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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/9927-8.txt b/9927-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8f4b818 --- /dev/null +++ b/9927-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11195 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bronze Bell, by Louis Joseph Vance + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Bronze Bell + +Author: Louis Joseph Vance + +Posting Date: November 12, 2011 [EBook #9927] +Release Date: February, 2006 +First Posted: October 31, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BRONZE BELL *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Janice Piette, Sheila Vogtmann, +Elaine Walker, and Project Gutenberg Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + + + +THE BRONZE BELL + +By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE + +1909 + + + + + + + +To + +F. E. Z. + +Chatelaine of Juniper Lodge + +This story is dedicated by one to whom her hospitality, transplanted +from its Kentucky home, will ever remain a charming memory. + + + +[Illustration: "NOT ONCE DID HE LOOK BACK WHILE AMBER WATCHED--HIMSELF +DIVIDED BETWEEN AMUSEMENT, ANNOYANCE, AND ASTONISHMENT" (PAGE 14)] + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + I DESTINY AND THE BABU + + II THE GIRL AND THE TOKEN + + III MAROONED + + IV THE MAN PERDU + + V THE GOBLIN NIGHT + + VI RED DAWN + + VII MASKS AND FACES + + VIII FIRST STEPS + + IX PINK SATIN + + X MAHARANA OF KHANDAWAR + + XI THE TONGA + + XII THE LONG DAY + + XIII THE PHOTOGRAPH + + XIV OVER THE WATER + + XV FROM A HIGH PLACE + + XVI SUNRISE FOR TWO + + XVII THE WAY TO KATHIAPUR + +XVIII THE HOODED DEATH + + XIX RUTTON'S DAUGHTER + + XX A LATER DAY + + XXI THE FINAL INCARNATION + + + + +CHAPTER I + +DESTINY AND THE BABU + + +Breaking suddenly upon the steady drumming of the trucks, the prolonged +and husky roar of a locomotive whistle saluted an immediate +grade-crossing. + +Roused by this sound from his solitary musings in the parlour-car of +which he happened temporarily to be the sole occupant, Mr. David Amber +put aside the magazine over which he had been dreaming, and looked out +of the window, catching a glimpse of woodland road shining white +between sombre walls of stunted pine. Lazily he consulted his watch. + +"It's not for nothing," he observed pensively, "that this railroad +wears its reputation: we are consistently late." + +His gaze, again diverted to the flying countryside, noted that it had +changed character, pine yielding to scrub-oak and second-growth--the +ragged vestments of an area some years since denuded by fire. This, +too, presently swung away, giving place to cleared land--arable acres +golden with the stubble of garnered harvests or sentinelled with +unkempt shocks of corn. + +In the south a shimmer of laughing gold and blue edged the faded +horizon. + +Eagerly the young man leaned forward, dark eyes the functions of +waiting-room and ticket and telegraph offices. From its eaves depended +a weather-worn board bearing the legend: "Nokomis." + +The train, pausing only long enough to disgorge from the baggage-car a +trunk or two and from the day-coaches a thin trickle of passengers, +flung on into the wilderness, cracked bell clanking somewhat +disdainfully. + +By degrees the platform cleared, the erstwhile patrons of the road and +the station loafers--for the most part hall-marked natives of the +region--straggling off upon their several ways, some afoot, a majority +in dilapidated surreys and buckboards. Amber watched them go with +unassumed indifference; their type interested him little. But in their +company he presently discovered one, a figure so thoroughly foreign and +aloof in attitude, that it caught his eye, and, having caught, held it +clouded with perplexity. + +Abruptly he abandoned his belongings and gave chase, overtaking the +object of his attention at the far end of the station. + +"Doggott!" he cried. "I say, Doggott!" + +His hand, falling lightly upon the man's shoulder, brought him squarely +about, his expression transiently startled, if not a shade truculent. + +Short and broad yet compact of body, he was something round-shouldered, +with the stoop of those who serve. In a mask of immobility, +full-colored and closely shaven, his lips were thin and tight, his eyes +steady, grey and shallow: a countenance neither dishonest nor +repellent, but one inscrutable. Standing solidly, once halted, there +remained a suggestion of alertness in the fellow's pose. + +"Doggott, what the deuce brings you here? And Mr. Rutton?" + +Amber's cordiality educed no response. The grey eyes, meeting eyes +dark, kindly, and penetrating, flickered and fell; so much emotion they +betrayed, no more, and that as disingenuous as you could wish. + +"Doggott!" insisted Amber, disconcerted. "Surely you haven't forgotten +me--Mr. Amber?" + +The man shook his head. "Beg pardon, sir," he said; "you've got my nyme +'andy enough, but I don't know _you_, and--" + +"But Mr. Rutton?" + +"Is a party I've never 'eard of, if you'll excuse my sayin' so, no +more'n I 'ave of yourself, sir." + +"Well!" began Amber; but paused, his face hardening as he looked the +man up and down, nodding slowly. + +"Per'aps," continued Mr. Doggott, unabashed, "you mistyke me for my +brother, 'Enery Doggott. 'E was 'ome, in England, larst I 'eard of 'im. +We look a deal alike, I've been told." + +"You would be," admitted Amber drily; and, shutting his teeth upon his +inherent contempt for a liar, he swung away, acknowledging with a curt +nod the civil "Good-arfternoon, sir," that followed him. + +The man had disappeared by the time Amber regained his kit-bag and +gun-case; standing over which he surveyed his surroundings with some +annoyance, discovering that he now shared the station with none but the +ticket-agent. A shambling and disconsolate youth, clad in a three-days' +growth of beard, a checked jumper and khaki trousers, this person +lounged negligently in the doorway of the waiting-room and, caressing +his rusty chin with nicotine-dyed fingers, regarded the stranger in +Nokomis with an air of subtle yet vaguely melancholy superiority. + +"If ye're lookin' for th' hotel," he volunteered unexpectedly, "there +aint none;" and effected a masterly retreat into the ticket-booth. + +Amused, the despised outlander picked up his luggage and followed +amiably. "I'm not looking for the hotel that aint," he said, planting +himself in front of the grating; "but I expected to be met by someone +from Tanglewood--" + +"Thet's the Quain place, daown by th' ba-ay," interpolated the youth +from unplumbed depths of mournful abstraction. + +"It is. I wired yesterday--" + +"Yeour name's Amber, aint it?" + +"Yes, I--" + +"Well, Quain didn't get yeour message till this mornin'. I sent a kid +daown with it 'baout ten o'clock." + +"But why the--but I wired yesterday afternoon!" + +"I knaow ye did," assented the youth wearily. "It come through raound +closin' time and they wa'n't nobody baound that way, so I held it +over." + +"This craze for being characteristic," observed Mr. Amber obscurely, +"is the only thing that really stands in the way of Nokomis becoming a +thriving metropolis. Do you agree with me? No matter." He smiled +engagingly: a seasoned traveller this, who could recognise the futility +of bickering over the irreparable. Moreover, he had to remind himself +in all fairness, the blame was, in part at least, his own; for he had +thoughtlessly worded his telegram, "Will be with you to-morrow +afternoon"; and it was wholly like Quain that he should have accepted +the statement at its face value, regardless of the date line. + +"I _can_ leave my things here for a little while, I presume?" Amber +suggested after a pause. + +The ticket-agent stared stubbornly into the infinite, making no sign +till a coin rang on the window-ledge; when he started, eyed the +offering with fugitive mistrust, and gloomily possessed himself of it. +"I'll look after them," he said. "Be ye thinkin' of walkin'?" + +"Yes," said Amber over his shoulder. He was already moving toward the +door. + +"Knaow yeour wa-ay?" + +"I've been here before, thank you." + +"Fer another quarter," drawled the agent with elaborate apathy, "I'd +leave the office long enough to find somebody who'd fetch ye daown in a +rig for fifty cents." + +But Amber was already out of ear-shot. + +Crossing the tracks, he addressed himself to the southward-stretching +highway. Walking briskly at first, he soon left behind the +railway-station with its few parasitic cottages; a dip in the land hid +them, and he had hereafter for all company his thoughts, the desultory +road, a vast and looming sky, and bare fields hedged with impoverished +forest. + +A deep languor brooded over the land: the still, warm enchantment of an +Indian Summer which, protracted though it were unseasonably into the +Ides of November, had yet lost nothing of its witchery. There was no +wind, but now and again the air stirred softly, and when it stirred was +cool; as if the earth sighed in sheer lassitude. Out of a cloudless +sky, translucent sapphire at its zenith fading into hazy topaz-yellow +at the horizon, golden sunlight slanted, casting shadows heavy and +colourful; on the edge of the woodlands they clung like thin purple +smoke, but motionless, and against them, here and there, a clump of +sumach blazed like a bed of embers, or some tree loath to shed its +autumnal livery flamed scarlet, russet, and mauve. The peace of the +hour was intense, and only emphasised by a dull, throbbing +undertone--the muted murmur of the distant sea. + +Amber had professed acquaintance with his way; it seemed rather to be +intimacy, for when he chose to forsake the main-travelled road he did +so boldly, striking off upon a wagon-track which, leading across the +fields, delved presently into the heart of the forest. Here it ran +snakily and, carved by broad-tired wheels and beaten out by slowly +plodding hoofs in a soil more than half sand, glimmered white as +rock-salt where the drifting leaves had left it naked. + +Once in this semi-dusk made luminous by sunlight which touched and +quivered upon dead leaf and withered bush and bare brown bough like +splashes of molten gold, the young man moved more sedately. The hush of +the forest world bore heavily upon his senses; the slight and stealthy +rustlings in the brush, the clear dense ringing of some remote axe, an +attenuated clamour of cawing from some far crows' congress, but served +to accentuate its influence. On that windless day the vital breath of +the sea might not moderate the bitter-sweet aroma of decay that swam +beneath the unmoving branches; and this mournful fragrance of dying +Autumn wrought upon Amber's mood as might a whiff of some exquisite +rare perfume revive a poignant memory in the bosom of a bereaved lover. +His glance grew aimless, his temper as purposeless, lively anticipation +giving way to a retrospection tinged with indefinable sadness. + +Then into the silence crept a sound to rouse him from his formless +reverie: at first a mere pulsing in the stillness, barely to be +distinguished from the song of the surf; but presently a pounding, ever +louder and more insistent. He paused, attentive; and while he waited +the drumming, minute by minute gaining in volume, swept swiftly toward +him--the rhythmic hoofbeats of a single horse madly ridden. When it was +close upon him he stepped back into the tangled undergrowth, making +room; for the track was anything but wide. + +Simultaneously there burst into view, at the end of a brief aisle of +trees, the horse--a vigorous black brute with white socks and +muzzle--running freely, apparently under constraint neither of whip nor +of spur. In the saddle a girl leaned low over the horn--a girl with +eyes rapturous, face brilliant, lips parted in the least of smiles. A +fold of her black habit-skirt, whipping out, almost snapped in Amber's +face, so close to him she rode; yet she seemed not to see him, and very +likely did not. A splendid sketch in black-and-white, of youthful +spirit and joy of motion: so she passed and was gone.... + +Hardly, however, had the forest closed upon the picture, ere a cry, a +heavy crashing as of a horse threshing about in the underbrush, and a +woman's scream of terror, sent Amber, in one movement, out into the +road again and running at a pace which, had he been conscious of it, +would have surprised him. + +A short fifty yards separated him from the bend in the way round which +the horse and its rider had vanished. He had no more than gained this +point than he was obliged to pull up sharply to avoid running into the +girl herself. + +Although dismounted, she was on her feet, and apparently uninjured. She +stood with one hand against the trunk of a tree, on the edge of a small +clearing wherein the axes of the local lumbermen had but lately been +busy. Her horse had disappeared; the rumble of his hoofs, diminuendo, +told the way he had gone. + +So much Amber comprehended in a single glance; with a second he sought +the cause of the accident, and identified it with a figure so _outré_ +and bizarre that he momentarily and excusably questioned the testimony +of his senses. + +At a little distance from the girl, in the act of addressing her, stood +a man, obese, gross, abnormally distended with luxurious and sluggish +living, as little common to the scene as a statue of Phoebus Apollo had +been: a babu of Bengal, every inch of him, from his dirty red-and-white +turban to his well-worn and cracked patent-leather shoes. His body was +enveloped in a complete suit of emerald silk, much soiled and faded, +and girt with a sash of many colours, crimson predominating. His hands, +fat, brown, and not overclean, alternately fluttered apologetically and +rubbed one another with a suggestion of extreme urbanity; his lips, +thick, sensual, and cruel, mouthed a broken stream of babu-English; +while his eyes, nearly as small and quite as black as shoe-buttons +--eyes furtive, crafty, and cold--suddenly distended and became +fixed, as with amazement, at the instant of Amber's appearance. + +Instinctively, as soon as he had mastered his initial stupefaction, +Amber stepped forward and past the girl, placing himself between her +and this preposterous apparition, as if to shield her. He was neither +overly imaginative nor of a romantic turn of mind; but, the +circumstances reviewed, it's nothing to his discredit that he +entertained a passing suspicion of some curious conspiracy against the +girl, thought of an ambuscade, and with quick eyes raked the +surroundings for signs of a confederate of the Bengali. + +He found, however, nothing alarming, no indication that the man were +not alone; nor, for that matter, could he reasonably detect in the +fellow's bearing anything but a spirit of conciliation almost servile. +None the less he held himself wary and alert, and was instant to halt +the babu when he, with the air of a dog cringing to his master's feet +for punishment, would have drawn nearer. + +"Stop right there!" Amber told him crisply; and got for response +obedience, a low salaam, and the Hindu salutation accorded only to +persons of high rank: "Hazoor!" But before the babu could say more the +American addressed the girl. "What did he do?" he inquired, without +looking at her. "Frighten your horse?" + +"Just that." The girl's tone was edged with temper. "He jumped out from +behind that woodpile; the horse shied and threw me." + +"You're not hurt, I trust?" + +"No--thank you; but"--with a nervous laugh--"I'm furiously angry." + +"That's reasonable enough." Amber returned undivided attention to the +Bengali. "Now then," he demanded sternly, "what've you got to say for +yourself? What do you mean by frightening this lady's horse? What are +you doing here, anyway?" + +Almost grovelling, the babu answered him in Urdu: "Hazoor, I am your +slave--" + +Without thinking Amber couched his retort in the same tongue: "Count +yourself lucky you are not, dog!" + +"Nay, hazoor, but I meant no harm. I was resting, being fatigued, in +the shelter of the wood, when the noise of hoofs disturbed me and I +stepped out to see. When the woman was thrown I sought to assist her, +but she threatened me with her whip." + +"That is quite true," the girl cut in over Amber's shoulder. "I don't +think he intended to harm me, but it's purely an accident that he +didn't." + +Inasmuch as the babu's explanation had been made in fluent, vernacular +Urdu, Amber's surprise at the girl's evident familiarity with that +tongue was hardly to be concealed. "You understand Urdu?" he stammered. + +"Aye," she told him in that tongue, "and speak it, too." + +"You know this man, then?" + +"No. Do you?" + +"Not in the least. How should I?" + +"You yourself speak Urdu." + +"Well but--" The situation hardly lent itself to such a discussion; he +had the babu first to dispose of. Amber resumed his cross-examination. +"Who are you?" he demanded. "And what is your business in this place?" + +The fat yellowish-brown face was distorted by a fugitive grimace of +deprecation. "Hazoor, I am Behari Lal Chatterji, solicitor, of the +Inner Temple." + +"Well? And your business here?" + +"Hazoor, that is for your secret ear." The babu drew himself up, +assuming a certain dignity. "It is not meet that the message of the +Bell should be uttered in the hearing of an Englishwoman, hazoor." + +"What are you drivelling about?" In his blank wonder, Amber returned to +English as to a tongue more suited to his urgent need of forcible +expression. "And, look here, you stop calling me 'Hazoor.' I'm no more +a hazoor than you are--idiot!" + +"Nay," contended the babu reproachfully; "is it right that you should +seek to hoodwink me? Have I not eyes with which to see you, ears that +can hear you speak our tongue, hazoor? I am no child, to be played +with--I, the appointed Mouthpiece of the Voice!" + +"I know naught of your 'Voice' or its mouthpiece; but certainly you are +no child. You are either mad, or insolent--or a fool to be kicked." And +in exasperation Amber took a step toward the man as if to carry into +effect his implied threat. + +Alarmed, the babu cringed and retreated a pace; then, suddenly, raising +an arm, indicated the girl. "Hazoor!" he cried. "Be quick--the woman +faints!" And as Amber hastily turned, with astonishing agility the babu +sprang toward him. + +Warned by his moving shadow as much as by the girl's cry, Amber leapt +aside and lifted a hand to strike; but before it could deliver a blow +it was caught and a small metallic object thrust into it. Upon this his +fingers closed instinctively, and the babu sprang back, panting and +quaking. + +"The Token, hazoor, the Token!" he quavered. "It is naught but +that--the Token!" + +"Token, you fool!" cried Amber, staring stupidly at the man. "What in +thunder----!" + +"Nay, hazoor; how should I tell you now, when another sees and hears? +At another time, hazoor, in a week, or a day, or an hour, mayhap, I +come again--for your answer. Till then and forever I am your slave, +hazoor: the dust beneath your feet. Now, I go." + +And with a haste that robbed the courtesy of its grace, the Bengali +salaamed, then wheeled square about and, hitching his clothing round +him, made off with a celerity surprising in one of his tremendous bulk, +striking directly into the heart of the woods. + +For as much as a minute he was easily to be followed, his head and +shoulders rising above the brush through which he forged purposefully, +with something of the heedless haste of a man bent on keeping a +pressing engagement--or a sinner fleeing the wrath to come. Not once +did he look back while Amber watched--himself divided between +amusement, annoyance, and astonishment. Presently the trees blotted out +the red-and-white turban; the noise of the babu's elephantine retreat +diminished; and Amber was left to knit his brows over the object which +had been forced upon him so unexpectedly. + +It proved to be a small, cubical box, something more than an inch +square, fashioned of bronze and elaborately decorated with minute +relief work in the best manner of ancient Indian craftsmanship. + +"May I see, please?" The voice of the girl at his side recalled to +Amber her existence. "May I see, too, please, Mr. Amber?" she repeated. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE GIRL AND THE TOKEN + + +In his astonishment he looked round quickly to meet the gaze of +mischievous eyes that strove vainly to seem simple and sincere. His +own, in which amusement was blended with wonder, noted that they were +very handsome eyes and rather curiously colourful, the delicate sepia +shade of the pupils being lightened by a faint sheen of gold in the +irides; they were, furthermore, large and set well apart. On the whole +he decided that they were even beautiful, for all the dancing glimmer +of perverse humour in their depths; he could fancy that they might well +seem very sweet and womanly when their owner chose to be serious. + +Aware that he faced an uncommonly pretty woman, who chose to study him +with a straightforward interest he was nothing loath to imitate, he +took time to see that she was very fair of skin, with that creamy, +silken whiteness that goes with hair of the shade commonly and unjustly +termed red. This girl's hair was really brown, a rich sepia interwoven +with strands of raw, ruddy gold, admirably harmonious with her eyes. +Her nose he thought a trace too severely perfect in its modelling, but +redeemed by a broad and thoughtful brow, a strong yet absolutely +feminine chin, and a mouth.... Well, as to her mouth, the young man +selected a rosebud to liken it to; which was really quite a poor +simile, for her lips were nothing at all like rose-leaves save in +colour; but they were well-shapen and wide enough to suggest +generosity, without being in the least too wide. + +Having catalogued these several features, together with the piquant +oval of her face, and remarked that her poise was good and gracious in +the uncompromising lines of her riding-habit, he had a mental portrait +of her he was not likely soon to forget. For it's not every day that +one encounters so pretty a girl in the woods of Long Island's southern +shore--or anywhere else, for that matter. He felt sure of this. + +But he was equally certain that he was as much a stranger to her as she +to him. + +She, on her part, had been busy satisfying herself that he was a very +presentable young man, in spite of the somewhat formidable reputation +he wore as a person of learned attainments. There could be no better +way to show him to you than through her eyes, so you must know that she +saw a man of less than thirty years, with a figure slight and not +over-tall but well-proportioned, and with a complexion as dark as hers +was light. His eyes, indeed, were a very dark grey, and his hair was +black, and his face and hands had been coloured by the sun and wind +until the tan had become indelible, almost, so that his prolonged +periods of studious indoor seclusion worked little toward lightening +it. If his looks attracted, it was not because he was handsome, for +that he wasn't, but because of certain signs of strength to be +discerned in his face, as well as an engaging manner which he owned by +right of ancestry, his ascendants for several generations having been +notable representatives of one of the First Families of Virginia. Amber +was not inordinately proud of this fact, at least not more so than nine +out of any ten Virginians; but his friends--who were many but mostly +male--claimed that he wrote "F.F.V." before the "F.R.S." which he was +entitled to inscribe after his name. + +The pause which fell upon the girl's use of his name, and during which +they looked one another over, was sufficiently prolonged to excuse the +reference to it which Amber chose to make. + +"I'm sure," he said with his slow smile, "that we're satisfied we've +never met before. Aren't we?" + +"Quite," assented the girl. + +"That only makes it the more mysterious, of course." + +"Yes," said she provokingly; "doesn't it?" + +"You know, you're hardly fair to me," he asserted. "I'm rapidly +beginning to entertain doubts of my senses. When I left the train at +Nokomis station I met a man I know as well as I know myself--pretty +nearly; and he denied me to my face. Then, a little later, I encounter +a strange, mad Bengali, who apparently takes me for somebody he has +business with. And finally, you call me by name." + +"It isn't so very remarkable, when you come to consider it," she +returned soberly. "Mr. David Amber is rather well known, even in his +own country. I might very well have seen your photograph published in +connection with some review of--let me see.... Your latest book was +entitled 'The Peoples of the Hindu Kush,' wasn't it? You see, I haven't +read it." + +"That's sensible of you, I'm sure. Why should you?... But your theory +doesn't hold water, because I won't permit my publishers to print my +picture, and, besides, reviews of such stupid books generally appear in +profound monthlies which abhor illustrations." + +"Oh!" She received this with a note of disappointment. "Then my +explanation won't do?" + +"I'm sorry," he laughed, "but you'll have to be more ingenious--and +practical." + +"And you won't show me the present the babu made you?" + +He closed his fingers jealously over the bronze box. "Not until...." + +"You insist on reciprocity?" + +"Absolutely." + +"That's very unkind of you." + +"How?" he demanded blankly. + +"You will have it that I must surrender my only advantage--my +incognito. If I tell you how I happen to know who you are, I must tell +you who I am. Immediately you will lose interest in me, because I'm +really not at all advanced; I doubt if I should understand your book if +I had to read it." + +"Which Heaven forfend! But why," he insisted mercilessly, "do you wish +me to be interested in you?" + +She flushed becomingly at this and acknowledged the touch with a +rueful, smiling glance. But, "Because I'm interested in you," she +admitted openly. + +"And ... why?" + +"Are you hardened to such adventures?" She nodded in the direction the +babu had taken. "Are you accustomed to being treated with extraordinary +respect by stray Bengalis and accepting tokens from them? Is romance +commonplace to you?" + +"Oh," he said, disappointed, "if it's only the adventure--! Of course, +that's easily enough explained. This half-witted mammoth--don't ask me +how he came to be here--thought he recognised in me some one he had +known in India. Let's have a look at this token-thing." + +He disclosed the bronze box and let her take it in her pretty fingers. + +"It must have a secret spring," she concluded, after a careful +inspection. + +"I think so, but...." + +She shook it, holding it by her ear. "There's something inside--it +rattles ever so slightly. I wonder!" + +"No more than I." + +"And what are you going to do with it?" She returned it reluctantly. + +"Why, there's nothing to do but keep it till the owner turns up, that I +can see." + +"You won't break it open?" + +"Not until curiosity overpowers me and I've exhausted every artifice, +trying to find the catch." + +"Are you a patient person, Mr. Amber?" + +"Not extraordinarily so, Miss Farrell." + +"Oh, how did you guess?" + +"By remembering not to be stupid. You are Miss Sophia Farrell, daughter +of Colonel Farrell of the British Diplomatic Service in India." He +chuckled cheerfully over this triumph of deductive reasoning. "You are +visiting the Quains for a few days, while _en route_ for India with +some friends whose name I've forgotten--" + +"The Rolands," she prompted involuntarily. + +"Thank you.... The Rolands, who are stopping in New York. You've lived +several years with your father in India, went back to London to 'come +out' and are returning, having been presented at the Court of St. +James. Your mother was an American girl, a schoolmate of Mrs. Quain's. +I'm afraid that's the whole sum of my knowledge of you." + +"You've turned the tables fairly, Mr. Amber," she admitted. "And Mr. +Quain wrote you all that?" + +"I'm afraid he told me almost as much about you as he told you about +me; we're old friends, you know. And now I come to think of it, Quain +has one of the few photographs of me extant. So my chain of reasoning's +complete. And I think we'd better hurry on to Tanglewood." + +"Indeed, yes. Mrs. Quain will be wild with worry if that animal finds +his way back to the stable without me; I've been very thoughtless." She +caught up her riding-skirt and started down the path with Amber +trudging contently beside her. "However," she considered demurely, "I'm +not at all sorry, really; it's quite an experience to have a notability +at a disadvantage, even if only for a few minutes." + +"I wish you wouldn't," he begged in boyish embarrassment. "I'm not a +notability, really; Quain's been talking too much. I'll get even with +him, though." + +"That sounds so modest that I almost believe I've made a mistake about +your identity. But I've no doubt you're right; Mr. Quain does +exaggerate in praise of his friends. Very likely it is as you insist, +and you're only an ordinary person, after all. At least, you would be +if stray babus didn't make you mysterious presents." + +"So long as there is that to hold your interest in me, I'm content," he +told her, diverted. "How much longer shall you stay at Tanglewood, Miss +Farrell?" + +"Unhappily," she sighed, "I must leave on the early train to-morrow, to +join the Rolands in New York." + +"You don't want to go?" + +"I'm half an American, Mr. Amber. I've learned to love the country +already. Besides, we start immediately for San Francisco, and it'll be +such a little while before I'll be in India." + +"You don't care for India?" + +"I've known it for less than six years, but already I've come to hate +it as thoroughly as any exiled Englishwoman there. It sits there like a +great, insatiable monster, devouring English lives. Indirectly it was +responsible for my mother's death; she never recovered from the illness +she contracted when my father was stationed in the Deccan. In the +course of time it will kill my father, just as it did his father and +his elder brother. It's a cruel, hateful, ungrateful land--not worth +the price we pay for it." + +"I know how you feel," he said with sympathy. "It's been a good many +years since I visited India, and of course I then saw and heard little +of the darker side. Your people are brave enough, out there." + +"They are. I don't know about Government; but its servants are loyal +and devoted and unselfish and cheerful. And I don't at all understand," +she added in confusion, "why I should have decided to inflict upon you +my emotional hatred of the country. Your question gave me the opening, +and I forgot myself." + +"I assure you I was thoroughly shocked, Miss Farrell." + +"You should have been--surprised, at least. Why should I pour out my +woes to you--a man I've known not fifteen minutes?" + +"Why not, if you felt like it? After all, you know, we're both of us +merely making talk to--ah--to cover our interest in one another." + +She paused momentarily to laugh at his candour. "You are outspoken, Mr. +Amber! It's very pretty of you to assert an interest in me; but why +should you assume that I--" + +"You said so, didn't you?" + +"Wel-l ... yes, so I did." + +"You can change your mind, of course." + +"I shan't, honestly, until you turn stupid. And you can't do that until +you stop having strange adventures. Will you tell me something?" + +"If I can." + +"About the man who wouldn't acknowledge knowing you? You remember +saying three people had been mistaken about your identity this +afternoon." + +"No, only one--the babu. You're not mistaken--" + +"I knew you must be David Amber the moment I heard you speaking Urdu." + +"And the man at the station wasn't mistaken--unless I am. He knew me +perfectly, I believe, but for reasons of his own refused to recognise +me." + +"Yes--?" + +"He was an English servant named Doggott, who is--or once was--a valet +in the service of an old friend, a man named Rutton." + +She repeated the name: "Rutton? It seems to me I've heard of him." + +"You have?" + +"I don't remember," she confessed, knitting her level brows. "The name +has a familiar ring, somehow. But about the valet?" + +"Well, I was very intimate with his employer for a long time, though we +haven't met for several years. Rutton was a strange creature, a man of +extraordinary genius, who lived a friendless, solitary life--at least, +so far as I knew; I once lived with him in a little place he had in +Paris, for three months, and in all that time he never received a +letter or a caller. He was reticent about himself, and I never asked +any questions, of course, but in spite of the fact that he spoke +English like an Englishman and was a public school man, apparently, I +always believed he had a strain of Hungarian blood in him--or else +Italian or Spanish. I know that sounds pretty broad, but he was +enigmatic--a riddle I never managed to make much of. Aside from that he +was wonderful: a linguist, speaking a dozen European languages and more +Eastern tongues and dialects, I believe, than any other living man. We +met by accident in Berlin and were drawn together by our common +interest in Orientalism. Later, hearing I was in Paris, he hunted me up +and insisted that I stay with him there while finishing my big +book--the one whose title you know. His assistance to me then was +invaluable. After that I lost track of him." + +"And the valet?" + +"Oh, I'd forgotten Doggott. He was a Cockney, as silent and +self-contained as Rutton.... To get back to Nokomis: I met Doggott at +the station, called him by name, and he refused to admit knowing +me--said I must have mistaken him for his twin brother. I could tell by +his eyes that he lied, and it made me wonder. It's quite impossible +that Rutton should be in this neck of the woods; he was a man who +preferred to live a hermit in centres of civilisation.... Curious!" + +"I don't wonder you think so. Perhaps the man had been up to some +mischief.... But," said the girl with a note of regret, "we're almost +home!" + +They had come to the seaward verge of the woodland, where the trees and +scrub rose like a wild hedgerow on one side of a broad, well-metalled +highway. Before them stretched the eighth of a mile of neglected land +knee-deep with crisp, dry, brown stalks of weedy growths, beyond which +the bay smiled, a still lake of colour mirroring the intense +lapis-lazuli of the calm eastern skies of evening. Over across its +waters the sand dunes of a long island glowed like a bar of new red +gold, tinted by the transient scarlet and yellow glory of the +smouldering Autumnal sunset. Through the woods the level, brilliant, +warmthless rays ran like wild-fire, turning each dead, brilliant leaf +to a wisp of incandescent flame, and tingeing the air with an +evanescent ruby radiance against which the slim young boles stood black +and stark. + +To the right, on the other side of the road, a rustic fence enclosed +the trim, well-groomed plantations of Tanglewood Lodge; through the +dead limbs a window of the house winked in the sunset glow like an eye +of garnet. And as the two appeared a man came running up the road, +shouting. + +"That's Quain!" cried Amber; and sent a long cry of greeting toward +him. + +"Wait!" said the girl impulsively, putting out a detaining hand. "Let's +keep our secret," she begged, her eyes dancing--"just for the fun of +it!" + +"Our secret!" + +"About the babu and the Token; it's a bit of mystery and romance to +me--and we don't often find that in our lives, do we? Let us keep it +personal for a while--between ourselves; and you will promise to let me +know if anything unusual ever comes of it, after I've gone. We can say +that I was riding carelessly, which is quite true, and that the horse +shied and threw me, which again is true; but the rest for ourselves +only.... Please.... What do you say?" + +He was infected by her spirit of irresponsible mischief. "Why, yes--I +say yes," he replied; and then, more gravely: "I think it'll be very +pleasant to share a secret with you, Miss Farrell. I shant say a word +to any one, until I have to." + + * * * * * + +As events turned he had no need to mention the incident until the +morning of the seventh day following the girl's departure. In the +interim nothing happened, and he was able to enjoy some excellent +shooting with Quain, his thoughts undisturbed by any further appearance +of the babu. + +But on that seventh morning it became evident that a burglary had been +visited upon the home of his hosts. A window had been forced in the +rear of the house and a trail of burnt matches and candle-grease +between that entrance and the door of Amber's room, together with the +somewhat curious circumstance that nothing whatever was missing from +the personal effects of the Quains, forced him to make an explanation. +For his own belongings had been rifled and the bronze box alone +abstracted--still preserving its secret. + +In its place Amber found a soiled slip of note-paper inscribed with the +round, unformed handwriting of the babu: "Pardon, sahib. A mistake has +been made. I seek but to regain that which is not yours to possess. +There will be naught else taken. A thousand excuses from your hmbl. +obt. svt., Behari Lal Chatterji." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +MAROONED + + +A cry in the windy dusk; a sudden, hollow booming overhead; a vision of +countless wings in panic, sketched in black upon a background of dulled +silver; two heavy detonations and, with the least of intervals, a +third; three vivid flashes of crimson and gold stabbing the purple +twilight; and then the acrid reek of smokeless drifting into Amber's +face, while from the sky, where the V-shaped flock had been, two +stricken bundles of blood-stained feathers fell slowly, fluttering.... + +Honking madly, the unscathed brethren of the slain wheeled abruptly +and, lashed by the easterly gale, fled out over the open sea, +triangular formation dwindling rapidly in the clouded distances. + +Shot-gun poised abreast, his keen eyes marking down the fall of his +prey, Amber stood without moving, exultation battling with a vague +remorse in his bosom--as always when he killed. Quain, who had dropped +back a pace after firing but one shot and scoring an unqualified miss +at close range, now stood plucking clumsily, with half frozen fingers, +at an obstinate breech-lock. This latter resisting his every wile, his +temper presently slipped its leash; as violently as briefly he swore: +"Damn!" + +"Gladly," agreed Amber, without turning. "But what?" + +"This gun!" + +"Your gun?" + +"Of course." There were elaborations which would not lend themselves to +decorative effect upon a printed page. + +"Then damn it yourself, Quain; I'm sure you can do it ever so much more +thoroughly than I. But what's the matter?" + +"Rim-jammed cartridge," explained Quain between his teeth. The lock +just then yielding to his awkward manipulation, stock and barrel came +apart in his hands. "Just my beastly luck!" he added gratuitously. "It +wouldn't've been me if--! How many'd you pot, Davy?" + +"Only two," said Amber, lowering his weapon, extracting the spent +shells, and reloading. + +"Only _two!_" The information roused in Quain a demon of sarcasm. +Fumbling in his various pockets for a shell-extractor, he grunted his +disgust. "Here, lend us your thingumbob; I've lost mine. Thanky.... +Only two! How many'd you expect to drop, on a snapshot like that?" + +"Two," returned Amber so patiently that Quain requested him, +explosively, to go to the devil. "If you don't mind," he said, "I'll go +after my ducks instead. You'll follow? They're over there, on our way." +And accepting Quain's snort for an affirmative he strolled off in the +direction indicated, hugging his gun in the crook of his arm. + +Fifty yards or so away he found the ducks, side by side in a little +hollow. "Fine fat birds," he adjudged them sagely, weighing each in his +hand ere dropping it into his lean game-bag. "This makes up for a lot +of cold and waiting." + +Satisfaction glimmering in his grave dark eyes, he lingered in the +hollow, while the frosty air, whipping madly through the sand-hills, +stung his face till it glowed beneath the brown. But presently, like +the ghost of a forgotten kiss, something moist and chill touched gently +his cheek, and was gone. Startled, he glanced skywards, then extended +an arm, watching it curiously while the rough fabric of his sleeve was +salted generously with fine white flakes. Though to some extent +apprehended (they had been blind indeed to have ignored the menace of +the dour day just then dying) snow had figured in their calculations as +little as the scarcity of game. Amber wondered dimly if it would work a +change in their plans, prove an obstacle to their safe return across +the bay. + +The flurry thickening in the air, a shade of anxiety colored his mood. +"This'll never do!" he declared, and set himself to ascend a nearby +dune. For a moment he slipped and slid vainly, the dry sand treacherous +to his feet, the brittle grasses he clutched snapping off or coming +away altogether with their roots; but in time he found himself upon the +rounded summit, and stood erect, straining the bitter air into panting +lungs as he cast about for bearings. + +Behind him a meagre strip of sand held back a grim and angry sea; +before him lay an eighth of a mile of sand-locked desolation, and then +the weltering bay--a wide two miles of leaping, shouting waves, +slate-coloured but white of crests. Beyond, seen dimly as a wall +through driving sheets of snow, were the darkly wooded rises of the +mainland. In the west, to his left, the blank, impersonal eye of the +light-house, its pillar invisible, winked red, went out, and flashed up +white. Over all, beneath a low and lustreless sky as flat as a plate, +violet evening shadows were closing in like spectral skirts of the +imminent night. But, in the gloom, their little cat-boat lay occult to +his searching gaze. + +Quain's voice recalling him, he turned to discover his host stumbling +through a neighbouring vale, and obeying a peremptory wave of the elder +man's hand, descended, accompanied by an avalanche in miniature. + +"Better hurry," shouted Amber, as soon as he could make himself heard +above the screaming of the gale. "Wind's freshening; it looks like mean +weather." + +"Really?" Quain fell into step at his side. "You 'stonish me. But the +good Lord knows I'm willin'. Whereabout's the boat?" + +"Blessed if I know: over yonder somewhere," Amber told him, waving +toward the bay-shore an arm as vaguely helpful as his information. + +"Thank you so much. Guess I can find her all right. Hump yo'self, +Davy." + +They plodded on heavily, making fair progress in spite of the hindering +sand. Nevertheless it had grown sensibly darker ere they debouched upon +the frozen flats that bordered the bay; and now the wind bore down upon +them in full-winged fury, shrieking in their ears, searing their eyes, +tearing greedily at the very breath of their nostrils, and searching +out with impish ingenuity the more penetrable portions of their +clothing. + +For a moment Quain paused, irresolute, peering right and left, then +began to trudge eastwards, heavy boots crunching the thin sedge-ice. A +little later they came to the water's edge and proceeded steadily along +it, Quain leading confidently. Eventually he tripped over some +obstacle, stumbled and lurched forward and recovered his balance with +an effort, then remained with bowed head, staring down at his feet. + +"Hurt yourself, old man?" + +"No!" snapped Quain rudely. + +"Then what in--" + +"Eh?" Quain roused, but an instant longer looked him blankly in the +eye. "Oh," he added brightly--"oh, she's gone." + +"The boat----?" + +"The boat," affirmed Quain, too discouraged for the obvious retort +ungracious. He stooped and caught up a frayed end of rope, exhibiting +it in witness to his statement. "Ain't it hell?" he inquired +plaintively. + +Amber's gaze followed the rope, the further end of which was rove +through the ring of a small grapnel anchor half buried in the spongy +earth. "Gone!" he echoed dismally. + +"Gone away from here," said Quain deliberately, nodding at the rope's +end. "The tide floated her off, of course; but how this happened is +beyond me. I could kill Antone." He named the Portuguese labourer +charged with the care of the boats at Tanglewood. "It's his job to see +that these cables are replaced when they show signs of wear." He cast +the rope from him in disdain and wheeled to stare baywards. "There!" he +cried, levelling an arm to indicate a dark and fleeting shadow upon the +storm-whipped waters. "There she goes--not three hundred feet off. It +can't be five minutes since she worked loose. I don't see why...! If it +hadn't been for that damned cartridge...! It's the devil's own luck!" + +A blur of snow swept between boat and shore; when it had passed the +former was all but indistinguishable. From a full heart Quain +blasphemed fluently.... "But if she holds as she stands," he amended +quickly, his indomitable spirit fostering the forlorn hope, "she'll go +aground in another five minutes--and I know just where. I'll go after +her." + +"The deuce you will! How?" + +"There's an old skimmy up the shore a ways." Already Quain was moving +off in search of it. "Noticed her this morning. Daresay she leaks like +a sieve, but at worst the water's pretty shoal inshore, hereabouts." + +"Cold comfort in that." + +"Better than none, you amiable--" + +"Can you swim?" Amber demanded pointedly. + +"Like a fish. And you?" + +"Not like a fish." + +"Damn!" Quain brought up short with a shin barked against a thwart of +the rowboat he had been seeking, and in recognition of the mishap +liberally insulted his luck. + +Amber, knowing that his hurt was as inconsiderable as his ill-temper, +which was more than half-feigned to mask his anxiety, laughed quietly, +meanwhile inspecting their find with a critical eye. + +"You don't seriously mean to put off in this crazy hen-coop, do you?" +he asked. + +"Just precisely that. It's the only way." + +"It simple madness. I won't--" + +"You don't want to stay here all night, do you?" + +"No, but--" + +"Well, then, lend us a hand and don't stand there grumbling. Be +thankful for what you've got, which is me and my enterprise." + +"Oh, all right." + +Together they put their shoulders to the bows of the old, flat-bottomed +rowboat, with incredible exertions uprooting it from its ancient bed, +and at length had it afloat. + +Panting, Quain mopped his forehead with a handkerchief much the worse +for a day's association with gun-grease, and peered beneath his hand +into the murk that veiled the bay. + +"There she is," he declared confidently: "aground." He pointed. "I'll +fetch up with her in no time." + +But Amber could see nothing in the least resembling the catboat, and +said so with decision. + +"She's there, all right," insisted Quain. "'Tain't my fault if you're +blind. Here, hold this, will you, while I find me a pole of some sort." +He thrust into Amber's hand an end of rotten painter at which the +rowboat strained, and wandered off into the night, in the course of +time returning with an old eel-pot stake, flotsam of some summer storm. +"Pure, bull-headed luck!" he crowed, jubilant, brandishing his trophy; +and jumped into the boat. "Now sit tight till I come back?... +Huh--what?" + +"I'm coming, too," Amber repeated quietly. + +"The hell you are! D'you want to sink us? What do you think this is, +anyway--an excursion steamer? You stay where you are and--I say--take +care of this till I come back, like a good fellow." + +He thrust the butt of his shot-gun into Amber's face, and the latter, +seizing it, was rewarded by a vigorous push that sent him back half a +dozen feet. At the same time the painter slipped from his grasp and +Quain, lodging an end of the eel-pot stake on the hard sand bottom, put +his weight upon it. Before Amber could recover, the boat had slid off +and was melting swiftly into the shadows. + +After a bit Quain's voice came back: "Don't fret, Davy. I'm all right." + +Amber cupped hands to mouth and sent a cheerful hail ringing in +response. Simultaneously the last, least, indefinite blur that stood +for the boat in the darkness, vanished in a swirl of snow; and he was +alone with the storm and his misgivings. Upon these he put a +check--would not dwell upon them; but their influence none the less +proved strong enough to breed in him a resistless restlessness and keep +him tramping up and down a five-yard stretch of comparatively solid +earth: to and fro, stamping his feet to keep his blood circulating, +lugging both guns, one beneath either arm, hunching his shoulders up +about his ears in thankless attempt to prevent wet flakes from sifting +in between his neck and collar--thus, interminably it seemed, to and +fro, to and fro.... + +In the course of time this occupation defeated its purpose; the very +monotony of it sent his thoughts winging back to Quain; he worried more +than ever for his friend, reproaching himself unmercifully for that he +had suffered him to go alone--or at all. Quain had a wife and children; +that thought proved insupportable.... Had he missed the catboat +altogether? Or had he gained it only to find the motor disabled or the +propeller fouled with the wiry eel-grass that choked the shoals? In +either instance he would be at the mercy of the wind, for even with the +sail close-reefed he would have no choice other than to fly before the +fury. Or had the boat possibly gone aground so hard and fast that Quain +had found himself unable to push her off and doomed to lie in her, +helpless, against the fulling of the tide? Or (last and most grudged +guess of all) had the "skimmy" proved as unseaworthy as its dilapidated +appearance had proclaimed it? + +Twenty minutes wore wearily away. Falling ever more densely, the snow +drew an impenetrable wan curtain between Amber and the world of life +and light and warmth; while with each discordant blast the strength of +the gale seemed to wax, its high hysteric clamour at times drowning +even the incessant deep bellow of the ocean surf. Once Amber paused in +his patrol, having heard, or fancying he had heard, the staccato +_plut-plut-plut_ of a marine motor. On impulse, with a swelling heart, +he swung his gun skywards and pulled both triggers. The double report +rang in his ears loud as a thunderclap. + +In the moments that followed, while he stood listening, with every +fibre of his being keyed to attention, the sense of his utter isolation +chilled his heart as with cold steel. + +A little frantically he loaded and fired again; but what at first might +have been thought the faint far echo of a hail he in the end set down +reluctantly to a trick of the hag-ridden wind; to whose savage voice he +durst not listen long; in such a storm, on such a night, a man had but +to hearken with a credulous ear to hear strange and terrible voices +whispering, shrieking, gibbering, howling untold horrors.... + +An hour passed, punctuated at frequent intervals by gunshots. Though +they evoked no answer of any sort, hope for Quain died hard in Amber's +heart. With all his might he laboured to convince himself