Читать книгу: «The Three Sapphires», страница 14

Lord Victor did not assimilate 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 document, and that she hadn't brought it out to Darpore. As to the 'grand passion,' 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 noble 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 document 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 Pass, 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 document. 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 God's sake give me a gun. I'd rather have you damn 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 pass." 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 passed at different intervals of time.

The major remounted, and they had ridden half an hour when his horse pricked his ears and the muscles of his neck quivered in an action of discovery. Finnerty slipped his 10-bore from its holding straps, passed 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 passed; 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 passion 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 damned 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."

"True, sahib; but the rani is not caged, and she fears for the life of her brother, and knowing I had been beaten by the rajah and knowing that a Banjara does not forgive, for our tribe is many in her father's state, she sent by a handmaid, who is also of our tribe, a ring of keys that were Darna Singh's, and the woman was taught to say, 'Give these to the keddah sahib and tell him that war comes to the sircar; that these keys open the way where are many guns and where now is Darna Singh.'"

The man took from the folds of his turban a ring upon which were three keys. Finnerty received them in astonishment; then he asked: "Where are the doors?"

"The black leopard came out from his cage through Jadoo Cave, and it may be that Darna Singh opened a door of the cave with one of these keys."

"Damn it!" Swinton ejaculated. "That's the whole thing." But Finnerty objected: "We searched that cave, and there was no door."

"True, there is no door, but there is a passage high up in the gloom, and beyond that is a cave that was made by the foreigners, and in that is the door. And also it opens to the trail that we are now on." The native messenger was explicit.

"By Jove!" Finnerty exclaimed. "That's how the leopard slipped away."

The herdsman said: "I did not know of this, and perhaps wrongly accused that monkey-faced shikari of sleeping over his task."

The messenger now said deprecatingly: "A watchman knows the many manners of acquiring to the inside of a bungalow without being seen, and one way is to wait for darkness. Also they will watch the sahib's bungalow for his return."

"Very well," Finnerty said; "if I am able to see to it, my faithful fellow, when this is over the sircar will give to you and your brother a village that you may collect the tithes from and have a home."

"Sahib, I have received my pay in advance from the rajah; I am but serving in the manner of the pay."

"Sit you then," Finnerty commanded, "while we talk in plans."

"We've a chance, major, now that we can get in," Swinton declared. "I have my cordite rifle, you have your 10-bore, and if we can but get command of their ammunition we'll blow the damn thing up, even if we go with it."

Finnerty felt that there was no question about the captain's sincerity; the flat blue eyes transmitted nothing but fixed purpose.

"Oh, I say, am I in the discard?" Lord Victor asked plaintively, for the messenger's information had been translated in a condensed form, Finnerty rather emphasising the important part Marie played as the future maharani.

"I thought of that," Swinton answered; "you will be a 'reserve battalion.' I don't mind being pipped in the way of duty – rather expect it some day – but I should rather like my family to know that I pegged out playing the game, and I shouldn't wonder if we're bagged in that cubby-hole, that it would never be known just how we had disappeared."

"Besides, youngster," Finnerty added, "if you can work yourself into communication with the government we want you to let them know what is trump." The major spoke to the Banjara; then he returned to Lord Victor: "This chap will smuggle you out, he says, and I think he can do it. His brother will bring you word if we get out, and even if he knows we've been captured he will come to tell you; at any rate, if we're not reported safe before morning you had better take the horses and get away – the Banjara can stick on one, he says."

"Don't worry over us, Gilfain," Swinton added; "just get word out as soon as you can."

Then the watchman said: "The sahib sent back out of the jungle the elephant with the bell, and it is a sacred elephant for such as worship the god that sits in sleep."

"It is a sacred elephant to those who worship Buddha," Finnerty answered.

"The woman who came from the maharani said that Rajah Ananda has taken the sacred elephant in his hand, for to-night is a night of omen at the Lake of the Golden Coin."

"By gad!" Finnerty cried. "That swine has got the three sapphires together now. Nothing will stop him; he'll be fanatically insane."

A sibilant whistle from Swinton was his only comment. The thought was paralysing.

"Well" – Finnerty sighed the words – "we'll just sit here till it's dark, and then play our last card." He pulled his belt, in which was a hunting knife, a hole tighter, as if girding his loins for the fray.

