Nightrunners of Bengal by John Masters Page B

did unearth a great scandal he would only be marked down as an interfering busybody. The Company was too big to know everything, and too powerful to relish having the fact underlined by one of its own servants. Anyway, he wasn’t going to accept the Rani’s offer, and if Miss Langford thought such a lot of de Forrest, let her use him. Damn it, nothing could happen until Sitapara sent word, and then he’d have to judge the facts and see what was his duty.
    She said suddenly, “It is your duty, sir.”
    He shut his mouth with a snap. After a moment he said coldly, “I am not prepared to spy on the Commissioner or on Her Highness. May I escort you back to camp?”
    She said nothing. He rose to his feet, pulled her up, and walked at her side away from the river. After a few yards they all but cannoned into Victoria de Forrest; she must have been near enough to hear at least the mumble of conversation, and to have seen them under the tree. Her eyes glinted oddly as he bowed and apologized. Heavens, did the stupid little tart think he was flirting with Caroline Langford? If it had been light enough to see the expression on his face, she would have known different!

7
    F RIDAY, February the twenty-seventh, was the fourth and last day of the hunting. Many tigers had been killed, and the arrangements for their slaughter were by now little more than a drill. At four o’clock each morning the naked beaters trooped off in hundreds to surround the appointed square of jungle. At seven the cavalcade of elephants began to form up in an avenue between the tents. At that hour dewdrops trembled on each blade of grass, the tents stood knee deep in a lake of mist, and the sun touched the bright flags.
    At half-past seven the procession moved off; by seven thirty-five the trees had swallowed the hiss and rumble of the falls. Thirty or forty minutes later the hunters reached the starting line and spread out along it; then the drive began.
    This day Rodney rode with Geoffrey Hatton-Dunn on an elephant near the centre of the line. The mahout, naked butfor turban and loincloth, sat below and in front, astride the great neck. A shikari, one of the state’s paid hunters, crowded into the howdah with them; he wore a patched black coat and a loincloth, and stank of garlic. Twenty yards to their right the Maharajahs of Tikri and Gohana shared the next elephant; beyond them were de Forrest and Caroline Langford. Twenty yards to their left the Rani, Mr. Dellamain, and the chief shikari of the state rode on Durga, the Rani’s favourite elephant. Beyond in both directions the line stretched away through thin forest, the khaki and grey of the hunting howdahs patterned by the gaudy colours of the princes’ coats. The elephants were dull black, the trees green and yellow, the shadows warm blue.
    Rodney murmured, “Wouldn’t Julio love this!”
    Geoffrey drawled, “He’d go wild, old boy—prob’ly shoot the mahout.”
    The chief shikari glanced at the sun and listened for a moment to the silence ahead. The beaters should be well in position. The Rani spoke a word; the old man cupped his hands, his goatee beard waggled up and down, and he sent a shrill call quavering across the roof of the jungle. “My lords—forward!”
    Each mahout grunted, kicked with his bare heels, and brandished his ankus. Each elephant heaved one slow foot forward, waved its trunk, and began to move. The yellow tiger grass swirled along their flanks; the teak branches swept overhead and tugged at the howdahs; the carpet of teak leaves crackled like a pistol battle. Rodney stood in the front of the narrow howdah, tense and alert, gripping his favourite rifle, a double-barrelled ten-gauge that fired a spherical ball. Geoffrey, similarly armed, stood in the back. Between them the shikari carried two spare rifles, both loaded; powder flasks and canvas bags were slung across his shoulders. Rodney caught the Rani’s eye, and she smiled briefly over to him. He’d have to see her