Читать книгу The Jungle Girl - Gordon Casserly - Страница 7

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But at that moment a shout made the boar hesitate, and Raymond dashed in on it at racing speed, driving his spear so deeply into its side that, as he swept on, the tough bamboo broke like match-wood. The stricken beast tottered forward a yard or two, then turned and stood undauntedly at bay, as a sowar rode at it. But before his steel could touch its hide it shuddered and sank to the ground dead.

The dying horse was lifted off the Maharajah who, with the courage of his race, had remained calm in the face of the onrushing death. He was assisted to rise, but was so severely shaken and bruised that at first he was unable to stand without support. Leaning on the arm of one of his nobles he held out his hand to Raymond, when the latter rode up, and thanked him gratefully for his timely aid. Then the exhausted but gallant prince sat down on the sand to recover himself. But he assured everyone that he was not hurt and, insisting that the sport should go on, gave orders for the beat to continue.

Wargrave had chanced to dismount to tighten the girth of Mrs. Norton's horse, when a fresh boar broke from cover and was instantly pursued by all the others of the hunt. The subaltern ruefully accepted the lady's apologies and hurriedly swung himself up into the saddle again to follow, when his companion cried:

"Look! Look, Mr. Wargrave! There's another. Come, we'll have him all to ourselves."

And striking her pony with her gold-mounted whip she dashed off at a gallop after a grey old boar that had craftily kept close in cover and crept out quietly after the beaters had passed. Wargrave, filled with excitement, struck spurs to his mount and raced after her, soon catching up and passing her. Over the sand pitted with holes and strewn with loose stones they raced, the boar bounding before them with rocking motion and leading them in a long, stern chase. Again and again the beast swerved; but at last with a fierce thrill Wargrave felt the steel head of the spear strike home in the quarry. As he was carried on past it he withdrew the weapon, then pulled his panting horse round. The boar was checked; but the wound only infuriated him and aroused his fighting ardour. He dashed at Mrs. Norton; but, as Frank turned, the game brute recognised the more dangerous adversary, and with a fierce grunt charged savagely at him. Wargrave plunged his spurs into his horse, which sprang forward, just clearing the boar's snout, as the rider leant well out and speared the pig through the heart. Then with a wild, exultant whoop the subaltern swung round in the saddle and saw the animal totter forward and collapse on the sand. Only a sportsman could realise his feeling of triumph at the fall of his first boar.

Mrs. Norton was almost as excited as he, her sparkling eyes and face flushed a becoming pink, making her even prettier in his eyes as she rode up and congratulated him.

"Well done, Mr. Wargrave!" she cried, trotting up to where he sat on his panting horse over the dead boar. "You did that splendidly! And the very first time you've been out pigsticking, too!"

"It was just luck," replied the subaltern modestly, not ill-pleased at her praise.

"What a glorious run he gave us!" she continued. "And we had it all to ourselves, which made it better. I'm always afraid of the Maharajah's followers, for in a run they ride so recklessly and carry their spears so carelessly that it's a wonder they don't kill someone every time. Will you help me down, please? I must give Martian a rest after that gallop."

With Wargrave's aid she dropped lightly to the ground; and he remarked again with admiration the graceful lines and rounded curves of her figure as she walked to the dead boar and touched the tusks.

"What a splendid pair! You are lucky," she exclaimed. "The biggest anyone has got yet this season."

"I hope you'll allow me to offer them to you," said Wargrave generously, although it cost him a pang to surrender the precious trophy. "You deserve them, for you rode so well after the boar and I believe you'd have got him if you'd carried a spear."

"No, indeed, Mr. Wargrave; I wouldn't dream of taking them," she replied, laughing; "but I appreciate the nobility of your self-denial. This is your first pig; and I know what that means to a man. Now we must find a sowar to get the coolies to bring the boar in. But I wonder where we are. Where is everyone?"

Wargrave looked about him and for the first time realised that they were far out in the desert without a landmark to guide them. On every side the sand stretched away to the horizon, its flat expanse broken only by clumps of bristling cactus or very rarely the tall stem of a palm tree. Of the others of the party there was no sign. His companion and he seemed to be alone in the world; and he began to wonder apprehensively if they were destined to undergo the unpleasant experience of being lost in the desert. The sun high overhead afforded no help; and Wargrave remembered neither the direction of the city nor where lay the ravine in which the beat had taken place.

