CHAPTER XVII: A TRAP

In the forenoon of the fifth day of the Durgá-Puja Festival the Dewan and Chunerbutty sat on the thick carpet of the Rajah’s apartment, which was in that part of the Palace facing the wing given up to the visitors. It formed one of the sides of the square surrounding the paved courtyard below, which was rarely entered. Only one door led into it from the buildings which lined it on three sides, a door under the Rajah’s suite of apartments.

That potentate was sprawling on a pile of soft cushions, glaring malevolently at his Chief Minister, whom he hated and feared.

“Curses on thee, Dewan-ji!” he muttered, turning uneasily and groaning with the pain of movement. For he was badly bruised, sore, and shaken, from his treatment by the crowd on the previous day.

“Why on me, O Maharaj?” asked the Dewan, looking at him steadily and with hardly-veiled contempt.

“Because thine was the idea of this foolish celebration yesterday. Mother Durgá was angry with me for introducing this foreign way of worship,” answered the superstitious atheist, conveniently forgetting that the idea was his own. “It will cost me large sums to these greedy priests, if she is not to punish me further.”

“Not for that reason, but for another, is the Holy Mother enraged, O Maharaj,” replied his Minister. “For the lack of a sweeter sacrifice than we offered her yesterday.”

“What is that?” demanded the Rajah suspiciously. He distrusted his Dewan more than any one else in his service.

“Canst thou ask? Thou who bearest on thy forehead the badge of the Sáktas?”

“Thou meanest a human sacrifice?”

“I do.”

“I have given Durgá many,” grumbled the Rajah. “But if she be greedy, let her have more. There are girls in my zenana that I would gladly be rid of.”

“The Holy Mother demands a worthier offering than some wanton that thou hast wearied of.”

Chunerbutty spoke for the first time.

“She wants the blood of one of the accursed race; of a Feringhi; of this soldier and spy.”

The Rajah shifted uneasily on his cushions. He hated but he feared the white men, and he had not implicit faith in the Dewan’s talk of their speedy overthrow.

“Mother Durgá has rejected him,” he said. “Have ye not all tried to slay him and failed?” The Dewan nodded his head slowly and stared at the carpet.

“There is some strange and evil influence that sets my plans at naught.”

“The gods, if there be gods as you Brahmins say, protect him. I think evil will come to us if we harm him. And can we? Did he not lie down with the hooded death itself, a cobra, young, active, full of venom, and rise unhurt?”

“True. But perhaps the snake had escaped from the bed before the Feringhi entered it,” said the Dewan meditatively.

“To guard against that, did they not fasten the karait in his shoe?”

“He may have discovered it in time,” said the engineer. “Englishmen fear snakes greatly and always look out for them.”

“Ha! and did he not eat and drink the poisoned meal prepared for him by our skilfullest physician?”

There was no answer to this. The mystery of Dermot’s escape from death was beyond their understanding.

“There is certainly something strange about him,” said Chunerbutty. “At least, so it is reported in our district, though to me he seems a fool. But there all races and castes fear him. Curious tales are told of him. Some say that Gunesh, the Elephant-headed One, protects him. Others hold that he is Gunesh himself. Can it be so?”

The Dewan smiled.

“Since when hast thou believed in the gods again?” he asked.

“Well, it is hard to know what is true or false. If there be no gods, perhaps there are devils. My Christian friends are more impressed by the latter.”

The Rajah shook his head doubtfully.

“Perhaps he is a devil. Who knows? They told me that he summoned a host of devils in the form of elephants to slay my soldiers. Pah! it is all nonsense. There are no such things.”

With startling distinctness the shrill trumpeting of an elephant rang through the room.

“Mother Kali preserve me!” shrieked the superstitious Rajah, flinging himself in terror on his face. “That was no mortal elephant. Was it Gunesh that spoke?” He lifted his head timidly. “It is a warning. Spare the Feringhi. Let him go.”

