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Chunerbutty, feeling that his presence among them would not be welcomed by the white men that night, had gone off to his own bungalow in jealous rage. And nobody missed him. Dermot, despite his protests, had been dragged off to have his hurts attended to, and it was then seen that he had been touched by three bullets.
Chunerbutty had given their story correctly. But Dermot elicited two new facts which they had not mentioned to the engineer. One raider at least was armed with a revolver, which was unusual for a Bhuttia, the difficulty of procuring firearms and ammunition in Bhutan being so great that even the soldiers of the Maharajah are armed only with swords and bows.
"Oh, you are safe, thank God!" she cried, her hand at her heart. "What has happened here?" asked Dermot, entering the room. Fred let fall the curtain as he answered: "Hell's broke loose on the garden, sir. The coolies have mutinied. Parry's dead, murdered; and we're alive only by the kind mercies of that brute Chunerbutty, damn him!
He had seldom seen her since their return from Lalpuri, and on the rare occasions of their meeting she seemed to avoid him more than ever. Chunerbutty was always by her side.
A lakh is a hundred thousand, and at par fifteen rupees went to an English sovereign. "Thank you, Your Highness," he said eagerly. The Rajah held up a fat forefinger warningly. "But not until you have married her," he said. Chunerbutty smiled confidently.
But his thoughts were not of the attempts on his life and the probability that they would be repeated. His mind was filled with Noreen to the temporary exclusion of all other subjects. She puzzled him. He had supposed her engaged, or practically engaged, to Charlesworth. Yet she had come away from Darjeeling at its gayest time and here seemed to be engrossed with Chunerbutty.
All the planters were convinced that the heart and the brain of the disaffection was to be found in Malpura. So Dermot determined to return there and expose the whole matter to Fred Daleham at last, charging him on his loyalty not to give the faintest inkling to Chunerbutty.
But Chunerbutty volunteered to escort Noreen to the hills, as he had been summoned again to his sick father's side, the said parent being supposed to be in attendance on his Rajah who had taken a house in Darjeeling for the season. As a matter of fact his worthy progenitor had never left Lalpuri.
Like many other young Hindus who have studied in England, Chunerbutty professed to be completely Anglicised. In the presence of Europeans he sneered at the customs, beliefs, and religions of his fellow-countrymen and posed as an agnostic.
The early morning repast, the chota hazri of an Anglo-Indian household, is a very light and frugal one, consisting of a cup of coffee or tea, a slice of toast, and one or two bananas. As she pulled up her pony in front of the bungalow a man came down the steps of the verandah and helped her to dismount. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Chunerbutty," she exclaimed, "and good morning."
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