and these elephants were bathing before their return to our hunting camp. Come, let me offer you some refreshment. Our camp is but a mile away, and we don’t strike until tomorrow, though the rajah has returned to Chintalpore, unfortunately — the Nizam of Haidarabad visits and there’s much to attend to.’
Here was fortune indeed. He was met with Selden, an object of his mission to India, and a month, surely, before he might be able to do so through the offices of Calcutta. And the nizam himself was about to pay a visit to Chintalpore. Hervey was turning over the possibilities in his mind even as he accepted Selden’s invitation.
Templer, however, was concerned for the propriety — and the legality — of Company troops entering the rajah’s domain, even with an invitation.
‘Very well, then,’ Hervey concluded, with as indifferent an air as he could manage, ‘it seems that Mr Templer shall have to return directly to Guntoor. However, Mr Locke and I accept with the greatest pleasure!’
VII. FALSE CIVILIZATION
The Rajah of Chintal’s hunting camp lay at the forest edge, where great mathi and tadasalu trees provided shade over the best part of three acres of mown grass. There were a dozen large tents, one bigger by half than the others, with saffron panels and streamers, evidently the rajah’s former quarters. In the middle of the camp was the
‘Come: you will feel the need of a bath,’ said Selden, as their horses were led away; and he called after one of the syces, in a tongue Hervey did not recognize, to fill two tubs for the sahibs.
Hervey was glad of the offer, and Locke too, for the quicksand had a rankness that had travelled with them to the camp. And for a half-hour they each luxuriated in leaden baths of warm, perfumed spring water brought by relays from a huge vat heated by a charcoal fire. And to slake their thirsts a khitmagar brought silver cups of cold beer.
‘Upon my word,’ exclaimed Locke after his first, long, draught, ‘this is uncommonly good ale. This Chintal nabob has a damned fine brewer. And so cool it is too, as if it has been in a cellar. A man might be tolerably content in these parts!’
It was a half-hour of indulgence. And all the more pleasurable for its being well earned.
‘Did you find the arrangements to your satisfaction, gentlemen?’ enquired Selden as they joined him outside his tent.
They had. Towels, brushes and clean shirts from the rajah’s quarters, and breeches from the packs carried by the bat-horses, had made new men of them.
‘May I offer you more ale, or perhaps you would prefer wine?’
Both preferred the cold hops.
‘An uncommonly good brew,’ said Locke again, emptying his cup in one motion, which a khitmagar refilled at once from a silver pitcher.
‘Yes,’ said Selden, with some satisfaction, ‘I too am fond of Burton ale.’
Locke was intrigued. ‘You do not mean that which we call Burton ale, do you?’
‘Indeed I do,’ Selden assured him. ‘The rajah is especially favoured of it. Twice yearly it is shipped from Madras at sixty rupees a dozen.’
They made noises of appreciation, though at such a price Locke was not now so assured that a man might be advantageously set up here without a small fortune.
The khansamah led them to the dinner table, which stood under the double shade of both a giant mathi and a saffron canopy. The table was so solid that even when Locke half-stumbled against it as they sat nothing was put awry. Had they been able to see beneath the crimson tablecloth, richly decorated as it was with images of the chase worked in semi-precious stones, they would have been astonished that anything so massive as this teak board, its legs carved voluptuously, might be brought to the jungle’s edge. The plates and flatware — everything, it seemed — were gold, and by this sumptuousness Hervey was left in no doubt as to the rajah’s rank and wealth, though he could not, with any certainty, discern thereby his character. He had seen like displays of nobility and wealth at Longleat and Lismore, albeit more restrained. His preference was still for a white tablecloth and silver; though how long might a man be in India, he wondered, before it was for brocades and gold?
Henry Locke, evidently, was occupied by no such thoughts, setting about the fare without seeming much to notice the richness of the plate on which it was served. His thirst was already proving prodigious, and one khitmagar was engaged almost entirely in replenishing his cup. ‘How d’ye manage to chill it so thoroughly in this infernal heat?’ he asked. ‘You cannot stand it in the river alone. That wouldn’t cool it thus.’
‘Ice,’ replied Selden in a matter-of-fact way. ‘The rajah has ice houses in Chintal and blocks of it are brought down here each night.’
Hervey was minded of the ice cart in Chelsea, and how his arresting officer’s reserve had begun to thaw, with the ice, on that hot July morning. What an extraordinary change in his fortunes that day had seen. And what extraordinary circumstances had brought him since to this table at the edge of the jungle on the far side of the world. He could not help his thoughts wandering back to the vicarage garden in Wiltshire, where his father might now be pottering — perhaps to see the first snowdrops. His mother, his sister, and quite probably Mrs Strange too — all would be at some good work or other. And, of course, Henrietta. He could not suppose with any exactness what she might be doing, nor where she might be. London was not improbable at this time of year. Bath, too, perhaps — there were fashionable assemblies there throughout the winter. She might be at Chatsworth — the new duke was the staunchest of her friends. Indeed, she might be at any of two dozen great houses in England, for such was her beauty and wit that her company was constantly sought.
Selden recalled him to the forest’s edge. ‘How do you find your fish, Hervey? I’ll warrant you’ve not tasted its like before.’
‘No, I think not,’ he replied, much pleased with the fullness of its taste.
‘It is mackerel, brought fresh from Rajahmundry.’
‘Mackerel?’ said Hervey, curious.
‘Yes, the rajah is inordinately fond of them. And they’re so much fatter than those you will find in England. The warmer waters make them lazier.’
‘And the special taste they have?’
‘One of the rajah’s cooks is from Bombay. He has a clever way with a marinade — coriander and other spices. I tell you, the rajah’s table is second to none.’
He was becoming happily accustomed to good tables, declared Hervey.
But the most fulsome praise was reserved for what followed. ‘Pig!’ exclaimed Selden, as two khitmagars advanced with the spitted bulk of his delight carried high on their shoulders. ‘There is no better sport than spearing pig, Hervey, and the more so because he tastes so fine. Shooting tiger is nothing to hog-hunting!’
Great slices of meat were hacked from the boar’s loins, and soon both Locke and Hervey were confessing that they had never had such choice game. The meat was fine-grained, not at all coarse — darker, more promising than pork, but not offensively strong.
‘You had better have some claret with it to appreciate its fullness,’ said Selden, beckoning to a khitmagar holding a magnificently chased ewer. ‘I could eat pig every day. Have some of this too,’ he continued, nodding as another khitmagar proffered a bowl of preserve. ‘
‘Apple…’ began Hervey, racking his brains for the other words.
‘Apple, peach and apricot —
