The Three Sapphires Part 32

Neither did Finnerty say anything of this to either Lord Victor or Swinton. But he made up his mind that he would also go up into the hills that day. It was his duty.

Persistently his mind revolted at the thought of denouncing the girl. In some moments of self-a.n.a.lysis his heart warmed in confessional, but this feeling, traitorous to his duty, he put in the storehouse of locked-away impulses. He had never even whispered into words these troublous thoughts. It took some mastering, did the transient glint of pleasing womanhood into his barren jungle life, for the big man was an Irish dreamer, a Celt whose emotions responded to the subtle tonic of beauty and charm. Ever since he had taken Marie in his arms to put her in the howdah he had felt her head against his shoulder; had seen the heavy sweep of black hair that was curiously shot with silver.

Finnerty could see an uneasy look in Lord Victor's eyes as that young man watched him coming back out of the jungle with Mahadua. Why had the youngster talked with the girl on the grey stallion--why had he not let her pa.s.s? Why had he given the s.h.i.+kari a rupee to say nothing of the meeting? There was some mystery behind the whole thing. She had come back late the previous evening, and now she was going up into the hills at this early hour.

The elephant Finnerty had sent for had not arrived; perhaps the half-drunken messengers had lain down in the jungle to sleep off the arak. But at last the tusker appeared. It was during this wait that Finnerty proposed to Swinton that they should go up into the hills. He saw Lord Victor start and look up, apprehension in his eyes, when he broached the matter, but though the latter advanced many reasons why they should not make the journey he did not accept the major's polite release of his company; he stuck. Indeed, Finnerty was hoping Gilfain would decide to return to Darpore, for the young man's presence would hamper their work of investigation.

He knew that the grey stallion's hoofprints would be picked up on the path that led to the hills when they came to the spot where the girl, having finished her detour, would swing her mount back to the beaten way, so he rode with his eyes on the ground. He first discerned them faintly cupping some hard, stony ground, but he said nothing, riding in silence till, where the trail lay across a stretch of mellow, black soil, imprints of the wide hoofs were indented as though inverted saucers had cut a quaint design. Here he halted and cried in a.s.sumed surprise: "By Jove! Somebody rides abroad early this morning!"

But his a.s.sumption of surprise was not more consummate than Gilfain's, for the latter's face held a baby expression of inquiring wonderment as he said: "Floaty sort of idea, I'd call it, for any one to jog up into these primeval glades for pleasure."

Swinton, who knew the stallion's hoofprints from a former study of them, raised his eyes to Finnerty's, there reading that the major also knew who the rider was.

Now by this advent.i.tious lead their task was simplified, and Finnerty clung tenaciously to the telltale tracks. This fact gradually dawned upon Lord Victor, and he became uneasy, dreading to come upon the girl while with his two companions.

They had ridden for an hour, always upward, the timber growing lighter, the ground rockier, and open spots of jungle more frequent, when, on a lean, gravelled ridge, Finnerty stopped, and, dismounting, searched the ground for traces of a horse that had pa.s.sed.

"Have you dropped something, major?" Lord Victor asked querulously.

"Yes," Finnerty answered, remounting; "I think it's back on the trail."

Swinton followed, and Lord Victor, muttering, "What the devil are you fellows up to?" trailed the other two.

A quarter of a mile back, where a small path branched, Finnerty picked up their lead and they again went upward, now more toward the east. The presence of Lord Victor held unworded the dominating interest in Swinton's and Finnerty's minds, so they rode almost silently.

It was noon when they, now high up among hills that stretched away to the foot of Safed Jan, whose white-clothed forehead rested in the clouds, came out upon a long, stony plateau. Finnerty, pointing with his whip, said: "There lies the Safed Jan Pa.s.s, and beyond is the road to Tibet, and also the road that runs south through Nepal and Naga land to Chittagong. I've never been up this far before."

"If this trip is in my honour, you're too devilish hospitable," Lord Victor growled; "mountain climbing as a pastime is bally well a discredited sport."

Here and there on the plateau the damp-darkened side of a newly upturned stone told that the grey stallion had pa.s.sed on the path they rode; but at the farther extremity of the plateau they came, with startling suddenness, upon a deep cleft--a gorge hundreds of feet deep, and yet so smooth to the surface that at fifty yards it was un.o.bservable. There the path ended, and on the farther side, twenty feet away, perched like a bird's nest in a niche of the cliff, was a temple, partly hollowed from the solid rock and partly built of brick. To one side, carved from the rock, was an image of Chamba.

With a rueful grin, Finnerty cast his eye up and down the gorge whose one end was lost between mountain cliffs, and whose other dipped down to cut the feet of two meeting hills. He dismounted and prowled up and down the chasm's brink. There were no hoofprints, no disturbing of sand or gravel; absolutely nothing but the quiescent weathered surface that had lain thus for centuries.

When Finnerty returned, Swinton, amused at the intense expression of discomfiture on his face, said: "Our early-morning friend must sit a horse called Pegasus."

Finnerty, raising his voice, called across the chasm. He was answered by an echo of his own rich Irish tone that leaped from gorge to gorge to die away up the mountainside. He seized a stone and threw it with angry force against the brick wall of the temple; the stone bounded back, and from the chasm's depths floated up the tinkle of its fall. But that was all; there was no response.

