"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 worshipped 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 _shikari_ 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 _shikari_ 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 _shikari_ 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 _shikari_ 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 _shikari_ 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 _shikari_ 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?"

"Another half-mile of this path, sahib, then through a glade without trees, then another mile and we find the outer wall of the temple."

The perfect English came from a small knot of natives difficult to distinguish in the shadows.

Leonie swung round and stared, and turning to Jan Cuxson put her hand on his arm.

"Funny, isn't it?" she said softly. "But do you know I am sure I have heard that voice before, and all this"--and she waved a hand vaguely--"seems so very, very familiar."

The head-man halted them once more at the edge of the clearing.

Strange bare spots these clearings which occur now and again in the Sunderbunds, looking for all the world as though they _had_ been cleared by man some time or another for building purposes. Well, who knows if that doughty adventurer, Khan Jehan, did not prospect thereabouts centuries back.

"We will now place the mem-sahibs in the centre of a widening circle,"

said the _shikari_ patiently, showing no sign of the detestation in which he held all sports-women, and the amount of trouble and anxiety their presence always entailed in a _shikar_, however insignificant.

To lose a sahib would be bad enough, but to see a mem-sahib seized and carried off before your very eyes, well, by the power of all the G.o.ds, that would mean ruin if not death; for, being a very wise old man, however good the news, he always prepared for the worst.

"I dislike these clearings at the setting of the sun, O defender of the poor!" he explained to the major, who kept his wife close and was beginning to wish he had not brought her, even if she were far and away the better shot of the two. "The trouble is upon one without even the warning of a cracking twig. Neither have I any love for the temple, for behold! one, even a great _guru_ up to within a few moons of this day, lived there in worship, making sacrifice to the Black One. Yet is he not there to welcome us. Maybe he has fallen victim to the _bhoot_ of the great cat whom he once fed."

Luckily for their peace of mind the sahib log only understood a quarter of a man's lament, and did not trouble their heads about ghosts.

"Aye, verily am I bewitched to allow of such tarrying, likewise to let such fear enter my head," he muttered to himself, and as a cloak to his misgivings sharply ordered ten men to proceed to the centre of the clearing in a semi-circle, and there await further orders.

They did as they were ordered, and were standing motionless when suddenly without a sound a great striped body leapt straight from the shadows of the surrounding trees upon a boy who had out-distanced his companions.

The instant double report of Jan Cuxson's rifle deadened the lad's horrible screaming and the growling of the wounded beast as it crouched flat, almost hidden behind the human body in the undergrowth, with tail lashing, and great claws tearing the boy's shoulder, as the rest of the terrified coolies ran shouting back to the party.

"Fire, sahib," commanded the _shikari_.

"Can't," tersely replied Major Talbot. "I shall kill the boy if I do; the brute's making a shield of his body. I'll creep round to the flank and----"

"Fire, sahib," urged the native. "Better to kill the lad as he is badly wounded," then added, "Tesch," as Talbot shook his head. "Stay here, sahib, to protect the mem-sahibs, I will creep to----"

"_G.o.d_!"

The word simultaneously escaped the three men as they and Edna Talbot raised their rifles.

Leonie was walking across the s.p.a.ce, neither hastening nor hesitating, towards the tiger which crouched, growling softly, with its tail sweeping the ground.

Did she hypnotise the brute, or did her supreme courage build an invisible barrier between the two?

Who knows!

Anyway she calmly approached within five yards, raised her rifle, took deliberate aim, and fired just as, with a hoa.r.s.e-coughing roar, the tiger sprang.