that his +friend must have overtaken the drifting boat, and, forced to relinquish +his efforts to regain the beach, have scudded across the bay to the +mainland and safety; but this seemed a surmise at best so far-fetched, +and one as well not overlong to be dwelt upon, lest by that very +insistence its tenuity be emphasised, that Amber resolutely turned from +it to a consideration of his own plight and problematic way of escape. + +His understanding of his situation was painfully accurate: he was +marooned upon what a flood tide made a desert island but which at the +ebb was a peninsula--a long and narrow strip of sand, bounded on the +west by the broad, shallow channel to the ocean, on the east connected +with the mainland by a sandbar which half the day lay submerged. + +He had, then, these alternatives: he might either compose himself to +hug the leeward side of a dune till daybreak (or till relief should +come) or else undertake a five-mile tramp on the desperate hope of +finding at the end of it the tide out and the sandbar a safe footway +from shore to shore. Between the two he vacillated not at all; anything +were preferable to a night in the dunes, beaten by the implacable +storm, haunted by the thought of Quain; and even though he were to find +the eastern causeway under water, at least the exercise would have +served to keep him from freezing. + +Ten minutes after his last cartridge had been fruitlessly discharged, +he set out for the ocean beach, pausing at the first dune he came upon +to scrape a shallow trench in the sand and cache therein both guns and +his game-bag. Marking the spot with a bit of driftwood stuck upright, +he pressed on, eventually pausing on the overhanging lip of a +twenty-foot bluff. To its foot the beach below was aswirl knee-deep +with the wash of breakers, broad patches of water black and glossy as +polished ebony alternating with vast expanses of foam and clotted +spume, all aglow with pale winter phosporescence. Momentarily, as he +watched, at once fascinated and appalled, mountainous ridges of +blackness heaved up out of the storm's grey heart, offshore, and, +curling crests edged with luminous white, swung in to crash and shatter +thunderously upon the sands. + +Awed and disappointed, Amber drew back. The beach was impassable; here +was no wide and easy road to the east, such as he had thought to find; +to gain the sandbar he had now to thread a tortuous and uncertain way +through the bewildering dunes. And the prospect was not a little +disconcerting; afraid neither of wind nor of cold, he was wretchedly +afraid of going astray in that uncertain, shifting labyrinth. To lose +oneself in that trackless wilderness...! + +A demon of anxiety prodded him on: he must learn Quain's fate, or go +mad. Once on the mainland it were a matter of facility to find his way +to the village of Shampton, telephone Tanglewood and charter a "team" +to convey him thither. He shut his teeth on his determination and set +his face to the east. + +Beset and roughly buffeted by the gale; the snow settling in rippling +drifts in the folds of his clothing and upon his shoulders clinging +like a cloth; his face cut by clouds of sand flung horizontally with +well-nigh the force of birdshot from a gun: he bowed to the blast and +plodded steadily on. + +Imperceptibly fatigue benumbed his senses, blunted the keen edge of his +emotions; even the care for Quain became a mere dull ache in the back +of his perceptions; of physical suffering he was unconscious. He fell a +prey to freakish fancies--could stand aside and watch himself, an atom +whirling in the mad dance of the tempest, as the snow-flakes whirled, +as little potent. He saw himself pitting his puny strength of mind and +body against the infinite force of the elements: saw himself fall and +rise and battle on, gaining nothing: an atom, sport of high gods! To +the flight of time he grew quite oblivious, his thoughts wandering in +the past, oddly afar to half-remembered scenes, to experiences more +than half-forgotten, both wholly irrelevant; picturesque and painful +memories cast up from the deeps of the subconsciousness by some +inexplicable convulsion of the imagination. For a long time he moved on +in stupid, wondering contemplation of a shining crescent of sand backed +by a green, steaming wall of jungle; there was a dense blue sky above, +and below, on the beach, dense blue waters curled lazily up the feet of +a little, naked, brown child that played contentedly with a shell of +rainbow hues. Again he saw a throng upon a pier-head, and in its +forefront an unknown woman, plainly dressed, with deep brown eyes +wherein Despair dwelt, tearless but white to the lips as she watched a +steamer draw away. And yet again, he seemed to stand with others upon +the threshold of the cardroom of a Hong-Kong club: in a glare of garish +light a man in evening dress lay prone across a table on whose +absorbent, green cloth a dark and ugly stain was widening slowly.... +But for the most part he fancied himself walking through scented, +autumnal woods, beside a woman whose eyes were kind and dear, whose +lips were sweet and tempting: a girl he had known not an hour but whom +already he loved, though he himself did not dream it nor discover it +till too late.... And with these many other visions formed and +dissolved in dream-like phantasmagoria; but of them all the strongest +and most recurrent was that of the girl in the black riding-habit, +walking by his side down the aisle of trees. So that presently the +tired and overwrought man believed himself talking with her, reasoning, +arguing, pleading desperately for his heart's desire;... and wakened +with a start, to hear the echo of her voice as though she had spoken +but the instant gone, to find his own lips framing the syllables of her +name--"Sophia!" + +Thus strangely he came to know that beyond question he loved. And he +stopped short and stood blinking blindly at nothing, a little +frightened by the depth and strength of this passion which had come to +him with such scant presage, realising for the first time that his need +for her was an insatiable hunger of the soul.... And she was lost to +him; half a world lay between them--or soon would. All his days he had +awaited, a little curiously, a little sceptical, the coming of the +thing men call Love; and when it had come to him he had not known it +nor guessed it until its cause had slipped away from him.... Beyond +recall? + +Abruptly he regained consciousness of his plight, and with an effort +shook his senses back into his head. It was not precisely a time when +he could afford to let his wits go wool-gathering. And he realised that +he had been, in a way, more than half-asleep as he walked; even now he +was drowsy, his eyes were heavy, his feet leaden--and numb with cold +besides. He had no least notion of what distance he might have +travelled or whether he had walked in a straight line or a circle; but +when he thought to glance over his shoulder--there was at the moment +perhaps more wind with less snow than there had been for some time--he +found the lighthouse watching him as it had from the first: as if he +had not won a step away from it for all his struggle and his pains. The +white, staring eye winked sardonically through a mist of flakes, was +blotted out and turned up a baleful red. It seemed to mock him, but +Amber nodded at it with no unfriendly feeling. It still might serve his +purpose very well, if his strength held, since he had merely to keep +his back to the light and the ocean beach upon his right to win to the +Shampton sandbar, whether soon or late. + +Inflexible of purpose in the face of all his weariness and +discouragement, he was on the point of resuming his march when he was +struck by the circumstance that the whitened shoulder of a dune, quite +near at hand, should seem as if frosted with light--coldly luminous. + +Staring, speculative, he hung in the wind--inquisitive as a cat but +loath to waste time in footless inquiry. The snow-fall, setting in with +augmented violence, decided him. Where light was, there should be man, +and where man, shelter. + +His third eager stride opened up a wide basin in the dunes, filled with +eddying veils of snow, and set, at some distance, with two brilliant +squares of light--windows in an invisible dwelling. In the space +between them, doubtless, there would be a door. But a second time he +paused, remembering that the island was said to be uninhabited. Only +yesterday he had asked and been so informed.... Odd! + +So passing strange he held it, indeed, that he was conscious of a +singular reluctance to question the phenomenon. That superstitious +dread of the unknown which lies dormant in us all, in Amber stirred and +awoke and held him back like a strong hand. Or, if there be such a +thing as a premonition of misfortune, he may be said to have +experienced it in that hour; certainly a presentiment of evil crawled +in his brain, and he hesitated at a time when he desired naught in the +world so much as that which the windows promised--light, heat and human +companionship. He had positively to force himself on to seek the door, +and even when he had stumbled against its step he twice lifted his hand +and let it fall without knocking. + +There was not a sound within that he could hear above the clamour of +the goblin night. + +In the end, however, he knocked stoutly enough. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE MAN PERDU + + +A shadow swept swiftly across one of the windows, and the stranger at +the door was aware of a slight jarring as though some more than +ordinarily brutal gust of wind had shaken the house upon its +foundation, or an inner door had been slammed violently. But otherwise +he had so little evidence that his summons had fallen on aught but +empty walls or deaf ears that he had begun to debate his right to enter +without permission, when a chain rattled, a bolt grated, and the door +swung wide. A flood of radiance together with a gust of heated air +struck him in the face. Dazzled, he reeled across the threshold. + +The door banged, and again the house in the dunes shuddered as the +storm fell upon it with momentarily trebled ferocity; as if, cheated of +its foreordained prey, it would rend apart his frail refuge to regain +him. + +Three paces within the room Amber paused, waiting for his eyes to +adjust themselves to the light. Vaguely conscious of a presence behind +him, he faced another--the slight, spare silhouette of a man's figure +between him and the lamp; and at the same time felt that he was being +subjected to a close scrutiny--both searching and, at its outset, the +reverse of hospitable. But he had no more than become sensitive to this +than the man before him stepped quickly forward and with two strong +hands clasped his shoulders. + +"David Amber!" he heard his name pronounced in a voice singularly +resonant and pleasant. "So you've run me to earth at last!" + +Amber's face was blank with incredulity as he recognised the speaker. +"Rutton!" he stammered. "Rutton--why--by all that's strange!" + +"Guilty," said the other with a quiet laugh. "But sit down." He swung +Amber about, gently guiding him to a chair. "You look pretty well done +up. How long have you been out in this infernal night? But never mind +answering; I can wait. Doggott!" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Take Mr. Amber's coat and boots and bring him my dressing-gown and +slippers." + +"Yes, sir." + +"And a hot toddy and something to eat--and be quick about it." + +"Very good, sir." + +Rutton's body-servant moved noiselessly to Amber's side, deftly helping +him remove his shooting-jacket, whereon snow had caked in thin and +brittle sheets. His eyes, grey and shallow, flickered recognition and +softened, but he did not speak in anticipation of Amber's kindly +"Good-evening, Doggott." To which he responded quietly: "Good-evening, +Mr. Amber. It's a pleasure to see you again. I trust you are well." + +"Quite, thank you. And you?" + +"I'm very fit, thank you sir." + +"And"--Amber sat down again, Doggott kneeling at his feet to unlace and +remove his heavy pigskin hunting-boots--"and your brother?" + +For a moment the man did not answer. His head was lowered so that his +features were invisible, but a dull, warm flush overspread his cheeks. + +"And your brother, Doggott?" + +"I'm sorry, sir, about that; but it was Mr. Rutton's order," muttered +the man. + +"You're talking of the day you met Doggott at Nokomis station?" +interposed his employer from the stand he had taken at one side of the +fireplace, his back to the broad hearth whereon blazed a grateful +driftwood fire. + +Amber looked up inquiringly, nodding an unspoken affirmative. + +"It was my fault that he--er--prevaricated, I'm afraid; as he says, it +was by my order." + +Rutton's expression was masked by the shadows; Amber could make nothing +of his curious reticence, and remained silent, waiting a further +explanation. It came, presently, with an effect of embarrassment. + +"I had--have peculiar reasons for not wishing my refuge here to be +discovered. I told Doggott to be careful, should he meet any one we +knew. Although, of course, neither of us anticipated...." + +"I don't think Doggott was any more dumfounded than I," said Amber. "I +couldn't believe he'd left you, yet it seemed impossible that you +should be here--of all places--in the neighbourhood of Nokomis, I mean. +As for that--" Amber shook his head expressively, glancing round the +mean room in which he had found this man of such extraordinary +qualities. "It's altogether inconceivable," he summed up his +bewilderment. + +"It does seem so--even to me, at times." + +"Then why--in Heaven's name--" + +By now Doggott had invested Amber in his master's dressing-gown and +slippers; rising he left them, passing out through an inner door which +led, evidently, to the only other room in the cottage. Rutton delayed +his reply until the man had shut the door behind him, then suddenly, +with the manner of one yielding to the inevitable, drew a chair up to +face Amber's and dropped into it. + +"I see I must tell you something--a little; as little as I can help--of +the truth." + +"I'm afraid you must; though I'm damned if I can detect a glimmer of +either rhyme or reason in this preposterous situation." + +Rutton laughed quietly, lounging in his armchair and lacing before him +the fingers of hands singularly small and delicate in view of their +very considerable strength--to which Amber's shoulder still bore aching +testimony. + +"In three words," he said deliberately: "I am hiding." + +"Hiding!" + +"Obviously." + +Amber bent forward, studying the elder man's face intently. Thin and +dark--not tanned like Amber's, but with a native darkness of skin like +that of the Spanish--it was strongly marked, its features at once +prominent and finely modelled. The hair intensely black, the eyes as +dark and of peculiar fire, the lips broad, full, and sympathetic, the +cheekbones high, the forehead high and something narrow: these combined +to form a strangely striking ensemble, and none the less striking for +its weird resemblance to Amber's own cast of countenance. + +Indeed, their likeness one to the other was nothing less than weird in +that it could be so superficially strong, yet so elusive. No two men +were ever more unalike than these save in this superficial accident of +facial contours and complexion. No one knowing Amber (let us say) could +ever have mistaken him for Rutton; and yet any one, strange to both, +armed with a description of Rutton, might pardonably have believed +Amber to be his man. Yet manifestly they were products of alien races, +even of different climes--their individualities as dissimilar as the +poles. Where in Rutton's bearing burned an inextinguishable, almost an +insolent pride, beneath an ice-like surface of self-constraint, in +Amber's one detected merely quiet consciousness of strength and +breeding--his inalienable heritage from many generations of Anglo-Saxon +forebears; and while Rutton continually betrayed, by look or tone or +gesture, a birthright of fierce passions savagely tamed, from Amber one +seldom obtained a hint of aught but the broad and humourous tolerance +of an American gentleman. + +But to-night the Virginian had undergone enough to have lost much of +his habitual poise. "Hiding!" he reiterated in a tone scarcely louder +than a whisper. + +"And you have found me out, my friend." + +"But--but I don't--" + +Rutton lifted a hand in deprecation; and as he did so the door in the +rear of the room opened and Doggott entered. Cat-like, passing behind +Amber, he placed upon the table a small tray, and from a steaming +pitcher poured him a glass of hot spiced wine. At a look from his +employer he filled a second. + +"There's sandwiches, sir," he said; "the best I could manage at short +notice, Mr. Amber. If you'll wait a bit I can fix you up something +'ot." + +"Thank you, Doggott, that won't be necessary; the sandwiches look +mighty good to me." + +"Thank you, sir. Will there be anything else, Mr. Rutton?" + +"If there is, I'll call you." + +"Yes, sir. Good-night, sir. Good-night, Mr. Amber." + +As Doggott shut himself out of the room, Amber lifted his fragrant +glass. "You're joining me, Rutton?" + +"With all my heart!" The man came forward to his glass. "For old sake's +sake, David. Shall we drink a toast?" He hesitated, with a marked air +of embarrassment, then impulsively swung his glass aloft. "Drink +standing!" he cried, he voice oddly vibrant. And Amber rose. "To the +King--the King, God bless him!" + +"To the King!" It was more an exclamation of surprise than an echo to +the toast; nevertheless Amber drained his drink to the final drop. As +he resumed his seat, the room rang with the crash of splintering glass; +Rutton had dashed his tumbler to atoms on the hearthstone. + +"Well!" commented Amber, lifting his brows questioningly. "You _are_ +sincere, Rutton. But who in blazes would ever have suspected you of +being a British subject?" + +"Why not?" + +"But it seems to me I should have known--" + +"What have you ever really known about me, David, save that I am +myself?" + +"Well--when you put it that way--little enough--nothing." Amber laughed +nervously, disconcerted. + +"And I? Who and what am I?" No answer was expected--so much was plain +from Rutton's tone; he was talking to himself more than addressing his +guest. His long brown fingers strayed to the box and conveyed a +cigarette to his lips; staring dreamily into the fire, he smoked a +little ere continuing. "What does it mean, this eternal 'I' round which +the world revolves?" His voice trailed off into silence. + +Amber snapped the tension with a chuckle. "You can search me," he said +irreverently. And his host returned his smile. "Now, will you please +pay attention to me, my friend? Or do you wish me to turn and rend +myself with curiosity--after I've attended to these excellent +sandwiches?... Seriously, I want to know several things. What have you +been doing with yourself these past three years?" + +Rutton shook his head gravely. "I can't say." + +"You mean you won't?" + +"If you will have it that way." + +"Well ... I give you up." + +"That's the most profitable thing you could do, David." + +"But, seriously now, this foolish talk about hiding is all a joke, +isn't it?" + +"No," said Rutton soberly; "no, it's no joke." He sighed profoundly. +"As for my recent whereabouts, I have been--ah--travelling +considerably; moving about from pillar to post." To this the man added +a single word, the more significant in that it embodied the nearest +approach to a confidence that Amber had ever known him to make: +"Hunted." + +"Hunted by whom?" + +"I beg your pardon." Rutton bent forward and pushed the cigarettes to +Amber's elbow. "I am--ah--so preoccupied with my own mean troubles, +David, that I had forgotten that you had nothing to smoke. Forgive me." + +"That's no matter, I--" + +Amber cut short his impatient catechism in deference to the other's +mute plea. And Rutton thanked him with a glance--one of those looks +which, between friends, are more eloquent than words. Sighing, he shook +his head, his eyes once more seeking the flames. And silently studying +his face--the play of light from lamp and hearth throwing its features +into salient relief--for the first time Amber, his wits warmed back to +activity from the stupor the bitter cold had put upon them, noticed how +time and care had worn upon the man since they had last parted. He had +never suspected Rutton to be his senior by more years than ten, at the +most; to-night, however, he might well be taken for fifty were his age +to be reckoned by its accepted signs--the hollowing of cheek and +temple, the sinking of eyes into their sockets, the deepening of the +maze of lines about the mouth and on the forehead. + +Impulsively the younger man sat up and put a hand upon the arm of +Rutton's chair. "What can I do?" he asked simply. + +Rutton roused, returning his regard with a smile slow, charming, +infinitely sad. "Nothing," he replied; "absolutely nothing." + +"But surely----!" + +"No man can do for me what I cannot do for myself. When the time +comes"--he lifted his shoulders lightly--"I will do what I can. Till +then...." He diverged at a tangent. "After all, the world is quite as +tiny as the worn-out aphorism has it. To think that you should find me +here! It's less than a week since Doggott and I hit upon this place and +settled down, quite convinced we had, at last, lost ourselves ... and +might have peace, for a little space at least!" + +Amber glanced curiously round the room; sparely furnished, bare, +unlovely, it seemed a most cheerless sort of spot to be considered a +haven of peace. + +"And now," concluded Rutton, "we have to move on." + +"Because I've found you here?" + +"Because you have found me." + +"I don't understand." + +"My dear boy, I never meant you should." + +"But if you're in any danger--" + +"I am not." + +"You're not! But you just said--" + +"I'm in no danger whatever; humanity is, if I'm found." + +"I don't follow you at all." + +Again Rutton smiled wearily. "I didn't expect you to, David. But this +misadventure makes it necessary that I should tell you something; you +must be made to believe in me. I beg you to; I'm neither mad nor making +game of you." There was no questioning the sane sincerity of the man. +He continued slowly. "It's a simple fact, incredible but absolute, +that, were my whereabouts to be made public, a great, a staggering blow +would be struck against the peace and security of the world.... Don't +laugh, David; I mean it." + +"I'm not laughing, Rutton; but you must know that's a pretty large +order. Most men would--" + +"Call me mad. Yes, I know," Rutton took up his words as Amber paused, +confused. "I can't expect you to understand me: you couldn't unless I +were to tell you what I may not. But you know me--better, perhaps, than +any living man save Doggott ... and one other. You know whether or not +I would seek to delude you, David. And, knowing that I could not, you +know why it seems to me imperative that, this hole being discovered, +Doggott and I must betake ourselves elsewhere. Surely there must be +solitudes----!" He rose with a gesture of impatience and began +restlessly to move to and fro. + +Amber started suddenly, flushing. "If you mean--" + +Rutton's kindly hand forced him back into his chair. "Sit down, David. +I never meant that--never for an instant dreamed you'd intentionally +betray my secret. It's enough that you should know it, should +occasionally think of me as being here, to bring misfortune down upon +me, to work an incalculable disaster to the progress of this +civilisation of ours." + +"You mean," Amber asked uncertainly, "thought transference?" + +"Something of the sort--yes." The man came to a pause beside Amber, +looking down almost pitifully into his face. "I daresay all this sounds +hopelessly melodramatic and neurotic and tommyrotic, David, but ... I +can tell you nothing more. I'm sorry." + +"But only let me help you--any way in my power, Rutton. There's nothing +I'd not do...." + +"I know, David, I know it. But my case is beyond human aid, since I am +powerless to apply a remedy myself." + +"And you _are_ powerless?" + +Rutton was silent a long moment. Then, "Time will tell," he said +quietly. "There is one way...." He resumed his monotonous round of the +room. + +Mechanically Amber began to smoke, trying hard to think, to penetrate +by reasoning or intuition the wall of mystery which, it seemed, Rutton +chose to set between himself and the world. The intense earnestness of +the man's hopeless confession had carried conviction. Amber believed +him, believed in the reality of his trouble; and, divining it dimly, a +monstrous, menacing shape in the vagueness of the unknown, was himself +dismayed and a little fearful. He owed much to this man, was bound to +him by ties not only of gratitude but of affection, yet, finding him +distressed, found himself simultaneously powerless to render aid. +Inwardly mutinous, he had to school himself to quiescence; lacking the +confidence which Rutton so steadfastly refused him, he was impotent. + +Presently he grew conscious that Rutton was standing as if listening, +his eyes averted to the windows. But when Amber looked they showed, +beneath their half-drawn muslin shades, naught save the grey horizontal +rush of snow beyond the panes. And he heard nothing save the endless +raving of the maniac wind. + +"What is it?" he inquired at length, unable longer to endure the +tensity of the pause. + +"Nothing. I beg your pardon, David." Rutton returned to his chair, +making a visible effort to shake off his preoccupation. "It's an ugly +night, out there. Lucky you blundered on this place. Tell me how it +happened. What became of the other man--your friend?" + +The thought of Quain stabbed Amber's consciousness with a mental pang +as keen as acute physical anguish. He jumped up in torment. "God!" he +cried chokingly. "I'd forgotten! He's out there on the bay, poor +devil!--freezing to death if not drowned. Our boat went adrift somehow; +Quain would insist on going after her in a leaky old skiff we found on +the shore ... and didn't come back. I waited till it was hopeless, then +concluded I'd make a try to cross to Shampton by way of the tidal bar. +And I must!" + +"It's impossible," Rutton told him with grave sympathy. + +"But I must; think of his wife and children, Rutton! There's a chance +yet--a bare chance; he may have reached the boat. If he did, every +minute I waste here is killing him by inches; he'll die of exposure! +But from Shampton we could send a boat--" + +"The tide fulls about midnight to-night," interrupted Rutton, +consulting his watch. "It's after nine,--and there's a heavy surf +breaking over the bar now. By ten it'll be impassable, and you couldn't +reach it before eleven. Be content, David; you're powerless." + +"You're right--I know that," groaned Amber, his head in his hands. "I +was afraid it was hopeless, but--but--" + +"I know, dear boy, I know!" + +With a gesture of despair Amber resumed his seat. For some time he +remained deep sunk in dejection. At length, mastering his emotion, he +looked up. "How did you know about Quain--that we were together?" he +asked. + +"Doggott saw you land this morning, and I've been watching you all day +with my field-glasses, prepared to take cover the minute you turned my +way. Don't be angry with me, David; it wasn't that I didn't yearn to +see you face to face again, but that ... I didn't dare." + +"Oh, that!" exclaimed Amber with an exasperated fling of his hand. +"Between the two of you--you and Quain--you'll drive me mad with +worry." + +"I'm sorry, David. I only wish I might say more. It hurts a bit to have +you doubt me." + +"I don't doubt," Amber declared in desperation; "at least, I mean I +won't if you'll be sensible and let me stand by and see you through +this trouble--whatever it is." + +Rutton turned to the fire, his head drooping despondently. "That may +not be," he said heavily. "The greatest service you can do me is to +forget my existence, now and henceforth, erase our friendship from the +tablets of your memory, pass me as a stranger should our ways ever +cross again." He flicked the stub of a cigarette into the flames. +"Kismet!... I mean that, David, from my heart. Won't you do this for +me--one last favour, old friend?" + +"I'll try; I'll even promise, on condition that you send me word if +ever you have need of me." + +"That will be never." + +"But if--" + +"I'll send for you if ever I may, David; I promise faithfully. And in +return I have your word?" + +Amber nodded. + +"Then...." Rutton attempted to divert the subject. "I think you said +Quain? Any relation to Quain's 'Aryan Invasion of India?" + +"The same man. He asked me down for the shooting--owns a country place +across the bay: Tanglewood." + +"A very able man; I wish I might have met him.... What of yourself? +What have you been doing these three years? Have you married?" + +"I've been too busy to think of that.... I mean, till lately." + +"Ah?" + +Amber flushed boyishly. "There was a girl at Quain's--a guest.... But +she left before I dared speak. Perhaps it was as well." + +"Why?" + +"Because she was too fine and sweet and good for me, Rutton." + +"Like every man's first love." + +The elder man's glance was keen--too keen for Amber to dissimulate +successfully under it. "You're right," he admitted ruefully. "It's the +first sure-enough trouble of the sort I ever experienced. And, of +course, it had to be hopeless." + +"Why?" persisted Rutton. + +"Because--I've half a notion there's a chap waiting for her at home." + +"At home?" + +"In England." The need for a confidant was suddenly imperative upon the +younger man. "She's an English girl--half English, that is; her mother +was an American, a schoolmate of Quain's wife; her father, an +Englishman in the Indian service." + +"Her name?" + +"Sophia Farrell." A peculiar quality, a certain tensity, in Rutton's +manner, forced itself upon Amber's attention. "Why?" he asked. "Do you +know the Farrells? What's the matter?" + +Rutton's eyes met his stonily; out of the ashen mask of his face, that +suddenly had whitened beneath the brown, they glared, afire but +unseeing. His hands writhed, the fingers twisting together with cruel +force, the knuckles grey. Abruptly, as if abandoning the attempt to +reassert his self-control, he jumped up and went quickly to a window, +there to stand, his back to Amber, staring fixedly out into the +storm-racked night. "I knew her father," he said at length, his tone +constrained and odd, "long ago, in India." + +"He's out there now--a Political, I believe they call him, or something +of the sort." + +"Yes." + +"She's going out to rejoin him." + +"What!" Rutton came swiftly back to Amber, his voice shaking. "What did +you say?" + +"Why, yes. She travels with friends by the western route to join +Colonel Farrell at Darjeeling, where he's stationed just now. Shortly +after I came down she left; Mrs. Quain had a wire a day or so ago, +saying she was on the point of sailing from San Francisco.... Good +Lord, Rutton! are you ill?" + +Something in the man's face had brought Amber to his feet, a prey to +inexpressible concern; it was as if a mask had dropped and he were +looking upon the soul of a man in mortal torture. + +"No," gasped Rutton, "I'm all right. Besides," he added beneath his +breath, so that Amber barely caught the syllables, "it's too late." + +As rapidly as he had lost he seemed to regain mastery of his +inexplicable emotion. His face became again composed, almost immobile, +and stepping to the table he selected a cigarette and rolled it gently +between his slim brown fingers. "I'm sorry to have alarmed you," he +said, his tone a bit too even not to breed a doubt in the mind of his +hearer. "It's nothing serious--a little trouble of the heart, of long +standing, incurable--I hope." + +Perplexed, yet hesitating to press him further, Amber watched him +furtively, instinctively assured that between this man and the Farrells +there existed some extraordinary bond; wondering how that could be, +convinced in his soul that somehow the entanglement involved the woman +he loved, he still feared to put his suspicions to the question, lest +he should learn that which he had no right to know ... and while he +watched was startled by the change that came over Rutton. At ease, one +moment, outwardly composed if absorbed in thought, the next he was +rigid, every muscle taut, every nerve tense as a steel spring, his +keen, thoughtful face hardening with a look of brutal hatred, his eyes +narrowing until no more than a glint of fire was visible between the +lashes, lips straining apart until they showed thin and bloodless, with +a gleam of white, set teeth between. His head jerked back suddenly, his +gaze fixing itself first upon the window, then shifting to the door. +And his fingers, contracting, tore the cigarette in half. + +"Rutton, what the deuce is the matter?" + +Rutton seemed not to hear; Amber got his answer from the door, which +was swung wide and slammed shut. A blast of frosty air and a flurry of +snow swept across the room. And against the door there leaned a man +puffing for breath and coughing spasmodically--a gross and monstrous +bulk of flesh, unclean and unwholesome to the eye, attired in an +extravagant array of coloured garments, tawdry silks and satins +clinging, sodden, to his ponderous and unwieldy limbs. + +"The babu!" cried Amber unconsciously; and was rewarded by a flash of +recognition from the coal-black, beady, evil eyes of the man. + +But for that involuntary exclamation the tableau held unbroken for a +space; Rutton standing transfixed, the torn halves of the cigarette +between his fingers, his head well up and back, his stare level, +direct, uncompromising, a steady challenge to the intruder; the babu +resting with one shoulder against the door, panting stertorously and +trembling with the cold and exposure he had undergone, yet with his +attention unflinchingly concentrated upon Rutton; and, finally, Amber, +a little out of the picture and quite unconsidered of the others, not +without a certain effect as of a supernumerary standing in the wings +and watching the development of the drama. + +Then, demanding Amber's silence with an imperative movement of his +hand, Rutton spoke. "Well, babu?" he said quietly, the shadow of a +bitter and weary smile curving his thin, hard lips. + +The Bengali moved a pace or two from the door, and plucked nervously at +the throat of his surtout, finally managing to insert one hand in the +folds of silk across his bosom. + +"I seek," he said distinctly in Urdu, and not without a definite note +of menace in his manner, "the man calling himself Rutton Sahib?" + +Very deliberately Rutton inclined his head. "I am he." + +"Hazoor!" The babu laboriously doubled up his enormous body in profound +obeisance. Having recovered, he nodded to Amber with the easy +familiarity of an old acquaintance. "To you, likewise, greeting, Amber +Sahib." + +"What!" Rutton swung sharply to Amber with an exclamation of amazement. +"You know this fellow, David?" + +The babu cut in hastily, stimulated by a pressing anxiety to clear +himself. "Hazoor, I did but err, being misled by his knowledge of our +tongue as well as by that pale look of you he wears. And, indeed, is it +strange that I should take him for you, who was told to seek you in +this wild land?" + +"Be silent!" Rutton told him angrily. + +"My lord's will is his slave's." Resignedly the babu folded his fat +arms. + +"Tell me about this," Rutton demanded of Amber. + +"The ass ran across me in the woods south of the station, the day I +came down," explained Amber, summarising the episode as succinctly as +he could. "He didn't call me by your name, but I've no doubt he's +telling the truth about mistaking me for you. At all events he +hazoor-ed me a number of times, talked a lot of rot about some silly +'Voice,' and finally made me a free gift of a nice little bronze box +that wouldn't open. After which he took to his heels, saying he'd call +later for my answer--whatever he meant by that. He did call by night +and stole the box. That's about all I know of him, thus far. But I'd +watch out for him, if I were you; if he isn't a raving lunatic, I miss +my guess." + +"Indeed, my lord, it is all quite as the sahib says," the babu admitted +graciously, his eyes gleaming with sardonic amusement. "Circumstances +conspired to mislead me; but that I was swift to discover. Nor did I +lose time in remedying the error, as you have heard. Moreover--" + +He shut up suddenly at a sign from Rutton, with a ludicrous shrug of +his huge shoulders disclaiming any ill-intent or wrong-doing; and while +Rutton remained deep in thought by the table, the babu held silence, +his gaze flickering suspiciously round the room, searching the shadows, +questioning the closed door behind which Doggott lay asleep (evidence +of which fact was not wanting in his snores), resting fleetingly on +Amber's face, returning to Rutton. His features were composed; his +face, indeed, might have been taken as a model for some weird mask of +unctuous depravity, but for his eyes, which betrayed a score of +differing phases of emotion. He was by turns apparently possessed by +fear, malice, distrust, a subtle sense of triumph, contempt for Amber, +deference to Rutton, and a feeling that he was master not alone of the +situation but of the man whom he professed to honor so extravagantly. + +At length Rutton looked up, suppressing a sigh. "Your errand, babu?" + +"Is it, then, your will that I should speak before this man?" The +Bengali nodded impudently at Amber. + +"It is my will." + +"Shabash! I bear a message, hazoor, from the Bell." + +"You are the Mouthpiece of the Voice?" + +"That honor is mine, hazoor. For the rest I am--" + +"Behari Lal Chatterji," interrupted Rutton impatiently; "solicitor of +the Inner Temple--disbarred; anointed thief, liar, jackal, lickspittle, +and perjurer--I know you." + +"My lord," said the man insolently, "omits from his catalogue of my +accomplishments my chiefest honour; he forgets that, with him, I am an +accepted Member of the Body." + +"The Body wears strange members that employs you, babu," commented +Rutton bitterly. "It has fallen upon evil days when such as you are +charged with a message of the Bell." + +"My lord is harsh to one who would be his slave in all things. +Fortunate indeed am I to own the protection of the Token." A slow leer +widened greasily upon his moon-like face. + +"Ah, the Token!" Rutton repeated tensely, beneath his breath. "It is +true that you have the Token?" "Aye; it is even here, my lord." The +heavy brown hand returned to the spot it had sought soon after the +babu's entrance, within the folds of silk across his bosom, and groped +therein for an instant. "Even here," he iterated with a maddening +manner of supreme self-complacency, producing the bronze box and +waddling over to drop it into Rutton's hand. "My lord is satisfied?" he +gurgled maliciously. + +Without answering Rutton turned the box over in his palm, his slender +fingers playing about the bosses of the relief work; there followed a +click and one side of it swung open. The Bengali fell back a pace with +a whisper of awe--real or affected: "The Token, hazoor!" Amber himself +gasped slightly. + +Unheeded, the box dropped to the floor. Between Rutton's thumb and +forefinger there blazed a great emerald set in a ring of red old gold. +He turned it this way and that, inspecting it critically; and the +lamplight, catching on the facets, struck from it blinding shafts of +intensely green radiance. Rutton nodded as if in recognition of the +stone and, turning, with an effect of carelessness, tossed it to Amber. + +"Keep that for me, David, please," he said. And Amber, catching it, +dropped the ring into his pocket. + +"My lord is satisfied with my credentials, then?" the babu persisted. + +"It is the Token," Rutton assented wearily. "Now, your message. Be +brief." + +"The utterances of the Voice be infrequent, hazoor, its words few--but +charged with meaning: as you know of old." The Bengali drew himself up, +holding up his head and rolling forth his phrases in a voice of great +resonance and depth. "These be the words of the Voice, hazoor: + +"'_To all my peoples: + +"'Even now the Gateway of Swords yawns wide, that he who is without +fear may pass within; to the end that the Body be purged of the Scarlet +Evil. + +"'The Elect are bidden to the Ordeal with no exception._'" + +The sonorous accents subsided, and a tense wait ensued, none speaking. +Rutton stood in stony apathy, his eyes lifted to a dim corner of the +ceiling, his gaze--like his thoughts--perhaps ranging far beyond the +dreary confines of the cabin in the dunes. Minute after minute passed, +he making no sign, the babu poised before him in inscrutable triumph, +watching him keenly with his black and evil eyes of a beast. Amber hung +breathless upon the issue, sensing a conflict of terrible forces in +Rutton's mind, but comprehending nothing of their natures. In the hush +within-doors he became acutely conscious of the war of elements +without: the mad elfin yammering of the gale tearing at the cabin as +though trying to seize it up bodily and whirl it off into the witches' +dance of the storm; the deep and awful booming of the breakers, whose +incessant impact upon the beach seemed to rock the very island on its +base. Somehow he divined a similitude between the struggle within and +the struggle without, seemed to see the contending elements personified +before his eyes--the spirit of evil incarnate in the Bengali, vast, +loathsome, terrible in his inflexibility of malign purpose; the force +of right symbolized in Rutton, frail of stature, fine of mould, strong +in his unbending loyalty to his conception of honour and duty. The +Virginian could have predicted the outcome confidently, believing as he +did in his friend. It came eventually on the heels of a movement of the +babu's; unable longer to hold his pose, he shifted slightly. And Rutton +awoke as from a sleep. + +"The Voice has spoken, babu," he said, not ungently, "and I have +heard." + +"And your answer, lord?" + +"There is no answer." + +"Hazoor!" + +"I have said," Rutton confirmed evenly, "there is no answer." + +"You will obey?" + +"That is between me and my God. Go back to the Hall of the Bell, Behari +Lal Chatterji, and deliver your report; say that you have seen me, that +I have listened to the words of the Voice, and that I sent no answer." + +"Hazoor, I may not. I am charged to return only with you." + +"Make your peace with the Bell in what manner you will, babu; it is no +concern of mine. Go, now, while yet time is granted you to avoid a +longer journey this night." + +"Hazoor!" + +"Go." Rutton pointed to the door, his voice imperative. + +Upon this the babu abandoned argument, realising that further +resistance were futile. And in a twinkling his dignity, his Urdu and +his cloak of mystery, were discarded, and he was merely an +over-educated and over-fed Bengali, jabbering babu-English. + +"Oah, as for thatt," he affirmed easily, with an oleaginous smirk, "I +daresay I shall be able to make adequate explanation. It shall be as +you say, sar. I confess to fright, however, because of storm." He +included Amber affably in his confidences. "By Gad, sar, thees climate +iss most trying to person of my habits. The journey hither _via_ +causeway from mainland was veree fearful. Thee sea is most agitated. +You observe my wetness from association with spray. I am of opinion if +I am not damn-careful I jolly well catch-my-death on return. But +_thatt_ is all in day's work." + +He rolled sluggishly toward the door, dragging his inadequate overcoat +across his barrel-like chest; and paused to cough affectingly, with one +hand on the knob. Rutton eyed him contemptuously. + +"If you care to run the risk," he said suddenly, "you may have a chair +by the fire till the storm breaks, babu." + +"Beg pardon?" The babu's eyes widened. "Oah, yess; I see. 'If I care to +run risk.' Veree considerate of you, I'm sure. But as we say in Bengal, +'thee favour of kings iss ass a sword of two edges.' Noah, thanks; the +servants of thee Bell do not linger by wayside, soa to speak. Besides, +I am in great hurree. Mister Amber, good night. Rutton Sahib"--with a +flash of his sinister humour--"_au revoir_; I mean to say, till we meet +in thee Hall of thee Bell. Good night." + +He nodded insolently to the man whom a little time since he had hailed +as "my lord," shrugged his coat collar up round his fat, dirty neck, +shivered in anticipation, jerked the door open and plunged ponderously +out. + +A second later Amber saw the confused mass of his turban glide past the +window. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE GOBLIN NIGHT + + +Amber whistled low. "Impossible!" he said thoughtfully. + +Rutton had crossed to and was bending over a small leather trunk that +stood in one corner of the room. In the act of opening it, he glanced +over his shoulder. "What?" he demanded sharply. + +"I was only thinking; there's something I can't see through in that +babu's willingness to go." + +"He was afraid to stay." + +"Why?" + +Rutton, rummaging in the trunk, made no reply. After a moment Amber +resumed. + +"You know what Bengalis are; that fellow'd do anything, brave any +ordinary danger, rather than try to cross that sandbar again--if he +really came that way; which I am inclined to doubt. On the other hand, +he's intelligent enough to know that a night like this in the dunes +would kill him. Well, what then?" + +Rutton was not listening. As Amber concluded he seemed to find what he +had been seeking, thrust it hurriedly into the breast-pocket of his +coat, and with a muttered word, unintelligible, dashed to the door and +flung it open and himself out. + +With a shriek of demoniac glee the wind entered into and took +possession of the room. A cloud of snow swept across the floor like a +veil. The door battered against the wall as if trying to break it down. +A pile of newspapers was swept from the table and scattered to the four +corners of the room. The rug lifted beneath the table and flapped +against it like a broken wing. The cheap tin kerosene lamp jumped as +though caught up by a hand; its flame leapt high and blue above the +chimney--and was not. In darkness but for the fitful flare of the fire +that had been dying in embers on the hearth, Amber, seeking the +doorway, fell over a chair, blundered flat into the wall, and stumbled +unexpectedly out of the house. + +His concern was all for Rutton; he had no other thought. He ran a +little way down the hollow, heartsick with horror and cold with dread. +Then he paused, bewildered. Other than the wan glimmer of the snow-clad +earth he had no light to guide him; with this poor aid he could see no +more than that the vale was deserted. Whither in that white whirling +world Rutton might have wandered, it was impossible to surmise. In +despair the Virginian turned back. + +When he had found his way to the door of the cabin, it was closed; as +he entered and shut it behind him, a match flared and expired in the +middle of the room, and a man cursed brokenly. + +"Rutton?" cried Amber in a flush of hope. + +"Is that you, Mr. Amber? Thank Gawd! Wyte a minute." + +A second match spluttered, its flame waxing in the pink cup of +Doggott's hands. The servant's head and shoulders stood out in dim +relief against the darkness. + +"I've burnt me 'and somethin' 'orrid on this damn' 'ot chimney," he +complained nervously. + +He succeeded in setting fire to the wick. The light showed him barefoot +and shivering in shirt and trousers. He lifted a bemused red face to +Amber, blinking and nursing his scorched hand. "For pity's syke, sir, +w'at's 'appened?" + +"It's hard to say," replied Amber vaguely, preoccupied. He went +immediately to a window and stood there, looking out. + +"But w'ere's Mr. Rutton, sir?" + +"Gone--out there--I don't know just where." Amber moved back to the +table. "You see, he had a caller." + +"A caller, sir--on a night like this?" + +"The man he came here to hide from," said Amber. + +"I knew 'e was tryin' to dodge somethin', sir; but 'e never told me +aught about it. What kind of a person was 'e, sir, and what made Mr. +Rutton go aw'y with 'im?" + +"He didn't; he went after him to...." Amber caught his tongue on the +verge of an indiscretion; no matter what his fears, they were not yet +become a suitable subject for discussion with Rutton's servant. "I +think," he amended lamely, "he had forgotten something." + +"And 'e's out there now! My Gawd, what a night!" He hung in hesitation +for a little. "Did 'e wear 'is topcoat and 'at, sir?" + +"No; he went suddenly. I don't think he intended to be gone long." + +"I'd better go after 'im, then. 