Oriental.

The Rajah of Lalpuri, being of Mahratta descent, tried to copy in many things the great Mahratta chiefs in other parts of India, such as the Gaekwar of Baroda and the Maharajah Holkar of Indore. He had long been anxious to imitate Holkar’s method of celebrating the Dússera or Durgá Festival, particularly that part of it where a bull is sacrificed in public by the Maharajah on the fourth day of the feast. The Dewan had always opposed it, but now he suddenly veered round and suggested that it should be done. In Indore all the Europeans of the cantonment and many of the ladies and officers from the neighbouring military station of Mhow were always invited to be present on the fourth day. The old plotter proposed that, similarly, some of the English community of the Duars, the Civil Servants and planters, should receive invitations to Lalpuri. It would seem only natural to include the Officer Commanding Ranga Duar. And to tempt Dermot into the trap Chunerbutty suggested Noreen as a bait, undertaking to persuade her brother to bring her.