Somewhat to Finnerty's surprise, Swinton said: "Well, we've given our curiosity a good run for it; suppose we jog back? When we get in the cool of the jungle we'll eat our bit of lunch."

Finnerty did not voice the objection that was in his mind. Certainly the girl had pa.s.sed that way--was still up above them; why should they give up pursuit because the trail was momentarily broken?

Back across the plateau Swinton had a.s.sumed the lead, and fifty yards in the jungle he stopped, saying: "I'm peckish; we'll have a good, leisurely lunch, here."

When they had eaten, Lord Victor, saying he was going to have a look at the bald pate of Safed Jan, strolled back toward the plateau. When he had gone Swinton spoke: "If we stay here long enough, major, the girl, who of course rode that horse whose tracks we followed, will come around that sharp turn in the path, and, figuratively, plunk into our arms. We are at the neck of the bottle--the gateway. There's a mighty cleverly constructed drawbridge in the face of that temple; that brickwork hides it pretty well."

Finnerty whistled. "And the girl, you think, vanished over the let-down bridge?"

"Yes, and probably sat there eyeing us all the time."

"By Jove, they saw us coming on the plateau and drew up the bridge!"

"Yes."

"And what do we do now?"

"Wait here. We'll see her face to face, I'm certain; that will be something. Whether she will have with her what she searches for I don't know."

"Some companion she expects to meet here?"

"It must be, and I'm going to search him."

"Unless it's too big a party."

"When do we start?" Lord Victor queried, returning; but he received only an evasive answer. He grew petulant as an hour went by.

And now Swinton had disappeared up the trail toward the plateau. After a time he came back, and with a motion of his eyebrows told Finnerty that some one was coming. They could hear an occasional clink of iron striking stone as a horse, moving at a slow walk, came across the plateau, and then a gentle, m.u.f.fled, rhythmic series of thuds told that he was on the jungle path.

Finnerty had laid his heavy hand with a strong grip on Lord Victor's forearm, the pressure, almost painful, conveying to that young man's mind an inarticulate threat that if he voiced a warning something would happen him; he read its confirmation in a pair of blue Irish eyes that stared at him from below contracted brows.

A grey horse suddenly rounding the sharp turn came to a halt, for Swinton was sprawled fair across the path.

A heavy veil, fastened around the girl's helmet, failed to release at her trembling, spasmodic grasp, and her face went white as Swinton, leisurely rising, stood just to one side of the stallion's head, his implacable, unreadable eyes turned toward her. She knew, perhaps from the man's att.i.tude within reach of her bridle rein, perhaps from the set of that face, perhaps from blind intuition, that the captain had recognised her.

Finnerty came forward, lifting his helmet in an interference of blessed relief, for he, too, sensed that there was something wrong--something even beyond the previous suspicion.

Lord Victor, who had sprung to his feet with a gasping cry at the girl's appearance, stood limp with apprehension, his mind so much of a boy's mind, casting about futilely for some plan to help her, for there was dread in her face, and, like a boy's mind, his found the solution of the difficulty in a trick, just such a trick as a schoolboy would pitch upon. The whole process of its evolution had taken but two seconds, so it really was an inspiration. He darted toward the horse, crying banteringly: "I say! Introduce me, old top." Then his foot caught in a visionary root, and he plunged, his small, bare head all but burying itself in Swinton's stomach.

The grey stallion leaped from the rake of a spur, his thundering gallop all but drowning the blasphemous reproach that issued from Swinton's lips, as, in a fury of sudden pa.s.sion, he took a deliberate swing at the young n.o.bleman's nose.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE GRAY STALLION'S THUNDERING GALLOP ALL BUT DROWNING THE BLASPHEMOUS REPROACH THAT ISSUED FROM SWINTON'S LIPS."]

Finnerty unostentatiously crowded his bulk between the two, saying, with an inward laugh: "You're a dangerous man; you've winded the captain, and you've frightened that horse into a runaway. He may break the girl's neck."

They were a curious trio, each one holding a motive that the other two had not attained to, each one now dubious of the others' full intent, and yet no one wis.h.i.+ng to clear the air by questions or recriminations--not just yet, anyway.

"What the devil did the girl bolt for?" Swinton asked angrily.

"The _horse_ bolted," Finnerty answered, lying in an Irishman's good cause--a woman.

"You clumsy young a.s.s!" Swinton hurled at Gilfain. "I wanted to----"

Then the hot flush of temper, so rare with him, was checked by his mastering pa.s.sion--secretiveness.

Lord Victor laughed. "My dear and austere mentor, I apologise. In my hurry to forestall you with the young lady whom you have ridden forth so many mornings to meet I bally well stumped your wicket, I'm afraid--and my own, too, for we're both bowled."

Finnerty philosophically drew his leather cheroot case and proffered it to Swinton, saying: "Take a weed!"

The captain complied, lighting it in an abstraction of remastery. He had made the astounding discovery that Marie was the young lady from whose evil influence Lord Victor presumably had been removed by sending him to Darpore, and, as an enlargement of this disturbing knowledge, was the now hammering conviction that she had brought the stolen papers to be delivered to traitorous Prince Ananda.