Gil the Gunner - George Manville Fenn (people reading books .TXT) 📗

“No, no! If he likes to turn disagreeable, let him. There, be off, and a good day’s sport to you. Here, Vincent, try if you can’t manage a skin rug for yourself this time, and don’t any of you waste your charges on small game. You are sure to scare the big away.”

We promised, and five minutes after were going at a pretty good pace along the main road, each vehicle with a native driver, and a man running at the horses’ heads as well.

We had about fifteen miles to go along the road to a point where elephants or horses would be in waiting for us, sent by the rajah from his jungle palace. Then we should leave the buggies and the main road, to follow a track leading up to the rajah’s place, where he often went, to be out of the heat and dust of the city, in which every pair of feet was kicking up the dust all day long, till it was as if the lower part of the town was shrouded in a dense stratum of fog twelve or fourteen feet thick.

We had been riding for some time at a rapid rate before we began to note a change in the surroundings. First a tree would stand out in a pale grey ghostly way; then a clump of high cane-like grass would loom out like something solid, and then, on turning round, I could see a pale grey light in the sky, which rapidly turned to pale crimson, and then to deep ruddy gold, as up came the sun almost at once, the change from night to day being rapid there.

For some little time now we had been ascending; and getting into a part clear of trees, we were suddenly aware of a tent pitched in the shade of a mango tope, and close by, quietly picking up freshly cut green food, and tucking it into their mouths with their trunks, were half a dozen elephants, three of which bore handsome trappings and howdahs, while the others had only the ordinary pads.

A couple of handsomely dressed servants came forward to meet us as we dismounted, and we were ushered into the open-sided tent, where breakfast was waiting, spread on a soft Indian carpet, while the rajah’s men waited upon us with the greatest of attention.

But, as the doctor said, we had not come to eat, and very soon expressed our readiness to start, when the elephants were guided to the front of the tent, and we mounted, after giving orders to the drivers of the vehicles in which we had come, to be in waiting for us just at dusk. Then the huge animal on which I was mounted with the doctor moved slowly on apparently, but covering a good deal of ground in his shuffling stride.

A shout from Brace on the next elephant arrested us, though, and, on turning, we found that he was pointing back.

The scene was worth stopping to contemplate, for there, miles away behind us, lay Rajgunge, with its mosques and temples glittering in the morning sun, and the dust which often shrouded the place now visible only as a faint haze, while the sparkling river looked a very band of silver curving round it like the fold of some wondrous serpent undulating over the plain. The city lay in a hollow, from which the land sloped away on one side, while, on the other, hill and valley alternated, with the country rising higher and higher to where we stood, and then rose more and more into a wild of jungle and mountain, whose more distant eminences died into a soft blue mist.

“I never saw a more beautiful view,” said the doctor to me. “Grand place to send patients to. Sight of the country would do them more good than my physic. Make much of it, Vincent,” he said; “you may never see the city look so beautiful again.”

I looked at him so wonderingly that he laughed.

“Well, next time it may be dark or cloudy, or raining, or at a different time of year.”

The elephants were again in motion, and, leaving the well-beaten dâk road behind us, we were now following an elephant’s track, going at every step more and more into scenery such as I had pictured to myself when thinking about India as my future home.

“Look!” I cried excitedly, as, from the edge of a patch of jungle, a couple of peacocks ran along for a few yards, and then took flight, one blaze of bright colour for a few moments, as I caught flashes of vivid blue and green, and metallic gold.

My hand went mechanically to the rifle behind me in the howdah, and the doctor laughed.

“Well done, Englishman!” he cried. “Something beautiful, and wild. Let’s kill it!”

“We’ve come out shooting,” I said, half sulkily.

“Yes—tigers!” said the doctor. “What a curious fate mine is—to live always with you soldiers, who think of nothing but killing, while my trade is to save life! There goes another peacock,” he cried, as one of the lovely birds, with an enormous train, ran out into the open, rose, and went skimming away before us.

“I wonder such beautiful birds don’t attract the common people; they’re grand eating. Why don’t they get shot?”

“Sacred to everybody but to us Englishmen,” he replied. “We are the only savages out here who kill peafowl.”

“Then the Hindoos don’t like it?”

“Of course not; but they have to put up with it, all the same. And we do rid them of the great cats which kill their cows—and themselves, sometimes. Why, they will not even kill their poisonous snakes, and thousands die of the bites every year.”

“How lovely!” I said, as my eyes wandered round.

“What! To be killed by a snake?”

“No, no; this scenery.”

“Oh yes; and Brace seems to be enjoying it too. I say, you don’t seem so thick with him as you were, squire.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said indifferently.

