At the fork in the roads the major called back: "After you've had breakfast, get your hunting kit all ready, captain. I'll meet you with the elephants at the same place as yesterday, at one o'clock. We mustn't keep the old Banjara waiting--we're to be on the ground at two--his buffalo might stir up Stripes before we arrive."
There was a scowl on his face as Lord Victor, looking so pink and white after his bath, sat down to breakfast, growling: "There's a bally London fog of that attar fume in my room; somebody's been pawing my letter case, kit bag--everything. It isn't my bearer, for he smells chiefly of dried fish and opium."
"The attar would suggest a woman--a jealous woman looking for love letters; but you haven't been here long enough, Gilfain," the captain remarked.
A servant entered with a broiled fish, and Swinton switched Lord Victor to a trivial discussion of food. When the servant reappeared later with curry, the captain said: "Leave it on the table, Abdul, and sit without." Then, rising, he added: "I'll be back in a minute.
"My stuff has been censored, too," he said, on his return.
"This is India, youth; here we don't bother chasing 'who;' we lock up everything, or destroy it."
"I'm going to dash the bearer with an exam," Lord Victor said decidedly.
"You'd get nothing but lies; you'd draw blank."
The captain lapsed into a moody silence, completing a diagnosis of this disturbing matter mentally. The attar suggested that somebody on intimate terms with Prince Ananda had investigated. Doctor Boelke would do it; he could read papers written in English and assimilate their contents. If Swinton were under suspicion, Prince Ananda would look for proofs as to whether he was a secret-service man or just the companion of Lord Victor.
Later, when, with Finnerty, they arrived at the hunt-ground, the Banjara, who was waiting, said: "My brothers have taken the buffalo to the west of the big growth of tall grass wherein is the slayer of my cow, because from that side blows the wind and it will carry the scent of the buffalo, and the tiger will move forward, not catching in his nostrils word of the guns which the sahib knows well how to place. When the sahib is ready, I will give the call of a buffalo, and my brothers will make the drive. Where will be the place of the young sahib, that I may remain near in the way of advice lest he shoot one of my people, or even a buffalo?"