"You don't happen to know where we are, I suppose, Mrs. Norton?" he asked his companion.

"I haven't the least idea. It looks as if we're lost," she replied calmly. "We had better wait quietly where we are instead of wandering about trying to find our way. When we are missed the Maharajah will probably send somebody to look for us."

"I daresay you're right," said Wargrave. "You know more about the desert than I do. By Jove, I'd give anything to come across the camel that Raymond tells me brings out drinks and ice. My throat is parched. Aren't you very thirsty?"

"Terribly so. Isn't the heat awful?" she exclaimed, trying to fan herself with the few inches of cambric and lace that represented a handkerchief.

"Awful. The blood seems to be boiling in my head," gasped the subaltern. "I've never felt heat like this anywhere else in India. But, thank goodness, it seems to be clouding over. That will make it cooler."

Mrs. Norton looked around. A dun veil was being swiftly drawn up over sun and sky and blotting out the landscape.

"Good gracious! There's worse trouble coming. That's a sandstorm," she cried, for the first time exhibiting a sign of nervousness.

"Good heavens, how pleasant! Are we going to be buried under a mound of sand, like the pictures we used to have in our schoolbooks of caravans overwhelmed in the Sahara?"

Mrs. Norton smiled.

"Not quite as bad as that," she answered. "But unpleasant enough, I assure you. If only we had any shelter!"

Wargrave looked around desperately. He had hitherto no experience of desert country; and the sudden darkness and the grim menace of the approaching black wall of the sandstorm seemed to threaten disaster. He saw a thick clump of cactus half a mile away.

"We'd better make for that," he said, pointing to it. "It will serve to break the force of the wind if we get to leeward of it. Let's mount."

He put her on her horse and then swung himself up into the saddle. Together they raced for the scant shelter before the dark menace overspreading earth and sky. The sun was now hidden; but that brought no relief, for the heat was even more stifling and oppressive than before. The wind seemed like a blast of hot air from an opened furnace door.

Pulling up when they reached the dense thicket of cactus with its broad green leaves studded with cruel thorns, Wargrave jumped down and lifted Mrs. Norton from the saddle. The horses followed them instinctively, as they pressed as closely as they could to the shelter of the inhospitable plant. The animals turned their tails towards the approaching storm and instinctively huddled against their human companions in distress. Wargrave took off his jacket and spread it around Mrs. Norton's head, holding her to him.

With a shrill wail the dark storm swept down upon them, and a million sharp particles of sand beat on them, stinging, smothering, choking them. The horses crowded nearer to the man, and the woman clung tighter to him as he wrapped her more closely in the protecting cloth. He felt suffocated, stifled, his lungs bursting, his throat burning, while every breath he drew was laden with the irritating sand. It penetrated through all the openings of his clothing, down his collar, inside his shirt, into his boots. The heat was terrific, unbearable, the darkness intense. Wargrave began to wonder if his first apprehensions were not justified, if they could hope to escape alive or were destined to be buried under the stifling pall that enveloped them. He felt against him the soft body of the woman clinging desperately to him; and the warm contact thrilled him. A feeling of pity, of tenderness for her awoke in him at the thought that this young and attractive being was fated perhaps to perish by so awful a death. And instinctively, unconsciously, he held her closer to him.

For minutes that seemed hours the storm continued to shriek and roar over and around them. But at length the choking waves began to diminish in density and slowly, gradually, the deadly, smothering pall was lifted from them. The black wall passed on and Wargrave watched it moving away over the desert. The storm had lasted half an hour, but the subaltern believed its duration to have been hours. The fine grit had penetrated into the case of his wrist-watch and stopped it. A cool, refreshing breeze sprang up. Pulling his jacket off Mrs. Norton's head, Wargrave said:

"It's all over at last."

"Oh, thank God!" she exclaimed fervently, standing erect and drawing a deep breath of cool air into her labouring lungs. "I thought I was going to be smothered."

"It was a decidedly unpleasant experience and one I don't want to try again. My throat is parched; I must have swallowed tons of sand. And look at the state I'm in!"

He was powdered thick with it, clothes, hair, eyebrows, grey with it. It had caked on his face damp with perspiration.