'E'll 'ave pneumonia ... I'll just jump +into me clothes and--" He slipped into the back room, to reappear with +surprisingly little delay, fully dressed and buttoning a long ulster +round his throat. "You didn't 'appen to notice which w'y 'e went, sir?" + +"As well as I could judge, to the east." + +Doggott took down a second ulster and a cap from pegs in the wall. +"I'll do my best to find 'im; 'e might lose 'imself, you know, with no +light nor nothin'." + +"And you?" + +"I'll be all right; I'll follow 'is footprints in the snow. I've a +'andy little electric bull's-eye to 'elp me, in my pocket." + +"Are you armed, Doggott?" + +"By Mr. Rutton's orders, sir, I've carried a revolver for years. You +aren't thinkin' it's come to that, sir?" + +"I don't know.... If I was sure I wouldn't let you go alone," said +Amber, frowning. "It's only that Mr. Rutton may not want me about ... I +wish I knew!" + +"It'll be better, sir, for you to stay and keep the fire up--if you +don't mind my makin' so free as to advise--in case 'e's 'arf-froze when +'e gets back, as is likely. But I'd better 'urry, 'specially if...." +Doggott's color faded a little and his mouth tightened. "But I 'ope +you're mistyken, sir. Good-night." + +The door slammed behind him. + +Alone, and a prey to misgivings he scarce dared name to himself, Amber +from the window watched the blot of light from Doggott's handlamp fade +and vanish in the storm; then, becoming sensible to the cold, went to +the fireplace, kicked the embers together until they blazed, and piled +on more fuel. + +A cosy, crackling sound began to be audible in the room; sibilant jets +of flame, scarlet, yellow, violet, and green, spurted up from the +driftwood. Under the hypnotic influence of the comforting warmth, +weariness descended upon Amber like a burden; he was afraid to close +his eyes or to sit down, lest sleep should overcome him for all his +intense excitement and anxiety. He forced himself to move steadily +round the room, struggling against a feeling that all that he had +witnessed must have been untrue, an evil dream, akin to the waking +visions that had beset him between the loss of Quain and the finding of +Rutton. The very mediocrity of the surroundings seemed to discredit the +testimony of his wits. + +Unmistakably a camp erected for its owners' convenience during the +hunting season, alike in design and furnishing the cabin was almost +painfully crude and homely. The walls were of rough-hewn logs from +which the bark had not been removed; the interstices were stopped only +with coarse plaster; the partition dividing it into two rooms was of +pine, unpainted. In one corner near Rutton's trunk, a bed-hammock swung +from a beam. The few chairs were plain and rude. There were two deal +tables, a plate-rack nailed to the partition, and a wall-seat in the +chimney-corner. On the centre table, aside from the lamp, were a couple +of books, some out-of-date magazines, and a common tin alarm-clock +ticking stolidly. + +In a setting so hopelessly commonplace and everyday, one act of a drama +of blood and fire had been played; into these mean premises the breath +of the storm, as the babu entered, had blown Romance.... Incredible! + +And yet Amber's hand, dropping idly in his coat-pocket, encountered a +priceless witness to the reality of what had passed. Frowning, +troubled, he drew forth the ring and slipped it upon his finger; rays +of blinding emerald light coruscated from it, dazzling him. With a low +cry of wonder he took it to the lamplight. Never had he looked upon so +fine a stone, so strangely cut. + +It was set in ruddy soft gold, worked and graven with exquisite art in +the semblance of a two-headed cobra; inside the band was an inscription +so worn and faint that Amber experienced some difficulty in deciphering +the word RAO (king) in Devanagari, flanked by swastikas. Aside from the +stone entirely, he speculated, the value of the ring as an antique +would have proven inestimable. As for the emerald itself, in its +original state, before cutting, it must have been worth the ransom of +an emperor; much had certainly been sacrificed to fashion it in its +present form. The cunning of a jewel-cutter whose art was lost before +Tyre and Nineveh upreared their heads must have been taxed by the task. +Its innumerable facets reproduced with wonderful fidelity a human +eyeball, unwinking, sleepless. In the enigmatic heart of its +impenetrable iris cold fire lived, cold passionless flames leaped and +died and leaped again like the sorcerous fire of a pythoness. + +To gaze into its depths was like questioning the inscrutable green +heart of the sea. Fascinated, Amber felt his consciousness slip from +him as a mantle might slip from his shoulders; awake, staring wide-eyed +into the emerald eye, he forgot self, forgot the world, and dreamed, +dreamed curiously.... + +The crash of the door closing behind him brought him to the right-about +in a panic flutter. He glared stupidly for a time before comprehending +that Rutton and Doggott had returned. How long they had been absent he +had no means of reckoning; the interval might have been five minutes or +an hour in duration. The time since he had stooped to examine the ring +was as indefinite; but his back was aching and his thoughts were drowsy +and confused. He had a sensation as of being violently recalled to a +dull and colourless world from some far realm of barbaric enchantment. +His brain reeled and his vision was blurred as if by the flash and +glamour of many vivid colours. + +With an effort he managed to force himself to understand that Rutton +was back. After that he felt more normal. His thoughts slid back into +their accustomed grooves. + +If there were anything peculiar in his manner, Rutton did not remark +it. Indeed, he seemed unconscious, for a time, of the presence either +of Amber or of Doggott. The servant relieved him of his overcoat and +hat, and he strode directly to the fire, bending over to chafe and warm +his frost-nipped hands. Unquestionably he laboured under the influence +of an extraordinary agitation. His limbs twitched and jerked nervously; +his eyebrows were tensely elevated, his eyes blazing, his nostrils +dilated; his face was ashen grey. + +From across the room Doggott signalled silence to Amber, with a +forefinger to his lips; and with a discretion bred of long knowledge of +his master's temper, tiptoed through into the back room and shut the +door. + +Amber respected the admonition throughout a wait that seemed endless. + +The tin clock hammered off five minutes or more. Suddenly Rutton +started and wheeled round, every trace of excitement smoothed away. +Meeting Amber's gaze he nodded as if casually, and said, "Oh, Amber," +quietly, with an effect of faint surprise. Then he dropped heavily into +a chair by the table. + +"Well," he said slowly, "that is over." + +Amber, without speaking, went to his side and touched his shoulder with +that pitifully inadequate gesture of sympathy which men so frequently +employ. + +"I killed him," said Rutton dully. + +"Yes," replied Amber. He was not surprised; he had apprehended the +tragedy from the moment that Rutton had fled him, speechless; the +feeling of horror that he had at first experienced had ebbed, merged +into a sort of apathetic acknowledgment of the inevitable. + +After a bit Rutton turned to the table and drew an automatic pistol +from his pocket, opening the magazine. Five cartridges remained in the +clip, showing that two had been exploded. "I was not sure," he said +thoughtfully, "how many times I had fired." His curiosity satisfied, he +reloaded the weapon and returned it to his pocket. "He died like a +dog," he said, "whimpering and blaspheming in the face of eternity ... +out there in the cold and the night.... It was sickening--the sound of +the bullets tearing through his flesh...." + +He shuddered. + +"Didn't he resist?" Amber asked involuntarily. + +"He tried to. I let him pop away with his revolver until it was empty. +Then...." + +"What made you wait?" + +"I didn't care; it didn't matter. One of us had to die to-night; he +should have known that when I refused to accompany him back to ... I +was hungry for his bullet more than for his life; I gave him every +chance. But it had to be as it was. That was Fate. Now...." He paused +and after a little went on in a more controlled voice. "Quaintly +enough, if there's anything in the theory of heredity, David, my hands +have been stained with no man's blood before to-night. Yet my forebears +were a murderous lot.... Until this hour I never realised how swift and +uncontrollable could be the impulse to slay...." + +His voice trailed off into silence and he sat staring into the +flickering flames that played about the driftwood. Now and again his +lips moved noiselessly. + +With a wrench Amber pulled himself together. He had been mentally a +witness to the murder--had seen the Bengali, obese, monstrous, flabby, +his unclean carcass a gross casing for a dark spirit of iniquity and +treachery, writhing and whining in the throes of death.... "Rutton," he +demanded suddenly, without premeditation, "what are you going to do?" + +"Do?" Rutton looked up, his eyes perplexed. + +"Why, what is there to do? Get away as best I can, I presume--seek +another hole to hide in." + +"But how about the law?" + +"The law? Why need it ever be known--what has happened to-night? I can +count on your silence--I have no need to ask. Doggott would die rather +than betray me. He and I can dispose of--it. No one comes here at this +time of the year save hunting parties; and their eyes are not upon the +ground. You will go your way in the morning. We'll clear out +immediately after." + +"You'd better take no chances." + +Suddenly Rutton smote the table with his fist. "By Indur!" he swore +strangely, his voice quavering with joy; "I had not thought of that!" +He jumped up and began to move excitedly to and fro. "I am free! None +but you and I know of the passing of the Token and the delivery of the +message--none can possibly know for days, perhaps weeks. For so much +time at least I am in no danger of--" + +He shut his mouth like a trap on words that might have enlightened +Amber. + +"Of what?" + +"Let me see: there are still waste places in the world where a man may +lose himself. There's Canada--the Hudson Bay region, Labrador...." + +A discreet knock sounded on the door in the partition, and it was +opened gently. Doggott appeared on the threshold, pale and careworn. +Rutton paused, facing him. + +"Well?" + +"Any orders, sir?" + +"Yes; begin packing up. We leave to-morrow." + +"Very good, sir." + +"That is all to-night." + +"Yes, sir. Good-night. Good-night, Mr. Amber." The man retired and at +intervals thereafter Amber could hear him moving about, apparently +obeying orders. + +Rutton replenished the fire and stood with his back to it, smiling +almost happily. All evidence of remorse had disappeared. He seemed +momentarily almost light-hearted, certainly in better spirits than he +had been at any time that night. "Free!" he cried softly. "And by the +simplest of solutions. Strange that I should never have thought before +to-night of--" He glanced carelessly toward the window; and it was as +if his lips had been wiped clean of speech. + +Amber turned, thrilling, his flesh creeping with the horror that he had +divined in Rutton's transfixed gaze. + +Outside the glass, that was lightly silvered with frost, something +moved--the spectral shadow of a turbaned head--moved and was stationary +for the space of twenty heartbeats. Beneath the turban Amber seemed to +see two eyes, wide staring and terribly alight. + +"God!" cried Rutton thickly, jerking forth his pistol. + +The shadow vanished. + +With a single thought Amber sprang upon Rutton, snatched the weapon +from his nerveless fingers, and, leaping to the door, let himself out. + +The snow had ceased; only the wind raved with untempered force. +Overhead it was blowing clear; through rifts and rents in the +fast-moving cloud-rack pale turquoise patches of moonlit sky showed, +here and there inlaid with a far shining star. The dunes were coldly +a-glimmer with the meagre light that penetrated to the earth and was +cast back by its white and spotless shroud. + +But Amber, at pause a few paces beyond the doorstep, his forefinger +ready upon the trigger of the automatic pistol, was alone in the +hollow. + +Cautiously, and, to be frank, a bit dismayed, he made a reconnaissance, +circling the building, but discovered nothing to reward his pains. The +snow lay unbroken except in front of the cabin, where the traces of +feet existed in profuse confusion; Amber himself, Rutton, Doggott, the +babu, and perhaps another, had passed and repassed there; the trail +they had beaten streamed out of the vale, to the eastwards. Only, +before the window, through which he had seen the peering turbaned head, +he found the impressions of two feet, rather deep and definite, toes +pointing toward the house, as though some one had lingered there, +looking in. The sight of them reassured him ridiculously. + +"At least," he reflected, "disembodied spirits leave no footprints!" + +He found Rutton precisely as he had left him, his very attitude an +unuttered question. + +"No," Amber told him, "he'd made a quick getaway. The marks of his feet +were plain enough, outside the window, but he was gone, and ... somehow +I wasn't over-keen to follow him up." + +"Right," said the elder man dejectedly. "I might have known Chatterji +would not have come alone. So my crime was futile." He spoke without +spirit, as if completely fagged, and moved slowly to the door. "I don't +want another interruption to-night," he continued, shooting the bolts. +He turned to the windows, "Nor peeping Toms," he added, drawing the +shade of one down to the sill. + +Amber started for him in a panic. "Get away from that window, Rutton! +For the love of heaven don't be foolhardy!" + +Rutton drew the second shade deliberately. "Dear boy!" he said with his +slow, tired smile, "I'm in no danger personally. Not a hair of my head +will be touched until...." Again he left his thought half-expressed. + +"But if that fellow out there was Chatterji's companion----!" + +"He undoubtedly was. But you don't understand; my life is not +threatened--yet." + +"Chatterji fired at you," Amber argued stubbornly. + +"Only when he found it was his life or mine. I tell you, David, if our +enemy in the outer darkness were the babu's brother, he would not touch +a hair of my head unless in self-defense." + +"I don't understand. It's all so impossible!" Amber threw out his hands +helplessly, "Unbelievable! For God's sake wake me up and tell me I've +had a nightmare!" + +"I would that were so, David. But the end is not yet." + +"What do you mean by that?" demanded Amber, startled. + +"Simply, that we have more to endure, you and I. Consider the +limitations of the human understanding, David; a little while ago I +promised to ask your aid if ever the time should come when I might be +free to do so; I said, 'That hour will never strike.' Yet already it is +here; I need you. Will you help me?" + +"You know that." + +"I know.... One moment's patience, David." Rutton glanced at the clock. +"Time for my medicine," he said; "that heart trouble I mentioned...." + +He drew from a waistcoat pocket a small silver tube, or phial, and +uncorking this, measured out a certain number of drops into a silver +spoon. As he swallowed the dose the phial slipped from his fingers and +rang upon the hearthstone, spilling its contents in the ashes. A +pungent and heady odour flavoured the air. + +"No matter," said Rutton indifferently. "I shan't need it again for +some time." He picked up and restored the phial to his pocket. "Now let +me think a bit." He took a quick turn up the room and down again. Amber +remarked that the medicine was having its effect; though the brilliance +of Rutton's eyes seemed somewhat dimmed a dull flush had crept into his +dark cheeks, and when he spoke it was in stronger accents--with a +manner more assured, composed. + +"A mad dance," he observed thoughtfully: "this thing we call life. We +meet and whirl asunder--motes in a sunbeam. To-night Destiny chose to +throw us together for a little space; to-morrow we shall be irrevocably +parted, for all time." + +"Don't say that, Rutton." + +"It is so written, David." The man's smile was strangely placid. "After +this night, we'll never meet. In the morning Doggott will ferry you +over--" + +"Shan't we go together?" + +"No," said Rutton serenely; "I must leave before you." + +"Without Doggott?" + +"Without Doggott; I wish him to go with you." + +"Where?" + +"On the errand I am going to ask you to do for me. You are free to +leave this country for several months?" + +"Quite. I corrected the final galleys of my 'Analysis of Sanskrit +Literature' just before I came down. Now I've nothing on my mind--or +hands. Go on." + +"Wait." Rutton went a second time to the leather trunk, lifted the lid, +and came back with two small parcels. The one, which appeared to +contain documents of some sort, he cast negligently on the fire, with +the air of one who destroys that which is no longer of value to him. It +caught immediately and began to flame and smoke and smoulder. The other +was several inches square and flat, wrapped in plain paper, without a +superscription, and sealed with several heavy blobs of red wax. + +Rutton drew a chair close to Amber and sat down, breaking the seals +methodically. + +"You shall go a long journey, David," he said slowly--"a long journey, +to a far land, where you shall brave perils that I may not warn you +against. It will put your friendship to the test." + +"I'm ready." + +The elder man ripped the cover from the packet, exposing the back of +what seemed to be a photograph. Holding this to the light, its face +invisible to Amber, he studied it for several minutes, in silence, a +tender light kindling in his eyes to soften the almost ascetic +austerity of his expression. "In the end, if you live, you shall win a +rich reward," he said at length. He placed the photograph face down +upon the table. + +"How--a reward?" + +"The love of a woman worthy of you, David." + +"But----!" In consternation Amber rose, almost knocking over his chair. +"But--Great Scott, man!" + +"Bear with me, David, for yet a little while," Rutton begged. "Sit +down." + +"All right, but----!" Amber resumed his seat, staring. + +"You and Doggott are to seek her out, wherever she may be, and rescue +her from what may be worse than death. And it shall come to pass that +you shall love one another and marry and live happily ever after--just +as though you were a prince and she an enchanted princess in a fairy +tale, David." + +"I must say you seem pretty damn' sure about it!" + +"It must be so, David; it shall be so! I am an old man--older than you +think, perhaps--and with age there sometimes comes something strangely +akin to the gift of second-sight. So I know it will be so, though you +think me a madman." + +"I don't, indeed, but you.... Well! I give it up." Amber laughed +uneasily. "Go on. Where's this maiden in distress?" + +"In India--I'm not sure just where. You'll find her, however." + +"And then----?" + +"Then you are to bring her home with you, without delay." + +"But suppose--" + +"You must win her first; then she will come gladly." + +"But I've just told you I loved another woman, Rutton, and besides--" + +"You mean the Miss Farrell you mentioned?" + +"Yes. I--" + +"That will be no obstacle." + +"What! How in thunder d'you know it won't?" Amber expostulated. A faint +suspicion of the truth quickened his wits. "Who is this woman you want +me to marry?" + +"My daughter." + +"Your daughter!" + +"My only child, David." + +"Then why won't my--my love for Sophia Farrell interfere?" + +"Because," said Rutton slowly, "my daughter and Sophia Farrell are the +same.... No; listen to me; I'm not raving. Here is my proof--her latest +photograph." He put it into Amber's hands. + +Dazed, the younger man stared blankly at the likeness of the woman he +loved; it was unquestionably she. Fair, sweet, and imperious, her face +looked up to his from the bit of cardboard in his hands; the direct and +fearless eyes met his--eyes frank, virginal, and serene, beautiful with +the beauty of a soul as unsullied and untroubled as the soul of a +child. + +He gasped, trembling, astounded. "Sophia...!" he said thickly, +colouring hotly. He was conscious of a tightening of his throat +muscles, making speech a matter of difficulty. "But--but--" he +stammered. + +"Her mother," said Rutton softly, looking away, "was a Russian +noblewoman. Sophia is Farrell's daughter by adoption only. Farrell was +once my closest friend. When my wife died...." He covered his eyes with +his hand and remained silent for a few seconds. "When Sophia was left +motherless, an infant in arms, Farrell offered to adopt her. Because I +became, about that time, aware of this horror that has poisoned my +life--this thing of which you have seen something to-night--I accepted +on condition that the truth be never revealed to her. It cost me the +friendship of Farrell; he was then but lately married and--and I +thought it dangerous to be seen with him too much. I left England, +having settled upon my daughter the best part of my fortune, retaining +only enough for my needs. From that day I never saw her or heard from +Farrell. Yet I knew I could trust him. Last summer, when my daughter +was presented at Court, I was in London; I discovered the name of her +photographer and bribed him to sell me this." He indicated the +photograph. + +"And she doesn't know!" + +"She must never know." Rutton leaned forward and caught Amber's hand in +a compelling grasp. "Remember that. Whatever you do, my name must never +pass your lips--with reference to herself, at least. No one must even +suspect that you know me--Farrell least of all." + +"Sophia knows that now," said Amber. "Quain and I spoke of you one +night, but the name made no impression on her. I'm sure of that." + +"That is good; Farrell has been true. Now ... you will go to India?" + +"I will go," Amber promised. + +"You will be kind to her, and true, David? You'll love her faithfully +and make her love you?" + +"I'll do my best," said the young man humbly. + +"It must be so--she must be taught to love you. It is essential, +imperative, that she marry you and leave India with you without a day's +delay." + +Amber sat back in his chair, breathing quickly, his mouth tense. "I'll +do my best. But, Rutton, why? Won't you tell me? Shouldn't I know--I, +who am to be her husband, her protector?" + +"Not from me. I am bound by an oath, David. Some day it may be that you +will know. Perhaps not. You may guess what you will--you have much to +go on. But from me, nothing. Now, let us settle the details. I've very +little time." He glanced again at the shoddy tin clock, with a slight +but noticeable shiver. + +"How's that? It's hours till morning." + +"I shall never see the dawn, David," said Rutton quietly. + +"What--" + +"I have but ten minutes more of life.... If you must know--in a word: +poison.... That I be saved a blacker sin, David!" + +"You mean that medicine--the silver phial?" Amber stammered, sick with +horror. + +"Yes. Don't be alarmed; it's slow but sure and painless, dear boy. It +works infallibly within half an hour. There'll be no agony--merely the +drawing of the curtain. Best of all, it leaves no traces; a +diagnostician would call it heart-failure.... And thus I escape that." +He nodded coolly toward the door. + +"But this must not be, Rutton!" Amber rose suddenly, pushing back his +chair. "Something must be done. Doggott--" + +"Not so loud, please--you might alarm him. After it's all over, call +him. But now--it's useless; the thing is done; there's no known +antidote. Be kind to me, David, in this hour of mine extremity. There's +much still to be said between us ... and in seven minutes more...." + +Rutton retained his clutch upon Amber's hand; and his eyes, their +lustre dimmed, held Amber's, pitiful, passionate, inexorable in their +entreaty. Amber sat down, his soul shaken with the pity of it. + +"Ah-h!" sighed Rutton. Relieved, the tension relaxed; he released +Amber's hand; his body sank a little in the chair. Becoming conscious +of this, he pulled himself together.... "Enter India by way of +Calcutta," he said in a dull and heavy voice. "There, in the Machua +Bazaar, you will find a goldsmith and money-lender called Dhola Baksh. +Go to him secretly, show him the ring--the Token. He will understand +and do all in his power to aid you, should there be any trouble about +your leaving with Sophia. To no one else in India are you to mention my +name. Deny me, if taxed with knowing me. Do you understand?" + +"No. Why?" + +"Never mind--but remember these two things: you do not know me and you +must under no circumstances have anything to do with the police. They +could do nothing to help you; on the other hand, to be seen with them, +to have it known that you communicate with them, would be the +equivalent of a seal upon your death warrant. You remember the +money-lender's name?" + +"Dhola Baksh of the Machua Bazaar." + +"Trust him--and trust Doggott.... Four minutes more!" + +"Rutton!" cried Amber in a broken voice. Cold sweat broke out upon his +forehead. + +The man smiled fearlessly. "Believe me, this is the better way--the +only way.... Some day you may meet a little chap named Labertouche--a +queer fish I once knew in Calcutta. But I daresay he's dead by now. But +if you should meet him, tell him that you've seen his B-Formula work +flawlessly in one instance at least. You see, he dabbled in chemistry +and entomology and a lot of uncommon pursuits--a solicitor by +profession, he never seemed to have any practice to speak of--and he +invented this stuff and named it the B-Formula." Rutton tapped the +silver phial in his waistcoat pocket, smiling faintly. "He was a good +little man.... Two minutes. Strange how little one cares, when it's +inevitable...." + +He ceased to speak and closed his eyes. A great stillness made itself +felt within the room. In the other, Doggott was silent--probably +asleep. Amber noted the fact subconsciously, even as he was aware that +the high fury of the wind was moderating. But consciously he was bowed +down with sorrow, inexpressibly racked. + +In the hush the metallic hammering of the mean tin clock rang loud and +harsh; Amber's heart seemed to beat in funeral time to its steady, +unhurried, immutable ticking. + +It was close upon two in the morning. + +"Amber," said Rutton suddenly and very clearly, "you'll find a will in +my despatch box. Doggott is to have all I possess. The emerald +ring--the Token--I give to you." + +"Yes, I--I--" + +"Your hand.... Mine is cold? No? I fancied it was," said the man +drowsily. And later: "Sophia. You will be kind to her, David?" + +"On my faith!" + +Rutton's fingers tightened cruelly upon his, then relaxed suddenly. He +began to nod, his chin drooping toward his breast. + +"The Gateway ... the Bell...." + +The words were no more than whispers dying on lips that stilled as they +spoke. For a long time Amber sat unmoving, his fingers imprisoned in +that quiet, cooling grasp, his thoughts astray in a black mist of +mourning and bewilderment. + +Through the hush of death the tin clock ticked on, placidly, +monotonously, complacently. In the fireplace a charred log broke with a +crash and a shower of live cinders. + +Out of doors something made a circuit of the cabin, like a beast of the +night, stealthy footsteps muffled by the snow: _pad--pad--pad_.... + +In the emerald ring on Amber's finger the deathless fire leaped and +pulsed. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +RED DAWN + + +Presently Amber rose and quietly exchanged dressing-gown and slippers +for his own shooting-jacket and boots--which by now were dry, thanks to +Doggott's thoughtfulness in placing them near the fire. + +The shabby tin clock had droned through thirty minutes since Rutton had +spoken his last word. In that interval, sitting face to face, and for a +little time hand in hand, with the man to whom he had pledged his +honour, Amber had thought deeply, carefully weighing ways and means; +nor did he move until he believed his plans mature and definite. + +But before he could take one step toward redeeming his word to Rutton, +he had many cares to dispose of. In the hut, Rutton lay dead of poison; +somewhere amongst the dunes the babu lay in his blood, shot to +death--foully murdered, the world would say. Should these things become +known, he would be detained indefinitely in Nokomis as a witness--if, +indeed, he escaped a graver charge. + +It was, then, with a mind burdened with black anxiety that he went to +arouse Doggott. + +The rear room proved to be as cheerless as the other. Of approximately +the same dimensions, it too had been furnished with little regard for +anything but the barest conveniences of camp-life. It contained a small +sheet-iron stove for cooking, a table, a rack of shelves, two chairs, +and a rickety cot-bed in addition to another trunk. On the table a tin +kerosene-lamp had burned low, poisoning the air with its bitter reek. +On the cot Doggott sprawled in his clothing, his strained +position--half reclining, feet upon the floor--suggesting an +uncontemplated surrender to fatigue. His face was flushed and he was +breathing heavily. + +The Virginian stood over him for several minutes before he could bring +himself to the point of awakening the man to the news of Rutton's +death. Aware of that steadfast loyalty which Doggott had borne his +master through many years of service, he shrank with conceivable +reluctance from the duty. But necessity drove him with a taut rein; and +finally he bent over and shook the sleeper by the shoulder. + +With a jerk the man sat up and recognised Amber. + +"Beg pardon, sir," he muttered, lifting himself sluggishly; "I didn't +mean to fall asleep--I'd only sat down for a moment's rest. Has--has +anything gone bad, sir?" he added hastily, remarking with troubled eyes +the sympathy and concern in Amber's expression. + +Amber looked away. "Mr. Rutton is dead, Doggott," he managed to say +with some difficulty. + +Doggott exclaimed beneath his breath. "Dead!" he cried in a tone of +daze. In two strides he had left Amber and was kneeling by Rutton's +side. The most cursory examination, however, sufficed to resolve his +every doubt: the hanging head and arms, the livid face with its staring +yet sightless eyes, the shrunken figure seeming so pitifully slight and +unsubstantial in comparison with its accustomed strong and virile +poise, hopelessly confirmed Amber's statement. + +"Dead!" whispered the servant. He rose and stood swaying, his lips +a-tremble, his eyes blinking through a mist, his head bowed. "'E always +was uncommon' good to me, Mr. Amber," he said brokenly. "It's a bit +'ard, comin' this w'y. 'Ow--'ow did it--" He broke down completely for +a time, and staggered away to the wall, there to stand with his head +pillowed on his crossed forearms. + +When he had himself in more control Amber told him as briefly as +possible of the head at the window and of its sequel--Rutton's +despairing suicide. + +Doggott listened in silence, nodding his comprehension. "I've always +looked for it, sir," he commented. "'E'd warned me never to touch that +silver tube; 'e never said poison, but I suspected it, 'e being blue +and melancholy-like, by fits and turns--'e never told me why." + +Then, reverently, they took up the body and laid it out upon the +hammock-bed, Doggott arranging the limbs and closing the eyes before +spreading a sheet over the rigid form. + +"And now, what, Mr. Amber?" he asked. + +Amber had returned to the table. He pondered his problems for some time +before answering; a distasteful duty devolved upon him of questioning +the servant about his master's secrets, of delving into the mystery +which Rutton had chosen always to preserve about himself--which, +indeed, he had chosen to die without disclosing to the man whom he had +termed his sole intimate. Yet this task, too, must be gone through +with. + +"Mr. Rutton spoke of a despatch-box, Doggott. You know where to find +it?" + +"Yes, sir." + +The servant brought from Rutton's leather trunk a battered +black-japanned tin box, which, upon exploration, proved to contain +little that might not have been anticipated. A bankbook issued by the +house of Rothschild Frčres, Paris, showed a balance to the credit of +H.D. Rutton of something slightly under a million francs. There was +American money, chiefly in gold certificates of large denominations, to +the value of, roundly, twenty thousand dollars, together with a handful +of French, German and English bank-notes which might have brought in +exchange about two hundred and fifty dollars. In addition to these +there was merely a single envelope, superscribed: "To be opened in +event of my death only. H.D.R." + +Amber broke the seal and read the enclosures once to himself and a +second time aloud to Doggott. The date was barely a year old. + +"For reasons personal to myself and sufficient," Rutton had written, "I +choose not to make a formal will. I shall die, probably in the near +future, by my own hand, of poison. I wish to emphasise this statement +in event the circumstances surrounding my demise should appear to +attach suspicion of murder upon any person or persons whatever. I am a +widower and childless. What relations may survive me are distant and +will never appear to claim what estate I may leave--this I know. I +therefore desire that my body-servant, Henry Doggott, an English +citizen, shall inherit and appropriate to his own use all my property +and effects, providing he be in my service at the time of my death. To +facilitate his entering into possession of my means, whatever they may +be, without the necessity of legal procedure of any kind, I enclose a +cheque to his order upon my bankers, signed by myself and bearing the +date of this memorandum. He is to fill it in with the amount remaining +to my credit upon my bank-book. Should he have died or left me, +however, the disposition of my effects is a matter about which I am +wholly careless." + +The signature was unmistakably genuine--the formal "H.D. Rutton" with +which Amber was familiar. It was unwitnessed. + +The Virginian put aside the paper and offered Doggott the blank cheque +on Rothschilds'. "This," he said, "makes you pretty nearly +independently rich, Doggott." + +"Yes, sir." Doggott took the slip of paper in a hand that trembled even +as his voice, and eyed it incredulously. "I've never 'ad anything like +this before, sir; I 'ardly know what it means." + +"It means," explained Amber, "that, when you've filled in that blank +and had the money collected from the Rothschilds, you'll be worth--with +what cash is here--in the neighbourhood of forty five thousand pounds +sterling." + +Doggott gasped, temporarily inarticulate. "Forty-five thousand +pounds!... Mr. Amber," he declared earnestly, "I never looked for +nothin' like this I--I never--I--" Quite without warning he was quiet +and composed again. "Might I ask it of you as a favour, sir, to look +after this"--he offered to return the cheque--"for a while, till I can +myke up my mind what to do with it." + +"Certainly." Amber took the paper, folded it and placed it in his +card-case. "I'd suggest that you deposit it as soon as possible in a +New York bank for collection. In the meantime, these bills are yours; +you'd better take care of them yourself until you open the banking +account. I'll keep Mr. Rutton's bank-book with the cheque." He placed +the book in his pocket with the singular document Rutton had called his +"will," and motioned Doggott to possess himself of the money in the +despatch-box. + +"It'll keep as well in 'ere as anywheres," Doggott considered, +relocking the box. "I 'aven't 'ardly any use for money, except, of +course, to tide me over till I find another position." + +"What!" exclaimed Amber in amaze. + +"Yes, sir," affirmed Doggott respectfully. "I'm a bit too old to chynge +my w'ys; a valet I've been all my life and a valet I'll die, sir. It's +too lyte to think of anything else." + +"But with this money, Doggott--" + +"Beg pardon, sir, but I know; I could live easy like a gentleman if I +liked--but I wouldn't be a gentleman, so what's the use of that? I +could go 'ome and buy me a public-'ouse; but that wouldn't do neither. +I'd not be 'appy; if you'll pardon my s'ying so, I've associated too +long with gentlemen and gentlemen's gentlemen to feel at ease, so to +speak, with the kind that 'angs round publics. So the w'y I look at it, +there's naught for me but go on valeting until I'm too old; after that +the money'll be a comfort, I dares'y.... Don't you think so, sir?" "I +believe you're right, Doggott; only, your common-sense surprises me. +But it makes it easier in a way...." Amber fell thoughtful again. + +"'Ow's that, sir--if I m'y ask?" + +"This way," said Amber: "Before he died, Mr. Rutton asked me to do him +a service. I agreed. He suggested that I take you with me." + +"I'm ready, sir," interrupted Doggott eagerly. "There's no gentleman +I'd like to valet for better than yourself." + +"But there will be dangers, Doggott--I don't know precisely what. +That's the rub: we'll have to travel half-way round the world and face +unknown perils. If Mr. Rutton were right about it, we'll be lucky to +get away with our lives." + +"I'll go, sir; it was 'is wish. I'll go with you to India, Mr. Amber." + +"Very well...." Amber spoke abstractedly, reviewing his plans. "But," +he enquired suddenly, "I didn't mention India. How did you know----?" + +"Why--I suppose I must 'ave guessed it, sir. It seemed so likely, +knowing what I do about Mr. Rutton." + +Amber sat silent, unable to bring himself to put a single question in +regard to the dead man's antecedents. But after a pause the servant +continued voluntarily. + +"He always 'ad a deal to do with persons who came from +India--niggers--I mean, natives. It didn't much matter where we'd +be--London or Paris or Berlin or Rome--they'd 'unt 'im up; some 'e'd +give money to and they'd go aw'y; others 'e'd be locked up with in 'is +study for hours, talking, talking. They'd 'ardly ever come the same one +twice. 'E 'ated 'em all, Mr. Rutton did. And yet, sir, I always 'ad a +suspicion--" + +Doggott hesitated, lowering his voice, his gaze shifting uneasily to +the still, shrouded figure in the corner. + +"What?" demanded Amber tensely. + +"I alw'ys thought per'aps 'e was what we call in England a man of +colour, 'imself, sir." + +"Doggott!" + +"I don't mean no 'arm, sir; it was just their 'ounding him, like, and +'is being a dark-complected man the syme as them, and speakin' their +language so ready, that made me think it. At least 'e might 'ave 'ad a +little of their blood in 'im, sir. Things 'd seem unaccountable +otherwise," concluded Doggott vaguely. + +"It's impossible!" cried Amber. + +"Yes, sir; at least, I mean I 'ope so, sir. Not that it'd myke any +difference to me, the w'y I felt towards 'im. 'E was a gentleman, white +or black. I'd've died for 'im any d'y." + +"Doggott!" The Virginian had risen and was pacing excitedly to and fro. +"Doggott! don't ever repeat one word of this to man or woman--while +you're faithful to the memory of Mr. Rutton." + +The servant stared, visibly impressed. "Very good, Mr. Amber. I'll +remember, sir. I don't ordinarily gossip, sir; but you and him being so +thick, and everything 'appening to-night so 'orrible, I forgot myself. +I 'ope you'll excuse me, sir." + +"God in Heaven!" cried the young man hoarsely. "It can't be true!" He +flung himself into his chair, burying his face in his hands. "It +can't!" + +Yet irresistibly the conviction was being forced upon him that Doggott +had surmised aright. Circumstance backed up circumstance within his +knowledge of or his experience with the man, all seeming to prove +incontestably the truth of what at the first blush had seemed so +incredible. What did he, Amber, know of Rutton's parentage or history +that would refute the calm belief of the body-servant of the dead man? +Rutton himself had consistently kept sealed lips upon the subject of +his antecedents; in Amber's intercourse with him the understanding that +what had passed was a closed book had been implicit. But it had never +occurred to Amber to question the man's title to the blood of the +Caucasian peoples. Not that the mystery with which Rutton had ever +shrouded his identity had not inevitably of itself been a provocation +to Amber's imagination; he had hazarded many an idle, secret guess at +the riddle that was Rutton. Who or what the man was or might have been +was ever a field of fascinating speculation to the American, but his +wildest conjecture had never travelled east of Italy or Hungary. He had +always fancied that one, at least, of Rutton's parents had been a +native of the European Continent. He had even, at a certain time when +his imagination had been stimulated by the witchery of "Lavengro" and +"The Romany Rye," gone so far as to wonder if, perchance, Rutton were +not descended from Gipsy stock--a fancy which he was quick to dismiss +as absurd. Yet now it seemed as if he had not been far wrong; if +Doggott were right--and Amber had come to believe that the valet was +right--it was no far cry from the Hindu to the Romany, both offshoots +of the Aryan root. + +And then Amber's intelligence was smitten by a thought as by a club; +and he began to tremble violently, uncontrollably, being weakened by +fatigue and the strain of that endless, terrible night. A strangled cry +escaped him without his knowledge: "Sophia!" + +Sophia Farrell, the woman he had promised to wed, nay even the woman he +loved with all his being--a half-breed, a mulatto! His mind sickened +with the horror of that thought. All the inbred contempt of the +Southerner for the servile races surged up to overwhelm his passion, to +make it seem more than impossible, revolting, that the mistress of his +dreams should be a creature tainted by the blood of a brown-skinned +people. Though her mother had been of noble Russian family, as her +father had declared; though her secret were contained in his knowledge +and Farrell's alone, and though it were to be preserved by them ever +inviolate--could he, David Amber, ever forget it? Could he make her his +bride and take her home to his mother and his sisters in +Virginia--offer them as daughter and sister a woman who, though she +were fairer than the dawn, was in part a product of intermarriage +between white and black? + +His very soul seemed to shudder and his reason cried out that the thing +could never be.... Yet in his heart of hearts still he loved her, still +desired her with all his strength and will; in his heart there was no +wavering. Whatever Rutton had been, whatever his daughter might be, he +loved her. And more, the honour of the Ambers was in pledge, holding +him steadfast to his purpose to seek her out in India or wherever she +might be and to bear her away from the unnamed danger that threatened +her--even to marry her, if she would have him. He had promised; his +word had passed; there could now be no withdrawal.... + +An hour elapsed, its passing raucously emphasised by the tin clock. +Amber remained at the table, his head upon it, his face hidden by his +arms, so still that Doggott would have thought him sleeping but for his +uneven breathing. + +On tiptoe the man-servant moved in and out of the room, making ready +for the day, mechanically carrying out his dead master's last +instructions, to pack up against an early departing. His face was grave +and sorrowful and now and again he paused in the midst of his +preparations to watch for an instant the sheeted form upon the +hammock-bed, his head bowed, his eyes filling; or to cast a sympathetic +glance at the back and shoulders of the living, his new employer. In +his day Doggott had known trouble; he was ignorant of the cause, but +now intuitively he divined that Amber was suffering mental torment +indescribable and beyond his power to assuage. + +At length the young man called him and Doggott found him sitting up, +with a haggard and careworn face but with the sane light of a mind +composed in his eyes. + +"Doggott," he asked in an even, toneless voice, "have you ever +mentioned to anybody your suspicion about Mr. Rutton's race?" + +"Only to you, sir." + +"That's good. And you won't?" + +"No, sir." + +"Have you," continued Amber, looking away and speaking slowly, "ever +heard him mention his marriage?" + +"Never, sir. 'E says in that paper 'e was a widower; I fancy the lady +must have died before I entered 'is service. 'E was always a lonely +man, all the fifteen year I've been with 'im, keepin' very much to +'imself, sir." + +"He never spoke of a--daughter?" + +"No, sir. Didn't 'e say 'e was childless?" + +"Yes. I merely wondered.... Tell me, now, do you know of any letters or +papers of his that we should destroy? If there are any, he would wish +us to." + +"'E never 'ad many, sir. What letters 'e got 'e answered right away and +destroyed 'em. There was a little packet in 'is trunk, but I see that's +gone." + +"He burned it himself this evening. There's nothing else?" + +"Nothing whatever, sir." + +"That's all right, then. We have nothing to do but ... see that he's +decently buried and get away as soon as we can. There's no time to +lose. It's after four, now, and as soon as it's daylight----You must +have a boat somewhere about?" + +"Yes, sir. Mr. Rutton 'ad me 'ire a little power launch before 'e came +down. It's down by the bayside, 'alf a mile aw'y." + +"Very well. The wind is dying down and by sunrise the bay will be safe +to cross--if it isn't now. These shallow waters smoothe out very +quickly. We'll--" + +He cut his words short and got up abruptly with a sharp exclamation: +"What's that?" + +Doggott, too, had heard and been startled. "It sounded like a gun-shot, +sir, and a man shouting," he said, moving toward the door. + +But Amber anticipated him there. + +As he stepped out into the bitter-cold air of early morning, he +received an impression that a shadow in the hollow had been alarmed by +his sudden appearance and had flitted silently and swiftly out upon the +beaten eastward path. But of this he could not be sure. + +He stood shivering and staring, waiting with attentive senses for a +repetition of the sound. The wind had indeed fallen, and the world was +very still--a hush that overspread and lay unbroken upon the deep, +ceaseless growling of the sea, like oil on water. The moon had set and +the darkness was but faintly tempered by the starlight on the snow--or +was it the first wan promise of the dawn that seemed to quiver in the +formless void between earth and sky? + +In the doorway Doggott grew impatient. "You don't 'ear anything, sir?" + +"Not a sound." + +"It's cruel cold, Mr. Amber. 'Adn't you better come inside, sir?" + +"I suppose so." He abandoned hope disconsolately and returned to the +hut, his teeth inclined to chatter and his stomach assailed by +qualms--premonitions of exhaustion in a body insufficiently nourished. + +Doggott, himself similarly affected, perhaps, was quick to recognise +the symptoms. "I'll get a bite of breakfast, sir," he suggested; "you +'aven't 'ad enough to eat, and 'unger's tyking 'old of you. If you'll +pardon my saying so, you look a bit sickly; but a cup of hot coffee'll +set that right in a jiffy." + +"Thank you, Doggott; I believe you're right. Though disappointment has +a good deal to do with the way I look. I'd hoped it might be Mr. Quain +come to look for me." + +Doggott disappeared to prepare the meal, but within five minutes a +second gun-shot sounded startlingly near at hand. The Virginian's +appearance at the door was coincident with a clear hail of "Aho-oy, +Amber!"