“Well, I do, and I think you are foolish. Brace is a thorough good fellow. Better stick to him, even if he does stir you up. He’ll make a man of you, without winning your money at cards.”

Snork!

The elephant we were on trumpeted, and those behind threw up their trunks, and seemed to echo the huge beast’s cry.

“Look out!” said the doctor. “Rifles!”

For, about a hundred yards in front, there was something moving among the trees, and soon after a couple of the huge Indian buffaloes walked out into the open track in front, threw up their heads, one touching the other with his wide-spreading horns, and stood staring at us, as if puzzled at what he saw.

“Hold fast. Our elephant may spin round, and go off at a gallop,” said the doctor.

But the huge beast stood firm, only lowering its head, and swinging it right and left, as it kept its little sagacious-looking eyes fixed upon the great bulls in front, while its great tusks were ready to meet the bulls’ wide-spreading horns.

It was my first experience of being face to face with any of the large game of India; and, as I grasped the idea of what a formidable creature the buffalo was—certainly nearly double the size of one of our ordinary oxen, my heart began to beat rather heavily.

“Shall I fire?” I whispered to the doctor; for I had my rifle resting on the front of the howdah, ready to take aim.

“No,” said a familiar voice on my right; and I found that Brace’s elephant had been urged forward until it was now close abreast of ours. “If you fired at this distance, you would only be wasting a shot. You could not bring either of the brutes down, and it would be only wounding them for nothing.”

“Going to charge, aren’t they?” said the doctor.

“I hope not. They may think better of it, and go back into the jungle.”

Brace was right, for, after standing staring stupidly at the elephants for some moments, the great slaty-black creatures slowly moved off into the dense growth on our left.

I suppose that I showed my disappointment, for Brace said quietly—

“It is not considered wise to spend time in firing at everything one meets, when bound to beat up tiger.”

He addressed a word or two in Hindustanee to the mahouts, and the elephants, freed now from apprehension, shuffled onward till we came upon an open park-like space, at the end of which, on a slope, was the rajah’s shooting-box. Here half a dozen more elephants were standing, with a number of well-mounted men armed with spears, shields, and tulwars, and quite a host of lightly clad Hindoos were lying about, waiting to commence their task—that of beating for game, and driving it toward where the sportsmen were stationed.

Upon our appearance, the rajah came out of the large verandah in front of the house, and saluted us cordially.

He was a young, active-looking man, dressed like an ordinary English sportsman bound for a day’s shooting on the moors; and, after pressing us to enter the house and partake of refreshment, which we declined, he at once called up a couple of hard, muscular-looking men, gave them an order or two, and the result was that these two shouldered their long, clumsy-looking old matchlocks. They signed to the crowd of beaters, who had all sprung to their feet as the rajah came out, and marched them all off, so that they could make for the head of a valley where a tiger had had a kill, and up which valley we were to slowly progress, after taking a circuit, so as to reach its mouth about the same time as the beaters reached the head.

We had a much greater distance to go than the men on foot, and after a few preliminaries, the rajah mounted to the howdah of one of the waiting elephants, followed by his chief huntsman, well provided with quite a battery of English rifles. Two or three of his officers took their places on other elephants, and the mounted men and a party of foot marched at our side, as the imposing little procession started.

The rajah spoke very good English, and there were moments when I forgot his smooth oily manner and dark countenance, and could almost feel that he was some swarthy sportsman who had invited us to his place for a day’s shooting.

He was as eager as any of us, and, as we marched off, he told us that his shikaree had marked down two tigers of exceptional size—beasts that had done a great deal of mischief in the district; and he was confident that we should have an excellent day’s sport.

The sun was now tremendously powerful, but the motion of the huge beasts we rode produced a certain amount of air, and the excitement made us forget everything but the object of our visit.

Our course was toward a spur of a range of hills, and on rounding this, we found ourselves at the entrance of a narrow valley, across which we were formed up, the rajah’s huntsman giving us a few words of instruction as to keeping as nearly as possible in a line, and warning us to have a watchful eye upon every patch of bushes and tall, sun-dried grass.

A move was made as soon as we were in line, and with the valley gradually contracting in width, and the hills over our side growing higher and more steep, our prospects of seeing game grew brighter each moment; in fact, it was almost a certainty, as the head of the valley was occupied by the beaters, who would soon begin to move down in our direction.

Certain enough, but very tantalising, for every now and then there was a sharp rustle or breaking of twigs and something bounded from its lair to dash up the valley without giving us a chance of seeing its flank.

“Never mind,” said the doctor. “Not what we want; and we shall have a chance at