Asoka's alibi

THE LOST RANEE.

There was a well-defined track down the rocks to the foot of the fall, and below that there was a footpath all along the river to the ford. Quorn rode along that, watching the troubled water, half-expecting to see the Ranee's body, mangled by the crags, floating in mid-stream or stranded. But he knew there were alligators, slimy, greedy devils; floating bodies had a slim chance; even the fords were sometimes dangerous for passengers on foot.

All that way along the river bank Quorn was sick at heart and careless even of Asoka's comfort or his destiny; however, he began to be puzzled before long by symptoms that he noticed, and he was more than ever puzzled by Asoka's willingness to cross the river when they reached the ford.

"What's eating you? What's making you forget?" he wondered.

All the way across the ford he indulged in sentimental guesswork as to whether the Ranee's death had not humiliated and broken Asoka's spirit. Nearly every one is capable at times of that sort of imagination.

However, on the far bank he got down to search for what the matter might be, and soon discovered the spear-wound in Asoka's rump. It was nothing serious, although it might be painful, and he understood then that Asoka had been merely asking for attention.

He made Asoka kneel and, having no remedies handy, made a fly-brush of grass at the end of a string that would sway with the elephant's movement and prevent the stinging flies from laying eggs in the open cut.

It was while he was tying the string to the howdah rail that Bamjee came. By this time the babu had lost his spectacles. There was hardly a shred of untorn clothing on his body and almost every inch of him was bleeding from the thorns. He was breathless and he fell at Quorn's feet. For a minute or two he lay and vomited. Then suddenly his will power triumphed and he knelt—sputtered—exploded:

"Damn! Loafer! Bloody fool! You wait here? Oh, my God! I saw you on the far bank—didn't you see my signal?"

"Looking for the Ranee," Quorn answered. Then he lowered his voice. "She's drownded."

"Liar!"

"She is. She's drownded."

"Liar, I tell you! I saw her swim—she was washed out of the howdah close inshore—caught the grass in her hands and climbed out—scrambled up the bank. He seized her—"

"For the love o' God, who did?"

"Maraj! Pounced on her like a hawk on a bird. He had a trap set. I warned you, and you avoided it. I had to run, and they thought they killed me, but I came back. When Maraj saw you plunge into the river he ran to the place. And when he saw the Ranee in the water he hid himself. I tried to yell to her, but I had no voice. I couldn't whisper! And so she climbed out, and Maraj pounced on her.

"I saw him pick her up—she was kicking—he carried her—he ran—and I ran—he choked her until she left off kicking—then I saw him take her to the hermitage, which is full of Brahmins and cutthroats—and I don't know where the Prince is—and we can't get to the hermitage now—because the whole damn jungle is on fire! Oh, my God!"

He lay and beat the hard earth with his flat palms. He beat his forehead on the ground. Quorn lifted him, took him by shoulders and heel and hoisted him into the howdah. Then he climbed up to his own place on Asoka's neck, after he had broken off a short stick for administrative purposes.

"Come on now, and no bunk!"

Quorn was not even quite sure where the hermitage lay, and it was no use asking Bamjee, who was moaning and out of his senses, rolling from side to side of the howdah. But Bamjee had told the truth about the jungle fire; the hot-weather wind was rising and the roar and heat and smell of it were coming closer every second.

There were birds and animals in full flight—scores of them—even a leopard that passed within six feet and did not pause to look at a man on an elephant. Asoka, too, was getting difficult to manage.

So Quorn turned down-wind, but headed southward as much as possible, in order to make a circuit of the fire; but he had to make a very wide circuit indeed because of Asoka's nervousness. However, Asoka was willing, and put his best foot forward; they covered five or six miles faster than a horse could have done it, which brought them out of the zone of rolling smoke.

And when they were out of the haze of the smoke Quorn presently saw Blake on horseback on a knoll, gazing under his hand in every direction. He clapped his spurs in and came galloping the moment he caught sight of Asoka.

