CHAPTER IV

MORE MYSTERY

Forrester's attention was diverted from the Chinaman by the appearance of his friends, whom the sound of his lucky shot had drawn through the copse.

"By Jinks!" Jackson cried as they came up, "you killed him!"

"I never made such a fluke in my life," Forrester replied. "Come and have a look at him."

They found that the bullet, entering behind the ear, had passed clean through the animal's brain.

"You _must_ take his tusks," Jackson went on. "It would be simply idiotic not to carry home the trophies of your first elephant. That's a job for Sher Jang."

"Where is he?" Forrester asked.

"Ay, where?" Mackenzie echoed. "He's a queer sort of shikari to run from an elephant."

"We can't fling a stone at him over that," Forrester remarked, with a laugh. "Let's get back to camp, and send him up. I dare say the men would relish elephant meat for supper."

As they turned towards the camp, the Chinaman's strange words recurred to Forrester's mind.

"I say, you fellows, there _is_ something mighty queer about those Chinamen," he said. "The youngster was running with me, and after I had shot the elephant he began to tell me things--not in what Bob calls his snivelling style; he seemed a new man altogether. He said they're not political refugees at all."

"Eh! I thought as much," Mackenzie put in. "They're criminals."

"I don't know. He said the elder man was a servant in his father's house, and his father is a mandarin, governor of some place or other. The servant has some sort of a hold over the fellow. But just as he was getting to the most interesting part of his story, he suddenly broke off, whispered that the man was calling him, and looked as terrified as if he'd seen a ghost. I asked him to go on, but he turned away, stretched out his hands like that," he illustrated the gesture, "and began to stumble back like a blind man. Didn't you see him as you came through the copse?"

"I caught sight of him, but didn't notice him particularly," said Jackson. "What do you make of it? Is he cracked?"

"Upon my word I should have thought so, only he spoke sensibly enough. I'll see if I can get more out of him presently. The other man doesn't know English, so the young one can tell us anything he likes without his being any the wiser."

On emerging from the copse they saw that the Nagas had collected in a group up the hill, evidently awaiting assurance that all danger was past. Hamid Gul was helping Sher Jang to re-erect the flattened tent. Near by, the elder Chinaman sat cross-legged on a rock, and the younger stood before him in the attitude of a suppliant.

As the three men approached the tent, Sher Jang came to them.

"I have shot the elephant," Forrester said to him. "Go up presently and cut him up. We'll keep the tusks. Why didn't you come with me?"

"I watched, sahib," the man replied.

"But watching is not work for a shikari."

"Sometimes it is, sahib. Why did not the stranger yonder run with the rest?"

"What do you mean?"

"He sat on the rock where he sits now, sahib. The elephant passed within a few feet of him, but he did not move. He sat there, and his eyes were fixed like glass. I thought: why is he so still, like a Buddha in stone? And I stayed to watch him; it seemed good to me, sahib."

"And what did you see?"

"No more than I have said, sahib, except that presently the young stranger came back like a blind beggar feeling his way through the bazar. Then the elder man smiled, and his smile was like the grin of a tiger. That is all, sahib."

"Well, get the tent up. Is the pole broken?"

"We have spliced it with rope, sahib. That simpleton," indicating Hamid, "wrung his hands and declared the pole useless, but I showed him the way."

The three men went on towards the Chinamen. At their approach the elder man rapped out a few words in a stern and peremptory tone to his companion, then rose to his feet with a respectful salutation to the white men. Forrester acknowledged it, and, turning at once to the younger man, asked him to continue the story he had so abruptly broken off. A pitiful look of distress came into the lad's eyes; his lips moved, but not a sound issued from them.

"Come, there's nothing to be afraid of," Forrester urged. "You may speak quite freely."

"Forget what I said, sir," the lad muttered. "It was false. I beg you think no evil of my kind friend."

His voice hardly rose above a whisper; every word seemed to be wrung from him.

"But surely there is something in it," Forrester persisted. "Was your friend a servant in your father's house? You did not invent that?"

The lad cast a look at his companion that might have been interpreted as terror or anxiety. The elder man did not return the glance, but stood beside him with a mien suggesting patient forbearance or even absence of mind.

"I do not know what I said," the young man replied slowly, like one talking in his sleep. "I was excited after the great peril I had escaped, my mind was troubled, and my tongue spoke foolishness. Pardon me, I pray you."

Seeing that nothing more was to be got out of the lad, Forrester turned away with his companions.

"There's some mystery here," he said, when they were out of earshot. "What's the matter, Bob?" he asked, noticing a strange look in Jackson's face.

"I don't know: I feel as if this were all a dream--a queer sort of fuzzy feeling in my head."