The Banjara now said: "Rajah Ananda will send out men to look for you on the trail, sahib, but if you will go east through the jungle to where there is a small path – one the sahib no doubt knows – my brother and I will lead the horses back up over this broad trail to a nala with a stony bed, and then through the jungle and back to where you wait, so that those who come forth will say: 'The keddah sahib and his friends came down and then went back again to the hills, perhaps to follow a bison.'"

"Splendid!" Finnerty commented, and added in commendation: "'To a strong man a wrong done is more power.'"

Then Finnerty and his companion cut across through the jungle. It was a good ruse, for the rajah's men, thinking the sahibs were up in the jungle, would not guard every approach.

The sun was now sinking on the horizon, and with its usual bird clamour of eventide the day was passing. Once, as they waited, Lord Victor said: "I don't believe that girl would join herself to a native."

"That's because you're in the full moon of faith, my young friend. At your age I believed in fairies, too," Finnerty said.

"Just the sort of faith," Swinton contributed, "that gives such women their power for mischief; a Prussian spy must do as she is told, and if she were allotted to Ananda, to Ananda she goes."

A shrill note that might have been from a boatswain's silver whistle or a red-breasted teal came floating up from where they had left the Safed Jan Trail. It was answered from on toward the palace hill.

"Ananda's men have found where the horses have turned to go back up into the hills," Finnerty chuckled.

"Deucedly clever work of that Banjara," Lord Victor declared; "sorry I shot the old infidel's dog."

A little later the whistling note, repeated three times, came from higher up, where the Safed Jan Trail lay.

The forest was dark from the drop of night's curtain when the Banjara and his brother came so softly along the scarce discernible trail that they were almost upon the sahibs before they were heard.

"The moon will appear in two hours, sahib, and its light would betray you," the herdsman advised, "so it is well that we take the horses down this path which no one travels at night, and when we have come close to Jadoo Nala I will remain with the horses and you will go with my brother into the cave."

When they had come to a proper place to leave their horses in the jungle, Lord Victor said: "The strategy of you two Johnnies isn't what I'd call first chop. I'll be a dub at this sortie game, for I don't know the language."

"The Banjara does," Finnerty said shortly.

"There's another thing," the youth resumed; "either of you chaps are sort of serviceable to the king, probably cost him a thousand pounds up to date for your training, and I'm – as our delightful friend Foley phrased it – a waster. Sabe, my dear major?"

"My dear boy, you're in training for the future earlship. A thoroughbred colt isn't much benefit to the realm, but he generally develops into something worth while – sabe?"

"Thanks, old top! Rather think I'll stow that away as a good tip. But to return: I'd feel rather thankful to take a chance inside to – well, come back."

"You mean about the girl? We just forgot all that, and are now trying to do the best we can for what's to come, and your place is just where you've been stationed; that is, unless you're in command."

Lord Victor sprang to his feet, clicked his heels together, very erect and soldierly, for he had been at Sandhurst, and saluted. With a laugh Finnerty said: "Fall out!" The discussion ceased.

From where they were they could hear, at times, curious, muffled noises disturbing the evening quiet, coming from the palace hill. Finnerty now gave some final advice:

"It is now eight o'clock. If we do not come back for the horses or get you word before morning, make for the outside. Have you any money?"

"Not much," Lord Victor answered.

Finnerty and Swinton gave him the money they had, the former saying: "If we get caught in that cave we won't need these rupees to pay board for long, I fancy." He held out his hand, and the youth took it, saying: "I'll remember about the thoroughbred colt."

Swinton shook hands with him, saying: "Duty is the best tutor, Lord Victor; it's a steadier, eh?"

"Sorry about – well, the – that silly break of mine about secret service, you know."

The Banjara, noting this completion of detail, said: "And the matter of a village, huzoor – does the young Lord Sahib understand that he is to tell the sircar that me and my brother have been true to their salt?"

"I will tell him to not forget, my friend, for you will well deserve it," the major answered.

When he had impressed this matter upon Gilfain, Finnerty held out his hand to the Banjara: "Brother, you are a man."

"We Banjaras are taught by our mothers that we are to become men," the herdsman answered with simple dignity.

Like the sealing of a solemn compact between the members of a brotherhood was this exchange of handclasps, Swinton also taking the Banjara's hand in a grasp of admiration.

As Finnerty and Swinton melted down the gloomed path with the Banjara's brother, the herdsman stood watching their going, repeating a tribal saying: "In the kingdom of men there are no boundaries."