"Thanks to your jacket I've escaped pretty well, although I was almost suffocated," she said. "Well, now that it is over surely someone will come to look for us."

"Then we had better get up on our horses and move out into the open. We'll be more visible," said Wargrave.

Yet he felt a strange reluctance to quit the spot; for the thought came to him that their unpleasant experience in it would henceforth be a link between them. A few hours before he had not known of this woman's existence! and now he had held her to his breast and tried to protect her against the forces of Nature. The same idea seemed born in her mind at the same time; for, when he had brushed the dust off her saddle and lifted her on to it, she turned to look with interest at the spot as they rode away from it.

They had not long to wait out in the open before they saw three or four riders spread over the desert apparently looking for them, so they cantered towards them. As soon as they were seen by the search party a sowar galloped to meet them and, saluting, told them that the Maharajah and the rest had taken refuge from the storm in a village a couple of miles away. Then from the kamarband, or broad cloth encircling his waist like a sash, he produced two bottles of soda-water which he opened and gave to them. The liquid was warm, but nevertheless was acceptable to their parched throats.

They followed their guide at a gallop and soon were being welcomed by the rest of the party in a small village of low mud huts. A couple of kneeling camels, bubbling, squealing and viciously trying to bite everyone within reach, were being unloaded by some of the Maharajah's servants. Other attendants were spreading a white cloth on the ground by a well under a couple of tall palm-trees and laying on it an excellent cold lunch for the Europeans, with bottles of champagne standing in silver pails filled with ice.

As soon as his anxiety on Mrs. Norton's account was relieved by her arrival, His Highness, who as an orthodox Hindu could not eat with his guests, begged them to excuse him and, being helped with difficulty on his horse, rode slowly off, still shaken and sorely bruised by his fall. His nobles and officials accompanied him.

After lunch all went to inspect the heap of slain boars laid on the ground in the shade of a hut. Wargrave's kill had been added to it. Much to the subaltern's delight its tusk proved to be the longest and finest of all; and he was warmly congratulated by the more experienced pigstickers on his success. Shortly afterwards the beaters went into the nullah again; and a few more runs added another couple of boars to the bag. Then, after iced drinks while their saddles were being changed back on to their own horses, the Britishers mounted and started on their homeward journey.

Without quite knowing how it happened Wargrave found himself riding beside Mrs. Norton behind the rest of the party. On the way back they chatted freely and without restraint, like old friends. For the incidents of the day had served to sweep away formality between them and to give them a sense of long acquaintanceship and mutual liking. And, when the time came for Mrs. Norton to separate from the others as she reached the spot where the road to the Residency branched off, the subaltern volunteered to accompany her.

It had not taken them long to discover that they had several tastes in common.

"So you like good music?" she said after a chance remark of his. "It is pleasant to find a kindred spirit in this desolate place. The ladies and the other officers of your regiment are Philistines. Ragtime is more in their line than Grieg or Brahms. And the other day Captain Ross asked me if Tschaikowsky wasn't the Russian dancer at the Coliseum in town."

Wargrave laughed.

"I know. I became very unpopular when I was Band President and made our band play Wagner all one night during Mess. I gave up trying to elevate their musical taste when the Colonel told me to order the bandmaster to 'stop that awful rubbish and play something good, like the selection from the last London revue.'"

"Are you a musician yourself?" she asked.

"I play the violin."

"Oh, how ripping! You must come often and practise with me. I've an excellent piano; but I rarely touch it now. My husband takes no interest in music—or indeed, in anything else I like. But, then, I am not thrilled by his one absorbing passion in life—insects. So we're quits, I suppose."

Their horses were walking silently over the soft sand; and Wargrave heard her give a little sigh. Was it possible, he wondered, that the husband of this charming woman did not appreciate her and her attractions as he ought?

She went on with a change of manner:

"When are you coming to call on me? I am a Duty Call, you know. All officers are supposed to leave cards on the Palace and the Residency."

"The call on you will be a pleasure, I assure you, not a mere duty, Mrs. Norton," said the subaltern with a touch of earnestness. "May I come to-morrow?"

"Yes, please do. Come early for tea and bring your violin. It will be delightful to have some music again. I have not opened my piano for months; but I'll begin to practise to-night. I have one or two pieces with violin obligato."