“Spare him? Knowest thou, O Maharaj, that the girl thou dost desire loves him? But an hour ago I heard her tell him that she wished to speak with him alone,” said Chunerbutty.

“Alone with him? The shameless one! Curses on him! Let him die,” cried the jealous Rajah, his fright forgotten.

The Dewan smiled.

“There was no need to fear the cry of that elephant,” he said. “It was your favourite, Shiva-ji. He is seized with the male-madness. They have penned him in the stone-walled enclosure yonder. He killed his mahout this morning.”

“Killed Ebrahim? Curse him! If he had not cost me twenty thousand rupees I would have him shot,” growled the Rajah savagely. “Killed Ebrahim, my best mahout? Why could he not have slain this accursed Feringhi if he had the blood-lust on him?”

“In the name of Siva the Great One!” exclaimed the Dewan piously. “It is a good thought. Listen to me, Maharaj! Listen, thou renegade” (this to Chunerbutty, who dared not resent the old man’s insults).

The three heads came together.

After lunch that day Dermot sat smoking in his room. Although it had no punkah and the heat was great, he had escaped to it from the crowded lounge to be able to think quietly. But his thoughts were not of the attempts on his life and the probability that they would be repeated. His mind was filled with Noreen to the temporary exclusion of all other subjects. She puzzled him. He had supposed her engaged, or practically engaged, to Charlesworth. Yet she had come away from Darjeeling at its gayest time and here seemed to be engrossed with Chunerbutty. She was always with him or he with her. He never left her side. She sat by him at every meal. She had gone alone with him in his howdah to the Moti Mahal, when every other elephant had carried more than two persons. He knew that she had always regarded the Hindu as a friend, but he had not thought that she was so attracted to him. Certainly now she did not appear content away from him. What would Charlesworth, who hated natives, think of it?

As for himself, their former friendship seemed dead. He had naturally been hurt when she had not waited in the hotel at Darjeeling, though she knew that he was coming to say good-bye to her. But perhaps Charlesworth had kept her out, so he could not blame her. But why had she deliberately avoided him here in the Palace? What was the reason of her unfriendliness? Yet that morning in the lounge after breakfast he had chanced to pass her where she stood beside Chunerbutty, who was speaking to a servant. She had detained him for a moment to tell him that she wished to see him alone some time, for she wanted his advice. She seemed rather mysterious about it, and he remembered that she had spoken in a low tone, as if she did not desire any one else to hear what she was saying.

What did it all mean? Well, if he could help her with advice or anything else he would. He had not realised how fond he was of her until this estrangement between them had arisen.

As he sat puzzling over the problem the servant who waited on him entered the room and salaamed.

“Ghurrib Parwar! (Protector of the Poor.) I bring a message for Your Honour. The English missie baba sends salaams and wishes to speak with you.”

Dermot sprang up hastily.

“Where is she, Rama? In the lounge?”

“No, Huzoor. The missie baba is in the Red Garden.”

“Where is that?”

“It is the Rajah’s own private garden, through there.” The servant pointed down to the gateway in the high wall of the courtyard below. He had opened the shutter of the window by which they were standing. “I will guide Your Honour. We must go through that door over there under His Highness’s apartments.”

“Bahut atcha, Rama. I will come with you. Give me my topi,” cried Dermot, feeling light-hearted all at once. Perhaps the misunderstanding between Noreen and him would be cleared up now. He took his sun-hat from the man and followed him out of the room.

Noreen was greatly perplexed about the insult, as she considered it, of the Rajah’s offer of the necklace. She feared to tell her brother, who might be angry with her for suspecting his friend of condoning an impertinence to her. Equally she felt that she could not confide in Ida or any one else, lest she should be misjudged and thought to have encouraged the engineer and his patron. To whom could she turn, sure of not being misunderstood? If only Dermot had remained her friend!