"For God's sake, where is the Ranee?" he demanded. "What has happened?"

Quorn was laconic. Bamjee stuck his head over the howdah rail and repeated Quorn's words after him—adding to them.

"Go to her—for God's sake, go to her!" he almost screamed, and then collapsed.

But in another moment he was on his knees again, and it was Bamjee who first caught sight of Rana Raj Singh and ten of his men moving westward in an extended line with the long slow-swinging canter that saves horses' strength against emergency.

"Bloody dam-fool! Go back!" Bamjee yelled. But Rana Raj Singh came on at a gallop, drew rein in a dust cloud and sat silent, waiting for Blake to speak first.

Blake told him all that he and Quorn knew.

There was no pause between Blake's last words and Rana Raj Singh's order to his men. They wheeled and, like eleven arrows launched out of eleven bows, they sped back along the course by which they had come, Blake after them, swallowing dust, and Asoka bringing up the rear in no great hurry, since the horses' utmost limit of speed was easily within his scope.

They rode as a blast of wind goes ripping through the scrub. Jungle, nullahs, crags and trees went past them like a motion picture, and the horses were blowing heavily when Rana Raj Singh halted at last in full view of a building half a mile away.

It was a domed structure surrounded by a mud-and-stone wall, with plenty of space between building and wall and some trees in the inclosure. Considerably less than half a mile beyond it was another group of trees. Rana Raj Singh pointed to them:

"Ten of my men are in hiding near those trees. One man is up in a tree. They have seen us." He waved his right arm. Blake's keen eyes were not keen enough to read the answering signal from the tree-top, but Rana Raj Singh seemed satisfied; he turned to Blake again.

"I waited," he said, "and grew weary of waiting. I did not understand what was happening in that hermitage, or why the Ranee did not come. A number of Brahmins came. I was astonished; they had their high priest with them—an unheard-of thing. They also brought a lot of ruffians with lathis.[1] Then I saw the jungle on fire, and no Ranee. So I left ten men in hiding and rode to see what might have happened. Ah! My men come."

Ten men armed with lances rode in to view from a depression near the trees. They formed into a line with wide-spaced intervals and halted, watching for a signal. Quorn drew as near to Rana Raj Singh as the nervous horse would let him.

"Did I hear you say, sir, that the high priest o' them Brahmins is in that building?"

Rana Raj Singh nodded. Quorn slowly moved Asoka forward until he was in front of all the horses.

"Me and you won't miss this, soldier! Durn your old hide, but you was born lucky. A habeas corpus beats an alibi. You habeas the corpus o' that high priest and a legislature couldn't hang you!"

Rana Raj Singh signalled. The men opposite approached, extending their line as Rana Raj Singh maneuvered his ten to meet them, until they formed a wide arc of a circle with Asoka in the midst. Blake was at Asoka's left, Rana Raj Singh to right of him, and for a moment or two they halted in that position while men's heads stared at them from over the hermitage wall.

There was evidently some confusion in the hermitage. Two men who appeared not to be Brahmins let themselves down from the wall and took to their heels toward the nullah where the Rajputs had been hidden.

"Catch them alive," commanded Rana Raj Singh. Two of his men gave chase.

Then a gate of the hermitage opened and three Brahmins approached, waving a white cloth. Rana Raj Singh rode to meet them, Blake almost abreast of him and Quorn on Asoka keeping well within earshot.

"Halt!" commanded Rana Raj Singh. "Where is the Ranee?"

Bamjee came to life and knelt up in the howdah, clearing his throat to shout something, but Quorn cursed him into silence.

"She is with us in the hermitage," the Brahmin answered insolently. "She bids you go home."

Bamjee exploded, Quorn or no Quorn. "Liar!" he shouted. "Your highness, that man is the go-between who tells Maraj what to do. I know him!"