So, chatting and at every step finding something fresh to like in each other, they rode along down sandy lanes hemmed in by prickly aloe hedges, by deep wells and creaking water-wheels where patient bullocks toiled in the sun to draw up the gushing water to irrigate the green fields so reposeful to the eye after the glaring desert. They passed by thatched mud huts outside which naked brown babies sprawled in the dust and deer-eyed women turned the hand-querns that ground the flour for their household's evening meal. Stiff and sore though Wargrave was after these many hours of his first day in the saddle for so long, he thoroughly enjoyed his ride back with so attractive a companion.

When they reached the Residency, a fine, airy building of white stone standing in large, well-kept grounds, he felt quite reluctant to part with her. But, declining her invitation to enter, he renewed his promise to call on the following day and rode on to his bungalow.

When he was alone he realised for the first time the effects of fatigue, thirst and the broiling heat of the afternoon sun. But Mrs. Norton was more in his thoughts than the exciting events of the day as he trotted painfully on towards his bungalow.

The house was closely shut and shuttered against the outside heat, and Raymond was asleep, enjoying a welcome siesta after the early start and hard exercise. Wargrave entered his own bare and comfortless bedroom, and with the help of his "boy"—as Indian body-servants are termed—proceeded to undress. Then, attired in a big towel and slippers, he passed into the small, stone-paved apartment dignified with the title of bathroom which opened off his bedroom.

After his ablutions Wargrave lay down on his bed and slept for an hour or two until awakened by Raymond's voice bidding him join him at tea. Strolling in pyjamas and slippers into the sitting-room which they shared the subaltern found his comrade lying lazily in a long chair and attired in the same cool costume. The outer doors and windows of the bungalow were still closed against the brooding heat outside. Inside the house the temperature was little cooler despite the punkah which droned monotonously overhead.

Over their tea the two young soldiers discussed the day's sport, recalling every incident of each run and kill, until the servants came in to throw open the doors and windows in hope of a faint breath of evening coolness. The punkah stopped, and the coolie who pulled it shuffled away.

After tea Raymond took his companion to inspect the cantonment, which Wargrave had not yet seen, for he had not reached it until after dusk the previous day. It consisted only of the Mess, the Regimental Office, and about ten bungalows for the officers, single-storied brick or rubble-walled buildings, thatched or tiled. Some of them were unoccupied and were tumbling in ruins. There was nothing else—not even the "general shop" usual in most small cantonments. Not a spool of thread, not a tin of sardines, could be purchased within a three days' journey. Most of the food supplies and almost everything else had to be brought from Bombay. Around the bungalow the compounds were simply patches of the universal sands surrounded by mud walls. No flowers, no trees, not even a blade of grass, relieved the dull monotony. Altogether the cantonment of Rohar was an unlovely and uninteresting place. Yet it is but an example of many such stations in India, lonely and soul-deadening, some of which have not even its saving grace of sport to enliven existence in them.

After a visit to the Lines—the rows of single-storied detached brick buildings, one to a company, that housed the native ranks of the regiment—where the Indian officers and sepoys (as native infantry soldiers are called) rushed out to crowd round and welcome back their popular officer, Wargrave and Raymond strolled to the Mess. Here in the anteroom other British officers of the corps, tired out after the day's sport, were lying in easy chairs, reading the three days' old Bombay newspaper just arrived and the three weeks' old English journals until it was time to return to their bungalows and dress for dinner.

Early on the following afternoon Wargrave borrowed Raymond's bamboo cart and pony—for he had sold his own trap and horses before going on leave to England and had not yet had time to buy new ones—and drove to the Residency. When he pulled up before the hall-door and in Anglo-Indian fashion shouted "Boy!" from his seat in the vehicle, a tall, stately Indian servant in a long, gold-laced red coat reaching below the knees and embroidered on the breast with the Imperial monogram in gold, came out and held a small silver tray to him. Wargrave placed a couple of his visiting cards on it, and the gorgeous apparition (known as a chuprassi) retired into the building with them. While he was gone Wargrave looked with pleasure at the brilliant flower-beds, green lawn and tall plants and bushes glowing with colour of the carefully-tended and well-watered Residency garden, which contrasted strikingly with the dry, bare compounds of the cantonment.

