“It was not yours to take,” Miss Adler whispered, urgency resonating in her trained voice. “Do you know what you’ll be unleashing?”
“It is unleashed already,” Kolinzcki replied. “I merely bring our noble friends the means to control it.”
She sighed, the harsh Russian tongue taking on a certain fluidity when she spoke it. “It is not so simple as that, and you know it. It will be a great embarrassment for my friends in Prague if I cannot return their property. If it seems they are cooperating with the Tsar, it will go hard for them.”
He was silent, and she continued in a voice I barely heard under the sawing of insects. “Have I not done everything you asked?”
It was obvious to me that the Count was blackmailing the lovely singer, and I made up my mind to intervene. But as my hand was on the tent flap, I heard again the low, resonant throbbing that had so startled us in the afternoon. Outside, Miss Adler gave a little cry of surprise, and as I came around the corner to confront them, I heard him say in English, “And that is the reason why I cannot oblige you, my dear, as well you know. Perhaps when we are back in civilized lands, we can discuss this again.”
She stepped close to him and laid her hand on his arm. “Of course, darling.”
Then perhaps a lovers’ quarrel after all, and already made up for. Silent in bare feet, I returned to my sleepless bed, unaccountably disappointed, and harboring suspicions I did not care to address. Who was I, a Norwegian, to care what alliances and wars the Tsar and the British Queen make against and upon each other? They seemed determined to tear Afghanistan in two between them, in their so-called Great Game: an endless series of imperialist intrigues and battles. A game, to my eye, whose chiefest victims were simple folk like my Rodney. The best the rest of us—I thought then—could manage was a sort of detached distaste for the whole proceedings.
The morning found us all awake early and unsettled. It was bold young James Waterhouse who sought me out before we mounted our elephants. “Shikari,” he said—they had picked up the usage from von Hammerstein and thought it delightfully quaint. “Did you hear that noise again last night?”
I hesitated. “The drumming? I did indeed.” I said no more, but he must have noted my frown.
He pressed me. “That wasn’t an animal noise, was it? I heard it when we killed the tiger.”
It had absorbed my thoughts through the night, when I wasn’t distracted by the implications of the argument between the Lithuanian—or perhaps not Lithuanian—Count and the fair Miss Adler. It wasn’t quite exactly a drumming: it was more a . . . heartbeat. It was true; it didn’t sound like an animal noise. But it didn’t sound precisely like a human noise either.
“I don’t know,” I answered uncomfortably. “I haven’t heard it before.” I turned to aid Miss Adler in climbing the rope ladder to our elephant. Truthfully, the count required more assistance, and as I helped him up, his waistcoat gaped and I noticed the golden hilt of a dagger secreted within it. Great-grandfather’s hunting knife, no doubt: too showy, but not a bad precaution. He rose a bare notch in my estimation.
There were some clouds on the horizon, and I thought the wind might carry a taint of moisture. I was eager to find the second cat and travel deeper into the jungle, perhaps to seek a third. We were past due for weather, and monsoon would mean the end of our hunt.
My party were on edge, made nervy no doubt both by the loss of the beaters the day before and by the close call with the tiger. Still no sign had been found of the missing men—even of a scuffle—and I found myself tending toward the explanation that they had deserted. Conrad seemed spooked, and I permitted the brothers to ride my elephant while Miss Adler and her escort traveled with Mr. Waterhouse.
Instead of skirting the forest, we resolved to plunge into it, and search among the bamboo and the sal trees for the second man-eater. I found myself eager as a young man, and by the time we broke for luncheon we had covered some miles into the thicker part of the forest. We found a little clearing in which to enjoy our cold curry and venison with the native bread. I sat beside von Hammerstein, while noting that Miss Adler had taken a place some distance from her Count. I wondered.
I kept the Egyptian close to hand, in case our man-eater should be drawn out by the scent of food or prey, but lunch passed uneventfully. We resolved to take a short siesta on the grass in the appalling heat of the afternoon with some of the beaters standing guard.
I again caught a glimpse of clouds massed on the horizon, but they seemed no closer than they had been in the morning, so I determined that we should press on after resting, but I must have dozed. I was awakened with a start by the sound of crashing in the brush—something sprinting straight for us. I scrambled to my feet, clutching my rifle. I noticed that the rest had dozed as well—except Miss Adler, who was on her feet, straightening from adjusting the Count’s jacket, and loyal Rodney, who was chatting with one of the beaters in their native Hindi.
I brought my weapon to bear on the sound. The beaters moved rapidly out of the line of fire, and I did not spare a glance for the others.
It was no tiger that broke the screen of trees, but a man, ragged and hungry looking, on the verge of exhaustion, bare feet bloodied as if from some long journey. He did not look Indian but rather Arab—Afghan, perhaps? I cautiously lowered my rifle, and he collapsed at my feet with a cry.
He babbled a few words in a tongue I did not understand. I again shifted my estimation of Count Kolinzcki, as I noticed it was he who first came to the man’s side, bending over him. I watched warily for a moment. The Arab seemed no threat, however, and I gestured Rodney to bring water as I crouched beside him as well. My bearer had just begun to cross the clearing, leaving his post at my shoulder, when the eldest elephant threw up her trunk and trumpeted in alarm.
A stray breeze brought a whiff of scent to my nostrils: char and hot metal. I cast about for any sign of smoke and noticed the elephants rocking nervously. It seemed obvious to me at that time that they had scented fire, for I knew then of no beast that could so disturb them.
I was both right and wrong.
“Mount!” I cried. The Waterhouses began immediately to move toward the elephants while Dr. Montleroy and von Hammerstein helped the beaters grab up our possessions. I reached down with some thought of assisting the prostrate Arab, but Kolinzcki was already dragging him to his feet.
The Arab grabbed Kolinzcki by the collar, and the fat Count knocked his grubby hand aside. And then, looking startled and sick, the Count pressed his right hand to his breast, with the expression of a man who realizes that his watch has gone missing from his waistcoat.
I remembered the argument of the night before, and Miss Adler bent over his supine form as he slept, but the rush of events did not permit me to inquire.
I barely caught a glimpse of it before it was among us: it came silent as a wisp of smoke, disturbing the vines and brush not at all. It glowed, even in the incandescence of the afternoon, with a light like a coal, and across the back it bore stripes like char. It possessed the rough form of a tiger, but it stank like a forest fire and its maw was a lick of flame.
It sprang to the back of the smallest elephant with an easy leap, transfixing Conrad Waterhouse with its burning gaze. Even as the elephant panicked, he froze like a bird charmed by a snake. The Creature’s blazing claws scorched down her sides, leaving rents in her thick hide that I wouldn’t have credited to an ax. She screamed and reared up, ponderously reaching over her shoulder in an attempt to dislodge the predator. Her panic knocked Conrad from his feet, and I did not see him move again. His brother lunged across the path of the Creature to shield the fallen boy with his body: a brave and futile gesture.