When the two sahibs came out to where the Safed Jan Trail wound along the bed of a nala approaching the palace plateau, their guide said: "Just beyond is the new cave. I will go forward to see that no one keeps the door, for they will not think it strange that I should be about. If the sahibs hear the small cry of a tree cricket they may come forward."

In five minutes the hissing pipe of a cicada came back to their ears, and, slipping from the jungle to the nala trail, they noiselessly crept to the dark portal that yawned to the right of their way. From the contour of the hill, outlined against an afterglow sky, Finnerty knew that they were on the reverse side of the jutting point that held Jadoo Cave. As they entered a gloom so intense they saw nothing, a whisper reassured them, and the native's hand grasped Finnerty's fingers. The major, understanding, reached back the stock of his 10-bore to Swinton, and they went forward into the blackness. Soon the watchman stopped and whispered: "Put out your hand, sahib, and feel the spot that is here."

By a grasp on his wrist Finnerty's hand was placed upon a stone wall, and his fingers, moving up and down and across, detected a thin crack so truly perpendicular that it suggested mechanics.

The native whispered: "One of the keys on the ring will unlock this that is a door." Then he fumbled the wall with his fingers, and presently found a square block of stone, saying: "The keyhole is within."

A long-stemmed key on the ring fitted the keyhole, but before Finnerty could shoot the bolt the native whispered: "Not yet, sahib." He produced two candles and a box of matches. "Remember, sahib, that no man owns the light of a fire; here is an eye that makes no betraying light." And he placed in Finnerty's fingers a slim male-bamboo rod.

At a twist from Finnerty's hand a heavy bolt in the lock glided back with noiseless ease; a pull caused the stone-faced door to swing forward in the same frictionless quiet, and beyond was a gloom as deep as that of the cave.

"I will watch, sahib," the guide whispered, "and if it is known that evil has fallen upon you I will warn the Lord Sahib; if it please the gods that you come forth I will also carry to him that good tale."

Closing the door behind them, the two adventurers stood in a void so opaque, so devoid of sound, that it produced a feeling of floating in blackened space with the earth obliterated. Finnerty's big hand groped till it found the captain's shoulder, where it rested for a second in heavy assurance; then he gave Swinton a candle, saying: "If we get separated – "

They moved forward, Finnerty feeling the path with the bamboo rod. He hugged the wall on his right, knowing that the passage, skirting the hill edge, must lead to beneath the palace. Suddenly, shoulder high, the gloom was broken by a square opening, and through it Finnerty saw the handle of the Dipper in its sweep toward the horizon. Beneath this port was a ledge to support a machine gun, as the major surmised. Every twenty feet were openings of different shapes; some narrow, vertical slits for rifle fire. Once Finnerty's rod touched a pillar in the centre of the passage. His fingers read grotesque figures carved upon its sides, and he knew they were in one of the old Hindu rajah's semisacred excavated chambers. Twice, on his right, his hand slipped into space as he felt his way – open doorways from which dipped stone steps to lower exits.

Suddenly his bamboo rod came dead against an obstructing wall in front. Set in this was a flat steel door, with a keyhole which admitted one of the other keys. Finnerty closed the door, not locking it, but when he had taken two steps he caught a clicking sound behind. Turning in apprehension, he pushed upon the door, but it refused to give. He inserted the key; the bolt was where he had left it, shot back, but the door was immovable. A shiver twitched his scalp. Had he himself touched something that automatically locked the door, or had its swing carried a warning to some one who had electrically shot the bolts? The door itself was massive enough to hold any sort of mechanism; it was like the bulkhead of a battleship.

Twice Finnerty found a closed door in the wall on his right; no doubt within the chamber beyond were cannon that commanded some road of approach to the hill. Next his hand swept across a four-foot space, and against the farther wall of this stood open a heavy teakwood door; from the passage beyond drifted a nauseating, carrion smell, such as hovers over a tiger's cage.

Twenty yards beyond, Swinton touched the major's shoulders and whispered: "I heard something behind; I feel that we are being followed."

The major shivered; not through personal fear, but if they were trapped, if they failed, what bloodshed and foolish revolt would follow. To turn back and search was useless; they must keep on. They must be close to the many chambers beneath the palace where the ammunition and guns, no doubt, were kept. It was ominous, this utter absence of everything but darkness.

With a gasping breath, Finnerty stood still. A slipping noise in front had caught his ear, but now, in their own silence, they both heard the slip of velvet feet on the stone floor behind, and in their nostrils struck full the carrion smell.