She was torn with longings to know the truth about his relations with Ida. The uncertainty was unbearable. That morning in her room she had boldly attacked Ida and asked her frankly. The other woman made light of the whole affair, pretended that Noreen had misunderstood her on that night in Darjeeling, and laughed at the idea of any one imagining that she had ever been in love with Dermot.

The girl was more puzzled than ever. Her heart ached for an hour or two alone with her one-time friend of the forest. O to be out with him on Badshah in the silent jungle, no matter what dangers encircled them! Perhaps there the cloud between them would vanish. But could she not speak to him here in the Palace? He seemed to be no longer fascinated with Ida, if indeed he ever had been. She could tell him of the Rajah’s insult. He would advise her what to do, for she was sure that he would not misjudge her. And perhaps—who knew?—her confiding in him might break down the wall that separated them. She forgot that it had been built by her own resentment and anger, and that she had eluded his attempts to approach her. Even now she felt that she could not speak to him before others.

Growing desperate, she had that morning snatched at the opportunity to ask him for an interview. Chunerbutty, who seemed always to cling to her now with the persistence of a leech, had as usual been with her, but his attention had been distracted from her for a moment. She hoped that the Hindu had not overheard her. Yet what did it matter if he had? Dermot had understood and nodded, as he passed on with the old, friendly look in his eyes. Perhaps all would come right.

She had seen him leave the lounge after lunch, but she remained there confident that he would return. She felt she could not talk to the others so she withdrew to a table near one of the shuttered windows and pretended to read the newspapers on it.

Payne was there, deep in the perusal of an article in an English journal on the disturbed state of India. Mrs. Rice, impervious to snubs, was trying to impress the openly bored Ida with accounts of the gay and fashionable life of Balham. The men were scattered about the room in groups, some discussing in low tones the occurrences of the day before at the Moti Mahal, others talking of the illuminations and fireworks which were to wind up their entertainment in Lalpuri on this the last night of their stay. For all were leaving on the morrow.

Suddenly there was a wild outcry outside. Loud cries, the shouts of men, the terrifying trumpeting of an elephant, resounded through the courtyard below and echoed weirdly from the walls of the buildings. A piercing shriek of agony rang high above the tumult of sound and chilled the blood of the listeners in the lounge.

Payne tore fiercely at the stiff wooden shutters of the window near him, which led out to the long balcony. Suddenly they burst open and he sprang out.

“Good God!” he cried in horror. “Look! Look! Dermot’s done for!”

The soldier had followed Rama, who led him through an unfamiliar part of the Palace along low passages, down narrow winding staircases, through painted rooms, in some of which female garments flung carelessly on the cushions seemed to indicate that they were passing through a portion of the zenana. Finally they reached a marble-paved hall on the ground-floor, where two attendants, the first persons whom they had seen on their way, lounged near a small door. They were evidently the porters and appeared to expect them, for they opened the door at Rama’s approach. Through it Dermot followed his guide out into the courtyard on which he had often looked from the balcony of his room. He looked up at the lounge, two stories above his head, its long casements shuttered against the heat. Then he noticed that in none of the buildings surrounding the court were there any windows lower than the second story, and the only entrance into it from the Palace was the small door through which he had just passed. Almost at the moment he stepped into the courtyard a familiar sound greeted his ears. It was the trumpeting of an elephant. But there was a strange note of rage and excitement in it, and he thought of the remarks of the mahouts the previous day on the return from the Moti Mahal. Probably the must elephant of which they spoke was chained somewhere close by.

As he crossed the courtyard he chanced to glance up at the shuttered windows of the apartments which he had been told were occupied by the Rajah. At that moment one of them was opened and a white cloth waved from it by an unseen hand. He wondered was it a signal. He stooped to fasten a bootlace, and Rama, who was making for the gateway in the high wall forming the fourth side of the courtyard, called impatiently to him to hasten. The servant’s tone was impertinent, and Dermot looked up in surprise.