The Brahmin promptly played his trump card. "Her Highness the Ranee has apologized to the high priest and has received his blessing. You are to take that elephant away and shoot him. The person known as Maraj has been imprisoned in the hermitage and will be taken to Narada to be tried and executed.

"We ourselves will be the Ranee's escort to Narada."

Rana Raj Singh's men came dragging prisoners. They threw them to the ground and held them there at the lance-point.

"Prince, they say the Ranee is locked into a cell. There are forty more of this sort in there, prepared to defend the place. Maraj is a prisoner, but the Brahmins have offered him freedom if we attack and he helps the defense."

They tied the prisoners back to back by necks, hands and feet. There began to be a great commotion in the hermitage—an uproar—and another Brahmin came running, but not through the gate; he climbed the wall, jumped, fell, hurt himself and limped, hurrying as best he could. He stammered; it was hard to understand him. Quorn, who could see the roof of the building better than the rest could, understood first.

"Hell's bells!" he exclaimed. "Maraj is loose. He's on the roof. He has turned those other guys against the Brahmins! This guy wants us to go help the high priest! Can you beat that?"

"Can you break that wall?" asked Rana Raj Singh.

Always the easiest thing in the world was to start Asoka smashing things. Quorn's only immediate worry was the risk of damage to Asoka's head, so he chose the mud-and-stone wall rather than the teak gate and sent Asoka charging at it like a five-ton battering-ram.

He heard Bamjee crying, "Oh, my God!" behind him—heard the thunder of the Rajput horsemen closing in behind him, two by two, to burst through the gap he should make, saw—through the edge of his eyes—Blake and Rana Raj Singh slightly to his rear, one on either flank, distinctly heard and felt the ping of several bullets, thought he heard Blake answer them, and was dimly aware that a man on the roof was shooting at him, but kept on missing.

Then came the shudder and shock as Asoka struck the wall with his enormous forehead—strained his weight against it—grunted—and a section of the wall fell inward in a cloud of dust.

Asoka staggered through the gap. Behind him the horsemen streamed through, wheeling right and left. And then confusion, in which Bamjee scrambled to the ground by clinging to Asoka's tail and vanished into the building.

Asoka swung a limp trunk, swaying with his eyes shut, more than half-stunned by the impact. Quorn slipped to the ground.

"Lean against that wall, you sucker. Keep your feet. No lying down or you'll kid yourself you're all in."

For a moment or two he watched the elephant, since that was his first charge. He decided Asoka would stand there—at the worst he would hardly stray far—at the utmost worst he might stagger off home to the elephant lines in Narada; but he was likeliest to stand.

He left him. There was fighting going on in every direction—horsemen charging; Brahmins and their own hired ruffians at throat-grips, some of them rolling on the ground together; other ruffians trying to climb the wall and being skewered by the Rajput lances; two men in the gap to guard that, sabering whoever tried to slip through; and a maniac—a leaping maniac—a prancing, yelling maniac who jabbered in an unknown tongue as he raced around the parapet of the rambling building, brandishing an empty Colt revolver.

"Maraj!" Quorn muttered to himself. "I guess you're my meat!"

But he had no weapon, nor any notion how he was going to kill the maniac. He ran all along the building looking for an entrance. There were dozens of doors, all leading into cells, but he came on a passage at last that led between two cells into a dark hall under a dome, with columns to support the dome.

He saw the Ranee leaning on Rana Raj Singh's arm. The prince's saber was all bloody and there were several dead men lying around the door of the cell from which the Ranee had been rescued. The door had not been opened, it was smashed in, but Quorn had not time to be curious how that had happened—he saw a stairway leading to the roof.

It was narrow. Near its summit stood the high priest, taking refuge there for fear his sacred person might be defiled by the touch of common mortals—much more afraid of that than of being killed or injured. In fact, he did not appear afraid.