"Tiger!" Finnerty whispered, and the pulled-back hammers of his gun clicked alarmingly loud on the death air.

In ten paces Finnerty's gun barrel clicked against iron; it was a door. They were trapped. Behind, the thing crept closer.

"Light a candle and hold it above my head; I must settle that brute," he said, in his mind also a thought that perhaps the light would frighten away the animal that trailed them.

As Swinton struck a match it broke, its flickering fall glinting green two devilish eyes in the head of a tiger that was setting himself for a spring, ten feet away. The roar of Finnerty's 10-bore, the two shocks almost in one, nearly burst their eardrums, and Swinton stood keyed to rigidity by the call for steady nerve. There was no rushing charge. A smothered cough from the tiger told that blood choked his lungs.

A man's voice came from the darkness almost at their elbow, saying: "Sahib, I am Darna Singh – a friend!"

"Come here!" Finnerty answered. "But no treachery!" For he feared it might be an imposter.

Darna Singh drew close, whispering: "The tiger is dead, so do not make a light. How did the sahib get here – has he keys for the door?"

Finnerty told how the princess had sent him Darna's ring of keys.

Darna Singh explained: "I was cast in here by Ananda to be killed by the tiger who has been let down from his cage. Perhaps they do not know that you are here."

"Have they heard the gun?" the major asked.

"The doors are very heavy, and through the rock they would not have heard. If they have, the key will not open the door if they wish."

Then Darna Singh told what lay beyond the door. The magazine was all prepared for blowing up should Ananda's plan fail and there be danger of discovery of his imported guns. Wires ran from the magazine to a room in the palace, where a switch could bury everything in a second. The passages were lighted by electricity, and the dynamo might have gone wrong, causing the darkness, or it might be an entrapping scheme. There would not be more than one or two German guards at the magazine, where the guns were, and if the sahibs could fall upon these in the dark, Darna Singh could win over the native guards, for they did not love Ananda.

The door opened to a key, showing beyond no glint of light. They passed through; this time Finnerty, finding a fragment of rock, fixed it so that the door could not be closed behind them. Hope suggested that the shot had not been heard, for no storm of attack broke upon them.

After a time Darna Singh checked, and, putting his lips close to Finnerty's ear, whispered: "We are close to the gun and ammunition room. I will go a little in advance and speak in Hindustani to the sentry; he will think it one of their natives, and as we talk you must overpower him."

Keeping within striking distance, Finnerty and Swinton followed. As they crept forward, with blinding suddenness an electric glare smote their eyes, and from beneath the reflected light a machine gun stuck forth its ugly nose. Behind a steel shield a German-flavoured voice commanded: "Drop your guns!"

Both men hesitated. To surrender was almost worse than death.

"Obey, or get shot!" the ugly voice called.

"We'll put them down, major," Swinton said; "dead men are no help to the government."

As they laid down their guns two Prussians slipped into the light and picked them up. From behind the steel shield two others appeared, and following them loomed the gorilla form of Doctor Boelke, his face wreathed in a leer of triumph.

At a command in German, one of the men swung open an iron-barred door, disclosing, as he touched a button, a cell ten feet square. Boelke turned to Finnerty: "Major, you haf intruded without der ceremony of an invitation; I now invite you to make yourself at home in der guest chamber."

"Your humour, like yourself, is coarse," Finnerty retorted.

"You vill enter der door, or – " Boelke waved a hand, and the bayonets were advanced to within striking distance, while the machine gun clicked ominously.

Finnerty realised that to resist was suicide; no doubt Boelke would prefer to have an excuse for killing them – there was absolute murder in the bleary animal eyes.

Swinton said in an even, hard voice: "The British government will have you shot as a German spy."

"Perhaps Captain Herbert vill be shot as an English spy to-morrow; und now" – Boelke raised his arm – "ven I drop my hand you vill be shot for resisting arrest."

"We won't give the hound an excuse for murder," Finnerty said, leading the way through the door. A German followed them in, and ran his hands over their bodies for revolvers; finding Finnerty's hunting knife, he took it away. The door was locked, and a guard placed in front of it.

It was only now that the two noticed that Darna Singh had disappeared; nobody seemed to have seen him; he had simply vanished. Probably the guard, even if they saw him, took him to be one of their own natives – not associated with the sahibs who had dropped into their hands.