The Collected Novels. Anna Buchan
I woke. At first I lay quiet, too thankful to find myself in bed to think about anything else; then I sniffed.
"Olivia?" said G. "Do you notice it?"
"What?" I asked.
"That awful smell of Zoo."
Of course that was it. I had been wondering what was the curious smell. My first thought—an awful one—was that the tiger had actually broken loose, tracked us home, and was now under the bed waiting to devour us. There was nothing to hinder it but a mosquito-curtain! How I accomplished it, paralysed as I was with terror, I know not, but I took a flying leap and landed on G., hitting her nose with my head and clutching wildly at her brawny arms, much developed with tennis, as my only refuge.
She was too terrified to resent my intrusion.
"What do you think it is?" she whispered. "Hu-s-h, speak low. Perhaps it doesn't know there's anyone in the room."
"It's the tiger from the Zoo," I hissed with conviction.
G. started visibly. "Rubbish," she said. "A tiger wouldn't get into a house. Ah—oh, listen!"
Distinctly we heard the fud of four feet going round the bed.
"Cry for help," said G.
"Sister!" we yelled together.
"Sister Anna!"
"Sister Anna Margaret!"
No answer. Sister Anna Margaret slept well.
"Sister!" said G, bitterly. "She's no sister in adversity."
"Get up, G.," I said encouragingly. "Get up and turn on the light. Perhaps it isn't a tiger, perhaps it's only a musk rat."
G. refused with some curtness. "Get up yourself," she added.
Again we shouted for Sister, with no result.
You have no idea how horrible it was to lie there in the darkness and listen to movements made by we knew not what. We felt bitterly towards Sister Anna, never thinking of what her feelings would be if she came confidingly to our help and was confronted by some fearsome animal.
"If only," said G., "we knew what time it was and when it will be light. I can't live like this long. Let go my arm, can't you?"
"I daren't," I said. "You're all I've got to hold on to."
We lay and listened, and we lay and listened, but the padding footsteps didn't come back; and then I suppose we must have fallen asleep, for the next thing we knew was that the ayahs were standing beside us with tea, and the miserable night was past.
G. and I looked at each other rather shamefacedly.
"Did we dream it?" I asked,
G. was rubbing her arm where I had gripped it.
"I didn't dream this, anyway," she said; "it's black and blue."
At breakfast we knew the bitterness of having our word doubted; no one believed our report. They laughed at us and said we had dreamt it, or that we had heard a mouse, and became so offensive in their unbelief that G. and I rose from the table in a dignified way, and went out to walk in the compound.
We are very busy collecting things to take home with us. (Did I tell you G.'s berth had been booked in the ship I sail in—the Socotra—it sails about the 23rd?) The chicon-wallah came this morning and spread his wares on the verandah floor—white rugs from Kashmir, embroidered gaily in red and green and blue; tinsel mats and table centres; pieces of soft bright silk; dainty white sewed work. We could hardly be dragged from the absorbing sight to the luncheon-table.
The Townleys never change their servants, and now three generations serve together. The old kitmutgar is the grandfather and trains his grandsons in the way which they should go. To-day at luncheon (fortunately we were alone), one of them made a mistake in handing a dish, whereupon his grandfather gave him a resounding box on the ears, knocking off his turban. Instead of going out of the room, the boy went on handing me pudding, sobbing loudly the while, and with tears running down his face. It was very embarrassing, and none of us had enough Hindustani to rebuke the too-stern grandparent.
Later.
This afternoon, when we were having tea in the garden and enjoying Peliti's chocolate-cake, a great outcry arose from the house, and we saw the servants running and looking up to the verandah. Mr. Townley called out to know what was the matter, and received such a confused jumble of Hindustani in reply that he went to investigate. He came back shrugging his shoulders. "It's some nonsense about a 'spirit,' They say it's been appearing suddenly, then disappearing for some time. Now the chokra swears he saw it go up the verandah into a bedroom. To satisfy them, I have sent for my gun, and I'll wait below while they drive the 'spirit' down."
"It's our midnight visitor," G. and I cried together.
We waited, breathless. The servants rushed on to the verandah with sticks—a dark streak slid down the verandah pillar—Mr. Townley fired. It wasn't a tiger, it was a civet cat—a thing rather like a fox, with a long pointed nose and an uncommonly nasty smell.
"Think," said G., as we looked at it lying stretched out stiff,—"think of having that thing under our bed! A mouse indeed!"
We didn't say "I told you so," but we looked it.
Boggley comes back to-morrow, and I am going with him to the Grand Hotel, so that we shall be together for the last little while.
Agra, April 11.
… from a chapter in the Arabian Nights; from the middle of the most gorgeous fairy-tale the mind of man could invent, I write to you to-night.
Often I have heard of the Taj Mahal, read of its beauty, dreamed of its magic, but never in my dreams did I imagine anything so exquisite, so perfect.
Boggley thought I should not leave India without seeing this "miracle of miracles—the final wonder of the world," so we left Calcutta on Monday night by the Punjab mail and came to Agra, and we have done it all in proper order. Yesterday, in the morning, we motored to the deserted city, the capital of Akbar, the greatest of the Mogul emperors, about twenty miles off. It has battlemented walls and great gates like a fairy-tale city. The bazaar part of it is mostly in ruins, but the royal part is perfectly preserved and could be lived in comfortably now. There is Akbar's Council Chamber, the houses of his wives, the courtyard where they played living chess, the stables, waterworks, the palaces of his chief ministers, the mosque and cloisters, the Gate of Victory. The carving in marble and red sandstone is wonderful. Akbar must have been a broad-minded man, for we found paintings of the Annunciation side by side with pictures of the Hindu god Ganesh. It is intensely interesting to see the place just as it was hundreds of years ago. In the great Mosque Quadrangle there is a marble mausoleum, delicately carved, a priceless piece of work in mother-of-pearl, erected to Akbar's high priest; and our guide was his lineal descendant, glad to get five rupees for his trouble! We lunched in the Government bungalow, a comfortable place, not glaringly out of keeping with the surroundings, and then motored to Akbar's tomb—another piece of colossal magnificence. I was awed by it. Out of the glaring sunshine we went down a long dark passage to a great vault, where the air was cold with the coldness of death. It was completely dark except for one ray of light falling on the plain marble tomb. An old Mohammedan crooned eerily, impressively, a lament which echoed round and round the vault. The Mohammedans and the Scots have a similar passion for deaths and funerals!
Lastly, in its fitting order, we drove to the Taj Mahal.
You know the story? I have just been reading about it in Steevens's book. You know how Shah Jehan, grandson of Akbar, first Mogul Emperor of Hindustan, loved and married the beautiful Persian Arjmand Banu,—called Mumtaz-i-Mahal,—and when she died he, in his grief, swore that she should have the loveliest tomb the world ever beheld, and for seventeen years he built the Taj Mahal? You know how after thirty years his son rose up and dethroned him, and kept him a close prisoner for seven years in the Gem Mosque, where his daughter Jehanara attended him and would not leave him. When grown very feeble, he begged