Quorn charged up the steps. The high priest retreated in front of him, dreading that Quorn might bump against him. Three steps backward, and he bumped into the door that opened on the roof—it yielded, and there he was out on the roof with Quorn staring at him, until Maraj came prancing along the parapet.

The high priest looked afraid then, as Maraj paused, grinning at him—grinning at Quorn, too: and Quorn cursed himself for a bigger idiot than any one, because he had no weapon. Maraj twisted the Colt revolver in his hands, broke it as if his hands were a gorilla's, dropped it as if he had never been conscious of it. And then human speech returned to him.

"The oh, so holy—twice born—high priest—who commanded Maraj to be tied and—handed over—in Narada—to the judge—and the executioner!"

Maraj glanced down from the parapet. Asoka stood beneath him, midway between wall and building, shaking his head, but with his eyes open now. Suddenly Maraj came leaping at the high priest, seized him, crushed him in a right arm that was like a vise. He caught Quorn with the other hand and nearly crushed his ribs.

"You shall come and learn what Maraj knows!"

Quorn's right hand was free; he rained blows on the maniac's face, but their only effect was to make him tighten the terrific grip. The high priest groaned with the agony of in-bent ribs. Maraj hove both of them off their feet and rushed toward the parapet, mounted it, paused there. He laughed so loud that even the fighting Rajputs looked up. Shouting something, in an unknown tongue again, and hugging his captives, he leaped, feet first for Asoka's back.

Asoka moved away from under them—by instinct perhaps, intuition, whatever it is that forewarns animals. Quorn's feet struck Asoka's forehead, which set all three men turning in the air. Maraj struggled, clinging to Quorn and the high priest, trying to turn them under him and break his own fall, but the reverse of that happened; his back struck the earth. Quorn and the high priest fell on top of him, the high priest with a broken shoulder and Quorn shaken up but not hurt otherwise.

He rolled clear. Then he dragged the high priest free, and swung him roughly out of reach of Asoka's trunk and forefoot that were dangerously close.

Maraj seemed dead—but suddenly he sat up, staring at Asoka. He seemed to remember something about that elephant.

Asoka, too, seemed to remember; he rumbled. Then Maraj saw Quorn, and then the high priest. Suddenly he tried to stand up, but his legs refused to function, so he rolled—he tried to seize the high priest by the leg. Quorn spoke quite quietly:

"There's your alibi, Asoka—soak him!"

It was only two steps forward—one foot on the belly of the maniac, the other on his head. Quorn took Asoka by the trunk and turned him around, led him to where he had left him near the gap in the wall.

"You win," he said, "you great big lucky stiff! I think you done it in a dream. I don't believe you know which end of you is your head. I hope your skull ain't split—you hit that wall a hummer."

Then the Ranee and the prince, and many Brahmins clustering around the high priest, some of them bruised and bloody, and every one of them as nervous as a wet hen because they had been defiled by the touch of low-caste ruffians.

The Ranee's voice—a stern note that Quorn had never heard before—the high priest answering, and all the Brahmins echoing him in chorus—promises, Quorn supposed—agreements, to be broken when the time came. Pity she couldn't hang 'em all. He sat down, more stunned than he had realized he was, his head so swimming that it was several seconds before he recognized Bamjee with a big ax in his hand.

"We win, I think," said Bamjee, "both of us! I chopped the door down while the prince was slaying dragons—six men at least! Oh, my God! I chopped with all that going on behind me—think of it! But it was I who released her from the cell—can she forget that?"

Then the Ranee's voice, the Ranee's sweet young face amid a sea of others that persisted in whirling around in a circle. Somewhere in the whirl Blake's monocle and a glimpse of Blake cleaning an automatic with his handkerchief.

"I thank you, Sirdar Benjamin Quorn. Do you think you could make Asoka understand how much I thank him?"

And then Blake's voice: "Gad! I don't know, Quorn—I might—you never know—I might be able to persuade our government to recognize that title. Do my best, old fellow—do my best for you at any time!"

THE END.