United States or Jamaica ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Dermot did not trouble to argue the matter further with him, but said to the company generally: "This outrageous attempt to carry off Miss Daleham " "Oh, but you said yourself, sir, that the ruffians were Bhuttias," broke in the boy, still nourishing a grievance at the mistrust of his friend. Dermot turned to him again. "Do Bhuttias talk to each other in Bengali?
"He always brings a big train of Bhuttias with him, eighty swordsmen as an escort to the small army of coolies necessary to carry a hundred thousand silver rupees in boxes over the Himalayan passes. I like to give them the flesh of a few sambhur stags as a treat," said the Colonel. "Hiven hilp ye av ye bring any sambhur flesh to the Mess, Wargrave," said Burke.
"I suppose you know, sir, that as these districts are so sparsely populated and the Bhuttias on the hills won't take the work, we have to import the thousands of coolies needed from Chota Nagpur and other places hundreds of miles away," said Daleham. "Lately, however, we have begun to get men from Bengal." "What? Bengalis?" asked Dermot. "Yes. Very good men. Quite decent class.
It led in the direction in which Badshah had tried to take him. The elephant had been wiser than he. Now, with an apologetic pat on the head, Dermot let him follow the new path, wondering at the change of route, for it was only natural to expect that the Bhuttias would have made for the hills by the shortest way to the nearest pass into Bhutan.
He wanted to follow the Bhuttias, but I pointed out that it was hopeless." "Hopeless? Why?" "There were only three of us, and they were a large party," replied Chunerbutty. "Yes; but you had rifles and should have been a match for fifty." The Bengali shrugged his shoulders. "We did not know in which way they had gone," he said. "We could not track them." "I suppose not. Well?" "Fred and Mr.
"Oh, the yarn came from the mahouts, who heard it from some of the forest guards, who said they'd been told it by Bhuttias from the hills. You know how natives spread stories. Wasn't it a silly tale?" And Parker laughed at the thought of it. "Yes, rather absurd," agreed the Major, forcing a smile. "Yes, natives are really Hello! who's done this?" They had reached the garden of his bungalow.
Carry on the tale," was the universal cry. Everyone turned an expectant face towards where the soldier sat, looking unusually embarrassed. "Oh, there's nothing much to tell," he said. "The raiders they were Bhuttias had left a trail easy enough to see, though I confess that I would have lost it once but for my elephant.
"Well, I want to start at daybreak to search the scene of the attack on us and the place where I came on the Bhuttias. Will some of you fellows come with me?" "Rather. We'll all go," was the shout from all at the table. "Thanks. We may round up some of the survivors."
Chunerbutty, kept at the soldier's request in utter ignorance of more than the fact that Noreen had been rescued by him from the raiders, had concluded at first that the crime was what it appeared on the surface a descent of trans-frontier Bhuttias to carry off a white woman for ransom. But when these stories reached the tea-garden villages and eventually came to his ears he was very puzzled.
Chunerbutty rushed forward. He was evidently greatly agitated. "Oh, Major Dermot! Major Dermot! Help! Help!" he cried excitedly. "A terrible thing has happened. Miss Daleham has been carried off by a party of Bhuttia raiders." "Carried off? By Bhuttias?" exclaimed the soldier. "When?" He made the elephant kneel and slipped off to the ground. "Barely two hours ago," replied the engineer.
Word Of The Day