In a minute or two the chuprassi returned and said:

"Salaam!"

Wargrave, hooking up the reins, climbed down from the trap, leaving Raymond's syce in charge of the pony, and entered the grateful coolness of the lofty hall. Here another chuprassi took his hat and, holding out a pen for him, indicated the red-bound Visitor's Book, in which he was to inscribe his name. Then one of the servants led the way up the broad staircase into a large and well-furnished drawing-room extending along the whole front of the building. Here Wargrave found Mrs. Norton awaiting him. She looked very lovely in a cool white dress of muslin—but muslin shaped by a master-hand of Paris. She welcomed him gaily and made him feel at once on the footing of an old friend.

She was genuinely glad to see him again. To this young and attractive woman, full of the joy of living, hardly more than a girl, yet married to a much older man, sober-minded, stolid and uncongenial to her, and buried in this dull and lonely station, Wargrave had appealed instantly. Youth calls to youth, and she hailed his advent into her monotonous life as a child greets the coming of a playfellow. With the other two ladies in Rohar she had nothing in common. Both were middle-aged, serious and spiteful. To them her youth and beauty were an offence; and from the first day of their acquaintance with her they had disliked her. As for the other officers of the regiment none of them attracted her; for, good fellows as they were, none shared any of her tastes except her love of sport. But in Wargrave she had already recognised a companion, a playmate, one to whom music, art and poetry appealed as they did to her.

On his side Frank, heart-whole but fond of the society of the opposite sex, was at once attracted by this charming member of it who had tastes akin to his own. Her beauty pleased his beauty-loving eye; and he would not have been man if her readiness to meet him on a footing of friendship had not flattered him. He had thought that a great drawback to life in Rohar would be the lack of feminine companionship; for the ladies of his regiment were not at all congenial, although he did not dislike them. But it was delightful to find in this desert spot this pretty and cultured woman, who would have been deemed attractive in London and who appeared trebly so in a dull and lonely Indian station. He had thought much of her since their meeting on the previous day; and although it never occurred to him to lose his heart to her or even attempt to flirt with her, yet he felt that her friendship would brighten existence for him in Rohar. Nor did the thought strike him that possibly he might come to mean more to Mrs. Norton than she to him. For, while he had his work, his duties, the goodfellowship of the Mess and the friendship of his comrades to fill his life, she had nothing. She was utterly without interests, occupation or real companionship in Rohar. Her husband and she had nothing in common. No child had come during the five years of their marriage to link them together. And in this solitary place where there were no gaieties, no distractions such as a young woman would naturally long for, she was lonely, very lonely indeed.

It was little wonder that she snatched eagerly at the promise of an interesting friendship. Wargrave stood out and apart from the other officers of the regiment; and his companionship during the uncomfortable incident of the sandstorm bulked unaccountably large in her mind. It seemed to denote that he was destined to introduce a new element into her life.

As they talked it was with increasing pleasure that she learnt they had so many tastes in common. She found that he played the violin well and was, moreover, the possessor of a voice tuneful and sympathetic, even if not perfectly trained. This made instant appeal to her and would have disposed her to regard him with favour even if she had not been already prepared to like him.

The afternoon passed all too quickly for both of them. Violet Norton had never enjoyed any hours in Rohar so much as these; and when, as she sat at the piano while Frank played an obligato, a servant came to enquire if she wished her horse or a carriage got ready for her usual evening ride or drive, she impatiently ordered him out of the room. When the time came for Wargrave to return to his bungalow to dress for dinner she begged him to stay and dine with her.

"I shall be all alone; and it would be a charitable act to take pity on my solitude," she said. "My husband is dining at your Mess to-night."

"Thank you very much for asking me," replied the subaltern. "I should have loved to accept your invitation; but it is our Guest Night and the Colonel likes all of us to be present at Mess on such evenings."

"Oh, I forgot!" she exclaimed. "I ought to have remembered; for Mr. Raymond told me the same thing only last week when I invited him informally. Well, you must come some other night soon."

Reluctant to part with her new playmate she accompanied him to the door and, to the scandal of the stately chuprassis, stood at it to watch him drive away and to wave him a last goodbye as he looked back when the pony turned out of the gate.

India is a land of lightning friendships between men and women.