"I feel puzzled enough," said Forrester. "Why should the fellow make out that he was telling lies? It looks as if he's mortally afraid of the other man, but I can't make it out, for the chap doesn't know English, and wouldn't understand, whatever was said. What do you say, Mac?"

"There's no call to say anything," Mackenzie replied.

"There's the canny Scot," Forrester said with a laugh. "You'll think all the more, I suppose."

"I'm thinking they're worth watching," was Mackenzie's answer.

Next morning a slight change was made in the order of the march. Mackenzie asked Jackson to go ahead with Forrester, while he brought up the rear.

"I don't mind, but what's your reason?" Jackson asked.

"I just wish to contemplate the Chinkies from the rear," was the reply.

Whatever the result of his examination was, Mackenzie said nothing about it.

Towards mid-day the snow-clad peaks of a mountain range opened up ahead of the party; although in the clear atmosphere they seemed to be only a few miles distant, the nearest was probably fifty miles away. The intervening country was a series of undulations, bare stretches of rock, here and there deeply fissured, alternating with thickly wooded valleys and dense jungle. Ever since they left Dibrugarh the party had been steadily climbing, and the higher they rose, the less their progress was impeded by undergrowth; and the lower temperature made their exertions less fatiguing. But the white men were more and more impressed with the courage and endurance which Captain Redfern had shown in traversing this wild region.

They kept a keen look-out for hills answering to the names he had given them, for they had no other landmarks by which to direct their course. It was impossible to believe that they were peaks of the snowy range so far ahead: four days would not have sufficed for the covering of so immense a distance. Forrester was already feeling very doubtful of the possibility of distinguishing the hills, when Sher Jang suddenly pointed to the eastern end of a smaller range that crossed the prospect perhaps twenty miles away. It was a precipice falling away abruptly to the general level from a height of two or three thousand feet, and the contours of the scarp bore a strong resemblance to a monkey's face. Forrester swept his eyes along the range from east to west, and gave a cry of delight when he distinguished at the western end a rounded eminence shaped like the hump of a camel.

"We're on the right track," he said. "We shall have to round that range, then cut away northward to find the falls. Probably they won't be so easy to discover."

"It will be to-morrow night before we reach the Camel's Hump," said Jackson. "The falls can't be more than a day's march farther, or Redfern couldn't possibly have done it in four days."

"We go slower than he did, owing to our baggage. If we only came across some natives we might ask them the way, but the whole country seems to be uninhabited."

When they halted to form camp, Mackenzie said:--

"Just now I caught the young Chinky talking to Hamid Gul, and I stopped it. Hamid told me the fellow asked where we were going, and why we didn't look for game. I got up to them in time to prevent the answer."

"They were very natural questions," said Forrester. "We are supposed to be a hunting party."

"Ay, and the Chinkies are supposed to be political refugees, but I have my doubts. I would like well to see the back of them. Have you had any return of that fuzzy feeling, Bob?"

"No. You haven't had it?"

"Not I. What about you, Dick?"

"D'you think it's catching?" Forrester asked with a laugh. "My head's perfectly clear, thanks."

But a couple of hours later, when all three were sitting smoking at the door of the tent, Forrester suddenly stood up, looked round him with an air of perplexity, then took a step in the direction of the spot where the Chinamen were reclining. Mackenzie grasped his coat, and pulled him back into his seat.

"What are ye about, man?" he asked.

For a moment Forrester was silent, then he said:--

"It's very queer. I felt as if I must walk over there, goodness knows what for. The feeling has gone now. What's wrong with me?"

"Malaria, as like as not," said Mackenzie. "Here, take a stiff dose of quinine. We don't want an invalid on our hands."

Forrester had no return of his strange vertigo, if such it were, and after supper he laughed at himself for his momentary weakness.

By the afternoon of the next day they had worked round the Camel's Hump, and, turning northwards, saw stretched out before them a tract of dense scrub, beyond which in the far distance towered the peaks of the snowy range. They decided to continue their march until sunset, hoping that somewhere amid the scrub a suitable camping place would offer itself. So difficult was the passage now, that the party became more split up than had hitherto been the case; but there was no danger of anyone straying, since the order had been given that those behind should not turn aside from the tracks of those who had preceded them.

In course of time Sher Jang reached a fairly open space, and a halt was called. The Nagas straggled in, Hamid Gul followed them and Mackenzie appeared last of all. For a few moments his companions were too much occupied to notice a diminution of their party, but presently Forrester, after a look around, cried:--

"Where are the Chinkies, Mac?"

"Aren't they here?" Mackenzie asked in return.

"You ought to know--you were contemplating their backs," Jackson remarked.

There was no sign of them. Forrester called up their Naga carriers, and Sher Jang questioned them. The men could give no information. Once or twice they had lost sight of the Chinamen as the scrub hid them from view. They had thought nothing of that.

The three white men looked at each other.