CHAPTER VII.
We had tiffin with Miss Eastinhoe. Mr. Jacobs, in evening dress, looked surpa.s.singly lovely.
CHAPTER VIII.
In the third game of polo a clumsy player struck Mr. Jacobs on the back of his head, laying open his skull. The wounded man fell from his saddle, but his foot caught in the stirrup, and he was dragged several miles by the infuriated Arab pony.
"Don"t give him brandy," remarked Miss Eastinhoe, calmly. "Water will do quite as well. It is cheaper, and, as he is insensible, he will not know the difference."
"Thank you," replied Jacobs, gracefully tying his head together with a white woollen shawl. "We will start on the tiger hunt to-morrow."
He carefully lighted a cigarette and rode home.
"Briggs," Jacobs said, producing a mysterious trick bottle, "do as I tell you or you are a dead man. Stuff this wax into your nose, and bathe the back of my neck with this powerful remedy unknown to your Western medicine. I shall then fall asleep. If I do not wake before midnight, I shall sleep until breakfast time. You can easily arouse me by pressing the little silver k.n.o.b behind my left ear. If you cannot remember, write it down."
Being a newspaper man, I naturally took out an old letter upon which to jot down his instructions. I faithfully carried out all his directions, and it is to be remarked in pa.s.sing that on removing the wax from my nostrils, I was conscious of a strong odor of Scotch whiskey.
CHAPTER IX.
We started on our tiger-hunt. Miss Eastinhoe rode on an elephant, about which Jacobs, who loved the saddle, circled gayly, keeping up a fire of little compliments and pretty speeches of which he had thoughtfully brought a tiffinful with him, but to which the lady very fortunately soon became inured. He had also taken the precaution to have relay"s of runners bring fresh roses half-way across India every morning for Miss Eastinhoe, whom he amused meantime by playing beautifully on the tiffin and warbling Persian love-songs.
CHAPTER X.
Guided only by a native tiffin, upon whom he showered an astonishing profusion of opprobrious epithets, Mr. Jacobs went forth in the dark and stilly night, and slaughtered a huge man-eating tiger, for whose ears Miss Eastinhoe had expressed a singular, but well-defined longing. The beast measured twenty-four feet, and, by stretching the story a little, I was able to say twenty-seven.
"My dear fellow," I said, "I am sincerely glad to see you back alive."
"Thank you, old man," he said, falling easily into English slang. "Do you know I have a superst.i.tion that I must fulfil every wish of hers.
Besides, the skin will fetch a capital price."
"I adore you," murmured Miss Eastinhoe. "I shall have the ears pickled."
CHAPTER XI.
An old yogi stood near an older well. He put a stone in the bucket, and the slave could not draw it up. Suddenly the bottom came out, and the stout water-carrier fell headlong backwards on the gra.s.s.
"Did you ever see anything of that kind before, Miss Eastinhoe?" I inquired.
"No, indeed," she replied. "I always before supposed that to fall headlong a man must go forwards."
"I am off to see a Certain Mighty Personage," Mr. Jacobs remarked, stooping casually from his saddle to kiss Miss Eastinhoe on her white gold hair, which shone so that it made the moon look, on the whole, rather sickly, as an electric light pales the gas-jet. "If I want you, I"ll send for you. Lamb Ral has a Star Route contract and will bring you word."
He rode away, and I pensively smoked my tiffin.
CHAPTER XII.
The afternoon mail brought me a postal-card:
"I shall want you after all. Please ride night and day for a week. It is a matter of life and death."
Changing horses every five or six miles, I rode over the greater part of Asia, subsisting on a light but elegant diet of chocolate caramels.
Then I stopped to take tiffin with a striking-looking fellow in a dirty brown cloth _caftan_ Jacobs" face changed when I gave him a silver box Miss Eastinhoe sent him.
"I gave her this myself;" he said; "it is only plated."
"Mr. Briggs," interposed Lamb Ral, with decision, "we are about to go down into the valley. If you see any man attacking Mr. Jacobs, knock him down. If you cannot do that, shoot him under the arm. At any rate dispose of him. I am not Wiggins, but I predict a storm."
CHAPTER XIII.
After tiffin we went down into the valley to meet the emissary of a Certain Mighty Person and Number One. The emissary advanced with a scroll so illegible that Jacobs bent over it in despair. Taking advantage of his absorption, the villain put his hand upon my friend"s shoulder. I sprang upon him like a bull-dog.
Meanwhile Lamb Ral created a pleasant diversion by drawing down from the sky a blood-curdling fog, heavier than the after-dinner speech of an alderman, more dense than the public taste, more paralyzing than the philosophy of the last popular novel. Dread and cottony, like a curtain, descended the awful cloud into the uplifted arms of the sleight-of-hand man, until I could not see an inch before my nose.
Nevertheless I was able to observe that he had stretched himself, probably by an arrangement of crossed levers, to an incalculable height, and I distinctly observed him wink with one eye as I kneaded my adversary.
As I had just snapped the arm of the emissary like a pipe-stem and the rest had each killed somebody, the mist was opportune and our party skulked back to camp, where we all drank a good deal of tiffin. The result of our imbibing was that Jacobs clapped Number One on the shoulder.
"You"re a bully good fellow," he observed, thickly. "Git!"
Lamb Ral and Number One disappeared in a red light, with plaintive music from the orchestra.