--unmistakably Quain's voice, raised at a distance of not over +two hundred yards. + +Amber's answering cry quavered with joy. And with a bear-like rush +Quain topped the nearest dune, dropped down into the hollow, and was +upon him. + +"By the Lord Harry!" he cried, almost embracing Amber in his excitement +and relief; "I'd almost given you up for good and all!" + +"And I you," said Amber, watching curiously and somewhat distrustfully +a second man follow Quain into the vale. "Who's that?" he demanded. + +"Only Antone. We've him to thank. He remembered this old camp here--I'd +completely forgotten it--and was sure you'd taken refuge in it. Come +inside." He dragged Amber in, the Portuguese following. "Let's have a +look at you by the light. Lord! you seem to be pretty comfortable--and +I've been worrying myself sick for fear you--" He swept the room with +an approving glance which passed over Doggott and became transfixed as +it rested upon the hammock-bed with its burden; and his jaw fell. +"What's this? What's this?" He swung upon Amber, appraising with +relentless eyes the havoc his night's experience had wrought upon the +man. "You look like hell!" he exploded. "What's up here? Eh?" + +Amber turned to Doggott. "Take Antone out there with you and keep him +until I call, please. This is Mr. Quain; I want to talk with him +undisturbed.... But you can bring us coffee when it's ready." + +Quain motioned to Antone; the Portuguese disappeared into the back room +with Doggott, who closed the communicating door. + +"You first," said Amber. "If you've fretted about me, I've been crazy +about you--what time I've had to think." + +Quain deferred to his insistence. "It was simple enough--and damned +hard," he explained. "I caught the _Echo_ by the skin of my teeth, the +skimmy almost sinking under me. She was hard and fast aground, but I +managed to get the motor going and backed her off. As soon as that was +all right we got a wave aboard that soused the motor--like a fool I'd +left the hatch off--and short-circuited the coil. After that there was +hell to pay. I worked for half an hour reefing, and meanwhile we went +aground again. The oar broke and I had to go overboard and get wet to +my waist before I got her off. By that time it was blowing great guns +and dead from the beach. I had to stand off and make for the +mainland--nothing else to do. We beached about a mile below the +lighthouse and I had the four-mile tramp home. Then after I'd thawed +out and had a drink and a change of clothes, we had to wait two hours +for the sea to go down enough to make a crossing in the launch +practicable. That's all for mine. Now you? What's that there?" + +"A suicide; a friend of mine--the man Rutton whom we were discussing +the night I came down. And that's not half. There's a man out there +somewhere, shot to death by Rutton--a Bengali babu.... Quain, I've +lived in Purgatory ever since we parted and now ... I'm about done." + +He was; the coming of Quain with the ease of mind it brought had +snapped the high nervous tension which had sustained Amber. He was now +on the edge of collapse and showed it plainly. But two circumstances +aided him to recover his grip upon himself: Quain's compassionate +consideration in forbearing to press his story from him, and Doggott's +opportune appearance with a pot of coffee, steaming and black. Two cups +of this restored Amber to a condition somewhat approaching the normal. +He lit a cigarette and began to talk. + +For all his affection for and confidence in his friend, there were +things he might not tell Quain; wherefore he couched his narrative in +the fewest possible words and was miserly of detail. Of the coming of +the babu and his going Amber was fairly free to speak; he suppressed +little if any of that episode. Moreover he had forgotten to remove the +Token from his finger, and Quain instantly remarked it and demanded an +explanation. But of the nature of the errand on which he was to go, +Amber said nothing; it was, he averred, Rutton's private business. Nor +did he touch upon the question of Rutton's nationality. Sophia Farrell +he never mentioned. + +Nevertheless, he said enough to render Quain thoughtful.... "You're set +on this thing, I suppose?" he asked some time after Amber had +concluded. + +"Set upon it, dear man? I've no choice. I must go--I promised." + +"Of course. That's you, all over. Personally, I think it'll turn out a +fool's errand. But there's something you haven't told me--I'm not ass +enough to have missed that and no doubt that influences you." + +"I've told you everything that, in honor, I could." + +"Hmm--yes; I dare say...." Quain scowled over the problem for some +time. "It's plain enough," he asserted forcibly: "that man was involved +in some infernal secret society. Just how and why's the question. Think +I'll have a look at him." + +Amber would have protested, but thought better of it and held his peace +while Quain went to the hammock-bed, turned back the sheet, and for +several minutes lingered there, scrutinising the stony, upturned face. + +"So!" he said, coming back. "Here's news that'll help you some. You +were blind not to see it yourself. That man's--was, I should say--a +Rajput." He waited for the comment which did not come. "You knew it?" + +"I ... suspected, to-night." + +"It's as plain as print; the mark of his caste is all over him. But +perhaps he was able to disguise it a little with his manner--alive; +undoubtedly, I'd say. He was a genius of his kind--a prodigy; a mental +giant. That translation of the 'Tantras'----! Wonderful!... Well, he's +gone his own way: God be with him.... When do you want to start?" + +"As soon as possible--sooner. I've not a day to lose--not an hour." + +"Urgent as that, eh?" Quain peered keenly into his face. "I wish I knew +what you know. I wish to Heaven I might go with you. But I'm married +now--and respectable. If I ''ear the East a-callin'' and daren't +answer, it's my own fault for ever being fool enough to have heard it. +Well...." He proceeded to take charge of the situation with his +masterful habit. "The morning train leaves Nokomis at seven-thirty. You +can make that, if you must. But you need sleep--rest." + +"I'll get that on the train." + +"'Knew you'd say that. Very well. This is Tuesday. The _Mauretania_--or +the _Lusitania_, I don't know which--sails to-morrow. You can catch +that, too. It's the quickest route, eastwards--" + +"But I've decided to go west." + +"That means a week more, and you said you were in a hurry." + +"I am; but by going westwards it's barely possible I may be able to +transact or wind up the business on the way." + +As a matter of fact Amber was hoping the Rolands, with Sophia Farrell, +might linger somewhere _en route_, remembering that the girl had +discussed a tentative project to stop over between steamers at +Yokohama. + +"Very well," Quain gave in; "you're the doctor. Now as for things here, +make your mind easy. I'll take charge and keep the affair quiet. +There's no reason I can see for its ever getting out. I can answer for +myself and Antone; and the two of us can wind things up. That man +Rutton is at peace now--'chances are he'd prefer a quiet grave here on +the island. Then that devilish babu--he doesn't count; Antone and I'll +get him under the ground in a jiffy. No one ever gets over here but me, +now; come summer and there'll be a few wanderers, but by that time.... +The dunes'll hold their secrets fast: be sure of that. Finally, if any +one round here knows about this place being occupied, your departure'll +be public enough to make them think it's being abandoned again. Keep +your hat-brim down and your coat-collar up at the station; and they'll +never know you aren't Rutton himself; and you'll have Doggott to back +up the deception. So there'll be no questions asked.... Get ready now +to trot along, and I'll take care of everything." + +"There's no way of thanking you." + +"That's a comfort. Call Doggott now and tell him to get ready. You +haven't much time to lose. I'd land at the lighthouse dock, if I were +you, and take the short-cut up to the station by the wood road. If you +land at Tanglewood, Madge'll hold you up for a hot breakfast and make +you miss your train. I'll cook up some yarn to account for your +defection; and when you get back with your blooming bride you can tell +her the whole story, by way of amends." + +Amber wheeled upon him, colouring to the brows. "My bride! What do you +mean by that? I said nothing--" + +Quain rubbed his big hands, chuckling. "Of course you didn't. But I'm +wise enough to know there's bound to be a woman in this case. Besides, +it's Romance--and what's a romance without a woman?" + +"Oh, go to thunder," said Amber good-naturedly, and went to give +Doggott his orders. + +While they waited for the servant to pack his handbag--it being obvious +that to take the trunks with them was not feasible; while Quain was to +care for Amber's things at Tanglewood until his return from +India--Quain was possessed by an idea which he was pleased to christen +an inspiration. + +"It's this," he explained: "what do you know about Calcutta?" + +"Little or nothing. I've been there--that's about all." + +"Precisely. Now _I_ know the place, and I know you'll never find this +goldsmith in the Machua Bazaar without a guide. The ordinary, +common-or-garden guide is out of the question, of course. But I happen +to know an Englishman there who knows more about the dark side of India +than any other ten men in the world. He'll be invaluable to you, and +you can trust him as you would Doggott. Go to him in my name--you'll +need no other introduction--and tell him what you've told me." + +"That's impossible. Rutton expressly prohibited my mentioning his name +to any one in India." + +"Oh, very well. You haven't, have you? And you won't have to. I'll take +care of that, when I write and tell Labertouche you're coming." + +"What name?" + +"Labertouche. Why? You don't know him." + +"No; but Rutton did. Rutton got that poison from him." + +Quain whistled, his eyes round. "Did, eh? So much the better; he'll +probably know all about Rutton and'll take a keener interest." + +"But you forget--" + +"Hang your promise. I'm not bound by it and this is business--blacker +business than you seem to realise, Davy. You're bent on jumping +blindfold and with your hands tied into the seething pool of infamy and +intrigue that is India. And I won't stand for it. Don't think for an +instant that I'm going to let you go without doing everything I can to +make things as pleasant as possible for you.... No; Labertouche is your +man." + +And to this Quain held inflexibly; so that, in the end, Amber, unable +to move him, was obliged to leave the matter in his hands. + +A sullen and portentous dawn hung in the sky when the little party left +the cabin. In the east the entire firmament was ensanguined with +sinister crimson and barred with long reefs of purple-black clouds in +motionless suspense. Upon the earth the red glare fell ominously; the +eastern faces of the snow-clad dunes shone like rubies; westward the +shadows streamed long and dense and violet. The stillness was intense. + +A little awed, it may be, and certainly more than a little depressed, +they left the hollow by the beaten way, the Portuguese Antone leading +with a pick and spade, Amber and Quain following side by side, Doggott +with his valise bringing up the rear. Beyond the hollow the tracks +diverged toward the bay shore; and presently they came to the scene of +the tragedy. + +Between two sandhills the Bengali lay supine, a huddled heap of garish +colour--scarlet, yellow, tan--against the cold bluish-grey of snow. A +veil of unmelted flakes blurred his heavy, contorted features and his +small, black eyes--eyes as evil now, staring glassily up to the zenith, +as when quickened by his malign intelligence. About him were many +footprints, some recently made--presumably by his companion. The +latter, however, kept himself discreetly invisible. + +At a word from Quain the Portuguese paused and began to dig. Quain, +Amber, and Doggott went on a little distance, then, by mutual consent, +halted within sight of Antone. + +"I wouldn't leave him if I were you," Amber told Quain, nodding back at +the Portuguese. "It mightn't be safe, with that other devil skulking +round--Heaven knows where." + +"Right-O!" agreed Quain. His hand sought Amber's. "Good-bye, and God be +with you," he said huskily. + +Amber tightened his clasp upon the man's fingers. "I can't improve on +that, Tony," said he with a feeble smile. "Good-bye, and God be with +you." He dropped his hand and turned away. "Come along, Doggott." + +The servant led the way baywards. Behind them the angry morning blazed +brighter in the sky. + +In the sedge of the shore they found a rowboat and, launching it, +embarked for the power-boat, which swung at her mooring in deeper +water. When they were aboard the latter, Doggott took charge of the +motor, leaving to Amber the wheel, and with little delay they were in +motion. + +As their distance from the shore increased Amber glanced back. The +island rested low against the flaming sky, a shape of empurpled +shadows, scarcely more substantial to the vision than the rack of cloud +above. In the dark sedges the pools, here and there, caught the light +from above and shone blood-red. And suddenly the attention of the +Virginian was arrested by the discovery of a human figure--a man +standing upon a dune-top some distance inland, and staring steadfastly +after the boat. He seemed of extraordinary height and very thin; upon +his head there was a turban; his arms were folded. While Amber watched +he held his pose, a living menace--like some fantastic statue bulking +black against the grim red dawn. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MASKS AND FACES + + +Like many a wiser and a better man, Amber was able upon occasion to +change his mind without entertaining serious misgivings as to his +stability of purpose. Therefore, on second thought, he elected to +journey India-wards _via_ the Suez Canal rather than by the western +route. As he understood the situation, he had no time to waste; the +quicker way to his destination was the eastern way; and, viewed +soberly, the chance upon which he had speculated, that of overtaking +the girl's party somewhere _en route_, appeared a long one--a gambler's +risk, and far too risky if he did not exaggerate the urgency of his +errand. Rutton's instructions had, moreover, been explicit upon one +point: Amber was to enter India only by the port of Calcutta. In +deferring to this the Virginian lost several days waiting in London for +the fortnightly P. & O. boat for Calcutta: a delay which might have +been obviated by taking the overland route to Brindisi, connecting +there with the weekly P. & O. boat for Bombay, from which latter point +Calcutta could have been quickly reached by rail across the Indian +Peninsula. + +Now Quain's letter to Labertouche went by this quicker route and so +anticipated Amber's arrival at the capital of India by about a week; +during all of which time it languished unread. + +A nice young English boy in Mr. Labertouche's employ received and +stamped it with the date of delivery and put it away with the rest of +the incoming correspondence in a substantial-looking safe. After which +he returned to his desk in the ante-room and resumed his study of the +law; which he pursued comfortably enough with a cigarette in his mouth, +his chair tilted back, and his feet gently but firmly implanted upon +the fair printed pages of an open volume of Blackstone. His official +duties, otherwise, seemed to consist solely in imparting to all and +sundry the information that Mr. Labertouche was "somewhere up in the +Mofussil, hunting bugs--I don't know exactly where." + +This was, broadly speaking, perfectly true, within the limitations of +the youth's personal knowledge. He was a pleasant-mannered boy of +twenty or thereabouts, with an engaging air of candour which +successfully masked a close-mouthed reticence, even as his ostensibly +heedless, happy-go-lucky ways disguised a habit of extreme caution and +keen and particular observation: qualities which caused him to be +considered an invaluable office-assistant to a solicitor without any +clientele worth mentioning, and who chose to spend most of his time +somewhere up in the Mofussil hunting bugs. + +The Mofussil, by the way, is an extremely elastic term, standing as it +does in the vocabulary of the resident Calcutta-man, for the Empire of +India outside the seat of its Government. + +Precisely why Mr. Labertouche maintained his office was a matter for +casual conjecture to his wide circle of acquaintances; although it's +not unlikely that, were he the subject of discussion, the bulk of the +wonder expressed would be inspired by his unreasonable preference for +Calcutta as a place of residence. The Anglo-Indian imagination is +incapable of comprehending the frame of mind which holds existence in +Calcutta tolerable when one has the rest of India--including +Simla--open to one. And Labertouche was unmarried, unconnected with the +Government, and independent of his profession; certainly it would seem +that the slender stream of clients which trickled in and out of the +little offices on Dhurrumtollah Street, near the Maidan, could hardly +have provided him with a practice lucrative enough to be a +consideration. On the other hand it had to be admitted that the man +kept up his establishment in Calcutta rather than lived there; for he +was given to unexpected and extended absences from home, and was +frequently reported as having been seen poking sedulously over this +plain or through that jungle, with a butterfly net, a bottle of +chloroform, and an air of abstraction. In view of all of which he was +set down as an original and wholly irresponsible. The first of which he +was and the second of which he emphatically was not. + +Henry Charles Beresford Labertouche was, in person, a quiet and +unassuming body, with nothing particularly remarkable about him save +his preference for boot-heels nearly three inches high and a habit of +dying his hair--naturally greyish--a jet-black. Inasmuch as he was +quite brazen about these matters and would cheerfully discuss with +comparative strangers the contrasted merits of this hair-dye and that +and the obvious advantages of being five feet nine and one-half inches +in height instead of five feet seven, his idiosyncrasies were not held +against him. Otherwise he was a man strikingly inconspicuous; his eyes +were a very dark brown, which is nothing remarkable, and his features +were almost exasperatingly indefinite. You would have found him hard to +recall to memory, visually, aside from the boot-heels, which might +easily have been overlooked, and the black hair, which was, when all's +said, rather becoming than otherwise. Living with two native servants +in a modest bungalow somewhere between Chitpur and Barrackpur, he went +to and from his office, or didn't, at his whim, with entire lack of +ostentation. Soft-spoken and gifted with a distinct sense of the +humorous, he would converse agreeably and intelligently upon any +impersonal topic for hours at a time, when the spirit so moved him. As +an entomologist his attainments were said to be remarkable; he was +admittedly an interested student of ethnology; and he filled in his +spare time compounding unholy smells in a little laboratory connected +with his suburban home. This latter proceeding earned him the wholesome +fear and respect of the native population, who firmly believed him an +intimate of many devils. + +Such, at least, was the superficial man. + +Now upon the morning of the day that found the steamship _Poonah_ +nuzzling up the Hooghly's dirty yellow flood, Mr. Labertouche's clerk +arrived at the Dhurrumtollah Street office at the usual hour; which, in +the absence of his employer, was generally between eleven o'clock and +noon. Having assorted and disposed of the morning's mail, he donned his +office-coat, sat down, thumbed through Blackstone until he found two +perfectly clean pages, opened the volume at that place, tipped back his +chair, and with every indication of an untroubled conscience imposed +his feet upon the book and began the day's labours with a cigarette. + +The window at his right was open, affording an excellent view, from an +elevation of one storey, of the tide of traffic ebbing and flowing in +Dhurrumtollah Street. The clerk watched it sleepily, between +half-closed eyelids. Presently he became aware that an especially dirty +and travel-worn Attit mendicant had squatted down across the way, in +the full glare of sunlight, and was composing himself for one of those +apparently purposeless and interminable vigils peculiar to his +vocation. Beneath their drooping lashes the eyes of the clerk +brightened. But he did not move. Neither did the Attit mendicant. + +In the course of the next half-hour the clerk consumed two cigarettes +and entertained a visitor in the person of a dapper little Greek +curio-dealer from the Lal Bazaar, who left behind him an invitation to +Mr. Labertouche to call and inspect some scarabs in which he had +professed an interest. It was quite a fresh importation, averred the +Greek; the clerk was to be careful to remember that. + +When he had gone the clerk made a note of it. Then, glancing out the +window, he became aware that the Attit mendicant, for some reason +dissatisfied, was preparing to move on. Yawning, the clerk resumed his +street coat, and went out to lunch, carelessly leaving the door +unlocked, and the memorandum of the Greek's invitation exposed upon his +blotter. When he returned at three o'clock, the door of Mr. +Labertouche's private office was ajar and that gentleman was at his +desk. The memorandum was, however, gone. + +Mr. Labertouche was in the process of opening and reading a ten-days' +accumulation of correspondence, an occupation which he suspended +temporarily to call his clerk in and receive his report. This proved to +be a tolerably lengthy session, for the clerk, whose name appeared to +be Frank, demonstrated his command of a surprising memory. Without +notes he enumerated the callers at the office day by day from the time +when Labertouche had left for the Mofussil with his specimen-box and +the rest of his bug-hunting paraphernalia; naming those known to his +employer, minutely describing all others, even repeating their words +with almost phonographic fidelity. + +Labertouche listened intently, without interrupting, abstractedly +tapping his desk with a paper-cutter. At the end he said "Thank you," +with a dry, preoccupied air; and resumed consideration of his letters. +These seemed to interest him little; one after the other he gave to his +clerk, saying "File that," or "Answer that so-and-thusly." Two he set +aside for his personal disposition, and these he took up again after +the clerk had been dismissed. The first he read and reconsidered for a +long time; then crumpled it up and, drawing to him a small tray of +hammered brass, dropped the wadded paper upon it and touched a match to +it, thoughtfully poking the blazing sheets with his paper-cutter until +they were altogether reduced to ashes. + +Quain's was the second letter. Having merely glanced at the heading and +signature, Labertouche had reserved the rather formidable document--for +Quain had written fully--as probably of scant importance, to be dealt +with at his absolute leisure. But as he read his expression grew more +and more serious and perturbed. Finishing the last page he turned back +to the first and went over it a second time with much deliberation and +frequent pauses, apparently memorising portions of its contents. +Finally he said, "Hum-m!" inscrutably and rang for Frank. + +"He left New York by the _Lusitania_, eh?" said Mr. Labertouche aloud. +The clerk entering interrupted his soliloquy. "Bring me, please," he +said, "Bradshaw, the _News_--and the latest P. & O. schedule." And when +Frank had returned with these articles, he desired him to go at once +and enquire at Government House the whereabouts of Colonel Dominick +James Farrell, and further to search the hotels of Calcutta for a Miss +Farrell, or for information concerning her. "Have this for me +to-night--come to the bungalow at seven," he said. "And ... I shall +probably not be at the office again for several days." + +"Insects?" enquired the clerk. + +"Insects," affirmed Mr. Labertouche gravely. + +"In the Mofussil?" + +"There or thereabouts, Frank." + +"Yes, sir. I presume you don't feel the need of a capable assistant +yet?" + +"Not yet, Frank," said Labertouche kindly. "Be patient. Your time will +come; you're doing famously now." + +"Thank you." + +"Good-afternoon. Lock the door as you leave." + +Immediately that he found himself alone, Labertouche made of Quain's +letter a second burnt offering to prejudice upon the tray of hammered +brass. He was possessed of an incurable aversion to waste-paper baskets +and other receptacles from which the curious might fish out torn bits +of paper and, with patience, piece together and reconstruct documents +of whose import he preferred the world at large to remain unadvised. +Hence the tray of brass--a fixture among the furnishings of his desk. + +This matter attended to, he lost himself in Bradshaw and the Peninsular +& Oriental Steamship Company's list of sailings; from which he derived +enlightenment. "He was to come direct," mused Labertouche. "In that +case he'll have waited over in London for the _Poonah_." He turned to +the copy of the _Indian Daily News_ which lay at his elbow, somewhat +anxiously consulting its shipping news. Under the heading of "Due this +Day" he discovered the words: "_Poonah_, London--Calcutta--Straits +Settlements." And his face lengthened with concern. + +"That's short notice," he said. "Lucky I got back to-day--uncommon +lucky!... Still I may be mistaken." But the surmise failed to comfort +him. + +He drew a sheet of paper on which there was no letter-head to him and +began to write, composing deliberately and with great care. + +The building in which his offices were located stood upon a corner; at +either end of the long corridor on the upper floor, upon which the +various offices opened, were stairways, one descending to Dhurrumtollah +Street, the other to a side street little better than an alley. It may +be considered significant that, whereas Labertouche himself was not +seen either to enter or to leave the building at any time that day, an +Attit mendicant did enter from Dhurrumtollah Street shortly after Frank +had gone to lunch--and disappeared forthwith; while, in the dusk of +evening, a slim Eurasian boy with a clerkly air left by the stairs to +the alley. I say a boy, but he may have been thirty; he was carefully +attired in clothing of the mode affected by the Anglo-Indian, but wore +shoes that were almost heelless. His height may have been five-feet +seven inches, but he carried himself with a slight, studious rounding +of the shoulders that assorted well with the effect of his large +gold-rimmed spectacles. + +He stumbled out of the alley into Free School Street and set his face +to the Maidan, shuffling along slowly with a peering air, his +spectacles catching the light from the shop-windows and glaring +glassily through the shadows. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +FIRST STEPS + + +Forward on the promenade deck of the _Poonah,_ in the shadow of the +bridge, Amber stood with both elbows on the rail, dividing his somewhat +perturbed attention between a noisy lot of lascar stewards, deckhands, +and native third-class passengers in the bows below, and the long lines +of Saugor Island, just then slipping past on the starboard beam. + +On either hand, ahead, the low, livid green banks of the Hooghly were +closing in, imperceptibly constricting the narrow channel through which +the tawny tide swirled down to the sea at the full force of its ebb. +Struggling under this handicap, the _Poonah_ trembled from stem to +stern with the heavy labouring of the screw, straining forward like a +thoroughbred, its strength almost spent, with the end of the race in +sight. Across the white gleaming decks, as the bows swung from port to +starboard and back again, following the channel, purple-black shadows +slipped like oil. A languid land-wind blew fitfully down the estuary, +in warm puffs dense with sickly-sweet jungle reek. The day was hot and +sticky with humidity; a haze like a wall of dust coloured the skies +almost to the zenith. + +It was ten o'clock in the morning; Calcutta lay a hundred miles up the +river, approximately. By evenfall Amber expected to be in the city, +whether he stuck by the steamer until she docked in the port, or left +her at Diamond Harbour, sixty miles upstream, and finished his journey +by rail. At the present moment he hardly knew which to do; in the +ordinary course of events he would have gone ashore at Diamond Harbour, +thereby gaining an hour or two in the city. But within the last +eighteen hours events had been diverted from their normal course; and +Amber was deeply troubled with misgivings. + +Up to the day that the Poonah had sailed from Tilbury Dock, London, +from the time he had left Quain among the sand-dunes of Long Island, he +had not been conscious of any sort of espionage upon his movements. +That gaunt and threatening figure which he had seen silhouetted against +the angry dawn had not again appeared to disturb or trouble him. His +journey across the Atlantic had been uneventful; he had personally +investigated the saloon passenger lists, the second and third cabins +and the steerage of the _Lusitania,_ not forgetting the crew, only to +be reassured by the absence of anybody aboard who even remotely +suggested an Indian spy. But from the hour that the _Poonah_ with its +miscellaneous ship's company, white, yellow, brown, and black, had +warped out into the Thames, he had felt he was being watched--had +realised it instinctively, having nothing definite whereon to base his +feeling. He was neither timorous nor given to conjuring up shapes of +terror from the depths of a nervous imagination; the sensation of being +under the surveillance of unseen, prying eyes is unmistakable. Yet he +had tried to reason himself out of the belief--after taking all +sensible precautions, such as never letting the photograph of Sophia +Farrell out of his possession and keeping the Token next his skin, in a +chamois bag that nestled beneath his arm, swinging from a leather cord +round his neck. And as day blended into eventless day, he had lulled +himself into an uneasy indifference. What if he were watched? What +could it profit any one to know what he did or how he did it, day by +day? And with increasing infrequency he had come to question himself as +to the reason for the spying on his movements. + +Possibly the fruitlessness of any such speculation had much to do with +his gradual cessation of interest in the enigma. He was not credulous +of the power of divination popularly ascribed to the Oriental; he was +little inclined to believe that the nature of his errand to India had +been guessed, or that any native intelligence in India knew or +suspected the secret of Sophia Farrell's parentage--Rutton's solicitude +to the contrary notwithstanding. The theory that he most favoured in +explanation of the interest in him was that it had somehow become known +that he bore with him the emerald. It was quite conceivable that that +jewel, intrinsically invaluable, was badly wanted by its former +possessors, whether for the simple worth of it or because it played an +important part in the intrigue, or whatever it was, that had resulted +in Rutton's suicide. For his own part, Amber cared nothing for it; he +had christened it, mentally, the Evil Eye--with a smile to himself; +nonetheless he half-seriously suspected it of malign properties. He was +imaginative enough for that--or superstitious, if you prefer. + +He would, however, gladly have surrendered the jewel to those who +coveted it, in exchange for a promise of immunity from assassination, +had he known whom to approach with the offer and been free to make it. +But he must first show it to Dhola Baksh of the Machua Bazaar. After +that, when its usefulness had been discharged, he would be glad of the +chance to strike such a bargain.... + +Such, in short, had been his frame of mind up to eight o'clock of the +previous evening. At that hour he had made a discovery which had +diverted the entire trend of his thoughts. + +Doggott, ever a poor sailor, had been feeling ill and Amber had excused +him early in the afternoon. About six o'clock he had gone to his +stateroom and dressed for dinner, unattended. Absorbed in anticipations +of the morrow, when first he should set foot in Calcutta and take the +first step in pursuit of Sophia Farrell, he had absent-mindedly +neglected to empty the pockets of his discarded clothing. At seven he +had gone to dinner, leaving his stateroom door open, as was his +habit--a not unusual one with first-cabin passengers on long +voyages--and his flannels swinging from hooks in the wall. About eight, +discovering his oversight through the absence of his cigarette-case, he +had hurried back to the stateroom to discover that he had been +curiously robbed. + +His watch, his keys, his small change and his sovereign purse, his +silver cigarette-case--all the articles, in fact, that he was +accustomed to stuff into his pockets--with one exception, were where he +had left them. But the leather envelope containing the portrait of +Sophia Farrell was missing from the breast-pocket of his coat. + +From the hour in which he had obtained it he had never but this once +let it out of his personal possession. The envelope he had caused to be +constructed for its safe-keeping during his enforced inaction in +London. He had never once looked at it save in strict privacy, secure +even from the eyes of Doggott; and the latter did not know what the +leather case contained. + +Thus his preconceived and self-constructed theory as to the extent of +The Enemy's knowledge, was in an instant overthrown. "They" had seized +the very first relaxation of his vigilance to rob him of that which he +valued most. And in his heart he feared and believed that the incident +indicated "their" intimacy not alone with his secret but with that +which he shared with Colonel Farrell. + +Since then his every move toward regaining the photograph had been +fruitless. His stateroom steward, a sleek, soft Bengali boy who had +attended him all through the voyage with every indication of eagerness +to oblige him, professed entire ignorance of the theft. That was only +to be expected. But when Amber went to the purser and the latter +cross-examined the steward in his presence, the Bengali stuck to his +protestations of innocence without the tremor of an eyelash. In fact, +he established an alibi by the testimony of his fellow-stewards. +Further, when Amber publicly offered a reward of five guineas "and no +questions asked" and in private tempted the Bengali with much larger +amounts, he accomplished nothing. + +In the end, and in despair, Amber posted a notice on the ship's +bulletin-board, offering fifty guineas reward for the return of the +photograph to him either before landing or at the Great Eastern Hotel, +Calcutta, and having thereby established his reputation as a mild +lunatic, sat down to twirl his thumbs and await the outcome, +confidently anticipating there would be none. "They" had outwitted him +and not five hundred guineas would tempt "them," he believed. It +remained only to contrive a triumph in despite of this setback. + +But how to set about it? How might he plan against forces of whose very +nature he was ignorant--save that he guessed them to be evil? How could +he look ahead and scheme to circumvent the unguessable machinations of +the unknown?... His wits, like wild things in a cage, battered +themselves to exhaustion against the implacable bars of his +understanding. + +For the thousand-and-first time he reviewed the maddeningly scanty +store of facts at his command, turning them over and over in his mind, +vainly hopeful of inferring a clue. But, as always, he found his +thoughts circling a beaten track of conjecture.... What dread power had +hounded Rutton, forth from the haunts of his kind, from pillar to post +of the world (as he had said) to his death among the desolate dunes of +Long Island? What "staggering blow against the peace and security of +the world" could that or any power possibly strike, with Rutton for its +tool, once it had caught and bent him to its will? What fear had set +upon his lips a seal so awful that even in the shadow of death he had +not dared speak, though to speak were to save the one being to whom his +heart turned in the end? To save his daughter from what, had he +voluntarily renounced her, giving her into another's care, forswearing +his paternal title to her love, refusing himself even the cold comfort +of seeing her attain to the flower of her womanly beauty as another's +child? What--finally--was the ordeal of the Gateway of Swords, and what +could it be that made the Gateway of Death seem preferable to it? + +For the thousand-and-first time Amber abandoned his efforts to divine +the inscrutable, to overcome the insurmountable, to attain to the +inaccessible, but abandoned them grudgingly, grimly denying the +possibility of ultimate failure. Though he were never to know the dark +heart of the mystery, yet would he snatch from its pythonic coils the +woman he had sworn to save, the woman he loved! + +And while the black steamer with the buff super-structure toiled on, +cleaving its arduous way through the turbulent yellow flood between the +contracting shores of the Sunderbunds, while the offshore wind buffeted +Amber's cheeks with the hot panting breath of Bengal, his eyes, dimmed +with dreaming, saw only Her face. + +So often of late had he in solitude pondered her photograph, striving +to solve the puzzle of her heart that was to him a mystery as +unfathomable as that which threatened her, that he had merely to think +of her to bring her picture vividly before him. He could close his eyes +(he closed them now, shutting out the moving panorama of the river) and +see the girl that he had known in those few dear hours: the girl with +eyes as brown as sepia but illumined by traces of gold in the +irides--eyes that could smile and frown and be sweetly grave, all in +the time that a man needs to catch his breath; the girl with the +immaculate, silken skin, milk-white, with the rose-blush of young blood +beneath; with lips softly crimson as satin petals of a flower, that +could smile a man into slavery; the girl to contemplate whose adorably +modelled chin and firm, round, young neck would soften the austerity of +an anchorite; in whose hair was blended every deep shade of bronze and +gold.... + +Something clutched at his heart as with a hand of ice. He could never +forget, dared not remember what he could not believe yet dared not +deny. To him, reared as he had been, the barrier of mixed blood rose +between them, a thing surmountable only at the cost of caste; the +shadow of that horror lay upon his soul like ink--as black as the +silhouetted rails and masts and rigging of the _Poonah_ on her dead +white decks. He could win her heart only to lose his world. And still +he loved, still pursued his steadfast way toward her, knowing that, +were he to find her and his passion to be returned, death alone could +avert their union in marriage. He might not forget but ... he loved. +With him the high wind of Romance was a living gale, levelling every +obstacle between him and the desire of his heart. + +This is to be borne in mind: it was the man's first love. Theretofore +the habits of a thinker had set his feet in paths apart from those of +other men. Pretty women he had always admired--from a discreet +distance; that distance abridged, he had always found himself a little +afraid of and dismayed by them. They were the world's disturbing +element; they took men's lives in the rosy hollows of their palms and +moulded them as they would. While Amber had desired to mould his own +life. The theme of love that runs a golden thread through the drab +fabric of existence had to him been an illusion--a hallucination to +which others were subject, from which he was happily, if unaccountably, +exempt. But that had been yesterday; to-day.... + +In the afternoon the _Poonah_ touched at Diamond Harbour, landing the +majority of her passengers. Amber was among those few who remained +aboard. + +When the steamer swung off from the jetty and, now aided by a +favourable tide, resumed her progress up the river, he replaced his +notice on the bulletin-board with one offering a hundred guineas for +the return of the photograph before they docked in the port of +Calcutta; the offer of fifty guineas for its return to the Great +Eastern Hotel remained unaltered. + +His anticipations were not disappointed; positively nothing came of it. +All afternoon the _Poonah_ plodded steadily on toward the pall of smoke +that hemmed the northern horizon. The reedy river banks narrowed and +receded, gorgeous with colour, unvaryingly monotonous, revealing +nothing. Behind walls of rank foliage, dense green curtains almost +impenetrable even to light, the flat and spongy delta of the Ganges lay +decorously screened. If now and again the hangings parted they +disclosed nothing more than a brief vista of half-stagnant water or a +little clearing, half-overgrown, with the crumbling red brick walls of +some roofless and abandoned dwelling. + +In the lavender and gold and scarlet of a windless sunset, Calcutta +lifted suddenly up before them, a fairy city, mystic and unreal with +its spires and domes and minarets a-glare with hot colour behind a +hedge of etched black masts and funnels--all dimmed and made indefinite +by a heavy dun haze of smoke: lifted up in glory against the evening +sky and was blotted out as if by magic by the swooping night; then +lived again in a myriad lights pin-pricked upon the dense +bluish-blackness. + +The _Poonah_ slipped in to her dock under cover of darkness. Amber, +disembarking with Doggott, climbed into an open ghari on the landing +stage and was driven swiftly to his hotel. + +As he alighted and, leaving Doggott to settle with the ghariwallah, +crossed the sidewalk to the hotel entrance, a beggar slipped through +the throng of wayfarers, whining at his elbow: + +"Give, O give, Protector of the Poor!" + +Preoccupied, Amber hardly heard, and passed on; but the native stuck +leech-like to his side. + +"Give, hazoor--and the mercy of God shall be upon the Heaven-born for +ten-thousand years!" + +Now "Heaven-born" is flattery properly reserved for those who sit in +high places. Amber turned and eyed the man curiously, at the same time +dropping into the filthy, importunate palm a few annas. + +"May the shadow of the Heaven-born be long upon the land, when he shall +have passed through the Gateway of Swords!" + +And like a flash the man was gone--dodging nimbly round the ghari and +across Old Court House Street, losing himself almost instantly in the +press of early evening traffic. + +"The devil!" said Amber thoughtfully. "Why should it be assumed that I +have any shadow of an intention of entering that damnable Gateway of +Swords?" + +An incident at the desk, while he was arranging for his room, further +mystified him. He had given his name to the clerk, who looked up, +smiling. + +"Mr. David Amber?" he said. + +"Why, yes--" + +"We were expecting you, sir. You came by the _Poonah_?" + +"Yes, but--" + +"There's a note for you." The man turned to a rack, sorting out a small +square envelope from others pigeon-holed under "A." + +Could it be possible that Sophia Farrell had been advised of his +coming? Amber's hand trembled slightly with eagerness and excitement as +he took the missive. + +"An Eurasian boy left it for you half an hour ago," said the clerk. + +"Thank you," returned Amber, controlling himself sufficiently to wait +until he should be conducted to his room before opening the note. + +It was not, he observed later, superscribed in a feminine hand. Could +it be from Quain's friend Labertouche? Who else?... Amber lifted his +shoulders resignedly. "I wish Quain had minded his own business," he +said ungratefully; "I can take care of myself. This Labertouche'll +probably make life a misery for me." + +There was a quality in the note, however, to make him forget his +resentment of Quain's well-meant interference. + +"My dear Sir," it began formally: "Quain's letter did not reach me +until this afternoon; a circumstance which I regret. Otherwise I should +be better prepared to assist you. I have, on the other hand, set afoot +enquiries which may shortly result in some interesting information +bearing upon the matters which engage you. I expect to have news of the +Fs. to-night, and shall be glad to communicate it to you at once. I am +presuming that you purpose losing no time in attending to the affair of +the goldsmith, but I take the liberty of advising you that to attempt +to find him without proper guidance or preparation would be an +undertaking hazardous in the extreme. May I offer you my services? If +you decide to accept them, be good enough to come before ten to-night +to the sailors' lodging house known as 'Honest George's,' back of the +Lal Bazaar, and ask for Honest George himself, refraining from +mentioning my name. Dress yourself in your oldest and shabbiest +clothing; you cannot overdo this, since the neighbourhood is +questionable and a well-dressed man would immediately become an object +of suspicion. Do not wear the ring; keep it about you, out of sight. +Should this fail to reach you in time, try to-morrow night between +eight and ten. You would serve us both well by _burning_ this +immediately. Pray believe me yours to command in all respects." + +There was no signature. + +Amber frowned and whistled over this. "Undoubtedly from Labertouche," +he considered. "But why this flavour of intrigue? Does he know anything +more than I do? I presume he must. It'd be a great comfort if.... Hold +on. 'News of the Fs.' That spells the Farrells. How in blazes does he +know anything about the Farrells? I told Quain nothing.... Can it be a +trap? Is it possible that the chap who took that photograph +recognised...?" + +The problem held him in perplexity throughout the evening meal. He +turned it over this way and that without being able to arrive at any +comforting solution. Impulse in the end decided him--impulse and a +glance at his watch which told him that the time grew short. "I'll go," +he declared, "no matter what. It's nearly nine, but the Lal Bazaar's +not far." + +In the face of Doggott's unbending disapproval he left the hotel some +twenty minutes later, having levied on Doggott's wardrobe for suitable +clothing. Dressed in an old suit of soft grey serge, somewhat too large +for him, and wearing a grey felt hat with the brim pulled down over his +eyes, he felt that he was not easily to be identified with his +every-day self--the David Amber whose exacting yet conservative +"correctness" had become a by-word with his friends. + +Once away from the Great Eastern he quietly insinuated himself into the +tide of the city's night life that tirelessly ebbs and flows north of +Dalhousie Square--the restless currents of native life that move +ceaselessly in obedience to impulses so meaningless and strange to the +Occidental understanding. Before he realised it he had left +civilisation behind him and was breathing the atmosphere, heady and +weird, of the Thousand-and-One Nights. The Lal Bazaar seethed round him +noisily, with a roaring not unlike that of a surf in the hearing of him +who had so long lived separate from such scenes. But gradually the +strangeness of it passed away and he began to feel at home. And ere +long he passed in a single stride from the glare of many lights and the +tumult of a hundred tongues to the dark and the quiet hush of an alley +that wormed a sinuous way through the hinterland of the bazaar. Here +the air hung close and still and gravid with the odour of the East, +half stench, half perfume, wholly individual and indescribable; here +black shadows clung jealously to black and slimy walls, while lighter +ones but vaguely suggestive of robed figures glided silently hither and +yon; and odd noises, whispers, sobs, sounds of laughter and of rage, +assailed the ear and excited the imagination.... + +At a corner where there was more light he came upon a policeman whose +tunic, helmet, and truncheon were so closely patterned after those of +the London Bobby that the simple sight of them was calculated to revive +confidence in the security of one's person. He inspected Amber shrewdly +while the latter was asking his way to Honest George's, and in response +jerked a white-gloved thumb down the wide thoroughfare. + +"You carn't miss it, sir--s'ylors' boardin'-'ouse, all lit up and +likely with a row on at the bar. Mind your eye, guv'nor. It ayn't a +plyce you'd ought to visit on your lone." + +"Thanks; I've business there. I reckon to take care of myself." + +Nevertheless it was with a mind preyed upon by forebodings that Amber +stumbled down the cobbled way, reeking with filth, toward the +establishment of Honest George. Why on earth should Labertouche make an +appointment in so unholy a spot? Amber's doubts revived and he became +more than half persuaded that this must be a snare devised by those +acute intelligences which had instigated both the theft of the +photograph and that snarled mock-benediction of the mendicant. + +"I don't like it," he admitted ruefully; "it's so canny." + +He stopped in front of a building whose squat brick facade was lettered +with the reassuring sobriquet of its proprietor. A bench, running the +width of the structure, was thick with sprawling loafers, who smoked +and spat and spoke a jargon of the seas, the chief part of which was +blasphemy. Within, visible through windows never closed, was a crowded +barroom ablaze with flaring gas-jets, uproarious with voices thick with +drink. + +One needed courage of no common order to run the gauntlet of that rowdy +room and brave the more secret dangers of the infamous den. "You've got +to have your nerve with you," Amber put it. "But I suppose it's all in +the game. Let's chance it." And he entered. + +Compared with the atmosphere of that public-room a blast from Hell were +sweet and cooling, thought Amber; the first whiff he had of it all but +staggered him; and he found himself gasping, perspiration starting from +every pore. Faint with disgust he elbowed his way through the mob to +the bar, thankful that those about him, absorbed in the engrossing +occupation of getting drunk, paid him not the least heed. Flattening +himself against the rail he cast about for the proprietor. A blowsy, +sweating barmaid caught his eye and without a word slapped down upon +the sloppy counter before him a glass four fingers deep with +unspeakable whiskey. And he realised that he would have to drink it; to +refuse would be to attract attention, perhaps with unpleasant +consequences. "It's more than I bargained for," he grumbled, making a +pretence of swallowing the dose, and to his huge relief managing to +spill two-thirds of it down the front of his coat. What he swallowed +bit like an acid. Tears came to his eyes, but he choked down the cough, +and as soon as he could speak paid the girl. "Where's the boss?" he +asked. + +"Who?" Her glance was penetrating. "Oh, he's wytin' for you." She +nodded, lifting a shrill voice. "Garge, O Garge! 'Ere's that Yankee." +With a bare red elbow she indicated the further end of the room. +"You'll find 'im down there," she said, her look not unkindly. + +Amber thanked her quietly and, extricating himself from the press round +the bar, made his way in the direction indicated. A couple of billiard +tables with a small mob of onlookers hindered him, but by main strength +and diplomacy he wormed his way past and reached the rear of the room. +There were fewer loafers here and he had little hesitation about +selecting from an attendant circle of sycophants the genius of the +dive--Honest George himself, a fat and burly ruffian who filled to +overflowing the inadequate accommodation of an armchair. Sitting thus +enthroned in his shirt-sleeves, his greasy and unshaven red face +irradiating a sort of low good-humour that was belied by the cold +cunning of his little eyes, he fulfilled admirably the requirements of +the role he played self-cast. + +"'Ere, you!" he hailed Amber brusquely. "You're a 'ell of a job-'unter, +ain't you? Mister Abercrombie's been wytin' for you this hour gone. +'Know the w'y upstairs?" + +His tone was boisterous enough to fix upon Amber the attention of the +knot of loafers round the arm-chair. Amber felt himself under the +particular regard of a dozen pair of eyes, felt that his measure was +taken and his identification complete. Displeased, he answered curtly: +"No." + +"This w'y, then." Honest George hoisted himself ponderously out of his +arm-chair and lumbered heavily across the room, shouldering the crowd +aside with a high-handed contempt for the pack of them. Jerking open a +small door in the side wall, he beckoned Amber on with a backward nod +of his heavy head. "Be a bit lively, carn't you?" he growled; and +Amber, in despite of qualms of distrust, followed the fellow into a +small and noisome hallway lighted by a single gas-jet. On the one hand +a flight of rickety steps ran up into repellent obscurity; on the other +a low door stood open to the night. + +The crimp lowered his voice. "Your friend's this w'y." He waved his fat +red hand toward the door. "Them fools back there 'll think you're +tryin' for a berth with Abercrombie, the ship-master. I 'opes you'll +not tyke offense at the w'y I 'ad to rag you back there, sir." + +"No," said Amber, and Honest George led the way out into a small, +flagged well between towering black walls and left him at the threshold +of a second doorway. "Two flights up, the door at the top," he said; +"knock twice and then twice." And without waiting for an answer he +lurched heavily back to his own establishment. + +Amber watched his broad back fill the dimly-lighted doorway opposite +and disappear, of two minds whether or not to turn tail and run. +Suspicious enough in the beginning, the affair had now an exceeding +evil smell--as repulsive figuratively as was the actual effluvium of +the premises. He hung hesitant in doubt, with a heart oppressed by +those grim and silent walls of blackness that loomed above him. With +feet slipping on slimy flags he might be pardoned for harbouring +suspicions of some fouler treachery. The yawning mouth of the narrow +doorway, with the blackness of Erebus within, was deterring at its +best; in such a hole a man might be snared and slain and his screams, +though they rang to high Heaven, would fall meaningless on mundane +ears. Honest George's with its flare of lights and its crowd had been +questionable enough.... + +With a shrug, at length, he took his courage in his hands--and his +life, too, for all he knew to the contrary--and moved on into the +blackness, groping his way cautiously down a short corridor, his +fingers on either side brushing walls of rotten plaster. He had +absolutely nothing to guide him beyond the crimp's terse instructions. +Underfoot the flooring seemed to sag ominously; it creaked hideously. +Abruptly he stumbled against an obstruction, halted, and lighted a +match. + +The insignificant flame showed him a flight of stairs, leading up to +darkness. With a drumming heart he began to ascend, counting twenty-one +steps ere his feet failed to find another. Then groping again, one hand +encountered a baluster-rail; with this for guide he turned and followed +it until it began to slant upwards. This time he counted sixteen steps +before his eyes, rising above the level of the upper floor, discovered +to him a thin line of light, bright along the threshold of a door. He +began to breathe more freely, yet apprehension kept him strung up to a +high tension of nerves. + +He knuckled the door loudly--one double knock followed by another. + +From within a voice called cheerfully, in English: "Come in." + +He fumbled for the knob, found and turned it, and entered a small, +low-ceiled chamber, very cosy with lamplight, and simply furnished with +a single chair, a charpoy, a water-jug, a large mirror, and beneath the +latter a dressing-table littered with a collection of toilet gear, +cosmetics and bottles, which would have done credit to an actress. + +There was but a single person in the room and he occupied the chair +before the dressing-table. As Amber came in, he rose; a middle-aged +babu in a suit of pink satin, very dirty. In one hand something caught +the light, glittering. + +"Oah, Mister Amber, I believe?" he gurgled, oily and affable. "Believe +me most charmed to make acquaintance." And he laughed agreeably. + +But Amber's face had darkened. With an oath he sprang back, threw his +weight against the door, and with his left hand shot the bolt, while +his right whipped from his pocket Rutton's automatic pistol. + +"Drop that gun, you monkey!" he cried sharply. "I was afraid of this, +but I think you and I'll have an accounting before any one else gets in +here." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +PINK SATIN + + +Shaking with rage, Amber stood for a long moment with pistol poised and +eyes wary; then, bewildered, he slowly lowered the weapon. "Well," he +observed reflectively, "I'm damned." For the glittering thing he had +mistaken for a revolver lay at his feet; and it was nothing more nor +less than a shoehorn. While as for the babu, he had dropped back into +the chair and given way to a rude but reassuring paroxysm of gusty, +silent laughter. + +"I'm a fool," said Amber; "and if I'm not mistaken you're Labertouche." + +With a struggle the babu overcame his emotion. "I am, my dear fellow, I +am," he gasped. "And I owe you an apology. Upon my word, I'd forgotten; +one grows so accustomed to living the parts in these masquerades, after +a time, that one forgets. Forgive me." He offered a hand which Amber +grasped warmly in his unutterable relief. "I'm really delighted to meet +you," continued Labertouche seriously. "Any man who knows India can't +help being glad to meet the author of 'The Peoples of the Hindu Kush.'" + +"You did frighten me," Amber confessed, smiling. "I didn't know what to +expect--or suspect. Certainly,"--with a glance round the incongruously +furnished room--"I never looked forward to anything like this--or you, +in that get-up." + +"You wouldn't, you know," Labertouche admitted gravely. "I might have +warned you in my note; but that was a risky thing, at best. I feared to +go into detail--it might have fallen into the wrong hands." + +"Whose?" demanded Amber. + +"That, my dear man, is what we're here to find out--if we can. But sit +down; we shall have to have quite a bit of talk." He scraped a heap of +gaily-coloured native garments off one end of the charpoy and motioned +Amber to the chair. At the same time he fished a cigar-case out of some +recess in his clothing. "These are good," he remarked, opening the case +and offering it to Amber; "I daren't smoke anything half so good when +at work. The native tobacco is abominable, you know--_quite_ +three-fourths filth." + +"At work?" questioned Amber, clipping the end of his cigar and lighting +it. "You don't mean to say you travel round in those clothes?" + +"But I do. It's business with me--though few people know it. Quain +didn't; only I had a chance, one day, to tell him some rather startling +facts about native life. This sort of thing, done properly, gives a man +insight into a lot of unusual things." + +Labertouche puffed his cigar into a glow and leaned back, clasping one +knee with two brown hands and squinting up at the low, discoloured +ceiling. And Amber, looking him over, was amazed by the absolute +fidelity of his make-up; the brownish stain on face and hands, the +high-cut patent-leather boots, the open-work socks through which his +tinted calves showed grossly, his shapeless, baggy, soiled +garments--all were hopelessly babu-ish. + +"And if it isn't done properly?" + +"Oh, then----!" Labertouche laughed, lifting his shoulders +expressively. "No Englishman incapable of living up to a disguise has +ever tried it more than once in India; few, very few, have lived to +tell of the experiment." + +"You're connected with the police?" Amber's brows contracted as he +remembered Rutton's emphatic prohibition. + +But Quain had not failed to mention that. "Officially, no," said +Labertouche readily. "Now and again, of course, I run across a bit of +valuable information; and then, somehow, indirectly, the police get +wind of it. But this going _fantee_ in an amateur way is simply my +hobby; I've been at it for years--and very successfully, too. Of +course, it'll have its end. One's bound to slip up eventually. You can +train yourself to live the life of the native, but you can't train your +mind to think as he thinks. That's how the missteps happen. Some +day...." He sighed, not in the least unhappily.... "Some day I'll dodge +into this hole, or another that I know of, put on somebody else's +rags--say, these I'm wearing--and inconspicuously become a mysterious +disappearance. That's how it is with all of us who go in for this sort +of thing. But it's like opium, you know; you try it the first time for +the lark of it; the end is tragedy." + +Amber drew a long breath, his eyes glistening with wonder and +admiration of the man. "You don't mean to tell me you run such risks +for the pure love of it?" + +"Well ... perhaps not altogether. But we needn't go into details, need +we?" Labertouche's smile robbed the rebuke of its sting. "The opium +simile is a very good one, though I say it who shouldn't. One acquires +a taste for the forbidden, and one hires a little room like this from +an unprincipled blackguard like Honest George, and insensibly one goes +deeper and deeper until one gets beyond one's depth. That is all. It +explains me sufficiently. And," he chuckled, "you'd never have known it +if your case hadn't been exceptional." + +"It is, I think." Amber's expression became anxious. "I want to know +what you think of it--now Quain's told you. And, I say, what did you +mean by 'news of the Fs.'?" + +"News of the Farrells--father and daughter, of course." Labertouche's +eyes twinkled. + +"But how in the name of all that's strange--!" + +"Did I connect the affair Rutton with the Farrells? At first by simple +inference. You were charged with a secret errand, demanding the utmost +haste, by Rutton; your first thought was to travel by the longer +route--which, as it happens, Miss Farrell had started upon a little +while before. You had recently met her, and I've heard she's rather a +striking young woman. You see?" + +"Yes," admitted Amber sheepishly. "But--" + +"And then I remembered something," interrupted Labertouche. "I recalled +Rutton. I knew him years ago, when he was a young man.... You know the +yarn about him?" + +"A little--mighty little. I know now that he was a Rajput--though he +never told me that; I know that he married a Russian noblewoman"--Amber +hesitated imperceptibly--"that she died soon after, that he chose to +live out of India and to die rather than return to it." + +"He was," said Labertouche, "a singular man, an exotic result of the +unnatural conditions we English have brought about in India. The word +renegade describes him aptly, I think: he was born and bred a Brahmin, +a Rajput, of the hottest and bluest blood in Rajputana; he died to all +intents and purposes a European--with an English heart. He is--was--by +rights Maharana of Khandawar. As the young Maharaj he was sent to +England to be educated. I'm told his record at Oxford was a brilliant +one. He became a convert to Christianity--that was predestined--was +admitted to the Church of England, a communicant. When his father died +and he was summoned to take his place, Rutton at first refused. +Pressure was brought to bear upon him by the English Government and he +returned, was enthroned, and for a little time ruled Khandawar. It was +then that I knew him. He was continually dissatisfied, however, and +after a year or two disappeared. It was rumoured that he'd struck a +bargain with his prime-minister, one Salig Singh. At all events Salig +Singh contrived to usurp the throne, Government offering no objection. +Rutton turned up eventually in Russia and married a woman there who +died in childbirth--twenty years ago, perhaps. The child did not +survive its mother...." Labertouche paused deliberately, his glance +searching Amber's face. "So the report ran, at least," he concluded +quietly. + +"How do you know all this?" Amber countered evasively. + +"Government watches its wards very tenderly," said Labertouche with a +grin. "Besides, India's a great place for gossip.... And then," he +pursued tenaciously, "I remembered something else. I recalled that +Rutton had one very close friend, an Englishman named Farrell--" + +"Oh, what's the use?" Amber cut in nervously. "You understand the +situation too well. It's no good my trying to keep anything from you." + +"Such as the fact that Colonel Farrell adopted Rutton's daughter, who, +as it happens, did survive her mother? Yes; I knew that--or, rather, +part I knew and part I guessed. But don't worry, Mr. Amber; I'll keep +the secret." + +"For the girl's sake," said Amber, twisting his hands together. + +"For her sake. I pledge you my word." + +"Thank you." + +"And now ... for what purpose did Rutton ask you to come to India? +Wasn't it to get Miss Farrell out of the country?" + +"I think you're the devil himself," said Amber. + +"I'm not," confessed Labertouche; "but I am a member of the Indian +Secret Service--not officially connected with the police, observe!--and +I know a deal that you don't. I think, in short, I can place my finger +on the reason why Rutton was so concerned to get his daughter out of +the country." + +Amber looked his question. + +"You read the papers, don't you, in America?" + +"Rather." Amber smiled. + +"You've surely not been so blind as to miss the occasional reports that +leak out about native unrest in India?" + +"Surely you don't mean----" + +"I assuredly do mean that the Second Mutiny impends," declared +Labertouche solemnly. "Such, at least, is my belief, and such is the +belief of every thinking man in India who is at all informed. The +entire country is undermined with conspiracy and sedition; day after +day a vast, silent, underground movement goes on, fomenting rebellion +against the English rule. The worst of it is, there's no stopping it, +no way of scotching the serpent; its heads are myriad, seemingly. And +yet--I don't know--since yesterday I have hoped that through you we +might eventually strike to the heart of the movement." + +"Through me!" cried Amber, startled. + +Labertouche nodded. "Just so. The information you have already brought +us is invaluable. Have you thought of the significance of Chatterji's +'Message of the Bell'?" + +"'_Even now,_'" Amber quoted mechanically, "'_The Gateway of Swords +yawns wide, that he who is without fear may pass within; to the end +that the Body be purged of the Scarlet Evil._'" He shook his head +mystified. "No; I don't understand." + +"It's so simple," urged Labertouche; "all but the Gateway of Swords. I +don't place that--yet.... But the 'Body'--plainly that is India; the +'Scarlet Evil'--could anything more fittingly describe English rule +from the native point of view?" + +Amber felt of his head solicitously. "And yet," he averred plaintively, +"it doesn't _feel_ like wood." + +Labertouche laughed gently. "Now to-night you will learn something from +this Dhola Baksh--something important, undoubtedly. May I see this +ring--this Token?" + +Unbuttoning his shirt, Amber produced the Eye from the chamois bag. +Labertouche studied it for a long time in silence, returning it with an +air of deep perturbation. + +"The thing is strange to me," he said. "For the present we may dismiss +it as simply what it pretends to be--a token, a sign by which one man +shall know another.... Wear it but turn the stone in; and keep your +hands in your pockets when we're outside." + +Amber obeyed. "We'll be going, now?" + +"Yes." Labertouche rose, throwing away his cigar and stamping out its +fire. + +"But the Farrells?" + +"Forgive me; I had forgotten. The Farrells are at Darjeeling, where the +Colonel is stationed just now--happily for him." + +"Then," said Amber, with decision, "I leave for Darjeeling to-morrow +morning." + +"I know no reason why you shouldn't," agreed Labertouche. "If anything +turns up I'll contrive to let you know." He looked Amber up and down +with a glance that took in every detail. "I'm sorry," he observed, "you +couldn't have managed to look a trace shabbier. Still, with a touch +here and there, you'll do excellently well as a sailor on a spree." + +"As bad as that?" + +"Oah, my dear fallow!"--it was now the babu speaking, while he hopped +around Amber with his head critically to one side, like an inquisitive +jackdaw, now and again darting forward to peck at him with hands that +nervously but deftly arranged details of his attire to please a taste +fastidious and exacting in such matters--"Oah, my dear fallow, surely +you appreciate danger of venturing into nateeve quarters in European +dress? As regular-out-and-out sahib, I am meaning, of course. It is +permeesible for riff-raff, sailors and Tommies from the Fort, and soa +on, to indulge in debauchery among nateeves, but first-class +sahib--Oah, noah! You would be mobbed in no-time-at-all, where we are +going." + +"All right; I guess I can play the part, babu. At least, I've plenty of +atmosphere," Amber laughed, mentioning the incident of the peg he had +not consumed over Honest George's bar. + +"I had noticed that; a happy accident, indeed. I think"--Labertouche +stepped back to look Amber over again--"I think you will almost do. One +moment." + +He seized Amber's hat and, dashing it violently to the floor, +deliberately stamped it out of shape; when restored to its owner it had +aged five years in less than half as many minutes. Amber laughed, +putting it on. "Surely you couldn't ask me to look more disreputable," +he said with a dubious survey of himself in the mirror. + +His collar had been confiscated with his tie; his coat collar was +partially turned up in the back; what was visible of his shirt was +indecently dirty. His polished shoes had been deprived of their +pristine lustre by means of a damp rag, vigorously applied, and then +rubbed with dust. An artistic stain had been added to one of his +sleeves by the simple device of smudging it with the blacking from his +shoes. As for his hat, with the brim pulled down in front, it was +nothing more nor less than shocking. + +"You'll do," chuckled Labertouche approvingly. "Just ram your hands +into your trouser pockets without unbuttoning your coat, and shuffle +along as if nocturnal rambles in the slums of Calcutta were an everyday +thing to you. If you're spoken to, don't betray too much familiarity +with the vernacular. You know about the limit of the average Tommy's +vocabulary; don't go beyond it." He unbolted and locked the door by +which Amber had entered, putting the key in his pocket, and turned to a +second door across the room. "We'll leave this way; I chose this place +because it's a regular rabbit warren, with half a dozen entrances and +exits. I'll leave you in a passage leading to the bazaar. Wait in the +doorway until you see me stroll past; give me thirty yards lead and +follow. Keep in the middle of the way, avoid a crowd as the plague, and +don't lose sight of me. I'll stop in front of Dohla Baksh's shop long +enough to light a cheroot and go on without looking back. When you come +out I'll be waiting for you. If we lose one another, get back to your +hotel as quickly as possible. I may send you word. If I don't, I shall +understand you've taken the first morning train to Darjeeling. I think +that's all." + +As Amber left the room Labertouche extinguished the lamp, shut and +locked the door, and followed, catching Amber by the arm and guiding +him through pitch darkness to the head of the stairs. "Don't talk," he +whispered; "trust me." They descended an interminable flight of steps, +passed down a long, echoing corridor, and again descended. From the +foot of the second flight Labertouche shunted Amber round through what +seemed a veritable maze of passages--in which, however, he was +evidently quite at home. At length, "_Now go ahead!_" was breathed at +Amber's ear and at the same time his arm was released. + +He obeyed blindly, stumbling down a reeking corridor, and in a minute +more, to his unutterable relief, was in the open air of the bazaar. + +Blinking with the abrupt transition from absolute night to garish +light, he skulked in the shadow of the doorway, waiting. Beneath his +gaze Calcutta paraded its congress of peoples--a comprehensive +collection of specimens of every tribe in Hindustan and of nearly every +other race in the world besides: red-bearded Delhi Pathans, towering +Sikhs, lean sinewy Rajputs with bound jaws, swart agile Bhils, Tommies +in their scarlet tunics, Japanese and Chinese in their distinctive +dress, short and sturdy Gurkhas, yellow Saddhus, Jats stalking proudly, +brawling knots of sailormen from the Port, sleek Mahrattas, polluted +Sansis, Punjabis, Bengalis, priests, beggars, dancing girls; a blaze of +colour ever shifting, a Babel of tongues never stilled, a seething scum +on a witch's brew of humanity.... + +Like a fat, tawdry moth in his garments of soiled pink, a babu loitered +past, with never a sidelong glance for the loaferish figure in the +shadowed doorway; and the latter seemed himself absorbed in the family +of Eurasians who were shrilly squabbling with the keeper of a +vegetable-stall adjacent. But presently he wearied of their noise, +yawned, thrust both hands deep in his pockets, and stumbled away. The +bazaar accepted him as a brother, unquestioning, and he picked his way +through it with an ease that argued nothing but absolute familiarity +with his surroundings. But always you may be sure, he had the gleam of +pink satin in the corner of his eye. + +Before long Pink Satin diverged into the Chitpur Road, with Amber a +discreet shadow. So far the latter had been treading known ground, but +a little later, when Pink Satin dived abruptly into a darksome alleyway +to the right, drawing Amber after him as a child drags a toy on a +string, the Virginian lost his bearings utterly and was thereafter +helplessly dependent upon the flutter of Pink Satin, and unworried only +so long as he could see him, in a fidget of anxiety whenever the +labyrinth shut Labertouche from his sight for a moment or two. + +It was quiet enough away from the main thoroughfare, but with a +sinister quiet. Tall dwellings marched shoulder to shoulder along the +ways, shuttered, dark, grim, with an effect of conspirators, their +heads together in lawless conference. The streets were intolerably +narrow, the paving a farce; pools of stagnant water stood in the +depressions, piles of refuse banked the walls. The fetid air hung +motionless but sibilant with stealthy footsteps and whisperings.... +Preferable to this seemed even the infinitely more dangerous and +odorous Coolootollah purlieus into which they presently passed--nesting +place though it were for the city's most evil and desperate classes. + +In time broad Machua Bazaar Street received them--Pink Satin and the +sailorman out for a night of it. And now Pink Satin began to stroll +more sedately, manifesting a livelier interest in the sights of the +wayside. Amber's impatience--for he guessed that they neared the +goldsmith's stall--increased prodigiously; the shops, the stalls, the +thatched dance-halls in which arose the hideous music of the nautch, +had no lure for him, though they illustrated all that was most evil and +most depraved in the second city of the Empire. He was only eager to +have done with this unsavoury adventure, to know again the clean walls +of his room in the Great Eastern, to taste again the purer air of the +Maidan. + +Without warning Pink Satin pulled up, extracted from the recesses of +his costume a long, black and vindictive-looking native cigar, and +lighted it, thoughtfully exhaling the smoke through his nose while he +stared covetously at the display of a slipper-merchant whose stand was +over across from the stall of a goldsmith. + +With true Oriental deliberation Pink Satin finally made up his mind to +move on; and Amber lurched heavily into the premises occupied by one +Dhola Baksh, a goldsmith. + +A customer, a slim, handsome Malayan youth, for the moment held the +attention of the proprietor. The two were haggling with characteristic +enjoyment over a transaction which seemed to involve less than twenty +rupees. Amber waited, knowing that patience must be his portion until +the bargain should be struck. Dhola Baksh himself, a lean, +sharp-featured Mahratta grey with age, appraised with a single look the +new customer, and returned his interest to the Malay. But Amber +garnered from that glance a sensation of recognition. He wondered +dimly, why; could the goldsmith have been warned of his coming? + +Two or three more putative customers idled into the shop. Beyond its +threshold the stream of native life rolled on, ceaselessly fluent; a +pageant of the Middle Ages had been no more fantastic and unreal to +Western eyes. Now and again a wayfarer paused, his interest attracted +by the goldsmith's rush of business. + +Unexpectedly the proprietor made a substantial concession. Money passed +upon the instant, sealing the bargain. The Malay rose to go. Dhola +Baksh lifted a stony stare to Amber. + +"Your, pleasure, sahib?" he enquired with a thinly-veiled sneer. What +need to show deference to a down-at-the-heel sailor from the Port? + +"I want money--I want to borrow," said Amber promptly. + +"On your word, sahib?" + +"On security." + +"What manner of security can you offer?" + +"A ring--an emerald ring." + +Dhola Baksh shrugged. His eyes shifted from Amber to the encircling +faces of the bystanders. "I am a poor man," he whined. "How should I +have money to lend? Come to me on the morrow; then mayhap I may have a +few rupees. To-night I have neither cash nor time." + +The hint was lost upon Amber. "A stone of price----" he persisted. + +With a disturbed and apprehensive look, the money-lender rose. "Come, +then," he grumbled, "if you must----" + +A voice cried out behind Amber--"_Heh_!"----more a squeal than a cry. +Intuitively, as at a signal of danger, he leaped aside. Simultaneously +something like a beam of light sped past his head. The goldsmith +uttered one dreadful, choking scream, and went to his knees. For as +many as three seconds he swayed back and forth, his features terribly +contorted, his thin old hands plucking feebly at the handle of a +broadbladed dagger which had transfixed his throat. Then he tumbled +forward on his face, kicking. + +There followed a single instant of suspense and horror, then a mad rush +of feet as the street stampeded into the shop. Voices clamoured to the +skies. Somehow the lights went out. + +Amber started to fight his way out. As he struggled on, making little +headway through the press, a hand grasped his arm and drew him another +way. + +"Make haste, hazoor!" cried the owner of the hand, in Hindustani. "Make +haste, lest they seek to fasten this crime upon your head." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +MAHARANA OF KHANDAWAR + + +Both hand and voice might well have been Labertouche's; Amber believed +they were. And the darkness rendered visual identification impossible. +No shadow of doubt troubled him as he yielded to the urgent hand, and +permitted himself to be dragged, more than led, through the reeking, +milling mob, whose numbers seemed each instant augmented. He had +thought, dully, to find it a difficult matter to worm through and +escape, but somehow his guide seemed to have little trouble. Others, +likewise, evidently wished to get out of sight before the arrival of +the police, and in the wake of a little knot of these Amber felt +himself drawn along until, within less than two minutes, they were on +the outskirts of the crowd. + +He drew a long breath of relief. Ever since that knife had flown +whining past his cheek, his instinct of self-preservation had been +dominated by a serene confidence that Pink Satin was at hand to steer +him in safety away from the brawl. For his own part he was troubled by +a feeling of helplessness and dependence unusual with him, who was of a +self-reliant habit, accustomed to shift for himself whatever the +emergency. But this was something vastly different from the run of +experiences that had theretofore fallen to his lot. In. the foulest +stews of a vast city, with no least notion of how to win his way back +to the security of the Chowringhee quarter; in the heart of a howling +native rabble stimulated to a pitch of frenzy by the only things that +ever seem really to rouse the Oriental from his apathy--the scent and +sight of human blood; and with a sense of terror chilling him as he +realised the truth at which his guide had hinted--that the actual +assassin would not hesitate an instant to cry the murder upon the head +of one of the Sahib-logue: Amber felt as little confidence in his +ability to work out his salvation as though he had been a child. He +thanked his stars for Labertouche--for the hand that clasped his arm +and the voice that spoke guardedly in his ear. + +And then, by the light of the street, he discovered that his gratitude +had been premature and misplaced. His guide had fallen a pace behind +and was shouldering him along with almost frantic energy; but a glance +aside showed Amber, in Labertouche's stead, a chunky little Gurkha in +the fatigue uniform of his regiment of the British Army in India. Pink +Satin was nowhere in sight and it was immediately apparent that an +attempt to find him among the teeming hundreds before the goldsmith's +stall would be as futile as foolish--if not fatal. Yet Amber's impulse +was to wait, and he faltered--something which seemed to exasperate the +Gurkha, who fairly danced with excitement and impatience. + +"Hasten, hazoor!" he cried. "Is this a time to loiter? Hasten ere they +charge you with this spilling of blood. The gods lend wings to our feet +this night!" + +"But who are you?" demanded Amber. + +"What matter is that? Is it not enough that I am here and well disposed +toward you, that I risk my skin to save yours?" He cannoned suddenly +against Amber, shunting him unceremoniously out of the bazaar road and +into a narrow black alley. + +Simultaneously Amber heard a cry go up, shrill above the clamour of the +mob, screaming that a white sailor had knifed the goldsmith. And he +turned pale beneath his tan. + +"You hear, hazoor? They are naming you to the police-wallahs. Come!" + +"You're right." Amber fell into a long, free stride that threatened +quickly to distance the Gurka's short, sturdy legs. "Yet why do you +take this trouble for me?" + +"Why ask?" panted the Gurkha. "Did I not stand behind you and see that +you did not throw the knife? Am I a dog to stand by and see an innocent +man yoked to a crime?" He laughed shortly. "Am I a fool to forget how +great is the generosity of Kings? This way, hazoor!" + +"Why call me King?" Amber hurdled a heap of offal and picked up his +pace again. "Yet you will find me generous, though but a sahib." + +"The sahibs are very generous." Again the Gurkha laughed briefly and +unpleasantly. "But this is no time for words. Save your breath, for now +we must run." + +He broke into a springy lope, with his chin up, elbows in and chest +distended, his quick small feet slopping regardlessly through the +viscous mud of the unpaved byway. "Hear that!" he cried, as a series of +short, sharp yells rose in the bazaar behind them. "The dogs have found +the scent!" And for a time terror winged their flight. Eastern mobs are +hard to handle; if overtaken the chances were anything-you-please to +one that the fugitives would be torn to pieces as by wild animals ere +the police could interfere. + +They struck through stranger and more awful quarters than Amber had +believed could be tolerated, even in India. For if there were a better +way of escape they had no time to pause and choose it. From the racket +in their rear the pursuit was hot upon their trail, and with every +stride, well-nigh, they were passing those who would mark them down +and, when the rabble came up, cry it on with explicit directions. + +And so Amber found himself pounding along at the heels of his Gurkha, +threading acres of flimsy huts huddled together in meaningless +confusion--frail boxes of bamboo, mud, and wattles thrown roughly +together upon corrupt, naked earth that reeked of the drainage of +uncounted generations. Whence they passed through long, brilliant, +silent streets lined with open hovels wherein Vice and Crime bred +cheek-by-jowl, the haunts of Shame, painted and unabashed, sickening in +the very crudity of its nakedness.... There is no bottom to the Pit +wherein the native sinks.... And on, panting, with labouring chests and +aching limbs, into the abandoned desolation of the Chinese quarter, and +back through the still, deadly ways which Amber had threaded in the +footsteps of Pink Satin--where the houses towered high and were +ornamented with dingy, crumbling stucco and rusty, empty, treacherous +balconies of iron, and the air hung in stagnation as if the very winds +here halted to eavesdrop upon the iniquities that were housed behind +the jealous, rotting blinds of wood and iron. + +By now the voice of the chase had subsided to a dull and distant +muttering far behind them, and the way was clear. Beyond its age-old, +ineradicable atmosphere of secret infamy there was nothing threatening +in the aspect of the neighbourhood. And the Gurkha pulled up, breathing +like a wind-broken horse. + +"Easily, hazoor!" he gasped. "There is time for rest." + +Willingly Amber dropped into a wavering stride, so nearly exhausted +that his legs shook under him and he reeled drunkenly; and, fighting +for breath, they stumbled on, side by side, in the shadow of the +overhanging walls, until as they neared a corner the Gurkha stopped and +halted Amber with an imperative gesture. + +"The police, sahib, the police!" he breathed, with an expressive sweep +of his hand toward the cross street. "Let us wait here till they pass." +And in evident panic he crowded Amber into the deep and gloomy recess +afforded by a door overhung by a balcony. + +Taken off his guard, but with growing doubt, Amber was on the point of +remonstrating. Why should the police concern themselves with peaceful +wayfarers? They could not yet have heard of the crime in the Bazaar, +miles distant. But as he opened his lips he heard the latch click +behind him, and before he could lift a finger, the Gurkha had flung +himself bodily upon him, fairly lifting the American across the +threshold. + +They went down together, the Gurkha on top. And the door crashed to +with a rattle of bolts, leaving Amber on his back, in total darkness, +betrayed, lost, and alone with his enemies.... + +Now take a man--a white man--an American by preference--such an one as +David Amber--who has led an active if thoughtful life and lived much +out of doors, roughing it cheerfully in out-of-the-way corners of the +world, and who has been careful to maintain his physical condition at +something above par; bedevil him with a series of mysterious +circumstances for a couple of months, send him on a long journey, +entangle him in a passably hopeless love affair, work his expectations +up to a high pitch of impatience, exasperate him with disappointment, +and finally cause him to be tripped up by treachery and thrust into a +pitch-black room in an unknown house in one of the vilest quarters of +Calcutta: treat him in such a manner and what may you expect of him? +Not discretion, at least. + +Amber went temporarily mad with rage. He was no stranger to fear--no +man with an imagination is; but for the time being he was utterly +foolhardy. He forgot his exhaustion, forgot the hopelessness of his +plight, forgot everything save his insatiable thirst for vengeance. He +was, in our homely idiom, fighting-mad. + +One instant overpowered by and supine beneath the Gurkha, the next he +had flung the man off and bounded to his feet. There was the automatic +pistol in his coat-pocket, but he, conscious that many hands were +reaching out in the darkness to drag him down again, found no time to +draw it. He seemed to feel the presence of the nearest antagonist, whom +he could by no means see; for he struck out with both bare, clenched +fists, one after the other, with his weight behind each, and both blows +landed. The sounds of their impact rang like pistol-shots, and beneath +his knuckles he felt naked flesh crack and give. Something fell away +from him with a grunt like a poled ox. And then, in an instant, before +he could recover his poise, even before he knew that the turned-in +stone of the emerald ring had bitten deep into his palm, he was the +axis of a vortex of humanity. And he fought like a devil unchained. +Those who had thrown themselves upon him, clutching desperately at his +arms and legs and hanging upon his body, seemed to be thrown off like +chips from a lathe--for a time. In two short minutes he performed +prodigies of valour; his arms wrought like piston-rods, his fists flew +like flails; and such was the press round him that he struck no blow +that failed to find a mark. The room rang with the sounds of the +struggle, the shuffle, thud, and scrape of feet both booted and bare, +the hoarse, harsh breathing of the combatants, their groans, their +whispers, their low tense cries.... + +And abruptly it was over. He was borne down by sheer weight of numbers. +Though he fought with the insanity of despair they were too many for +him. He went a second time to the floor, beneath a dozen half-nude +bodies. Below him lay another, with an arm encircling his throat, the +elbow beneath his chin compressing his windpipe. Powerless to move hand +or foot, he gave up ... and wondered dully why it was that a knife had +not yet slipped between his ribs--between the fifth and sixth--or in +his back, beneath the left shoulder-blade, and why his gullet remained +unslit. + +Gradually it was forced upon him that his captors meant him no bodily +harm, for the present at least. His wrath subsided and gave place to +curiosity while he rested, regaining his wind, and the natives squirmed +away from him, leaving one man kneeling upon his chest and four others +each pinioning a limb. + +There followed a wait, while some several persons indulged in a +whispered confabulation at a distance from him too great for their +words to be articulate. Then came a croaking laugh out of the darkness +and words intended for his ear. + +"By Malang Shah! but my lord doth fight like a Rajput!" + +Amber caught his breath and exploded. "Half a chance, you damned thugs, +and I'd show you how an American can fight!" + +But he had spoken in English, and his hearers gathered the import of +his words only from his tone, apparently. He who had addressed him +laughed applausively. + +"It was a gallant fight," he commented, "but like all good things hath +had its end. My lord is overcome. Is my lord still minded for battle or +for peace? Dare I, his servant, give orders for his release, or----" + +Here Amber interrupted; stung by the bitter irony, he told the speaker +in fluent idiomatic Hindustani precisely what he might expect if his +"lord" ever got the shadow of a chance to lay hands upon him. + +The grim cackling laugh followed his words, a mocking echo, and was his +only answer. But for all his defiance, he presently heard orders issued +to take him up and bear him to another chamber. Promptly the man on his +chest moved away, and his fellows lifted and carried Amber, gently and +with puzzling consideration, some considerable distance through what he +surmised to be an underground corridor. He suffered this passively, +realising his impotence, and somewhat comforted if perplexed by the +tenderness accorded him in return for his savage fight for freedom. + +Unexpectedly he was let down upon the floor and released. Bare feet +scurried away in the darkness and a door closed with a resounding bang. +He was alone, for all he could say to the contrary--alone and unharmed. +He was more: he was astonished; he had not been disarmed. He got up and +felt of himself, marvelling that his pocket still sagged with the +weight of the pistol as much as at the circumstance that, aside from +the inevitable damage to his clothing--a coat-sleeve ripped from the +arm-hole, several buttons missing, suspenders broken--he had come out +of the melee unhurt, not even bruised, save for the hand that had been +cut by the emerald. He wrapped a handkerchief about this wound, and +took the pistol out, deriving a great deal of comfort from the way it +balanced, its roughened grip nestling snugly in his palm. + +He fairly itched to use the thing, but lacking an excuse, had time to +take more rational counsel of himself. It were certainly unwise to +presume upon the patience of his captors; though he had battered some +of them pretty brutally and himself escaped reprisals, the part of +wisdom would seem to be to save his ammunition. + +With this running through his mind, the room was suddenly revealed to +his eyes, that had so long strained fruitlessly to see. A flood of +lamplight leaped through some opening behind him and showed him his +shadow, long and gigantic upon a floor of earth and a wall of stone. He +wheeled about, alert as a cat; and the sight of his pistol hung steady +between the eyes of one who stood at ease, with folded arms, in an open +doorway. Over his shoulder was visible the bare brown poll of an +attendant whose lank brown arm held aloft the lamp. + +One does not shoot down in cold blood a man who makes no aggressive +move, and he who stood in the doorway endured impassively the mute +threat of the pistol. Above its sight his eyes met Amber's with a level +and unwavering glance, shining out of a dark, set face cast in a mould +of insolence and pride. A bushy black beard was parted at his chin and +brushed stiffly back. Between his thin hard lips, parted in a shadowy +smile, his teeth gleamed white. Standing a head taller than Amber and +very gracefully erect in clothing of a semi-military cut and of regal +magnificence, every inch of his pose bespoke power, position, and the +habit of authority. His head was bound with a turban of spotless white +from whose clasp, a single splendid emerald, a jewelled aigret nodded; +the bosom of his dark-green tunic blazed with orders and decorations; +at his side swung a sabre with richly jewelled hilt. Heavy white +gauntlets hid his hands, top-boots of patent leather his legs and feet. + +At once impressed and irritated by his attitude, Amber lowered his +weapon. "Well?" he demanded querulously. "What do you want? What's your +part in this infamous outrage?" + +On the other's face the faint smile became more definite. He nodded +nonchalantly at Amber's pistol. "My lord intends to shoot?" he enquired +in English, his tone courteous and suave. + +"That's as may be," retorted Amber defiantly. "I'm going to have +satisfaction for this outrage if I die getting it. You may count on +that, first and last." + +The man lifted his eyebrows and his shoulders in deprecation; then +turned to his attendant. "Put down the light and leave us," he said +curtly in Hindustani. + +Bowing obsequiously, the servant entered and departed, leaving the lamp +upon a wooden shelf braced against one side of the four-square, +stone-walled dungeon. As he went out he closed the door, and Amber +noted that it was a heavy sheet of iron or steel, very substantial. His +face darkened. + +"I presume you know what that means," he said, with a significant jerk +of his head toward the door. "It'll never be shut on me alone. We'll +leave together, you and I, if we both go out feet first." He lifted the +pistol and took the measure of the man, not in any spirit of bravado +but with absolute sincerity. "I trust I make my meaning plain?" + +"Most clear, hazoor." The other showed his teeth in an appreciative +smile. "And yet"--with an expressive outward movement of both +hands--"what is the need of all this?" + +"What!" Amber choked with resentment. "What was the need of setting +your thugs upon me--of kidnapping me?" + +"That, my lord, was an error of judgment on the part of one who shall +pay for it full measure. I trust you were not rudely treated." + +"I'd like to know what in blazes you call it," snapped Amber. "I'm +dogged by your spies--Heaven knows why!--lured to this place, butted +bodily into the arms of a gang of ruffians to be manhandled, and +finally locked up in a dark cell. I don't suppose you've got the nerve +to call that courteous treatment." + +He had an advantage, and knowing it, was pushing it to the limit; for +all his nonchalance the black man was not unconscious of the pistol; +his eye never forgot it. And Amber's eyes left his not an instant. +Despite that the fellow's next move was a distinct surprise. + +Suddenly and with superb grace, he stepped forward and dropped to one +knee at Amber's feet, bowing his head and offering the hilt of his +sword to the American. + +"My lord," he said swiftly in Hindustani, "if I have misjudged thee, if +I have earned thy displeasure, upon my head be it. See, I give my life +into thy hands; but a little quiver of thy forefinger and I am as +dust.... An ill report of thee was brought to me, and I did err in +crediting it. It is true that I set this trap for thee; but see, my +lord! though I did so, it was with no evil intent. I thought but to +make sure of thee and bid thee welcome, as a faithful steward should, +to thy motherland.... Maha Rao Rana, Har Dyal Rutton Bahadur, +Heaven-born, King of Kings, Chosen of the Voice, Cherished of the Eye, +Beloved of the Heart, bone of the bone and flesh of the flesh of the +Body, Guardian of the Gateway of Swords!... I, thy servant, Salig +Singh, bid thee welcome to Bharuta!" + +Sonorous and not unpleasing, his voice trembled with intense and +unquestionable earnestness; and when it ceased he remained motionless +in his attitude of humility. Amber, hardly able to credit his hearing, +stared down at the man stupidly, his head awhirl with curiously +commingled sensations of amazement and enlightenment. Presently he +laughed shortly. + +"Get up," he said; "get up and stand over there by the wall and don't +be a silly ass." + +"Hazoor!" There was reproach in Salig Singh's accents; but he obeyed, +rising and retreating to the further wall, there to hold himself at +attention. + +"Now see here," began Amber, designedly continuing his half of the +conversation in English--far too much misunderstanding had already been +brought about by his too-ready familiarity with Urdu. He paused a +little to collect his thoughts, then resumed: "Now see here, you're +Salig Singh, Maharana of Khandawar?" This much he recalled from his +conversation with Labertouche a couple of hours gone. + +"Hazoor, why dost thou need ask? Thou dost know." The Rajput, on his +part, steadfastly refused to return to English. + +"But you are, aren't you?" + +"By thy favour, it is even so." + +"And you think I'm Rutton--Har Dyal Rutton, as you call him, the former +Maharana who abdicated in your favour?" + +The Rajput shrugged expressively, an angry light in his dark, bold +eyes. "It pleases my lord to jest," he complained; "but am I a child, +to be played with?" + +"I'm not joking, Salig Singh, and this business is no joke at all. What +I'm trying to drive into your head is the fact that you've made the +mistake of your life. I'm not Rutton and I'm nothing like Rutton; I am +an American citizen and----" + +"Pardon, hazoor, but is this worth thy while? I am no child; what I +know I know. If thou art indeed not Har Dyal Rutton, how is it that +thou dost wear upon thy finger the signet of thy house"--Salig Singh +indicated the emerald which Amber had forgotten--"the Token sent thee +by the Bell? If thou are not my lord the rightful Maharana of +Khandawar, how is it that thou hast answered the summons of the Bell? +Are the servants of the Body fools who have followed the hither, losing +trace of thee no single instant since thou didst slay the Bengali who +bore the Token to thee? Am I blind--I, Salig Singh, thy childhood's +playmate, the Grand Vizier of thy too-brief rule, to whom thou didst +surrender the reins of government of Khandawar? I know thee; thou canst +not deceive me. True it is that thou art changed--sadly changed, my +lord; and the years have not worn upon thee as they might--I had +thought to find thee an older man and, by thy grace, a wiser. But even +as I am Salig Singh, thou art none other than my lord, Har Dyal +Rutton." + +Salig Singh put his shoulders against the wall and, leaning so with +arms folded, regarded Amber with a triumph not unmixed with contempt. +It was plain that he considered his argument final, his case complete, +the verdict his. While Amber found no words with which to combat his +false impression, and could only stare, open-mouthed and fascinated. +But at length he recollected himself and called his wits together. + +"That's all very pretty," he admitted fairly, "but it won't hold water. +I don't suppose these faithful servants of the Bell you mentioned +happened to tell you that Chatterji himself mistook me for Rutton, to +begin with, and just found out his mistake in time to recover the +Token. Did they?" + +The man shook his head wearily. "Nothing to that import hath come to +mine ears," he said. + +"All right. And of course they didn't tell you that Rutton committed +suicide down there on Long Island, just after he had killed the babu?" + +Again Salig Singh replied by a negative movement of his head. + +"Well, all I've got to say is that your infernal 'Body' employs a giddy +lot of incompetents to run its errands." + +Salig Singh said nothing, and Amber pondered the situation briefly. He +understood now how the babu's companion had fallen into error: how +Chatterji, possessing sufficient intelligence to recognise his initial +mistake, had, having rectified it, saved his face by saying nothing to +his companion of the incident; and how the latter had remained in +ignorance of Rutton's death after the slaying of Chatterji, and had +pardonably mistaken Amber for the man he had been sent to spy upon. The +prologue was plain enough, but how to deal with this its sequel was a +problem that taxed his ingenuity. A single solution seemed practicable, +of the many he debated: to get in touch with Labertouche and leave the +rest to him. + +He stood for so long in meditation that the Rajput began to show traces +of impatience. He moved restlessly, yawned, and at length spoke. + +"Is not my lord content? Can he not see, the dice are cast? What profit +can he think to win through furtherance of this farce?" + +"Well," curiosity prompted Amber to ask, "what do you want of me, +then?" + +"Is there need to ask? Through the Mouthpiece, the Bengali, Behari Lai +Chatterji, whom thou didst slay, the message of the Bell was brought to +thee. Thou hast been called; it is for thee to answer." + +"Called----?" + +"To the Gateway of Swords, hazoor." + +"Oh, yes; to be sure. But where in thunderation is it?" + +"That my lord doth know." + +"You think so? Well, have it your own way. But suppose I decline the +invitation?" + +Salig Singh looked bored. "Since thou hast come so far," he said, "thou +wilt go farther, hazoor." + +"Meaning--by force?" + +"Of thine own will. Those whom the Voice calleth are not led to the +Gateway by their noses." + +"But," Amber persisted, "suppose they won't go?" + +"Then, hazoor, doth the Council of the Hand sit in judgment upon them." + +The significance was savagely obvious, but Amber merely laughed. "And +the Hand strikes, I presume?" Salig Singh nodded. "Bless your heart, +I'm not afraid of your 'Hand'! But am I to understand that compulsion +is not to be used in order to get me to the Gateway--wherever that is? +I mean, I'm free to exercise my judgment, whether or not I shall +go--free to leave this place and return to my hotel?" + +Gravely the Rajput inclined his head. "Even so," he assented. "I caused +thee to be brought hither solely to make certain what thou hast out of +thine own mouth confirmed--the report that thou hadst become altogether +traitor to the Bell. So be it. There remains but the warning that for +four days more, and four days only, the Gateway remains open to those +summoned. On the fifth it closes." + +"And to those who remain in the outer darkness on that fifth day, Salig +Singh----?" + +"God is merciful," said the Rajput piously. + +"Very well. If that is all, I think I will now leave you, Salig Singh," +said Amber, fondling his pistol meaningly. + +"One word more," Salig Singh interposed, very much alive to Amber's +attitude: "I were unfaithful to the trust thou didst once repose in me +were I not to warn thee that whither thou goest, the Mind will know; +what thou dost, the Eye will see; the words thou shalt utter, the Ear +will hear. To all things there is an end, also--even to the patience of +the Body. Shabash!" + +"Thank you 'most to death, Salig Singh. Now will you be good enough to +order a ghari to take me back to the Great Eastern?" + +"My lord's will is his servant's." Salig Singh started for the door the +least trace too eagerly. + +"One moment," said Amber sharply. "Not so fast, my friend." He tapped +his palm with the barrel of the pistol to add weight to his peremptory +manner. "I think if you will lift your voice and call, some one will +answer. I've taken a great fancy to you, if you don't know it, and I +don't purpose letting you out of my sight until I'm safely out of this +house." + +With a sullen air the Rajput yielded. From his expression Amber would +have wagered much that there was a bad quarter of an hour in store for +those who had neglected to disarm him when the opportunity was theirs. + +"As you will," conceded Salig Singh; and he clapped his hands smartly, +crying: "Ohe, Moto!" + +Almost instantly the iron door swung open and the lamp-bearer appeared, +salaaming. + +"Tell him," ordered Amber, "to bring me a cloak of some sort--not too +conspicuous. I've no fancy to kick up a scandal at the hotel by +returning with these duds visible. You can charge it up to profit and +loss; if it hadn't been for the tender treatment your assassins gave +me, I'd be less disreputable." + +A faint smile flickered in Salig Singh's eyes--a look that was not +wholly devoid of admiration for the man who had turned the tables on +him with such ease. "Indeed," he said, "I were lacking in courtesy did +I refuse thee that." And turning to the servant he issued instructions +in accordance with Amber's demands, adding gratuitously an order that +the way of exit should be kept clear. + +As the man bowed and withdrew Amber grinned cheerfully. "It wasn't a +bad afterthought, Salig Singh," he observed; "precautions like that +relieve the mind wonderfully sometimes." + +But the humour of the situation seemed to be lost upon the Rajput. + +In the brief wait that followed Amber shifted his position to one +wherefrom he could command both the doorway and Salig Singh; his +solicitude, however, was without apparent warrant; nothing happened to +justify him of his vigilance. Without undue delay the servant returned +with a light cloak and the announcement that the ghari was in waiting. + +His offer to help the American don the garment was graciously declined. +"I've a fancy to have my arms free for the present," Amber explained; +"I can get it on by myself in the ghari." He took the cloak over his +left arm. "I'm ready; lead on!" he said, and with a graceful wave of +the pistol bowed Salig Singh out of the cellar. + +Moto leading with the light, they proceeded in silence down a musty but +deserted passage, Amber bringing up the rear with his heart in his +mouth and his finger nervous upon the trigger. After a little the +passage turned and discovered a door open to the street. Beyond this a +ghari could be seen. + +Amber civilly insisted that both the servant and his master leave the +house before him, but, once outside, he made a wary detour and got +between them and the waiting conveyance. Then, "It's kind of you, Salig +Singh," he said; "I'm properly grateful. I'll say this for you: you +play the game fairly when anybody calls your attention to the rules. +Good-night to you--and, I say, be kind enough to shut the door as you +go in. I'll just wait until you do." + +The Rajput found no answer; conceivably, his chagrin was intense. With +a curt nod he turned and reentered the house, Moto following. The door +closed and Amber jumped briskly into the ghari. + +"Home, James," he told the ghariwallah, in great conceit with himself. +"I mean, the Great Eastern Hotel--and _juldee jao_!" + +The driver wrapped a whiplash round the corrugated flanks of his horse +and the ghari turned the corner with gratifying speed. In half a minute +they were in the Chitpur Road. In fifteen they drew up before the +hotel. + +It was after midnight and the city had begun to quiet down, but Old +Court House Street was still populous with carriages and pedestrians, +black and tan and white. There was a Viceregal function of some sort +towards in the Government House, and broughams and victorias, coaches, +hansoms, and coupes, with lamps alight and liveried coachmen--turn-outs +groomed to the last degree of smartness--crowded the thoroughfare to +the peril and discomfort of the casual ghari. The scene was +unbelievably brilliant. Amber felt like rubbing his eyes. Here were +sidewalks, pavements, throbbing electric arcs, Englishmen in evening +dress, fair Englishwomen in dainty gowns and pretty wraps, the hum of +English voices, the very smell of civilisation. And back there, just +across the border he had so recently crossed, still reigned the +midnight of the Orient, glamorous with the glamour of the Arabian +Nights, dreadful with its dumb menace, its atmosphere of plot and +counterplot, mutiny, treason, intrigue, and death. Here, a little +island of life and light and gay, heedless laughter; there, all round +it, pressing close, silence and impenetrable darkness, like some dark +sea of death lapping its shores.... + +In a cold sweat of horror Amber got out of the vehicle and paid his +fare. As he turned he discovered an uniformed policeman stalking to and +fro before the hotel, symbol of the sane power that ruled the land. +Amber was torn by an impulse to throw himself upon the man and shriek +aloud his tale of terror--to turn and scream warning in the ears of +those who lived so lightly on the lip of Hell.... + +A Bengali drifted listlessly past, a bored and blase babu in a suit of +pink satin, wandering home and interested in nothing save his own bland +self and the native cigarette that drooped languidly from his lips. He +passed within a foot of Amber, and from somewhere a voice spoke--the +Virginian could have taken an oath that the babu's lips did not +move--in a clear yet discreet whisper. + +"To-morrow," it said; "Darjeeling." + +Amber hitched his cloak round him and entered the hotel. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE TONGA + + +"Badshah Junction, Mr. Amber ... Badshah Junction ... We'll be there in +'alf an hour ..." + +Inexorably the voice droned on, repeating the admonition over and over. + +Mutinous, Amber stirred and grumbled in his sleep; stirred and, +grumbling, wakened to another day. Doggott stood over him, doggedly +insistent. + +"Not much time to dress, sir; we're due in less than 'alf an hour." + +"Oh, _all_ right." Drowsy, stiff and sore in bone and muscle, Amber sat +up on the edge of the leather-padded bunk and stared out of the window, +wondering. With thundering flanges the train fled from east to west +across a landscape that still slept wrapped in purple shadows. Far in +the north the higher peaks of a long, low range of treeless hills were +burning with a pale, cold light. A few stars glimmered in the cloudless +vault--glimmered wan, doomed to sudden, swift extinction. Beside the +railroad a procession of telegraph poles marched with dipping loops of +wire between. There was nothing else to see. None the less the young +man, now fully alive to the business of the day, said "Thank God!" in +all sincerity. + +"Even a tonga will be a relief after three days of this, Doggott," he +observed, surrendering himself to the ministrations of the servant. + +It was the third morning succeeding that on which he had risen from his +bed in the Great Eastern Hotel in Calcutta, possessed by a wild anxiety +to find his way with the least possible delay to Darjeeling and Sophia +Farrell--a journey which he was destined never to make. For while he +breakfasted a telegram had been brought to him. + +"_Your train for Benares_," he read, "_leaves Howrah at nine-thirty. +Imperative_." It was signed: "_Pink Satin_." + +He acted upon it without thought of disobedience; he was in the hands +of Labertouche, and Labertouche knew best. Between the lines he read +that the Englishman considered it unwise to attempt further +communication in Calcutta. Something had happened to eliminate the trip +to Darjeeling. Labertouche would undoubtedly contrive to meet and +enlighten him, either on the way or in Benares itself. + +In the long, tiresome, eventless journey that followed his faith was +sorely tried; nor was it justified until the train paused some time +after midnight at Mogul Serai. There, before Amber and Doggott could +alight to change for Benares, their compartment was invaded by an +unmistakable loafer, very drunk. Tall and burly; with red-rimmed eyes +in a pasty pockmarked face, dirty and rusty with a week-old growth of +beard; clothed with sublime contempt for the mode and exalted beyond +reason with liquor--a typical loafer of the Indian railways--he flung +the door open and himself into Amber's arms, almost knocking the latter +down; and resented the accident at the top of his lungs. + +"You miserable, misbegotten blighter of a wall-eyed American----" At +this point he became unprintably profane, and Doggott fell upon him +with the laudable intention of throwing him out. In the struggle Amber +caught his eye, and it was bright with meaning. "Pink Satin!" he +hissed. "He's gone ahead.... You're to keep on to Agra.... Change for +Badshah Junction, Rajputana Route.... Then tonga to Kuttarpur.... +Farrell's there and his daughter.... That's right, my man, throw me +out!..." + +His downfall was spectacular. In his enthusiasm for the part he played, +he had erred to the extent of delivering a blow in Doggott's face more +forcible, probably, than he had intended it to be. Promptly he landed +sprawling on the station platform and, in the sight of a multitude of +natives, but the moment gone by his shrieks roused from their sleep in +orderly ranks upon the floor, was gathered into the arms of the +stationmaster and had the seriousness of his mistake pointed out to him +forthwith and without regard to the sensitiveness of human anatomy. + +And the train continued on its appointed way, bearing both Amber and +the injured Doggott. + +Thus they had come to the heart of Rajputana. + +In the chill of dawn they were deposited at Badshah Junction. A scanty +length of rude platform received them and their two small travelling +bags. + +On their left the Haiderabad express roared away, following the night, +its course upon the parallel ribbons of shining steel marked by a +towering pillar of dust. On their right, beyond the sharp-cut edge of +the world, the sun had kindled a mighty conflagration in the skies. On +every hand, behind and before them, the desert lay in ebbing shadows, a +rolling waste seared by arid nullahs--the bone-dry beds of +long-forgotten streams. Off in the north the hills cropped up and stole +purposelessly away over the horizon. + +They stood, then, forlorn in a howling desolation. For signs of life +they had the station, a flimsy shelter roofed with corrugated iron, a +beaten track that wandered off northwards and disappeared over a +grassless swell, a handful of mud huts at a distance, and the +ticket-agent. The latter a sleepy, surly Eurasian in pyjamas, surveyed +them listlessly from the threshold of the station, and without a sign +either of interest or contempt turned and locked himself in. + +Amber sat down on his upturned suit-case and laughed and lit a +cigarette. Doggott growled. The noise of the train died to silence in +the distance, and a hyena came out of nowhere, exhibited himself upon +the ridge of a dry desert swell, and mocked them sardonically. Then he, +like the ticket-agent, went away, leaving an oppressive silence. + +Presently the sun rose in glory and sent its burning level rays to cast +a shadow several rods long of an enraged American beating frantically +with clenched fists upon the door of an unresponsive railway station. + +He hammered until he was a-weary, then deputised his task to Doggott, +who resourcefully found him a stone of size and proceeded to make dents +in the door. This method elicited the Eurasian. He came out, listened +attentively to abuse and languidly to their demands for a tonga to bear +them to Kuttarpur, and observed that the mail tonga left once a day--at +three in the afternoon. Doggott caught him as he was on the point of +returning to his interrupted repose and called his attention to the +unwisdom of his ways. + +Apparently convinced, this ticket-agent announced his intention of +endeavouring to find a tonga for the sahib. Besides, he was not +unwilling to acquire rupees. He scowled thoughtfully at Amber, +ferociously at Doggott, went back into the station, gossipped casually +with the telegraph sounder for a quarter of an hour, and finally +reappearing, without a word or a nod left the platform for the road and +walked and walked and walked and walked. Within thirty yards his figure +was blurred by the dance of new-born heat devils. Within a hundred he +disappeared; the desert swallowed him up. + +An hour passed as three. The heat became terrific; not a breath of wind +stirred. The face of the world lost its contours in wavering mirage. +The travellers found lukewarm water in the station and breakfasted +sparingly from their own stores of biscuit and tinned things. Then, in +the shadow of the station, they settled down to wait, bored to +extinction. Lulled by the hushed chatter of the telegraph sounder, +Doggott nodded and slept audibly; Amber nodded, felt himself going, +roused with a struggle, and lapsed into a dreary mid-world of +semi-stupor. + +In the simple fulness of Asiatic time a tonga came from Heaven knew +where and roused him by rattling up beside the platform. He got up and +looked it over with a just eye and a temper none the sweeter for his +experience. It was a brute of a tonga, a patched and ramshackle wreck +of what had once been a real tonga, with no top to protect the +travellers from the sun, and accommodation only for three, including +the driver. + +The Eurasian ticket-agent alighted and solicited rupees. He got them +and with them Amber's unvarnished opinion of the tonga; something which +was not received with civility by the driver. + +He remained in his seat--a short, swart native with an evil countenance +and, across his knees, a sheathed tulwar--arguing with Amber in broken +English and, abusing him scandalously in impurest Hindi, flinging at +him in silken tones untranslatable scraps of bazaar Billingsgate. For, +as he explained in an audible aside to the ticket-agent, this sahib was +an outlander and, being as ignorant as most sahibs, could not +understand Hindi. At this the Eurasian turned away to hide a grin of +delight and the driver winked deliberately at Amber the while he +broadly sketched for him his ancestry and the manner of his life at +home and abroad. + +Thunderstruck, Amber caught himself just as he was on the point of +attempting to drag the driver from his seat and beat him into a more +endurable frame of mind. He swallowed the hint and gave up the contest. + +"Oh, very well," he conceded. "I presume you're trying to say there +isn't another tonga to be had and it can't be helped; but I don't like +your tone. However, there doesn't seem to be anything to do but take +you. How much for the two of us?" + +"Your servant, sahib? He cannot ride in this tonga," asserted the +driver impassively. + +"He can't! Why not?" + +"You can see there is room for but two, and I have yet another +passenger." + +"Where?" + +"At the first dak-bungalow, Sahib, where the mail-tonga broke down last +night. This tonga, which I say is an excellent tonga, an _aram_ tonga, +a tonga for ease, is sent to take its place. More than this, I am +bidden to go in haste; therefore there is little time for you to decide +whether or not you will go with me alone. As for your servant, he can +follow by this afternoon's mail tonga." + +Upon this ultimatum he stood, immovable; neither threats nor bribery +availed. It was an order, he said: he had no choice other than to obey. +Shabash! Would the sahib be pleased to make up his mind quickly? + +Perforce, the sahib yielded. "It'll be Labertouche; he's arranged +this," he told himself. "That loafer said he'd gone on ahead of us." +And comforted he issued his orders to Doggott, who received and acceded +to them with all the ill-grace imaginable. He was to remain and follow +to Kuttarpur by the afternoon's tonga. He forthwith sulked--and Amber, +looking round upon the little Tephet that was Badshah Junction, had not +the heart to reprove the man. + +"It's all very well, sir," said Doggott. "I carn't s'y anything, I +know. But, mark my words, sir--beggin' your pardon--there'll be trouble +come of this. That driver's as ill-favoured a scoundrel as ever I see. +And as for this 'ere ape, if 'e smiles at me just once more, I'll give +'im what-for." And he scowled so blackly upon the Eurasian that that +individual hastily sought the seclusion which the station granted. + +Amber left him, then, with a travelling-bag and a revolver for company, +and the ticket-agent and his bad temper to occupy his mind. + +Climbing aboard, the Virginian settled himself against the endless +discomforts of the ride which he foresaw; the tonga was anything but +"an _aram_ tonga--a tonga for ease," there was no shade and no breeze, +and the face of the land crawled with heat-bred haze. + +To a crisp crackling of the whip-lash over the backs of the two sturdy, +shaggy, flea-bitten ponies, the tonga swept away from the station, +swift as a hunted fox with a dusty plume. The station dropped out of +sight and the desert took them to its sterile heart. + +On every hand the long swales rolled away, sunbaked, rocky, innocent of +any sign of life other than the trooping telegraph poles in the south, +destitute of any sort of vegetation other than the inevitable ak and +gos. Wherever the eye wandered the prospect was the same--limitless +expanses of raw blistering ochres, salmon-pinks, and dry faded reds, +under a sky of brass and fire. + +Amber leaned forward, watching the driver's face. "Your name, +tonga-wallah?" he enquired. + +"Ram Nath, sahib." The man spoke without moving his head, attending +diligently to the management of his ponies. + +"And this other passenger, who awaits us at the dak-bungalow, Ram +Nath--is he, perchance, one known both to you and to me?" + +Ram Nath flicked the flagging ponies. "How should I know?" he returned +brusquely. + +"One," persisted Amber, "who might be known by such a name as, say, +Pink Satin?" + +"What manner of talk is this?" demanded Ram Nath. "I am no child to be +amused by a riddle. I know naught of your 'Pink Satin.'" He bent +forward, shortening his grasp upon the reins, as if to signify that the +interview was at an end. + +Amber sat back, annoyed by the fellow's impudence yet sensitive to a +suspicion that Ram Nath was playing his part better than his passenger, +that the rebuke was merited by one who had ventured to speak of secret +things in a land whose very stones have ears. For all that he could say +their every move was watched by invisible spies, of whom the +rock-strewn waste through which they sped might well harbour a hidden +legion.... But perhaps, after all, Ram Nath had nothing whatever to do +with Labertouche. Undeniable as had been his wink, it might well have +been nothing more than an impertinence. At the thought Amber's eyes +darkened and hardened and he swore bitterly beneath his breath. If that +were so, he vowed, the tonga-wallah would pay dearly for the +indiscretion. He set his wits to contrive a way to satisfy his doubts. + +Meanwhile the tonga rocked and bounded fiendishly over an infamous +parody of a road, turning and twisting between huge boulders and in and +out of pebbly nullahs, Ram Nath tooling it along with the hand of a +master. But all his attention was of necessity centred upon the ponies, +and presently his tulwar slipped from his knees and clattered upon the +floor of the tonga. Amber saw his chance and put his foot upon it. + +"Ram Nath," he asked gently, "have you no other arms?" + +"I were a fool had I not." The man did not deign to glance round. "He +hath need of weapons who doth traffick with the Chosen of the Voice, +sahib." + +"Ah, that Voice!" cried Amber in exasperation. "I grow weary of the +word, am Nath." + +"That may well be," returned the man, imperturbable. "None the less it +were well for you to have a care how you fondle the revolver in your +pocket, sahib. Should it by any chance go off and the bullet find +lodgment in your tonga-wallah, you are like to hear more of that Voice, +and from less friendly lips." + +"I think you have eyes in the back of your head, Ram Nath." Amber +withdrew his hand from his coat pocket and laughed shortly as he spoke. + +"There is a saying in this country, sahib, that even the stones in the +desert have ears to hear and eyes to see and tongues withal to tell +what they have seen and heard." + +"Ah-h!... That is a wise saying, Ram Nath." + +"There be those I could name who would do well to lay that saying to +heart, sahib." + +"You are right, indeed.... Now if there be aught of truth in that +saying, and if one were unwisely to speak a certain name, even +here----" + +"The echo of that name might be heard beyond the threshold of a certain +Gateway, sahib." + +Amber grunted and said no more, contented now with the assurance that +he was in truth in touch with Labertouche, that this Ram Nath was an +employee of the I.S.S. The wink was now explained away with all the +rest of the tonga-wallah's churlishness. Since there was a purpose +behind it all, the Virginian was satisfied to contain his curiosity. +Nevertheless he could not help thinking that there must be some +fantastic exaggeration in the excessive degree of caution that was thus +tacitly imposed upon him. + +He looked round him, narrowing his eyes against the sun-glare; and the +desert showed itself to his eyes a desert waste and nothing more. The +day lay stark upon its lifeless face and it seemed as if, within the +wide rim of the horizon, no thing moved save the tonga. They were then +passing rapidly over higher ground and seemed to have drawn a shade +nearer to the raw red northern hills. Amber would have said that they +could never have found a solitude more absolute. + +The thought was still in his mind when the tonga dipped unexpectedly +over another ridge, began to descend another long grade of dead, +parched earth, and discovered some distance ahead of them on the +wagontrack a cloud of dust like a tinted veil, so dense, opaque, and +wide and high that its cause was altogether concealed in its reddish, +glittering convolutions. But the Virginian knew the land well enough to +recognise the phenomenon and surmise its cause, even before his ears +began to be assailed by the hideous rasping screech of wheels of solid +wood revolving reluctantly on rough-hewn axles guiltless of grease. And +as the tonga swiftly lessened the distance, his gaze, penetrating the +thinning folds, discerned the contours of a cotton-wain drawn by twin +stunted bullocks, patient noses to the ground, tails a-switch. Beside +his cattle the driver plodded, goad in hand, a naked sword upon his +hip. Within his reach, between the rude bales of the loaded cart, the +butt of a brass-bound musket protruded significantly.... All men went +armed in that wild land: to do as much is one of the boons attendant +upon citizenship in an unprogressive, independent native State. + +Deliberately enough the carter swerved his beasts aside to make way for +the tonga, lest by undue haste he should make himself seem other than +what he was--a free man and a Rajput. But when his fierce, hawk-like +eyes encountered those of the dak traveller, his attitude changed +curiously and completely. Recognition and reverence fought with +surprise in his expression, and as Ram Nath swung the tonga past the +man salaamed profoundly. His voice, as he rose, came after them, +resonant and clear: + +"_Hail, thou Chosen of the Gateway! Hail_!" + +Amber neither turned to look nor replied. But his frown deepened. The +incident passed into his history, marked only by the terse comment it +educed from Ram Nath--words which were flung curtly over the +tonga-wallah's shoulder: "Eyes to see and ears to hear and a tongue +withal ... sahib!" + +The Virginian said nothing. But it was in his mind that he had indeed +thrust his head into the lion's mouth by thus adventuring into the +territory which every instinct of caution and common-sense proclaimed +taboo to him--the erstwhile kingdom of the Maharana Har Dyal Rutton. It +was, in a word, foolhardy--nothing less. But for his pledged word it +had been so easy to order Ram Nath to convey him back to Badshah +Junction to order and to enforce obedience at the pistol's point, if +needs be! Honour held him helpless, bound upon the Wheel of his +Destiny: he must and would go on.... + +He sat in silent gloom while sixty minutes were drummed out by the +flying hoofs. The hills folded in about the way, diverting it hither +and yon with raw, seamed spurs, whose flanks flung back harsh and heavy +echoes of the tonga's flight through riven gulch and scrub-grown +valley. And then it was that Ram Nath proved his mettle. Hardened +himself, he showed no mercy to his passenger, and never once drew rein, +though the tonga danced from rock to ridge and ridge to rut and back +again, like a tin can on the tail of an astonished dog. As for Amber, +he wedged his feet and held on with both hands, grimly, groaning in +spirit when he did not in the flesh, foreseeing as he did nine hours +more of this heroic torture punctuated only by brief respites at the +end of each stage. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE LONG DAY + + +One travels dak by relays casually disposed along the route at the whim +of the native contractor. Between Badshah Junction and Kuttarpur there +were ten stages, of which the conclusion of the first was at +hand--Amber having all but abandoned belief in its existence. + +Slamming recklessly down the bed of an ancient watercourse, the tonga +spun suddenly upon one wheel round a shoulder of the banks and dashed +out upon a rolling plain, across which the trail snaked to other +farther hills that lay dim and low, a wavy line of blue, upon the +horizon--the hills in whose heart Kuttarpur itself lay occult. And, by +the roadside, in a compound fenced with camel-thorn, sat an aged and +indigent dak-bungalow, marking the end of the first stage, the +beginning of the second. + +It wore a look of Heaven to the traveller. In the shade of its veranda +he read an urgent invitation to rest and surcease of sunlight. He +approved it thoroughly; the ramshackle rest-house itself, the sheds in +the rear for the accommodation of relays, the syce squatting asleep in +the sunshine, the few scrawny chickens squabbling and scratching over +their precarious sustenance in the deep hot dust of the compound, even +the broken tonga reposing with its shafts uplifted at a piteous angle +of decrepitude--all these Amber surveyed with a kindly eye. + +Ram Nath reined in with a flourish and lifted a raucous voice, hailing +the syce, while Amber, painfully disengaging his cramped limbs, climbed +down and stumbled toward the veranda. The abrupt transition from +violent and erratic motion to a solid and substantial footing affected +him unpleasantly, with an undeniable qualm; the earth seemed to rock +and flow beneath him as if under the influence of an antic earthquake. +He was for some seconds occupied with the problem of regaining his +poise, and it was not until he heard an Englishwoman's voice uplifted +in accents of anger, that he remembered the other wayfarer with whom he +was to share his tonga, or associated the white-clad figure in the dark +doorway of the bungalow with anything but the khansamah, coming to +greet and cheat the chance-brought guest. + +"Where is that tonga-wallah who deserted me here last night?" the woman +was demanding of Ram Nath, too preoccupied with her resentment to have +eyes for the other traveller, who at sight of her had stopped and +removed his pith helmet and now stood staring as if he had come from a +land in which there were no women. "Where," she continued, with an +imperative stamp of a daintily-shod foot, "is that wretched +tonga-wallah?" + +"Sahiba," protested Ram Nath, with a great show of deference, "how +should I know? Belike he is in Badshah Junction, whither he returned +very late last night, being travel-worn and weary, and where I left +him, being sent with this excellent tonga to take his place." + +"You were? And why have I been detained here, alone and unprotected, +this long night? Simply because that other tonga-wallah was a fool, am +I to be imposed upon in this fashion?" + +"What am I," whimpered Ram Nath, "to endure the wrath of the sahiba for +a fault that is none of mine?" + +"I beg your pardon, sir," said the girl, turning to Amber, "but it is +very annoying." She looked him over, first with abstraction, then with +a puzzled gathering of her brows, for he was far from her thoughts--the +last person she would have expected to meet in that place, and very +effectually disguised in dust and dirt besides, "The tire came off the +wheel just as we got here, late yesterday evening, and in trying, or +pretending to try, to fit it on again, that block-head of a +tonga-wallah hammered the rim with a rock as big as his head and +naturally smashed it to kindling-wood. Then, before I could stop him, +he flung himself on the back of a pony and went away, saying that it +was the will of God that he should return to Badshah for a better +tonga. Since when I have had for company one stable-syce, one +deaf-and-dumb patriarch of a khansamah and ... the usual dak-bungalow +discomforts--insects, bad food, and a terrible fear of dacoits." + +"I am so sorry, Miss Farrell," Amber put in. "If I had only been +here...." + +The girl gave a little gasp and sat down abruptly in one of the veranda +chairs, thereby threatening it with instant demolition and herself with +a bad spill; for the chair was feeble with the burden of its many +years, and she was a quite substantial young person. Indeed, so loudly +did it croak a protest and a warning that she immediately arose in +alarm. + +"Mr. Amber!" she said; and, "Well ...!" + +"You'll forgive me the surprise?" he begged, going up on the veranda to +her. "I myself had no hope of finding you here." + +"But," she protested, with a pretty flush of colour--"but I left you in +the States such a little while ago!" + +"Yes?" he said gravely. "It seems so long to me.... And when you had +gone, Long Island was a very lonely place indeed," he added, with +calculated impudence. + +Her colour deepened and she sought another chair, seating herself with +gingerly decision. "I'm sure you don't mean me to assume that you've +followed me half round the world?" + +"Why not?" He brought another chair to face her. "Besides, I haven't +seen anything of ... India for a good many years." + +"Mr. Amber!" + +"Ma'am?" he countered with affected humility. + +"You're spoiling it all. I was so glad to see you--I'd have been glad +to see any white man, of course----" + +"Much obliged, I'm sure." + +"And now you're actually flirting with me--or pretending to." + +"I'm not," he declared soberly. "As a matter of solemn fact, I had to +come to India." + +"You _had_ to?" + +"On a matter of serious business. Please don't ask me what, just yet; +but it's very serious, to my way of thinking. This happy accident--I +count myself a very happy man to have been so fortunate--only makes my +errand the more pleasant." + +She regarded him intently, chin in hand, her brown eyes sedate with +speculation, for some time. "I believe you've been speaking in +parables," she asserted, at length. "If I'm unjust, bear with me; +appearances are against you. There isn't any reason I know of why you +should tell me what brought you here----" + +"There's every reason, in point of fact, Miss Farrell; only ... I can't +explain just now." + +"Very well," she agreed briskly; "let's be content with that. I am glad +to see you again, truly; and--we're to travel on to Kuttarpur in the +same tonga?" + +"If you'll permit----" + +"After what I've endured, this awful night, I wouldn't willingly let +you out of my sight." + +"Or any other white man?" + +She laughed, pleased. "I presume you're wondering what I'm doing here?" + +"You were to join your father in Darjeeling, I believe?" he countered, +cautious. + +"But I found he'd been transferred unexpectedly to Kuttarpur. So, of +course, I had to follow. I telegraphed him day before yesterday when I +was to arrive at Badshah Junction, and naturally expected he'd come in +person or have some one meet me, but I presume the message must have +gone astray. At all events there was no one there for me and I had to +come on alone. It's hardly been a pleasant experience; that incompetent +tonga-wallah behaved precisely as though he had deliberately made up +his mind to delay me.... And the tonga's nearly ready; I must lock my +kit-bag." + +She went into the bungalow, leaving him thoughtful, for perhaps.... But +the back of Ram Nath, as that worthy busied himself superintending the +harnessing in of fresh ponies, conveyed to him no support for his +half-credited hypothesis that this "accident" had been carefully +planned by Labertouche for Amber's especial benefit. + +He vexed himself with vain speculations, for it was perfectly certain +that he would get nothing in the way of either denial or confirmation +out of Ram Nath; and, presently, acknowledging this, he called the +khansamah and ordered a peg for the sake of the dust in his throat. + +The girl joined him on the veranda in due course, very demure and sweet +to look upon in her travelling-dress of light pongee and her pith +helmet, whose green under-brim and puggaree served very handsomely to +set off her fair colouring. If she overlooked the adoration of his +eyes, she was rather less than woman; for it was in them, plain to be +seen for the looking. The khansamah followed her from the bungalow, +staggering under the weight of her box and kit-bag, and with Ram Nath's +surly assistance made them fast to the front seat. While Amber gave the +girl his hand to help her to her place, and lifted himself to her side +in a mute glow of ecstasy. Fate, he thought with reason, was most kind +to him. + +They rattled headlong from the compound, making for the distant hills +of blue. The girl drew down her puggaree, with its soft, thin folds +sheltering the pure contours of her face from the dust and burning +sun-glare. He watched her hungrily, holding his breath as the thought +came to him that he was seated elbow to elbow with the woman who was to +be his wife, his hand still a-tingle with the reminiscence of her +gloved fingers that had touched it so transiently. She caught his +intent look and smiled, her eyes lustrous through the veiling. + +She was very tired after her night-long vigil, and after a few words of +commonplace as they drew away from the station, he forebore to weary +her with talk, and a silence as sweet as communion lengthened between +them as the stage lengthened. He was very intent upon her presence; the +consciousness of her there beside him seemed, at times, almost +suffocating. He could by no means forget that she had in a curious way +been assigned to him--set aside to be his wife, the partner of all his +days; and she tolerated him kindly, all unsuspicious of the +significance of his advent into her life.... If she were made to +suspect, to understand, what effect would it have upon their relations, +slight and but lately established as they were? Would she shrink from +or encourage him? + +His wife! He wagged his head in solemn stupefaction, trying to +appreciate the intangible, the chimerical dream of yesterday resolved +into the actuality of to-day; realising that, even when most intrigued +by the adventure of which she was at once the cause and the prize, even +though he had met and been charmed by her before becoming enmeshed in +its web of incident, he had thought of her with a faint trace of +incredulity, as though she had been a thing of fable, trapped with all +the fanciful charms of beleaguered fairy princesses, rather than a +living woman of flesh and fire and blood--such as she proved to be who +rode with him, her thoughts drowsily astray in the vastnesses of her +inscrutable, virginal moods. + +To think that she was foreordained to be his wife was not more +unbelievable than the consciousness that he, her undeclared lover, her +predestined mate and protector, was listlessly permitting her to delve +further into the black heart of a land out of which he had promised to +convey her with all possible speed, for the salvation of her body and +soul.... Yet what could he do, save be passive for the time, and wait +upon the turn of events? He could not, dared not seize her in his arms +and insist that she love him, marry him, fly with him--all within the +compass of an hour or even of a day. For words of love came haltingly +to his unskilled tongue, though they came from a surcharged heart, and +to him the strategy of love was as a sealed book, at whose contents he +could but guess, and that with a diffidence and distrust sadly +handicapping to one who had urgent need of expedition in his courting. + +With a rueful smile and a perturbed heart he pondered his problem. The +second stage wore away without a dozen words passing between them; so +also the third. The pauses were brief enough, the ponies being +exchanged with gratifying despatch. The tonga would pull up, Ram Nath +would jump down ... and in a brace of minutes or little more the +vehicle would be _en route_ again, Amber engaged with the infinite +ramifications of this labyrinthal riddle of his, and the girl +insensibly yielding to the need of sleep. She passed, at length, into +sound unconsciousness. + +Thus the morning stages flowed beneath the tonga, personified in a +winding ribbon of roadway, narrow, deep-rutted, inexpressibly dusty, +lined uncertainly over a scrubby, sun-scorched waste. Sophia napped +uneasily by fits and starts, waking now and again with a sleepy smile +and a fragmentary, murmured apology. She roused finally very much +refreshed for the midday halt for rest and tiffin, which they passed at +one of the conventional bungalows, in nothing particularly unlike its +fellows unless it were that they enjoyed, before tiffin, the gorgeous +luxury of plenty of clean water, cooled in porous earthen jars. Amber, +overwhelmed by the discovery of this abundance, promptly went to the +extreme of calling in the khansamah to sluice him down with jar after +jar, and felt like himself for the first time in five days when, shaved +and dressed, he returned to the common living-room of the resthouse. + +The girl kept him waiting but a little while. Lacking the attentions of +an ayah she had probably been unable to bathe so extensively as he, but +eventually she appeared in an immeasurably more happy state of body and +mind, calling up to him the simile, stronger than any other, of a tall, +fair lily after a morning shower. And she was in a bewitching humour, +one that ingenuously enough succeeded in entangling him more thoroughly +than ever before in the web of her fascinations. Over an execrable +curry of stringy fowl and questionable rice, eked out with tea and +tinned delicacies of their own, their chatter, at the beginning +sufficiently gay and inconsequent, drifted by imperceptible and +unsuspected gradations perilously close to the shoals of intimacy. And +subsequently, when they had packed themselves back into the narrow +tonga-seat and again were being bounced and juggled breathlessly over +shocking roads, the exchange of confidences continued with unabated +interest. Amber on his part was led to talk of his life and work, of +his adventures in the name of Science, of his ambitions and +achievements. In return he received a vivid impression of the lives of +those women who share with their men the burden of official life in +British India: of serene days in the brisk, invigorating, clear +atmosphere of hill stations; of sunsmitten days and steaming nights in +the Deccan; of the uncertain, anchorless existences of those who know +not from one day to another when they may be whisked half across an +Empire at the whim of that awful force simply nominated Government.... + +For all the taint upon her pedigree, she proved herself to Amber at +heart a simple, lonely Englishwoman--a stranger in a sullen and +suspicious land, desiring nothing better than to return to the England +she had seen and learned to love, the England of ample lawns, of +box-hedges, and lanes, of travelled highways, pavements and gaslights, +of shops and theatres, of home and family ties.... + +But India she knew. "I sometimes fancy," she told him with the +conscious laugh that deprecates a confessed superstition, "that I must +have lived here in some past incarnation." She paused, but he did not +speak. "Do you believe in reincarnation?" Again he had no answer for +her, though temporarily he saw the daylight as darkness. "It's hard to +live here for long and resist belief in it.... But as a matter of fact +I seem to understand these people better than they're understood by +most of _my_ people. Don't you think it curious? Perhaps it's merely +intuition----" + +"That's the birthright of your sex," he said, rousing. "On the other +hand, you have to remember that your father is one of a family that for +generations has served the Empire. And your mother?" + +"She, too, came of an Anglo-Indian family. Indeed, they met and courted +here, though they were married in England.... So you think my insight +into native character a sort of birthright--a sense inherited?" + +"Perhaps--something of the sort." + +"You may be right. We'll never know. At all events, I seem to have a +more--more painful comprehension of the native than most of the English +in this country have; I seem to feel, to sense their motives, their +desires, aspirations, even sometimes their untranslatable thoughts. I +believe I understand perfectly their feeling toward us, the governing +race." + +"Then," said Amber, "you know something his Highness the Viceroy +himself would give his ears to be sure of." + +"I know that; but I do." + +"And that feeling is----?" + +"Not love, Mr. Amber." + +"Much to the contrary----?" + +"Very much," she affirmed with deep conviction. + +"This 'Indian unrest' one reads of in the papers is not mere gossip, +then?" + +"Anything but that; it's the hidden fire stirring within the volcano we +told ourselves was dead. The quiet of the last fifty years has been not +content but slumber; deep down there has always been the fire, slow, +deadly, smouldering beneath the ashes. The Mutiny still lives in +spirit; some day it will break out afresh. You must believe me--I +_know_. The more we English give our lives to educate the natives, the +further we spread the propaganda of discontent; day by day we're +teaching them to understand that we are no better than they, no more +fit to rule; they are beginning to look up and to see over the rim of +the world--and we have opened their eyes. They have learned that +Japanese can defeat Caucasians, that China turns in its sleep, that +England is no more omnipotent than omniscient. They've heard of anarchy +and socialism and have learned to throw bombs. Only the other day a +justice in Bengal was killed by a bomb.... I fancy I talk," the girl +broke off with her clear laugh, "precisely like my father, who talks +precisely as a political pamphleteer writes. You'll see when you meet +him." + +"Do you take much interest in politics?" + +"No more than the every-day Englishwoman; it's one of our staples of +conversation, when we've exhausted the weather, you know. But I'm not +in the least advanced, if that's what you mean; I hunger after +fashion-papers and spend more time than I ought, devouring home-made +trash imported in paper-covers. I only feel what I feel by instinct--as +I said awhile ago." + +Perhaps if he had known less about the girl, he would have attached +less importance to her statements. As it was, she impressed him +profoundly. He pondered her words deeply, storing them in his memory, +remembering that another had spoken in the same manner--one for whose +insight into the ways of the native he had intense respect. + +As the slow afternoon dragged out its blazing hours, their spirits +languished, and they fell silent, full weary and listless. Towards the +last quarter of the journey their road forsook the spacious, haggard +plain and again entered a hilly country, but this time one wherein +there was no lack either of water or of life: a green and fertile land +parcelled into farms and dotted with villages. + +Night overtook the tonga when it was close upon Kuttarpur, swooping +down upon the world like a blanket of darkness, at the moment that the +final relay of ponies was being hitched in. The sun dipped behind the +encircling hills; the west blazed with the lambent flame of fire-opal; +the wonderful translucent blue of the sky shaded suddenly to deep +purple lanced by great shafts of mauve and amethyst light, and in the +east stars popped out; the hills shone like huge, crude gems--sapphire, +jade, jasper, malachite, chalcedony--their valleys swimming with mists +of mother-of-pearl.... And it was night, the hills dark and still, the +sky a deeper purple and opaque, the ruddy fires of wayfarers on the +roadside leaping clear and bright. + +With fresh ponies the tonga took the road with a wild initial rush soon +to be moderated, when it began to climb the last steep grade to the +pass that gives access to Kuttarpur from the south. For an hour the +road toiled up and ever upward; steep cliffs of rock crowded it, +threatening to push it over into black abysses, or to choke it off +between towering, formidable walls. It swerved suddenly into a broad, +clear space. The tonga paused. Voluntarily Ram Nath spoke for almost +the first time since morning. + +"Kuttarpur," he said, with a wave of his whip. + +Aloof, austere and haughty, the City of Swords sits in the mouth of a +ravine so narrow that a wall no more than a hundred yards in length is +sufficient to seal its southerly approach. Beneath this wall, to one +side of the city gate, a river flows from the lake that is Kuttarpur's +chiefest beauty. Within, a multitude of dwellings huddles, all +interpenetrated by streets and backways so straitened and sinuous as +scarcely to permit the passage of an elephant from the Maharana's herd; +congested in the bottom of the valley, the houses climb tier upon tier +the flanking hillsides, until their topmost roofs threaten even the +supremacy of that miracle in white marble, the Raj Mahal. + +Northwards the palace of Khandawar's kings stands, exquisite, rare, and +marvellous, unlike any other building in the world. White, all white, +from the lake that washes its lowest walls to the crenellated rim of +its highest roof, it sweeps upward in breath-taking steps and wide +terraces to the crest of the western hill, into which it burrows, from +which it springs; a vast enigma propounded in white marble without a +note of colour save where the foliage of a hidden garden peeps over the +edge of a jealous screen--a hundred imposing mansions merged into one +monstrous and imperial maze. + +Impregnable in the old days, before cannon were brought to India, +Kuttarpur lives to-day remote, unfriendly, inhospitable. Within its +walls there is no room for many visitors; they who come in numbers, +therefore, must perforce camp down before the gates. + +Now figure the city to yourself, seeing it as Sophia was later to see +it in the light of day; then drench it with blue Indian night and stud +it with a myriad eyes of fire--lamps, torches, candles, blue-white +electric arcs, lights running up and down both hillsides and fringing +the very star-sheeted skies, clustering and diverging in vast, +bewildering, inconsequent designs, picking out the walls and main +thoroughfares, shining through coloured globes upon the palace +terraces, glimmering mysteriously from isolate windows and balconies; +and add to these the softly illuminated walls of a hundred silken state +marquees and a thousand meaner canvas tents arrayed south of the +city.... And that is Kuttarpur as it first revealed itself to Amber and +Sophia Farrell. + +But for a moment were they permitted to gaze in wonderment; Ram Nath +had little patience. When he chose to, he applied his whip, and the +ponies stretched out, the tonga plunging on their heels down the steep +hillside, like an ungoverned, ungovernable thing, maddened. Within a +quarter of an hour they were careering through the city of tents on the +parked plain before the southern wall. In five minutes more they drew +up at the main city gate to parley with the Quarter Guard. + +Here they suffered an exasperating delay. It appeared that the gates +were shut at sundown, in deference to custom immemorial. Between that +hour and sunrise none were permitted to pass either in or out without +the express sanction of the State. The commander of the guard +instituted an impudent catechism, in response to which Ram Nath +discovered the several identities and estates of his charges. The +commander received the information with impartial equanimity and +retired within the city to confer with his superiors. After some time a +trooper was sent to advise the travellers that the tonga would be +permitted to enter with the understanding that the unaccredited +Englishman (meaning Amber) would consent to lodge for the night in no +other spot than the State rest-house beyond the northern limits of the +city. + +Amber agreed. The trooper saluted with much deference and withdrew. And +for a long time nothing happened; the gates remained shut, the postern +of the Quarter Guard irresponsive to Ram Nath's repeated summons. His +passengers endured with what patience they could command; they were +aware that it was necessary to obtain from some quarter official +sanction for the opening of the gates, but they had understood that it +had already been obtained. + +Abruptly the peace of the night was shattered, and the hum of the +encampment behind them with the roar of the city before them was +dwarfed, by a dull and thunderous detonation of cannon from a terrace +of the palace. The tonga ponies, reared and plunged, Ram Nath mastering +them with much difficulty. Sophia was startled, and Amber himself +stirred uneasily on his perch. + +"What now?" he grumbled. "You'd think we were visitors of state and had +to be durbarred!" + +Far up on the heights a second red flame stabbed the night, and again +the thunder pealed. Thereafter gun after gun bellowed at imperative, +stately intervals. + +"Fifteen," Amber announced after a time. "Isn't this something +extraordinary, Miss Farrell?" + +"Perhaps," she suggested, "there's a native potentate arriving at the +northern gate. They're very punctilious about their salutes, you know." + +Another crash silenced her. Amber continued to count. "Twenty-one," he +said when it seemed that there was to be no more cannonading. "Isn't +that a royal salute?" + +"Yes," said the girl; "four more guns than the Maharana of Khandawar +himself is entitled to." + +"How do you explain it?" + +"I don't," she replied simply. "Can you?" + +He was dumb. Could it be possible that this imperial greeting was +intended for the man supposed to be the Maharana of Khandawar--Har Dyal +Rutton? He glanced sharply at the girl, but her face was shadowed; and +he believed she suspected nothing. + +A great hush had fallen, replacing the rolling thunder of the State +ordnance. Even the voice of the city seemed moderate, subdued. In +silence the massive gates studded with sharp-toothed elephant-spikes +swung open. + +With a grunt, Ram Nath cracked his whiplash and the tonga sped into the +city. Amber bent forward. + +"What's the name of that gate, Ram Nath--if you happen to know?" + +"That," said the tonga-wallah in a level voice, "is known as the +Gateway of Swords, sahib." He added in his own good time: "But not +_the_ Gateway of Swords." + +Amber failed to educe from him any satisfactory explanation of this +orphic utterance. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE PHOTOGRAPH + + +That same night Amber dined at the Residency, on the invitation of +Raikes, the local representative of Government, seconded by the +insistence of Colonel Farrell. It developed that Sophia's telegram had +somehow been lost in transit, and Farrell's surprise and pleasure at +sight of her were tempered only by his keen appreciation of Amber's +adventitious services, slight though they had been. He was urged to +stay the evening out, before proceeding to his designated quarters, and +the reluctance with which he acceded to this arrangement which worked +so happily with his desires, may be imagined. + +Their arrival coincided with the dinner-hour; the meal was held half an +hour to permit them to dress. Raikes put a room at Amber's disposal, +and the Virginian contrived to bathe and get into his evening clothes +within less time than had been allowed him. Sophia, contrary to the +habit of her sex, was little tardier. At thirty minutes past eight they +sat down to dine, at a table in the garden of the Residency. + +Ease of anxiety was more than food and drink to Amber; his feeling of +relief, to have convoyed Sophia to the company and protection of +Anglo-Saxons like himself, was intense. Yet he swallowed his +preliminary brandy-peg in a distinctly uncomfortable frame of mind, +strangely troubled by the reflection that round that lone white table +was gathered together the known white population of the State; a census +of which accounted for just five souls. + +In the encompassing, exotic gloom of that blue Indian night--the kind +of night that never seems friendly to the Occidental but forever teems +with hints of tragic mystery--the cloth, lighted by shaded candles, +shone as immaculate and lustrous as an island of snow in a sea of +ink--as a good deed in a naughty world. Its punctilious array of +crystal and silver was no more foreign to the setting than were the men +who sat round it, stiff in that black-and-white armour of civilisation, +impregnable against the insidious ease of the East, in which your +expatriate Englishman nightly encases himself wherever he may be, as +loath to forego the ceremony of "dressing for dinner" as he would be to +dispense with letters from Home. + +Raikes presided, a heavy man with the flaming red face of one who +constitutionally is unable to tan; of middle-age, good-natured, mellow, +adroit of manner. On his one hand sat Amber, over across from Sophia. +Next to Amber sat Farrell, tall and lean, sad of eye and slow of +speech, his sun-faded hair and moustache streaked with grey setting off +a dark complexion and thin, fine features. He wore the habit of +authority equally with the irascibility of one who temporizes with his +liver. Opposite him was a young, mild-eyed missionary, too new in the +land to have lost his illusions or have blunted the keen edge of his +enthusiasms; a colourless person with a finical way of handling his +knife and fork, who darted continually shy, sidelong glances at Sophia, +or interpolated eager, undigested comments, nervously into the +conversation. + +The table-talk was inconsequent; Amber took a courteous and easy part +in it without feeling that any strain was being put upon his +intelligence. His attention was centred upon the woman who faced him, +flushed with gaiety and pleasure, not alone because she was once more +with her father, but also because she unexpectedly was looking her +best. If she had been well suited in her tidy pongee travelling +costume, she found her evening gown no less becoming. It was a black +affair, very simple and individual; her shoulders rose from it with +intensified purity of tone, like fair white ivory gleaming with a +suggestion of the sleek sheen of satin; their strong, clean lines +rounded bewitchingly into the fair, slender neck upholding the young +head with its deftly coiffed crown of bronze and gold.... + +Tall, well-trained, silent servants moved like white-robed wraiths +behind the guests; the dishes of the many courses disappeared and were +replaced in a twinkling, as if by slight of hand. They were over +plentiful; Amber was relieved when at length the meal was over, and +Miss Farrell having withdrawn in conformance with inviolable custom, +the cloth was deftly whisked away and cigars, cigarettes, liqueurs, +whiskey and soda were served. + +Amber took unto himself a cigar and utilised an observation of the +Political's as a lever to swing the conversation to a plane more likely +to inform him. Farrell had grumbled about the exactions of his position +as particularly instanced by the necessity of his attending tedious and +tiresome native ceremonies in connection with the _tamasha_. + +"What's, precisely, the nature of this _tamasha_, Colonel Farrell?" + +"Why, my dear young man, I thought you knew. Isn't it what you came to +see?" + +"No," Amber admitted cautiously; "I merely heard a rumour that there +was something uncommon afoot. Is it really anything worth while?" + +"Rather," Raikes interjected drily; "the present ruler's abdicating in +favour of his son, a child of twelve. That puts the business in a class +by itself." + +"There's been one precedent, hasn't there?" said the missionary, +pretending to be at ease with a cigarette. "The Holkar of Indore?" + +"Yes," agreed Farrell; "a similar case, to be sure." + +"But why should a prince hand over the reins of government to a child +of twelve? There must be some reason for it. Isn't it known?" asked +Amber. + +"Who can fathom a Hindu's mind?" grunted Farrell. "I daresay there's +some scandalous native intrigue at the bottom of it. Eh, Raikes?" + +The Resident shook his head. "Don't come to this shop for information +about what goes on in Khandawar. I doubt if there's another Resident in +India who knows as little of the underhand devilment in his State as I +do. His Majesty the Rana loves me as a cheetah loves his trainer. He's +an intractable rascal." + +"They grease the wheels of the independent native States with +intrigue," Farrell explained. "I know from sore experience. And your +Rajput is the deepest of the lot. I don't envy Raikes, here." + +"The man who can guess what a Rajput intends to do next is entitled to +give himself a deal of credit," commented the Resident, with a short +laugh. + +"I've travelled a bit," continued Farrell, "and have seen something of +the courts of Europe, but I've yet to meet a diplomat who's peer to the +Rajput. You hear a great deal about the astuteness of the Russians and +the yellow races, and a Greek or Turk can lie with a fairly straight +face when he sees a profit in deception, but none of them is to be +classed with these people. If we English ever decide to let India rule +herself, her diplomatic corps will be recruited exclusively from the +flower of Rajputana's chivalry." + +"I'll back Salig Singh against the field," said Raikes grimly; "he'll +be dean of the corps, when that time comes. He'd rather conspire than +fight, and the Rajputs--of course you know--are a warrior caste. I've a +notion"--the Resident leaned back and searched the shadows for an +eavesdropper--"I've a notion," he continued, lowering his voice, "that +the Rana has got himself in rather deep in some rascality or other, and +wants to get out before he's put out. There's bazaar gossip.... Hmm! Do +you speak French, Mr. Amber?" + +"A little," said Amber in that tongue. "And I," nodded the missionary. +The talk continued in the language of diplomacy. + +"Bazaar gossip----?" Farrell repeated enquiringly. + +"There have been a number of deaths from cholera in the Palace lately, +the grand vizier's amongst them." + +"White arsenic cholera?" + +"That, and the hemp poison kind." + +"Refractory vizier?" questioned Farrell. "The kind that wants to +retrench and institute reforms--railways and metalled roads and so +forth?" + +"No; he was quite suited to his master. But the bazaar says Naraini +took a dislike to him for one reason or another." + +"Naraini?" queried Amber. + +"The genius of the place." Raikes nodded toward the Raj Mahal, shining +like a pearl through the darkness on the hill-side over against the +Residency. "She's Salig's head queen. At least that's about as near to +her status as one can get. She's not actually his queen, but some sort +of a heritage from the Rutton dynasty--I hardly know what or why. Salig +never married her, but she lives in the Palace, and for several +years--ever since she first began to be talked about--she's ruled from +behind the screen with a high hand and an out-stretched arm. So the +bazaar says." + +"I've heard she was beautiful," Farrell observed. + +"As beautiful as a peri, according to rumour. You never can tell; very +likely she's a withered old hag; nine out of ten native women are, by +the time they're thirty." Raikes jerked the glowing end of his cigar +into the shrubbery and reverted to English. "Shall we join Miss +Farrell?" + +They arose and left the table to the servants, the Resident with Amber +following Farrell and young Clarkson. + +"Old women we are, forever talking scandal," said Raikes, with a +chuckle. "Oh, well! it's shop with us, you know." + +"Of course.... Then I understand that the _tamasha_ is the reason for +the encampment beyond the walls?" + +"Yes; they've been coming in for a week. By to-morrow night, I daresay, +every rajah, prince, thakur, baron, fief, and lord in Rajputana, each +with his 'tail,' horse and foot, will be camped down before the walls +of Kuttarpur. You've chosen an interesting time for your visit. It'll +be a sight worth seeing, when they begin to make a show. My troubles +begin with a State banquet to-morrow that I'd give much to miss; +however, I'll have Farrell for company." + +"I'm glad to be here," said Amber thoughtfully. Could it be possible +that the proposed abdication of Salig Singh in favour of his son were +merely a cloak to a conspiracy to restore to power the house of Rutton? +Or had the _tamasha_ been arranged in order to gather together all the +rulers in Rajputana without exciting suspicion, that they might agree +upon a concerted plan of mutiny against the Sirkar? This state affair +of surpassing importance had been arranged for the last day of grace +allotted the Prince of the house of Rutton. What had it to do with the +Gateway of Swords, the Voice, the Mind, the Eye, the Body, the Bell? + +"By the way, Mr. Raikes," said the Virginian suddenly, "what do they +call the gate by which we entered the city--the southern gate?" + +"The Gateway of Swords, I believe." + +Farrell, on the point of entering the house, overheard and turned. "Is +that so? Why, I thought _that_ gateway was in Kathiapur." + +"I've heard of a Gateway of Swords in Kathiapur," Raikes admitted. +"Never been there, myself." + +"Kathiapur?" + +"A dead city, Mr. Amber, not far away--originally the capital of +Khandawar. It's over there in the hills to the north, somewhere. Old +Rao Rutton, founder of the old dynasty, got tired of the place and +caused it to be depopulated, building Kuttarpur in its stead--I +believe, to commemorate some victory or other. That sort of thing used +to be quite the fashion in India, before we came." Raikes fell back, +giving Amber precedence as they entered the Residency. "By the way, +remind me, if you think of it, Colonel Farrell, to get after the +telegraph-clerk to-morrow. There's a new man in charge--a Bengali +babu--and I presume he's about as worthless as the run of his kind." + +Amber made a careful note of this information; he was curious about +that babu. + +In the drawing-room Raikes and Farrell impressed Clarkson for +three-handed Bridge. Sophia did not care to play and Amber was ignorant +of the game--a defect in his social education which he found no cause +to regret, since it left him in undisputed attendance upon the girl. + +She had seated herself at a warped and discouraged piano, for which +Raikes had already apologised; it was, he said, a legacy from a former +Resident. For years its yellow keys had not known a woman's touch such +as that to which they now responded with thin, cracked voices; the +girl's fine, slender fingers wrung from them a plaintive, pathetic +parody of melody. Amber stood over her with his arms folded on the top +of the instrument, comfortably unconscious that his pose was copied +from any number of sentimental photogravures and "art photographs." His +temper was sentimental enough, for that matter; the woman was very +sweet and beautiful in his eyes as she sat with her white, round arms +flashing over the keyboard, her head bowed and her face a little +averted, the long lashes low upon her cheeks and tremulous with a +fathomless emotion. It was his thought that his time was momentarily +becoming shorter, and that just now, more than ever, she was very +distant from his arms, something inaccessible, too rare and delicate +and fine for the rude possession of him who sighed for his own +unworthiness. + +Abruptly she brought both hands down upon the keys, educing a jangled, +startled crash from the tortured wires, and swinging round, glanced up +at Amber with quaint mirth trembling behind the veil of moisture in her +misty eyes. + +"India!" she cried, with a broken laugh: "India epitomised: a homesick, +exiled woman trying to drag a song of Home from the broken heart of a +crippled piano! That is an Englishwoman's India: it's our life, ever to +strive and struggle and contrive to piece together out of makeshift +odds and ends the atmosphere of Home!... It's suffocating in here. +Come." She rose with a quick shrug of impatience, and led the way back +to the gardens. + +The table had been removed together with the chairs and candles; +nothing remained to remind them of the hour just gone. The walks were +clear of servants. Their only light came from the high arch of stars +smitten to its zenith with pale, quivering waves of light from the moon +invisible behind the hills. Below them the city hummed like a disturbed +beehive. Somewhere afar a gentle hand was sweeping the strings of a +_zitar_, sounding weird, sad chords. The perfumed languor of the night +weighed heavily upon the senses, like the woven witchery of some +age-old enchantment.... + +Pensive, the girl trained her long skirts heedlessly over the +dew-drenched grasses, Amber at her side, himself speechless with an +intangible, ineluctable, unreasoning sense of expectancy. Never, he +told himself, had a lover's hour been more auspiciously timed or +staged; and this was his hour, altogether his!... If only he might find +the words of wooing to which his lips were strange! He dared not delay; +to-morrow it might be too late; in the womb of the morrow a world of +chances stirred--contingencies that might in a breath set them a world +apart. + +They found seats in the shadow of a pepul. + +"You must be tired, Mr. Amber," she said. "Why don't you smoke?" + +"I hadn't thought of it, and hadn't asked permission." + +"Please do. I like it." + +He found his cigarette-case and struck a match, Sophia watching +intently his face in the rosy glow of the little, flickering flame. + +"Are you in the habit of indulging in protracted silences?" she rallied +him gently. "Between friends of old standing they're permissible, I +believe, but----" + +"A day's journey by tonga matures acquaintanceships wonderfully," he +observed abstrusely. + +"Indeed?" She laughed. + +"At least, I hope so." + +He felt that he must be making progress; thus far he had been no less +inane than any average lover of the stage or fiction. And he wondered: +was she laughing at him, softly, there in the shadows? + +"You see," she said, amused at his relapse into reverie, "you're +incurable and ungrateful. I'm trying my best to be attractive and +interesting, and you won't pay me any attention whatever. There must be +something on your mind. Is it this mysterious errand that brings you so +unexpectedly to India--to Kuttarpur, Mr. Amber?" + +"Yes," he answered truthfully. + +"And you won't tell me?" + +"I think I must," he said, bending forward. + +There sounded a stealthy rustling in the shrubbery. The girl drew away +and rose with a startled exclamation. With a bound, a man in native +dress sped from the shadows and paused before them, panting. + +Amber jumped up, overturning his chair, and instinctively feeling for +the pistol that was with his travelling things, upstairs in the +Residency. + +The native reassured him with a swift, obsequious gesture. "Pardon, +sahib, and yours, sahiba, if I have alarmed you, but I am come on an +errand of haste, seeking him who is known as the Sahib David Amber." + +"I am he. What do you want with me?" + +"It is only this, that I have been commissioned to bear to you, sahib." + +The man fumbled hurriedly in the folds of his surtout, darting quick +glances of apprehension round the garden. Amber looked him over as +closely as he could in the dim light, but found him wholly a +stranger--merely a low-caste Hindu, counterpart of a million others to +be encountered daily in the highways and bazaars of India. The +Virginian's rising hope that he might prove to be Labertouche failed +for want of encouragement; the intruder was of a stature the Englishman +could by no means have counterfeited. + +"From whom come you?" he demanded in the vernacular. + +"Nay, a name that is unspoken harms none, sahib." The native produced a +small, thin, flat package and thrust it into Amber's hands. "With +permission, I go, sahib; it were unwise to linger----" + +"There is no answer?" + +"None, sahib." The man salaamed and strode away, seeming to melt +soundlessly into the foliage. + +For a minute Amber remained astare. The girl's voice alone roused him. + +"I think you are a very interesting person, Mr. Amber," she said, +resuming her chair. + +"Well!... _I_ begin to think this a most uncommonly interesting +country." He laughed uncertainly, turning the package over and over. +"Upon my word----! I haven't the least notion what this can be!" + +"Why not bring it to the light, and find out?" + +He assented meekly, having been perfectly candid in his assertion that +he had no suspicion of what the packet might contain, and a moment +later they stood beneath the window of the Residency, from which a +broad shaft of light streamed out like vaporised gold. + +Amber held the packet to the light; it was oblong, thin, stiff, covered +with common paper, guiltless of superscription, and sealed with +mucilage. He tore the covering, withdrew the enclosure, and heard the +girl gasp with surprise. For himself, he was transfixed with +consternation. His look wavered in dismay between the girl and the +photograph in his hand--_her_ photograph, which had been stolen from +him aboard the _Poonah_. + +She extended her hand imperiously. "Give that to me, please, Mr. +Amber," she insisted. He surrendered it without a word. "Mr. Amber!" +she cried in a voice that quivered with wonder and resentment. + +He faced her with a hang-dog air, feeling that now indeed had his case +been made hopeless by this contretemps. "Confound Labertouche!" he +cried in his ungrateful heart. "Confound his meddling mystery-mongering +and hokus-pokus!" + +"Well?" enquired the girl sharply. + +"Yes, Miss Farrell." He could invent nothing else to say. + +"You--you are going to explain, I presume." + +He shook his head in despair. "No-o...." + +"What!" + +"I've no explanation whatever to make--that'd be adequate, I mean." + +He saw that she was shaken by impatience. "I think," said she +evenly--"I think you will find it best to let me judge of that. This is +my photograph. How do you come to have it? What right have you to it?" + +"I ... ah...." He stammered and paused, acutely conscious of the voices +of the Englishmen, Farrell, Raikes, and young Clarkson, drifting out +through the open window of the drawing-room. "If you'll be kind enough +to return to our chairs," he said, "I'll try to make a satisfactory +explanation. I'd rather not be overheard." + +The girl doubted, was strongly inclined to refuse him; then, perhaps +moved to compassion by his abject attitude, she relented and agreed. +"Very well," she said, and retaining the picture moved swiftly before +him into the shadowed garden. He lagged after her, inventing a hundred +impracticable yarns. She found her chair and sat down with a manner of +hauteur moderated by expectancy. He took his place beside her. + +"Who sent you this photograph of me?" she began to cross-examine him. + +"A friend." + +"His name?" + +"I'm sorry I can't tell you just now." + +"Oh!... Why did he send it?" + +"Because...." In his desperation it occurred to him to tell the +truth--as much of it, at least, as his word to Rutton would permit. +"Because it's mine. My friend knew I had lost it." + +"How could it have been yours? It was taken in London a year ago. I +sent copies only to personal friends who, I know, would not give them +away." She thought it over and added: "The Quains had no copy; it's +quite impossible that one should have got to America." + +"None the less," he maintained stubbornly, "it's mine, and I got it in +America." + +"I can hardly be expected to believe that." + +"I'm sorry." + +"You persist in saying that you got it in America?" + +"I must." + +"When?" + +"After you left the Quains." + +"How?" she propounded triumphantly. + +"I can't tell you, except vaguely. If you'll be content with the +substance of the story, lacking details, for the present----" + +"For the present? You mean you'll tell me the whole truth--?" + +"Sometime, yes. But now, I may not.... A dear friend of mine owned the +photograph. He gave it me at my request. I came to India, and on the +steamer lost it; in spite of my offer of a reward, I was obliged to +leave the boat without it, when we got to Calcutta. My friend here knew +how highly I valued it----" + +"Why?" + +"Because I'd told him." + +"I don't mean that. Why do you value it so highly?" + +"Because of its original." He took heart of despair and plunged boldly. + +She looked him over calmly. "Do you mean me to understand that you told +this friend you had followed me to India because you were in love with +me?" + +"Precisely.... Thank you." + +She laughed a little, mockingly. "Are you, Mr. Amber?" + +"In love with you?... Yes." + +"Oh!" She maintained her impartial and judicial attitude admirably. +"But even were I inclined to believe that, your whole story is +discredited by the simple fact that through no combination of +circumstances could this picture have come into your possession in +America." + +"I give you my word of honor, Miss Farrell." + +"I wish you wouldn't. If you are perfectly sincere in asserting that, +you force me to think you----" + +"Mad? I'm not, really," he argued earnestly. "It's quite true." + +"No." She shook her head positively. "You say you obtained it from a +man, which can't be so. There were only a dozen prints made; four I +gave to women friends in England and seven I sent to people out here. +The other one I have." + +"I can only repeat what I have already told you. There are gaps in the +story, I know--incredible gaps; they can't be bridged, just now. I beg +you to believe me." + +"And how soon will you be free to tell me the whole truth?" + +"Only after ... we're married." + +She laughed adorably. "Mr. Amber," she protested, "you are +dangerous--you are delightful! Do you really believe I shall ever marry +you?" + +"I hope so. I came to India to ask you--to use every means in my power +to make you marry me. You see, I love you." + +"And ... and when is this to happen, please--in the name of impudence?" + +"As soon as I can persuade you--to-night, if you will." + +"Oh!" + +He was obliged to laugh with her at the absurdity of the suggestion. +"Or to-morrow morning, at the very latest," he amended seriously. "I +don't think we dare wait longer." + +"Why is that?" + +"Delays are perilous. There might be another chap." + +"How can you be sure there isn't already?" + +He fell sober enough at this. "But there isn't, is there, really?" + +She delayed her reply provokingly. At length, "I don't see why I should +say," she observed, "but I don't mind telling you--no, there +isn't--yet." And as she spoke, Farrell called "Sophia?" from the window +of the drawing-room. She stood up, answering clearly with the assurance +that she was coming, and began deliberately to move toward the house. + +Amber followed, deeply anxious. "I've not offended you?" + +"No," she told him gravely, "but you have both puzzled and mystified +me. I shall have to sleep on this before I can make up my mind whether +or not to be offended." + +"And ... will you marry me?" + +"Oh, dear! How do I know?" she laughed. + +"You won't give me a hint as to the complexion of my chances?" + +She paused, turning. "The chances, Mr. Amber," she said without +affection or coquetry, "are all in your favour ... _if_ you can prove +your case. I do like you very much, and you have been successful in +rousing my interest in you to an astonishing degree.... But I shall +have to think it over; you must allow me at least twelve hours' grace." + +"You'll let me know to-morrow morning?" + +"Yes." + +"Early?" + +"You've already been bidden to breakfast by Mr. Raikes." + +"Meanwhile, may I have my photograph?" + +"Mine, if you please!... I think not; if my decision is favourable, you +shall have it back--after breakfast." + +"Thank you," he said meekly. And as they were entering the Residency he +hung back. "I'm going now," he said; "it's good-night. Will you +remember you've not refused me the privilege of hoping?" + +"I've told you I like you, Mr. Amber." Impulsively she extended her +hand. "Good-night." + +He bowed and put his lips to it; and she did not resist. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +OVER THE WATER + + +Ram Nath, patient and impassive as ever, had the tonga waiting for +Amber before the Residency. Exalted beyond words, the American +permitted himself to be driven off through Kuttarpur's intricate +network of streets and backways, toward a destination of which he knew +as little as he cared. He was a guest of the State, officially +domiciled at the designated house of hospitality; without especial +permission, obtained through the efforts of the Resident, he could +sleep in no other spot in the city or its purlieus. He was indifferent, +absolutely; the matter interested him as scantily--which is to say not +at all--as did the fact that an escort of troopers of the State, very +well accoutred and disciplined, followed the tonga with a great +jangling of steel and tumult of hoofs. + +He was in that condition of semi-daze which is the not extraordinary +portion of a declared lover revelling in the memory of his mistress's +eyes, whose parting look has not been unkind. Upon that glance of +secret understanding, signalled to him from eyes as brown as beautiful, +he was building him a palace of dreams so strange, so sweet, that the +mere contemplation of its unsubstantial loveliness filled him with an +exquisite agony of hope, a poignant ecstasy of despair. It was too much +to hope for, that she should smile upon him in the morning.... Yet he +hoped. + +Unconscious of the passage of time, he was roused only by the pausing +of the tonga and its escort before the Gateway of the Elephants--the +main octroi gate in the northern wall of the city. There ensued a brief +interchange of formalities between the sergeant of his escort and the +captain of the Quarter Guard. Then the tonga was permitted to pass out, +and for five minutes rattled and clattered along the border of the +lake, stopping finally at the rest-house. + +Alighting in the compound, Amber disbursed a few rupees to the +troopers, paid off Ram Nath--who was swift to drive off city-wards, in +mad haste lest the gates be shut upon him for the night--and entered +the bungalow. An aged, talkative, and amiable khansamah met him at the +threshold with expressions of exaggerated respect, no doubt genuine +enough, and followed him, a mumbling shadow, as the Virginian made a +brief round of inspection. + +Standing between the road and the water, the rest-house proved to be +moderately spacious and clean; on the lake-front it opened upon a +marble bund, or landing-stage, its lip lapped by whispering ripples of +the lake. Amber went out upon this to discover, separated from him by +little more than half a mile of black water, the ghostly white walls of +the Raj Mahal climbing in dim majesty to the stars. A single line of +white lights outlined the topmost parapet; at the water's edge a single +marble entrance was aglow; between the two, towers and terraces, +hanging gardens and white scarp-like walls rose in darkened confusion +unimaginable--or, rather, fell like a cascade of architecture, down the +hillside to the lake. A dark hive teeming with the occult life of +unnumbered men and women--Salig Singh the inscrutable and strong, +Naraini the mysterious, whose loveliness lived a fable in the land, and +how many thousand others--living and dying, working and idling, in joy +and sadness, in hatred and love, weaving forever that myriad-stranded +web of intrigue which is the life of native palaces ... + +The Virginian remained long in rapt wondering contemplation of it, +until the wind blowing across the waters had chilled him to the point +of shivering; when he turned indoors to his bed. But he was to have +little rest that night. The khansamah who attended him had hardly +turned low his light when Amber was disturbed by the noise of an angry +altercation in the compound. He arose and in dressing-gown and slippers +went to investigate, and found Ram Nath in violent dispute with the +sergeant of the escort--which, it appeared, had builded a fire and +camped round it in the compound: a circumstance which furnished food +for thought. + +Amber began to suspect that the troops had been furnished as a guard +less of honour than of espionage, less in formal courtesy than in +demonstration of the unsleeping vigilance of the Eye--kindly assisted +by the Maharana of Khandawar. + +A man who, warmed by the ardour of his first love, feels suddenly the +shadow of death falling cold upon him, is apt to neglect nothing. Amber +considered that he had given Ram Nath no commission of any sort, and +bent an attentive ear to the communication which the tonga-wallah +insisted upon making to him. + +Ram Nath had returned, he asserted, solely for the purpose of informing +Amber in accordance with his desires. "The telegraph-office for which +you enquired, sahib, stands just within the Gateway of the Elephants," +he announced. "The telegraph-babu will be on duty very early in the +morning, should you desire still to send the message." + +"Oh, yes," said Amber indifferently. "I'd forgotten. Thanks." + +He returned to his charpoy with spirits considerably higher. Ram Nath +had not winked this time, but the fact was indisputable that Amber had +_not_ expressed any interest whatever in the location of the +telegraph-office. + +Wondering if the telegraph-babu by any chance wore pink satin, he dozed +off on the decision that he would need to send a message the first +thing in the morning. + +Some time later he was a second time awakened by further disputation in +the compound. The troopers were squabbling amongst themselves; he was +able to make this much out in spite of the fact that the sepoys, +recruited exclusively from the native population of Khandawar, spoke a +patois of Hindi so corrupt that even an expert in Oriental languages +would experience difficulty in trying to interpret it. Amber did not +weary himself with the task, but presently lifted up his voice and +demanded silence, desiring to be informed if his sleep was to be +continually broken by the bickerings of sons of mothers without noses. +There followed instantaneous silence, broken by a chuckle and an +applausive "Shabash!" and nothing more. + +Amber snuggled down again upon his pillow and soothed himself with the +feel of the pistol that his fingers grasped beneath the clothes. + +A bar of moonlight slipped through the blinds and fell athwart his +eyes. He cursed it bitterly and got up and moved his charpoy into +shadow. The sibilant lisping of the wavelets against the bund sang him +softly toward oblivion ... and a convention of water-fowl went into +stormy executive session out in the middle of the lake. This had to be +endured, and in time Amber's senses grew numb to the racket and he +dropped off into a fitful doze.... + +Footfalls and hushed voices in the bungalow were responsible for the +next interruption. Amber came to with a start and found himself sitting +up on the edge of the charpoy, with a dreamy impression that two people +had been standing over him and had just left the room, escaping by way +of the khansamah's quarters. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and went +out to remonstrate vigorously with the khansamah. The latter naturally +professed complete ignorance of the visitation and dwelt with such +insistence upon the plausibility of dreams that Amber lost patience and +kicked him grievously, so that he complained with a loud voice and cast +himself at the sahib's feet, declaring that he was but as the dust +beneath them and that Amber was his father and mother and the light of +the Universe besides. In short, he raised such a rumpus that some of +the sepoys came in to investigate and--went out again, hastily, to +testify to their fellows that the hazoor was a man of fluent wrath, +surprisingly versed in the art and practice of abuse. + +Somewhat mollified and reflecting, at the same time, that this was all +but a part of the game, to be expected by those who patronise +rest-houses off the beaten roads of travel, the Virginian returned to +his charpoy and immediately lapsed into a singularly disquieting +dream.... He was strolling by the border of the lake when a coot swam +in and hailed him in English; and when he stopped to look the coot +lifted an A.D.T. messenger-boy's cap and pleaded with him to sign his +name in a little black book, promising that, if he did so, it would be +free to doff its disguise and be Labertouche again. So Amber signed +"Pink Satin" in the book and the coot stood up and said, "I'm not +Labertouche at all, but Ram Nath, and Ram Nath is only another name for +Har Dyal Rutton, and besides you had better come away at once, for the +Eye thou dost wear upon thy finger never sleeps and it's only a paste +Token anyway." Hearing which, Amber caught the coot by the leg and +found that he had grasped the arm of Salig Singh, whose eyes were both +monstrous emeralds without any whites whatever. And Salig Singh tapped +him on the shoulder and began to say over and over again in a whisper... + +But here Amber another time found himself wide awake and sitting up, +his left hand gripping the wrist of a native and his right holding his +pistol steadily levelled at the native's breast. While the voice he +heard was real and no figment of a dream-mused imagination; for the man +was whispering earnestly and repeatedly: + +"_Hasten, hazoor, for the night doth wane and the hour is at hand_." + +"What deviltry's this?" Amber demanded sharply, with a threatening +gesture. + +But the native neither attempted to free himself nor to evade the +pistol's mouth. "Have patience, hazoor," he begged earnestly, "and make +no disturbance. It is late and the sepoys sleep; if you will be +circumspect and are not afraid--" + +"Who are you?" + +"I was to say, '_I come from you know whom_,' hazoor." + +"That all?" + +"In the matter of a certain photograph, hazoor." + +"By thunder!" Labertouche's name was on Amber's lips, but he repressed +it. "Wait a bit." He gulped down the last dregs of sleep. "Let me think +and--see." + +This last was an afterthought. As it came to him he dropped the pistol +by his side and felt for matches in the pocket of his coat, which hung +over the back of a bedside chair. Finding one, he struck it noiselessly +and, as the tiny flame broadened, drew his captive nearer. + +It was a fat, mean, wicked face that stood out against the darkness: an +ochre-tinted face with a wide, loose-lipped mouth and protruding eyes +that blinked nervously into his. But he had never seen it before. + +"Who are you?" He cast away the match as its flame died and snatched up +his weapon. + +"I was to say--" + +"I heard that once. What's your name?" + +"Dulla Dad, hazoor." + +"And who are you from?" + +"Hazoor, I was not to say." + +"I think you'd better," suggested Amber, with grim significance. + +"I am the hazoor's slave. I dare not say." + +"Now look here--" + +"Hazoor, it was charged upon me to say, _'I come from you know whom.'_" + +"The devil it was.... Well, what do you want?" + +"I was to say, '_Hasten, hazoor, for the night--_" + +"I've heard that, too. You mean you're to lead me to somebody, +somewhere--you can't say where?" + +"Aye, hazoor, even so." + +"Get over there, in the corner, while I think this over--and don't move +or I'll make you a present of a nice young bullet, Dulla Dad." + +"That is as Allah wills; only remember, hazoor, the injunction for +haste." + +The man, a small stunted Mohammedan, sidled fearsomely over to the spot +indicated and waited there, cringing and supplicating Amber with +eloquent gestures. The Virginian watched him closely until comforted by +the reflection that, had murder been the object, he had been a dead man +long since. Then he put aside the revolver and began to dress. + +"Only Labertouche would have to communicate with me by such stealth," +he considered. "Besides, that reference to the photograph--" + +He slipped hurriedly into his clothing and ostentatiously dropped the +pistol into his right-hand coat-pocket. "I'm ready," he told the man. +"Lead the way; and remember, if there's any treachery afoot, you'll be +the first to suffer for it, Dulla Dad." + +The Mohammedan bowed submissively. "Be it so, my lord," he said in +Hindi, and, moving noiselessly with unshod feet, glided through the +door which opened upon the bund, Amber close behind him. + +That it was indeed late was shown by the position of the moon; and the +sweet freshness of early morning was strong in the keen air. The wind +had failed and the lake stretched flawless from shore to shore, a sheet +of untarnished silver. Over against them the palace slept, or seemed to +sleep, in its miraculous beauty, glacier-like with its shining surfaces +and deep, purple-shadowed crevasses. There were few lights visible in +the city, and the quiet of it was notable; so likewise with the wards +outside the walls and the lakeside palaces and villas. Only in a +distant temple a drum was throbbing, throbbing. + +In the water at their feet a light boat was gently nosing the marble +bund. Dulla Dad, squatting, drew it broadside to the steps and motioned +Amber to enter. The Virginian boarded it gingerly, seating himself at +the stern. Dulla Dad dropped in forward and pushed off. The boat moved +out upon the bosom of the lake with scarce a sound, and the native, +grasping a double-bladed paddle, dipped it gently and sent the frail +craft flying onward with long, swift, and powerful strokes, guiding it +directly toward the walls of the Raj Mahal. + +Two-thirds of the way across the Virginian surrendered to his mistrust +and drew his pistol. "Dulla Dad," he said gently; and the man ceased +paddling with a shudder--"Dulla Dad, you're taking me to the palace." + +"Yea, hazoor; that is true," the native answered, his voice quavering. + +"Who awaits me there? Answer quickly!" + +"Hazoor, it is not wise to speak a name upon the water, where voices +travel far." + +"Dulla Dad!" + +"Hazoor, I may not say!" + +"I think, Dulla Dad, you'd better. If I lose patience--" + +"Upon my head be your safety, hazoor! See, you can fire, and thereafter +naught can trouble me. But I, with a single sweep of this paddle, can +overturn us. Be content, hazoor, for a little time; then shall you see +that naught of harm is intended. My life be forfeit if I speak not +truth, hazoor!" + +"You have said it," said Amber grimly, "Row on." After all, he +considered, it might still be Labertouche. At first blush it had seemed +hardly credible that the Englishman could have gained a footing in that +vast pile; and yet, it would be like him to seek precisely such a +spot--the very heart of the conspiracy of the Gateway, if they guessed +aright. + +The boat surged swiftly on, while again and again Amber's finger +trembled on the trigger. Though already the white gleaming walls +towered above him, it was not yet too late--not too late; but should he +withdraw, force Dulla Dad to return, he might miss ... what? He did +nothing save resign himself to the issue. As they drew nearer the +moonlit walls he looked in vain for sign of a landing-stage, and +wondered, the lighted bund that he had seen from over the water being +invisible to him round an angle of the building. But Dulla Dad held on +without a pause until the moment when it seemed that he intended to +dash the boat bows first against the stone; then, with a final dextrous +twist of the paddle, he swung at a sharp angle and simultaneously +checked the speed. Under scant momentum they slid from moonlight and +the clean air of night into a close well between two walls, and then +suddenly beneath an arch and into a cavernous chamber filled with the +soft murmuring of water--and with darkness. + +Here the air was sluggish and heavy and dank with the odour of slime. +Breathing it, seeing nothing save the spectral gleam of moonlight +reflected inwards, hearing nothing save the uncanny lapping and purring +of the ripples, it was not easy to forget the tales men told of palace +corruption and crime--of lovers who had stolen thus secretly to meet +their mistresses, and who had met, instead, Death; of assassins who had +skulked by such stealthy ways to earn blood-money; of spies, of a +treacherous legion who had gained entry to the palace by such ways as +this--perhaps had accomplished their intent and returned to tell the +tale, perhaps had been found in the dawn-light, floating out there on +the lake with drawn, wan faces upturned to the pallid skies.... + +"Hazoor!" + +It was Dulla Dad's voice, sleek with fawning. For all the repulsiveness +of the accents, Amber was not sorry to hear them. At least the native +was human and ... this experience wasn't, hardly.... He leaned toward +the man, eyes aching with the futile strain of striving to penetrate +the blackness. He could see nothing more definite than shadows. The +boat was resting motionless on the tide, as if suspended in an abyss of +night, fathomless and empty. + +"Well, what now?" he demanded harshly. "Be careful, Dulla Dad!" + +"Still my lord distrusts me? There is naught to fear, none here to lift +hand against you. Your servant lives but to serve you in all loyalty." + +"Indeed?" + +"My lord may trust me." + +"It seems to me I have--too far." + +"My lord will not forget?" + +"Be sure of that, Dulla Dad.... Well, what are you waiting for?" + +"We are arrived, hazoor," said the native calmly. "If you will be +pleased to step ashore, having care lest you overturn the boat, the +steps are on your left." + +"Where?... Oh!" Amber's tentative hand, groping in obscurity, fell upon +a slab of stone, smooth and slippery, but solid. "You mean here?" + +"Aye, hazoor." + +"And what next?" + +"I am to wait to conduct you back to your place of rest." + +"Um-m. You are, eh?" Amber, doubtful, tried the stone again; it was +substantial enough; only the boat rocked. He struck a match; the +short-lived flame afforded him a feeble, unsatisfactory impression of a +long, narrow, vaulted chamber, whereof the floor was half water, half +stone. There was a landing to the left, a rather narrow ledge, with a +low, heavy door, bossed with iron, in the wall beyond. + +Shaking his head, he lifted himself cautiously out of the boat. "You +stay right there, Dulla Dad," he warned the native, "until I see what +happens. If I catch you trying to get away--the boat'll show up nicely +against the opening, you know--I'll give you cause for repentance." + +"I am here, hazoor. Turn you and knock upon the door thus"--rapping the +gunwale of the boat--"thrice." + +Amber obeyed, wrought up now to so high a pitch of excitement and +suspense that he could hardly have withdrawn had he wished to and been +able to force Dulla Dad to heed him. As he knuckled the third signal, +the door swung slowly inward, disclosing, in a dim glow of light, stone +walls--a bare stone chamber illumined by a single iron lamp hanging in +chains from the ceiling. Across the room a dark entry opened upon a +passageway equally dark. + +By the door a servant stood, his attitude deferential. As the +Virginian's gaze fell upon him he salaamed respectfully. + +Amber entered, his eyes quick, his right hand in his pocket and +grateful for the cold caress of nickelled steel, his body poised +lightly and tensely upon the balls of his feet--in a word, ready. +Prepared against the worst he was hopeful of the best: apprehensive, he +reminded himself that he had first met Labertouche under auspices +hardly more prepossessing than these. + +The clang of the door closing behind him rang hollowly in the +stillness. The warder moved past him to the entrance of the corridor. +Amber held him with a sharp question. + +"Am I to wait here?" + +"For a moment, Heaven-born!" He disappeared. + +Without a sound a door at Amber's elbow that had escaped his cursory +notice, so cunningly was it fitted in the wall, swung open, and a +remembered voice boomed in his ears, not without a certain sardonic +inflection: "Welcome, my lord, welcome to Khandawar!" + +Amber swung upon the speaker with a snarl. "Salig Singh!" + +"Thy steward bids thee welcome to thy kingdom, hazoor!" + +Dominating the scene with his imposing presence--a figure regal in the +regimentals of his native army--the Rajput humbled himself before the +Virginian, dropping to his knee and offering his jewelled sword-hilt in +token of his fealty. + +"Oh, get up!" snapped Amber impatiently. "I'm sick of all this damned +tomfoolery. Get up, d'you hear?--unless you want me to take that pretty +sword of yours and spank you with it!" + +A quiver, as of self-repression, moved the body of the man at his feet; +then, with a jangle of spurs, Salig Singh leaped up and stood at a +distance of two paces, his head high, his black eyes glittering +ominously with well-nigh the sinister brilliance of his vibrating +emerald aigrette. + +"My lord!" he cried angrily. "Are these words to use to one who offers +thee his heart and hand? Is this insolence to be suffered by a Rajput, +a son of Kings?" + +"As for that," returned Amber steadily, giving him look for look, "your +grandfather was a _bunia_ and you know it. Whether or not you're going +to 'suffer' what you call my insolence, I don't know, and I don't much +care. You've made a fool of me twice, now, and I'm tired of it. I give +you my word I don't understand why I don't shoot you down here and now, +for I believe in my heart you're the unholiest scoundrel unhung. Is +that language plain enough for you?" + +For an instant longer they faced one another offensively, Amber cool +enough outwardly and inwardly boiling with rage that he should have +walked into the trap with his eyes open, Salig Singh trembling with +resentment but holding himself in with splendid restraint. + +"As for me," continued Amber, "I suspect I'm the most hopeless ass in +the three Presidencies, if that's any comfort to you, Salig Singh. Now +what d'you want with me?" + +A shadowy smile softened the blackness of the Rajput's wrath. He +shrugged and moved his hands slightly, exposing their palms, subtly +signifying his submission. + +"Thou art my overlord," he said quietly, with a silky deference. "In +time thou wilt see how thou hast wronged me. For the present, I remain +thy servant. I harbour no resentment, I owe thee naught but loyalty. I +await thy commands." + +"The dickens you do!" Amber whistled inaudibly, his eyes narrowing as +he pondered the man. "You protest a lot, Salig Singh. If you're so much +at my service ... why, prove it." + +By way of reply Salig Singh lifted his sword in its scabbard from its +fastenings at his side and, with a magnificent gesture, cast it +clanking to the floor between them. A heavy English army-pattern +revolver followed it. The Rajput spread out his hands. "Thou art armed, +my lord," he said, "I, at thy mercy. If thou dost misjudge my purpose +in causing thee to be brought hither, my life is in thy hands." + +"Oh, yes." Amber nodded. "That's very pretty. But presuming I chose to +take it?" + +"Thou art free as the winds of the morning. See, then." Salig Singh +strode to the outer door and threw it open. "The way of escape is +clear--not even locked." + +The lamplight fell across the stone landing and made visible the +waiting boat with Dulla Dad sitting patiently at the oar. + +"I see," assented Amber. "Well?" + +Salig Singh shut the door gently. "Is there more to say?" he enquired. +"I have shown thee that thou art free." + +"Oh, so far as that goes, you've demonstrated pretty clearly that +you're not afraid of me. Of course I know as well as you do that at the +first shot Dulla Dad would slip out to the lake and leave me here to +die like a rat in a corner." + +"Thou knowest, lord, that no man in Khandawar would do thee any hurt. +Thy person is sacred--" + +"That's all bosh. You don't expect me to believe that you still stick +to that absurd fiction of yours--that I'm Rutton?" + +"Then mine eyes have played me false, hazoor. Shabash!" Salig Singh +bowed resignedly. + +"Well, then, what do you want? Why have you brought me here?" + +"Why didst thou come? There was no force used: thou didst come of thine +own will--thine own will, which is the will of the Body, hazoor!" + +"Oh, damnation! Why d'you insist on beating round the bush forever? You +know well why I came. Now, what do you want?" + +"My lord, I move, it seems, in the ways of error. A little time ago the +words of the Voice were made known to thee in a far land; thou didst +answer, coming to this country. A few days agone I myself did repeat to +you the message of the Bell; thou didst swear thou wouldst not answer, +yet art thou here in Kuttarpur. Am I to be blamed for taking this for a +sign of thy repentance?... Hazoor, the Body is patient, the Will +benignant and long-suffering. Still is the Gateway open." + +"Is that what you wanted to tell me, Salig Singh?" + +"What else? Am I to believe thee a madman, weary of life, that thou +shouldst venture hither with a heart hardened against the Will of the +Body? I seek but to serve thee in thus daring thy displeasure. Why +shouldst thou come to Bharuta [Footnote: India.] at all if thou dost +not intend to undergo the Ordeal of the Gateway? Am I a fool or--I say +it in all respect, my lord--art thou?" + +"From the look of things, I fancy the epithet fits us both, Salig +Singh. You refuse to take my word for it that I know nothing of your +infamous Gateway and have no intention of ever approaching it, that I +have not a drop of Indian blood in me and am in no way related to or +connected with Har Dyal Rutton, who is dead--" + +"I may not believe what I know to be untrue." + +"You'll have to learn to recognise the truth, I'm afraid. For the final +time I tell you that I am David Amber, a citizen of the United States +of America, travelling in India on purely personal business." + +The Rajput inclined his head submissively. "Then is my duty all but +done, hazoor. Thrice hath the warning been given thee. There be still +four-and-twenty hours in which, it may be, thou shalt learn to see +clearly. My lord, I ask of thee a single favour. Wilt thou follow me?" +He motioned toward the arched entrance to the passageway. + +"Follow thee?" Amber at length dropped into Urdu, unconsciously +adopting the easier form of communication now that, he felt, the issue +between them was plain, that the Rajput laboured under no further +misunderstanding as to the reason of his presence in Khandawar. +"Whither?" + +"There is that which I must show thee." + +"What?" + +"My life be forfeit if thou dost not return unharmed to the rest-house +ere sunrise. Wilt thou come?" + +"To what end, Salig Singh?" + +"Furthermore," the Rajput persisted stubbornly, his head lifted in +pride and his nostrils dilated a little with scorn--"furthermore I +offer thee the word of a Rajput. Thou are my guest, since thou wilt +have it so. No harm shall come to thee, upon my honour." + +Curiosity triumphed. Amber knew that he had exacted the most honoured +pledge known in Rajputana. His apprehensions were at rest; nothing +could touch him now--_until_ he had returned to the bungalow. Then, he +divined, it was to be open war--himself and Labertouche pitted against +the strength of the greatest conspiracy known in India since the days +of '57. But for the present, no pledge of any sort had been exacted of +him. + +"So be it," he assented on impulse. "I follow." + +With no other word Salig Singh turned and strode down the corridor. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +FROM A HIGH PLACE + + +The passageway was long and dark and given to sudden curves and angles, +penetrating, it seemed, the very bowels of the Raj Mahal. It ended +unexpectedly in a low arch through which the two men passed into an +open courtyard, apparently given over entirely to stables. Despite the +lateness of the hour it was tenanted by several wideawake syces, +dancing attendance upon a pair of blooded stallions of the stud royal, +who, saddled, bridled and hooded, pawed and champed impatiently in the +centre of the yard, making it echo with the ringing of iron on stone +and the jingling of their silver curb-chains. + +Salig Singh paused, with a wave of his hand calling Amber's attention +to the superb brutes. + +"Thou canst see, hazoor, that all is prepared!" + +"For what?" + +But Salig Singh merely smiled enigmatically, and shaking a patient +head, passed on. + +A second arch gave upon a corridor which led upwards and presently +changed into a steep flight of steps, of ancient stone worn smooth and +grooved with the traffic of generations of naked feet. At the top they +turned aside and passed through a deserted hanging garden, and then, +through a heavy door which Salig Singh unlocked with a private key, +into a vast, vacant room, with a lofty ceiling supported by huge, +unwieldy pillars of stone, sculptured with all the loves and wars of +Hindu mythology. At one end the fitful, eerie flare of a great bronze +brazier revealed the huge proportions of an ivory throne, gorgeous with +gems and cloth of gold, standing upon a daďs and flanked by two +motionless figures which at first sight Amber took to be pieces of +statuary. But they quickened, saluting with a single movement and a +flash of steel, as the Maharana drew nearer, and so proved themselves +troopers of the State, standing guard with naked swords. + +"There is no need, perhaps, to tell thee, hazoor," Salig Singh +muttered, bending to Amber's ear, "that sitting upon this throne, in +this Hall of Audience, for generations thy forefathers ruled this land, +making and administering its laws, meting out justice, honoured of all +men--and served, my lord, for generations by my forebears, the faithful +stewards of thy House; even as I would prove faithful...." + +"Interesting," Amber interrupted brusquely, "if true. Is this what you +wanted to show me?" + +"Nay, hazoor, not this alone. Come." + +The Rajput led him out of the hall by way of a small doorway behind the +throne, and after a little turning and twisting through tortuous +passages they began to ascend again, and so went on up, ever upwards, +the flights of steps broken by other corridors, other apartments, other +galleries and gardens, until at length they emerged into a garden laid +out in the very topmost court of all--the loftiest spot in all +Kuttarpur. + +It was a very wonderful garden, a jungle of exotic plants and shrubs +threaded by narrow walks that led to secluded nooks and unsuspected +pleasaunces, and lighted by low-swung festoons of dim lamps, +many-coloured. A banian grew curiously in its midst, and there also +they found a great tank of crystal water with a bed of brilliant +pebbles over which small golden gleaming fish flashed and loitered. +Here, where the walls of acacia, orange, thuia and pepal shut out every +breath of wind, the air was dense with the cloying sweetness of +jasmine, musk and marigold.... + +"My lord," said the Maharana, pausing, "if thou wilt wait here for a +little, permitting me to excuse myself--?" + +"All right," Amber told him tolerantly. "Run along." + +Salig Singh quietly effaced himself, and the American watched him go +with an inward chuckle. "I presume I'll have to pay for my impudence in +the end," he thought; "but it's costing Salig Singh a good deal to hold +himself in." He was for the time being not ill-pleased with this phase +of his adventure; he had a notion that this must be a sort of very +private pleasure-ground of the rulers of Khandawar, and that very few, +if any, white people had ever been permitted to inspect it. What the +Maharana's next move would be he had not the least suspicion; but since +he must be content and abide the developments as they came, he was +minded to amuse himself. He moved away from the cistern, idling down a +path in a direction opposite that taken by Salig Singh. + +An abrupt turn brought him to the outer wall, and he stopped to gaze, +leaning upon the low marble balustrade. + +From his feet the wall fell away sheer, precipitous, a hundred feet or +more, to another hanging garden like that which lay behind him. From +this there was another stupendous drop. On all sides the marble walls +spread over the hillsides, descending it in great strides broken by +terraces, gardens, paved courts, all white and silver and deep violet +shadow, with here and there a window glowing softly yellow or a web of +saffron rays peeping through the intricacies of a carved stone lattice. +Far below, on the one hand, the lake lay like a sheet of steel; on the +other the city stretched, a huddle of flat roofs not unlike an armful +of child's building blocks. At that great height the effect was that of +peering over the upper lip of an avalanche of masonry on the point of +tumbling headlong down a mountainside to crush all beneath it. + +In the hush there rose to Amber a muted confusion of sounds--the +blended voices of the multitude that inhabited the hidden chambers of +the palace: the pawing and shrill neighing of the stallions in the +lower courtyard, a shivering clash of steel against steel, somewhere +the tinkle of a stringed instrument and a soft voice singing, a man's +accents weighty with authority, the ripple of a woman's laugh--all +relieved against an undertone like a profound sigh, waning and waxing: +the breathing of the Raj Mahal ... + +Amber turned away to rejoin Salig Singh by the cistern. But the Rajput +was not there; and, presently, another path tempting him to unlawful +exploration, he yielded and sauntered aimlessly away. A sudden corner +cloaked with foliage brought him to a little open space, a patch of +lawn over which a canopy had been raised. Beneath this, a woman sat +alone. He halted, thunderstruck. + +Simultaneously, with a soft swish of draperies, a clash of jewelled +bracelets, dull and musical, and a flash of coruscating colour, the +woman stood before him, young, slender, graceful, garbed in +indescribable splendour--and veiled. + +For the space of three long breaths the Virginian hesitated, +unspeakably amazed. Though she were veiled, it were deep dishonour for +a woman of a Rajput's household to be seen by a stranger. It seemed +inexplicable that Salig Singh should have wittingly left him in any +place where he might encounter an inmate of the zenana. Yet the +Maharana must have known.... Amber made an irresolute movement, as if +to go. But it was too late. + +With a murmur, inaudible, and a swift, infinitely alluring gesture, the +woman swept the veil away from her face, and looked him squarely in the +eyes. She moved toward him slowly, swaying, as graceful as a fawn, more +beautiful than any woman he had ever known. His breath caught in his +throat, for sheer wonder at this incomparable loveliness. + +Her face was oval without a flaw, and pale as newly-minted gold, with a +flush of red where the blood ran warm beneath the skin. Her hair was +black as ebony and finer than the finest silk, rich and lustrous; her +jet-black eyebrows formed a perfect arch. Her mouth was like a +passion-flower, but small and sweet, with lips full and firm and +scarlet. Her eyes were twin pools of darkness lighted with ardent inner +fire. They held him speechless and motionless with the beauty of their +unuttered desire, and before he could collect his wits she had made him +captive--had without warning cast herself upon her knees before him and +imprisoned both his hands, burying her face in their palms. He felt her +lips hot upon his flesh, and then--wonder of wonders!--tears from those +divine eyes streaming through his fingers. + +The shock of it brought him to his senses. Pitiful, dumfounded, +horrified, he glared wildly about him, seeking some avenue of escape. +There was no one watching: he thanked Heaven for that, while the cold +sweat started out upon his forehead. But still at his feet the woman +rocked, softly sobbing, her fair shoulders gently agitated, and still +she defied his gentle efforts to free his hands, holding them in a +grasp he might not break without hurting her. He found his tongue +eventually. + +"Don't!" he pleaded desperately. "My dear, you mustn't. For pity's sake +don't sob like that! What under the sun's the trouble? Don't, +please!... Good Lord! what am I to do with this lovely lunatic?" Then +he remembered that he had spoken in English and thoughtfully translated +the gist of his remonstrances, with as little effect as if he had +spoken to the empty air. + +Though in time the fiercest paroxysm of her passion passed and her sobs +diminished in violence, she clung heavily to him and made no resistance +when he lifted her in his arms. The error was fatal; he had designed to +get her on her feet and then stand away. But no sooner had he raised +her and succeeded in disengaging his hands, than soft round arms were +clasped tightly about his neck and her face--if possible, more +ravishing in tears than when first he had seen it--pillowed on his +breast. And for the first time she spoke coherently. + +"_Aie_!" she wailed tremulously. "_Aie_! Now is the cup of my happiness +full to brimming, now that thou hast returned to me at last, O my lord! +Well-nigh had I ceased to hope for thee, O Beloved; well-nigh had this +heart of mine grown cold within my bosom, that had no nourishment save +hope, save hope! Day and night I have watched for thy coming for many +years, praying that thou shouldst return to me ere this frail +prettiness of mine, that made thee love me long ago, should wane and +fade, so that thy heart should turn to other women, O my husband!" + +"Husband! Great--Heavens! Look here, my dear, hadn't you better come to +your senses and let me go before--" + +"Let thee go, _Lalji_, ere what? Ere any come to disturb us? Nay, but +who should come between husband and wife in the first hour of their +reunion after many years of separation? Is it not known--does not all +Khandawar know how I have waited for thee, almost thy widow ere thy +wife, all this weary time?... Or is it that thy heart hath forgotten +thy child-bride? Am I scorned, O my Lord--I, Naraini? Is there no love +in thy bosom to leap in response to the love of thee that is my life?" + +She released him and whirled a pace or two away, draperies swirling, +jewels scintillating cold fire in hopeless emulation of the radiance of +her tear-gemmed eyes. + +"Naraini?" stammered Amber, recalling what he had heard of the woman. +"Naraini!" + +"Aye, my lord, Naraini, thy wedded wife!" The rounded little chin went +up a trifle and her eyes gleamed angrily. "Am I no longer thy Naraini, +then? Or wouldst thou deny that thou art Har Dyal, my king and my +beloved? Hast thou indeed forgotten the child that was given thee for +wife when thy father reigned in Khandawar and thou wert but a boy--a +boy of ten, the Maharaj Har Dyal? Hast thou forgotten the little maid +they brought thee from the north, _Lalji_--the maiden who had grown to +womanhood ere thy return from thy travels to take up thy father's +crown?... _Aie_! Thou canst never forget, Beloved; though years and the +multitude of faces have come between us as a veil, thou dost +remember--even as thou didst remember when the message of the Bell came +to thee across the great black waters, and thou didst learn that the +days of thy exile were numbered, that the hour approached when again +thou shouldst sit in the place of thy fathers and rule the world as +once they ruled it." + +A denial stuck in Amber's throat. The words would not come, nor would +they, he believed, have served his purpose could he have commanded +them. If he had found no argument wherewith to persuade Salig Singh, he +found none wherewith to refute the claim of this golden-faced woman who +recognised him for her husband. He was wholly dismayed and aghast. But +while he lingered in indecision, staring in the woman's face, her look +of petulance was replaced by one of divine forgiveness and compassion. +And she gave him no time to think or to avoid her; in a twinkling she +had thrown herself upon him again, was in his arms and crushing her +lips upon his. + +"Nay," she murmured, "but I did wrong thee, Beloved! Perchance," she +told him archly, "thou didst not think to see me so soon, or in this +garden? Perchance surprise hath robbed thee of thy wits--and thy tongue +as well, O wordless one? Or thou art overcome with joy, as I am +overcome, and smitten dumb by it, as I am not? _Aho, Lalji!_ was ever a +woman at loss for words to voice her happiness?" And nestling to him +she laughed quietly, with a note as tender and sweet as the cooing of a +wood-dove to its mate. + +"Nay, but there is a mistake." He recovered the power of speech +tardily, and would have put her from him; but she held tight to him. "I +am not thy husband, nor yet a Rajput. I come from America, the far land +where thy husband died.... Nay, it doth pain me to hurt thee so, Ranee, +but the mistake is not of my making, and it hath been carried too far. +Thy husband died in my presence--" + +"It is so, then!" she cut him short. And his arms were suddenly empty, +to his huge relief. "Indeed they had warned me that thou wouldst tell +this story and deny me--why, I know not, unless it be that thou art +unworthy of thy lineage, a coward and a weakling!" Her small foot +stamped angrily and on every limb of her round body bracelets and +anklets clashed and shimmered. "And so thou hast returned only to +forswear me and thy kingdom, O thou of little spirit!" The scarlet lips +curled and the eyes grew cold and hard with contempt. "If that be so, +tell me, why hast thou returned at all? To die? For that thou must +surely come to, if it be in thy mind to defy the behests of the Voice, +thou king without a kingdom!... Why, then, art thou here, rather than +running to hide in some far place, thinking to escape with thy +worthless life--worthless even to thee, who art too craven to make a +man's use of it--from the Vengeance of the Body?... Dost think I am to +be tricked and hoodwinked--I, in whose heart thine image hath been +enshrined these many weary years?" + +"I neither think, nor know, nor greatly care, Ranee," Amber interposed +wearily. "Doubtless I deserve thine anger and thy scorn, since I am not +he who thou wouldst have me be. If death must be my portion for this +offence, for that I resemble Har Dyal Rutton ... then it is written +that I am to die. My business here in Khandawar hath concern neither +with thee, nor with the State, not yet with the Gateway of Swords--of +the very name of which I am weary.... Now," and his mouth settled in +lines of unmistakable resolve, "I will go; nor do I think that there be +any here to stop me." + +He wheeled about, prepared to fight his way out of the palace, if need +be. Indeed, it was in his mind that a death there were as easy as one +an hour after sunrise; for he had little doubt but that he was to die +if he remained obdurate, and the hospitality of the Rajput would cease +to protect him the moment he set foot upon the marble bund of his +bungalow. + +But the woman sprang after him and caught his arm. "Of thy pity," she +begged breathlessly, "hold for a space until I have taken thought.... +Thou knowest that if what thou hast told me be the truth, then am I +widow before my time--widowed and doomed!" + +"Doomed?" + +"Aye!" And there was real terror in her eyes and voice. "Doomed to +_sati_. For, since I am a widow--since thou dost maintain thou art not +my husband--then my face hath been looked upon by a man not of mine own +people, and I am dishonoured. Fire alone can cleanse me of that +defilement--the pyre and the death by flame!" + +"Good God! you don't mean that! Surely that custom has perished!" + +"Thou shouldst know that it dieth not. What to us women in whose bodies +runs the blood of royalty, is an edict of your English Government? +What, the Sirkar itself to us in Khandawar?" She laughed bitterly. "I +am a Rohilla, a daughter of kings: my dishonour may be purged only by +flame. _Arre_! that I should live to meet with such fate--I, Naraini, +to perish in the flower of my beauty.... For I am beautiful, am I not?" +She dropped the veil which instinctively she had caught across her +face, and met his gaze with childish coquetry, torn though she seemed +to be by fear and disappointment. + +"Thou art assuredly most beautiful, Ranee," Amber told her, with a +break in his voice, very compassionate. And he spoke simple truth. "Of +thy kind there is none more lovely in the world ..." + +"There was tenderness then in your tone, my lord!" she caught him up +quickly. "Is there no mercy in thy heart for me?... Who is this woman +across the seas who hath won thy love?... Aye, even that I know--that +thou dost love this fair daughter of the English. Didst thou not lose +the picture of her that was taken with the magic-box of the sahibs?... +Is it for her sake that thou dost deny me, O my husband? Is she more +fair than I, are her lips more sweet?" + +"I am not thy husband," he declared vehemently, appalled by her +reversion to that delusion. "Till this hour I have never seen thee; nor +is the sahiba of any concern to thee. Let me go, please." + +But she had him fast and he could not have shaken her off but with +violence. He had been a strong man indeed who had not been melted to +tenderness by her beauty and her distress. She lifted her glorious face +to him, pleading, insistent, and played upon him with her voice of +gold. "Yet a moment gone thou didst tell me I was greatly gifted with +beauty. Have I changed in thine eyes, O my king? Canst thou look upon +this poor beauty and hear me tell thee of my love--and indeed I am +altogether thine, _Lalji_!--and harden thy heart against me?... What +though it be as thou hast said? What though thou art of a truth not of +the house of Rutton, nor yet a Rajput? Let us say that this is so, +however hard it be to credit: even so, am _I_ not reward enough for thy +renunciation?" + +"I know not thy meaning, Ranee, I--" + +"Come, then, and I will show thee, my king. Come thou with me.... Nay, +why shouldst thou falter? There is naught for thee to fear--save me." +She tugged at his hand and laughed low, in a voice that sang like +smitten glasses. "Come, Beloved!" + +Unwillingly, he humoured her. This could not last long.... The woman +half led, half dragged him to the northern boundary of the garden, +where they entered a little turret builded out from the walls over an +abyss fully three-hundred feet in depth. And here, standing upon the +verge of the parapet, with naught but a foot high coping between her +and the frightful fall, utterly fearless and unutterably lovely, +Naraini flung out a bare, jewelled arm in an eloquent gesture. + +"See, my king!" she cried, her voice vibrant, her eyes kindling as they +met his. "Look down upon thy kingdom. North, south, east, west--look!" +she commanded. "Wherever thine eyes may turn, and farther than they can +see upon the clearest day, this land is all thine ... for the taking. +Look and tell me thou hast strength to renounce it ... and me, +Beloved!" + +A little giddy with the consciousness of their perilous height, his +breath coming harshly, he looked--first down to the lake that shone +like a silver dollar set in velvet, then up the misty distances of the +widening valley through which ran the stream that fed the lake, and out +to the hills that closed it in, miles away, and then farther yet over +the silvered summits of the great, rough hills that rolled away +endlessly, like a sea frozen in its fury. + +"There lies thy kingdom, O my king!" The bewitching voice cooed +seduction at his shoulder. "There and ... here." She sought his hand +and placed it firmly upon her bosom, holding it there with gentle +pressure until he felt the thumping of her heart and the warm flesh +that heaved beneath a shred of half-transparent lace. + +Reddening and a little shaken, he snatched his hand away. And she +laughed chidingly. + +"From the railway in the north to the railway in the south, all the +land is Khandawar, Beloved: thine inheritance--thine for the taking ... +even as I am thine, if thou wilt take me.... Look upon it, thy father's +kingdom, then upon me, thy queen.... Yea!" she cried, throwing back her +head and meeting his gaze with eye languorous beneath their heavy +silken lashes. "Yea, I am altogether thine, my king! Wilt thou cast me +aside, then, who am faint with love for thee?... Never hast thou +dreamed of love such as the love that I bear for thee. How could it be +otherwise, when thou hast passed thy days in the chill exile of the +North? O my husband, turn not from me--" + +He pulled himself together and stood away. "Madam," he said with an +absurdly formal bow, "I am not your husband." + +She opened her arms with infinite allure. "It is so little that is +asked of thee--only to ascend thy father's throne and be honoured of +all Bharuta, only to wield the sceptre that is thine by right, only to +reign an undisputed king in two kingdoms--Khandawar and thy Naraini's +heart!" + +"I am very sorry," he returned with the same preciseness. "It is quite +impossible. Besides, it seems that you leave the Sirkar altogether out +of your calculations. It may not have occurred to you that the Supreme +Government of India may have something to say about the contemplated +change." + +He saw her bite her lips with chagrin, and the look she flashed to his +face was anything but kind and tender. "_Arre!_" she laughed +derisively. "And of what account is this frail, tottering Sirkar's will +besides the Will of the Body? Of what avail its dicta against the +rulings of the Bell? Thou knowest--" + +"Pardon, I know nothing. I have told thee, Ranee, that I am not Har +Dyal Rutton." + +She was mistress of a thousand artifices. Brought to a standstill on +the one line of attack, she diverged to another without the quiver of +an eyelash to betray her discomfiture. + +"Yea, thou hast told me," she purred. "But I, Naraini, _I_ know what I +know. Thou dost deny thyself even as thou dost deny me, but ... art +thou willing to be put to the proof, my king?" + +"If you've any means of proving my identity, I would thank you for +making use of it, Ranee." + +"There is the test of the Token, _Lalji_." + +"I am not aware of it." + +"The test of the Token--the ring that was brought to thee, the signet +of thy House. Surely thou hast it with thee?" + +Since that night in Calcutta Amber had resumed his habit of carrying +the Token in the chamois bag. Now, on the reflection that it had been +given him for a special purpose, which had been frustrated by the death +of Dhola Baksh, so that he had no further use for it, he decided +against the counsels of prudence. "What's the odds," he asked himself, +"if I do lose it? I don't want the damn' thing--it's brought me nothing +but trouble, thus far." And he thrust a hand within his shirt and +brought forth the emerald. "Here it is," he told the woman cheerfully. +"Now this test?" "Place it upon thy finger--so, even upon thy little +finger, as was thy father's wont with it. Now lift up thine arm, so, +and turn the stone to the west, toward Kathiapur." + +Without comprehension he yielded to this whim, folding up his right arm +and turning the emerald to the quarter indicated by Naraini. + +The hour had drawn close upon dawn. A cold air breathed down the valley +and was chill to them in that lofty eyrie. The moon, dipping towards +the rim of the world, was poised, a globe of dull silver, upon the +ridge of a far, dark hill. As they watched it dropped out of sight and +everything was suddenly very bleak and black. + +And a curious thing happened. + +Naraini cried out sharply--"_Aho_!"--as if unable to contain her +excitement. + +Somewhere in the palace behind them a great gong boomed like thunder. + +A pause ensued, disturbed only by the fluttering of the woman's breath: +for the space of thirty pulse-beats nothing happened. Then Naraini's +fingers closed like bands of steel about Amber's left wrist. + +"See!" she cried in a voice of awe, while the bracelets shivered and +clashed upon her outstretched arm, "The Eye, my king, the Eye!" + +Amber shut his teeth upon an exclamation of amaze. For just above the +far, dark mountain ridge, uncannily brilliant in the void of the pale, +moonlit firmament, a light had blazed out; a vivid emerald light, +winking and stabbing the darkness with shafts of seemingly supernatural +radiance. + +"And thy ring, lord--look! The Token!" + +The great emerald seemed to have caught and to be answering the light +Naraini called the Eye; in the stone's depths an infernal fire leaped +and died and leaped again, now luridly blazing, now fitfully a-quiver +as though about to vanish, again strong and steady: even as the light +of the strange emerald star above the mountains ebbed and flowed +through the night. + +Naraini shuddered and cried out guardedly for very fear. "By Indur, it +is even as the Voice foretold! Nay, Heaven-born"--she caught his sleeve +and forcibly pulled down his hand--"tempt not the Unseen further. And +put away this Token, lest a more terrible thing befall us. There be +mysteries that even we of the initiate may not comprehend, my lord. It +is not well to meddle with the unknown." + +The ring was off his finger now and the woman was cramming it into his +coat-pocket with tremulous hands. And where the Eye had shone, the sky +was blank. They stood in darkness, Amber mute with perplexity, Naraini +clinging to his arm and shaking like a reed in the wind. + +"Now am I frightened, lord of my heart! Lead me back to the garden, for +I am but a woman and afraid. Who am I, Naraini, to see the Eye? What am +I, a weak woman, to trespass upon the Mysteries? I am very much afraid. +Do thou take me hence and comfort me, my king!" She drew his arm about +her waist, firm, round, and slender, and held it so, her body yielding +subtly to his, her head drooping wearily upon his shoulder. + +They moved slowly from the turret and back along the lighted walks of +the garden, the woman apparently content, Amber preoccupied--to tell +the truth, more troubled than he would have been willing to confess. As +for the intimacy of their attitude, he was temporarily careless of it; +it meant less to him than the woman guessed. It seems likely that she +inferred a conquest from his indifference, for when they had come back +to the tank of the gold-fish beneath the banian she slipped from his +embrace and confronted him with a face afire with elation. + +"See now how thou art altogether controverted, _Lalji!_" she cried +joyfully. "No longer canst thou persist that thou art other than thy +true self, the lord of Naraini's heart, the king returned to his +kingdom.... For who would dare give the lie to the Eye?... Indeed," she +continued with a low, sighing laugh, "I myself had begun to doubt, my +faith borne down and overcome by thy repeated denials; but now I know +thee. Did not the Bell foretell that the Eye should be seen of men only +when Har Dyal Rutton had returned to his kingdom, and then only when he +wore the Token? Even as it was said, so has it been.... And now art +thou prepared to go?" + +"Whither?" + +"To Kathiawar--even to the threshold of the Gateway?... There is yet +time, before the dawn, and it were wise to go quickly, my king; but for +one night more is the Gateway open to receive thee. Thou didst see the +saddled stallions in the courtyard? They wait there for thee, to bear +thee to Kathiawar.... Nay, it were better that thou shouldst wait, +mayhap, for the hours be few before the rising of the sun. Go then to +thy rest, heart of my heart, since thou must leave me; and this night +we shall ride, thou and I, together to the Gateway." + +"So be it," he assented, with a grave inclination of his head. +Convinced of the thanklessness of any further attempt to convince the +woman against her will, he gave it up, and was grateful for the respite +promised him. In twelve or eighteen hours he might accomplish +much--with the aid of Labertouche. At worst he would find some means to +communicate with the Farrells and then seek safety for himself in +flight or hiding until what he had come to term "that damned +Gateway-thing" should be closed and he be free to resume his strange +wooing. Some way, somehow, he could contrive to extricate himself and +his beloved. + +Therefore he told the woman: "Be it so, O Queen! Now, I go." + +"And leave me," she pouted prettily, "with no word but that, my king? +Am I not worth a caress--not even when I beg for it?" + +He smiled down at her, tolerant and amused, and impulsively caught her +to him. "The point's well taken," he said. "Decidedly you're worth it, +Naraini. And if you were not, the show was!" + +And he kissed and left her, all in a breath. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +SUNRISE FOR TWO + + +I + +Amber found his way out of the garden without difficulty; at the +doorway an eunuch waited. The Maharana himself, perhaps in deference to +the dictates of discretion, did not reappear, and Amber had no desire +to see him again. He was eager only to get away, to find a place and +time to think, and to get into communication with Labertouche. + +The eunuch bowed submissively to his demand to be shown out, and +silently led him down through the echoing marble corridors and +galleries of the many-tiered palace. They took a different way from +that by which Amber had ascended; had his life depended on it, he could +not have found his way back to the garden of Naraini, but by accident. + +As they passed through the lower court of stables he remarked the fact +that the stallions were being led away to their stalls. The +circumstances confirmed Naraini's statement; the hour of their +usefulness was ended for the day--or, rather, for the night. + +The Virginian wondered dully if ever he would find himself astride one +of the superb animals. After what he had witnessed and been a part of +there was for him no longer any circumscribing horizon to the world of +possibility. For him the improbable no longer existed. He had met the +incredible face to face and found it real. + +In the cavern-like chamber at the water-level Dulla Dad had the boat in +readiness. Amber embarked, not without a sigh of relief, and the +Mohammedan with his double-bladed paddle drove the boat out of the +secret entrance, in an impassive silence. In the stern Amber watched +the indefinite grey light of dawn wavering over the face of the waters +and wondered ... + +The boat swung in gently to the marble steps of the bund. Amber rose +and stepped ashore, very tired and very much inclined to believe he +would presently wake up to a sane and normal world. + +"Hazoor," the voice of Dulla Dad hailed him. He turned. "Hazoor, I was +to say that at the third hour after sunset to-night this boat will be +in waiting here. You are to call me by name, and I will put in for you, +hazoor." + +"What's that? I don't understand.... Oh, very well." + +"And I was to say further, my lord, these words: 'You shall find but +one way to Kathiapur.'" + +Amber shook his head, smiling. "If you don't mind getting yourself +disliked on my account, Dulla Dad, you may take back to the author of +that epigram this answer: 'You shall find but one way to Jehannum, and +that right speedily.' Good-morning, Dulla Dad." + +"The peace of God abide always with the Heaven-born!" + +With a single, strong stroke the creature of the palace sent the boat +skimming far out from the bund, and, turning, headed for the palace. + +Amber entered the bungalow, to find the khansamah already awake and +moving about. At the Virginian's request he shuffled off to prepare +coffee--much coffee, very strong and black and hot, Amber stipulated. +He needed the stimulant badly. He was sleepy and his head was in a +whirl. + +He sat lost in thought until the khansamah brought the decoction, then +roused and drank it as it came from the pot, without sugar, gulping +down huge bitter mouthfuls of the scalding black fluid. But the effect +that he expected and desired was strangely long in making itself felt. +He marvelled at his drowsiness, nodding and blinking over his empty +cup. Out of doors the skies were hot and blue--white with forerunners +of the sun, and the world of men was stirring and making preparation +against the business of the day; but Amber, who had a work so serious +and so instant to his hand, sat on in dreamy lethargy, musing.... + +The faces of two women stood out vividly against the misty formless +void before his eyes: the face of Naraini and that of Sophia Farrell. +He looked from one to the other, stupidly contrasting them, trying to +determine which was the lovelier, until their features blurred and ran +together and the two became as one and ... + +The khansamah tiptoed cautiously into the room and found the Virginian +sleeping like a log, his head upon the table. His face was deeply +coloured with crimson, as if a fever burned him, and his breathing was +loud and stertorous. + +Pausing, the native beckoned to one who skulked without, and the latter +entering, the two laid hold of the unconscious man and bore him to the +charpoy. The second native slipped silver money into the khansamah's +palm. + +"He will sleep till evening," he said. "If any come asking for him, say +that he has gone abroad, leaving no word. More than this you do not +know. The sepoys have an order to prevent all from entrance." + +The khansamah touched his forehead respectfully. "It is an order. +Shabash!" he muttered. + +A shaft of sunlight struck in through the window and lay stark upon the +sleeper's face. He did not move. The khansamah drew close the shades, +and with the other left the room in semi-dusk. + + +II + +Beneath the spreading banian, by the cistern of the goldfish, Naraini +with smouldering eyes watched Amber disappear in the wilderness of +shrubbery. He walked as a man with a set purpose, never glancing back. +She laughed uneasily but waited motionless where he had left her, until +the echo of his boot-heels on the marble slabs had ceased to ring in +the neighbouring corridor. Then, lifting a flower-like hand to her +mouth, she touched her lips gently and with an air of curiosity. The +resentment in her eyes gave place to an emotion less superficial. "By +Indur and by Har!" she swore softly. "In one thing at least he is like +a Rajput: he kisses as a man kisses." + +She moved indolently along the walk to the rug beneath the canopy where +he had found her, her lithe, languid, round body in its gorgeous +draperies no whit less insolent than the flaming bougainvillea whose +glowing magenta blossoms she touched with idle fingers as she passed. + +The east was grey with dusk of dawn--a light that grew apace, making +garish the illumination of the flickering, smoking, many-coloured lamps +in the garden. Naraini clapped her hands. Soft footsteps sounded in the +gallery and one of her handmaidens threaded the shrubbery to her side. + +"The lamps, Unda," said the queen; "their light, I think, little +becomes me. Put them out." And when this was done, she composedly +ordered her pipe and threw herself lazily at length upon a pile of +kincob cushions, her posture the more careless since she knew herself +secure from observation; the garden being private to her use. + +When the tire-woman had departed, leaving at Naraini's side a small +silver _huqa_ loaded with fine-cut Lucknow weed, a live ember of +charcoal in the middle of the bowl, she sat up and began to smoke, her +face of surpassing loveliness quaintly thoughtful as she sucked at the +little mouthpiece of chased silver and exhaled faint clouds of aromatic +vapour. From time to time she smiled pensively and put aside the tube +while she played with the rings upon her slender, petal-like fingers; +five rings there were to each hand, from the heavy thumb circlet that +might possibly fit a man's little finger to the tiny band that was on +her own, all linked together by light strands of gold radiating from +the big, gem-encrusted boss of ruddy gold midway between her slim round +waist and dimpled knuckles.... + +The tread of boots with jingling spurs sounded in the gallery, warning +her. She sighed, smiled dangerously to herself, and carelessly adjusted +her veil, leaving rather more than half her face bare. Salig Singh +entered the garden and found his way to her, towering over her beneath +the canopy, brave in his green and tinsel uniform. She looked up with a +listless hauteur that expressed her attitude toward the man. + +"_Achcha_!" she said sharply. "Thou art tardy, Heaven-born. Yet have I +waited for thee this half-hour gone, heavy with sleep though I +be--waited to know the pleasure of my lord." + +There was a mockery but faintly disguised in her tone. The Maharana +seemed to find it not unpleasant, for he smiled grimly beneath his +moustache. + +"There was work to be done," he said briefly--"for the Cause. And +thou--how hast thou wrought, O Breaker of Hearts?" + +The woman cast the silver mouthpiece from her and clasped her hands +behind her head. "Am I not Naraini?" + +"The man is ours?" + +"Mine," she corrected amiably. His face darkened with a scowl of +jealousy and she laughed in open derision. "Were I Naraini could I not +divine the heart of a man?" + +"By what means?" + +"What is that to thee, O Heaven-born?" She snuggled her body +complacently into the luxurious pile of cushions. "If I have +accomplished the task thou didst set for me, what concern hast thou +with the means I did employ? Thou art only Salig Singh, Maharana of +Khandawar, but I am Naraini, a free woman." + +"Thou--!" Rage choked the Rajput. "Thou," he sputtered--"thou art--" + +"Softly, Heaven-born, softly--lest I loose a thunderbolt for thy +destruction. Is it wise to forget that Naraini holds thy fate in the +hollow of her hands?" She sat forward, speaking swiftly and with +malice. "Thou art pledged to produce Har Dyal Rutton in the Hall of the +Bell before another sunrise, and none but Naraini knows to what a +perilous resort thou art driven to redeem thy word." + +"I was lied to," he argued sullenly. "A false tale was brought me--by +one who hath repented of his error! If I was told that Har Dyal Rutton +would be in India upon such-and-such a day, am I to blame that I did +promise to bring him to the Gateway?" + +"And seeing that the man is dead, art thou to blame for bringing in his +place a substitute, even so poor a changeling as this man Amber? Nay, +be not angry; do I blame thee? Have I done aught but serve thee to the +end thou dost desire?... Thou shouldst be grateful to me, rather than +menace me with thine anger.... And," she added sweetly, "it were well +for thee that thou shouldst bear always in mind my intimacy with thy +secret. If thou art king, then am I more than queen, in Khandawar." + +"I am not angry, Naraini," he told her humbly, "but mad with love for +thee--" + +"And lust, my lord, for--power," she interpolated. + +"But if what thou hast said be true--" + +"'Who lies to the King, is already a dead man.' Why should I trouble to +deceive thee, Heaven-born? I tell thee, the man is won. The day shall +declare it: this night will he ride with me to Kathiapur. Why didst +thou not tarry to eavesdrop? Indeed thou hast lost an opportunity that +may never a second time be thine--to learn of the wiles of woman." + +"There was work to be done," he repeated. "I went to take measures +against thy failure." + +"O thou of little faith!" + +"Nay, why should I neglect proper precautions? Whether thy confidence +be justified or no, this night will Har Dyal Rutton--or one like +him--endure the Ordeal of the Gateway." + +"So I have told thee," she assented equably. "He will come, because +Naraini bids him." + +"It may be so. If not, another lure shall draw him." + +She started with annoyance. "The Englishwoman of the picture?" + +"Have I named her?" He lifted his heavy brows in affected surprise. + +"Nay, but--" + +"Secret for secret," he offered: "mine for thine. Is it a bargain, O +Pearl of Khandawar?" + +"Keep thy silly secret, then, as I will keep mine own counsel," she +said, with assumed disdain. It was no part of wisdom, in her +understanding, to tell him of her interview with Amber. A man's +jealousy is a potent weapon in a woman's hands, but must be wielded +with discretion. + +He was persistent: "I will back my plan against thine, Ranee." + +"So be it," she said shortly. "Whichever wins, the stake is won for +both. What doth it matter?" + +She rose and moved impatiently down the walk and back again, bangles +tinkling, jewels radiant on wrist and brow, ankle and bosom. The man +watched her with sulky eyes until she turned, then bent his head and +stood glowering at the earth and twisting his moustache. She paused +before him, hands on hips, and raised her eyes in silent inquiry. He +pretended not to notice her. She sighed with a pretence of humility +thinly disguised. "Thy trouble, my lord?" she rallied him. + +"I have wondered," he said heavily: "will he pass?" + +"If not, it were well for thee to die this night, O Heaven-born." + +"That was my thought." + +"Thou hast little need to worry, lord." Woman-like she shifted to suit +his humour. "He is a man: I answer for that, though ... he is no fool. +Still, when the hour strikes, what he must, that will he endure for the +sake of that which Naraini hath promised him." + +"Or for another," Salig Singh growled into his beard. + +"I did not hear." + +"I said naught. I am distraught." + +"Be of good heart," she comforted him still further. "If he doth fail +to survive the Ordeal--Har Dyal Rutton hath died. If he doth survive--" + +"Har Dyal Rutton shall die within the hour," Salig Singh concluded +grimly. "But ... I am troubled. I cannot but ask myself continually: +Were it not wiser to confess failure and abide the outcome?" + +"How long wouldst thou abide the outcome, my king, after thou hadst +informed the Council of this deception to which thou hast been too +willing and ready a party?... He who misled you died a dog's death. But +thou--art thou in love with death?" + +"Unless thy other name be Death, Naraini ..." + +"Or if the Council should spare thee--as is unlikely? The patience of +the Body is as the patience of Kings--scant; and its mercy is like unto +its patience.... But say thou art spared: what then? How long art thou +prepared to wait until the Members of the Body shall again be in such +complete accord as now? When again shall all Hindustan be ripe for +revolt?... _Aho!_ Thou wouldst have sweet patience in the waiting, +Salig Singh!... Let matters rest as they be, my lord"--this a trace +imperiously. "Leave the man to me: I stand sponsor for him until the +Gateway shall have received him and--and perhaps for a little +afterwards." + +"Thou art right as ever." He lifted his gaze to meet hers and his eyes +flamed. "I leave my life on your knees, Naraini. I love thee and ... by +all the gods, thou art altogether a woman!" + +"And thou ... a man, your Highness?" she countered provokingly. "Nay!" +she continued, evading him with a supple squirm, "be content until this +affair be consummated. Wait until the time when an empress shall reign +over all Bharuta and thou, my lord, shall be her Minister of State." + +The man's voice shook. "That hour is not far off, my queen. Thou wilt +not keep me waiting longer?" + +She gave him the quick promise of her eyes. "Thou shouldst know--thou +of all men, my lord.... But see!" It was necessary to distract him and +she seized hastily upon the first pretext. "The last day of the old +order dawns ... and the dawn is crimson, my lord, as with blood!" Her +soft scarlet lips curled thirstily and showed her teeth, small, sharp +and white as pearls. "I think," she added with somber conviction, "this +omen is propitious!" + +She swept away from him, toward the parapet. He took a single step in +pursuit and halted, following her with a glance that was at once a +caress and a threat. + +She paused only when she could go no further, and stood in silent +waiting. + +Deep down in the valley the city was stirring from its sleep; the dull +and peaceful humming of its hived hordes rose to her, pulsating in the +still air. Above the eastern ridge the sky was hot and angry, banded +with magenta, scarlet, and cadmium, and shot with expanding shafts of +fierce radiance, like ribs of a fan of fire. In a long and breathless +instant of suspense the hilltops blushed with the glare and threw down +the light to the night mists swimming in the valley, rendering them +opalescent, as with a heart of flame. + +With eyes half-veiled by long languorous lashes the woman threw back +her head until her swelling throat was tense. She raised her arms and +stretched them wide. The sun, soaring suddenly, a crimson disk above +the ridge, seemed to strike fire from her strange, savage beauty as +from a jewel. Bathed in its ruddy glare she seemed to embody in her +frail, slight form all that was singular to that cruel, passionate land +of fire and steel. Her face became suffused, her blood leaping in +response to the ardour of the sun. + +Her parted lips moved, but the man, who had drawn near enough to hear, +caught two words only. + +"_Naraini!... Empress!_" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE WAY TO KATHIAPUR + + +Gall and wormwood in his mouth, more bitter than remorse, Amber became +conscious. Or perhaps it were more true to say that he struggled out of +unconsciousness, dragging his ego back by main will-power from the deep +oblivion of drugged slumber. One by one his faculties fought their way +past the barrier, until he was fully sentient, save that his memory +drowsed. His head was hot and heavy, his eyes burned in their sockets +like balls of live charcoal, a dulled buzzing sounded in his ears, his +very heart felt sore and numb; he was as one who wakes from evil dreams +to the blackness of foreknown despair. + +He lay for a time without moving. Because it was dark and his memory +not working properly, time had ceased to be for him, and to-day was as +yesterday and to-morrow. The ceiling-cloth above him was blood-red with +light from the sepoys' fire in the compound, and all was as it had been +when he had first lain down the night before. And yet.... + +Suddenly he raised himself upon the charpoy and called huskily for the +khansamah. Promptly the squat white figure that he remembered appeared +in the doorway. "Bring lights," Amber ordered, peremptory. + +"Bring lights quickly--and water." And when the man had returned with a +lamp, which he put on the table, Amber seized the red earthenware +water-jug and drained it greedily. Returning it, empty, to the brown +hands, he motioned to the man to wait, while he consulted his watch. It +had run down. He thrust it back into his pocket and enquired: "What's +o'clock?" + +"Eight of the evening, sahib." + +Amber gasped and stared. "Eight of the ... Let me think. Go and bring +me food and a brandy-peg--or, hold on! Bring a bottle of soda-water and +a glass only." + +The khansamah withdrew. Amber fell back with his shoulders to the wall +and stared unwinking at the lamp. He distinctly remembered undressing +before going to bed; he now found himself fully clothed. He felt of his +pocket, and found the emerald ring there, instead of in its chamois +case. Then it had not been a nightmare! + +He had a bottle of brandy which had never been uncorked, in his +travelling-kit. Rising, he found it and inspected the cork narrowly to +make sure it had not been tampered with; then he drew it. + +The khansamah returned with the glass and an unopened bottle of +Schweppe's, and prepared the drink under eyes that watched him +narrowly. While Amber drank he laid a place for him at the table. When +he left the room a second time the Virginian produced his automatic +pistol and satisfied himself that it remained loaded and in good +working order. + +In the course of a few minutes the native reappeared with a tray of +food and pot of coffee. These arranged, he stood by the chair, ready to +serve the guest. Then he found himself looking into the muzzle of +Amber's weapon, and became apparently rigid with terror. + +"Sahib--!" + +"Make no outcry, dog, and tell me no lies, if you value your +contemptible life. Why did you drug me--at whose instance?" + +"Sahib!..." + +"Answer me quickly, son of vipers!" + +"By Dhola Baksh, hazoor, I am innocent! Another has done these +things--he who served you last night, belike, and whose place I have +taken." + +Now the oaths of India are many and various, so that a new specimen +need not be held wonderful. But Amber sat bolt upright, his eyes +widening and his jaw dropping. "Dhola--!" he said, and brought his +teeth together with an audible click, staring at the khansamah as if he +were a recrudescence of a prehistoric mammal. He caught a motion of the +head and a wave of the hand toward the window, warning him that there +might be an eavesdropper lurking without, and rose admirably to the +emergency. + +"That is a lie, misbegotten son of an one-eyed woman of shame! By the +Gateway at Kathiapur, that is a lie! Speak, brother of jackals and +father of swine, lest my temper overcome me and I make carrion of you!" + +"My lord, hear me!" protested the man in an extremity of fright. "These +be the words of truth. If otherwise, let my head be forfeit.... Early +in the morning you returned from the lake, heavy with sleep, and so +soundly have you slept since that hour that no effort of mine could +rouse you, though many came to the door, making inquiry. I am Ram Lal, +a true man, and no trafficker in drugs and potions." + +"Even so!" said Amber, ironic. "But if, on taking thought, I find +you've lied to me ... Go now and hold yourself fortunate in this, that +I am not a man of hasty judgment." + +"Hazoor!" Like a shadow harried by a wind of night, the khansamah +scurried from the room. But on the threshold he paused long enough to +lay a significant finger upon his lips and nod toward the table. + +Amber put away his pistol, sighed from the bottom of his soul, and, +seating himself, without the least misgiving, broke his long fast with +ravenous appetite, clearing every dish and emptying the coffee pot of +all save dregs. Then, with a long yawn of satisfaction, repletion, and +relief, he lighted a cigarette and stretched himself, happily conscious +of returning strength and sanity. + +From the khansamah's quarters came an occasional clash of crockery and +pattering of naked feet. Outside, in the compound, the sepoys were +chattering volubly; their words were indistinguishable, but from their +constantly increasing animation Amber inferred that they were keenly +relishing the topic of discussion. He became sure of this when, at +length, his curiosity roused, he went to the window and peered out +between the wooden slats of the blind. The little company was squatting +in a circle round the fire, and a bottle was passing from hand to hand. + +He turned back, puzzled, to find the khansamah calmly seated at the +table and enjoying one of Amber's choicest cigarettes. + +"Thank God," he said, with profound emotion, "for a civilised smoke!" + +"Labertouche!" cried Amber. + +The pseudo-khansamah rose, bowed formally, and shook hands with +considerable cordiality. "It's good to see you whole and sound," he +said. "I had to wait until Ram Nath's work began to show results. He's +out there, you know, keeping the bottle moving. I don't believe those +damned sepoys will bother us much, now, but we've got no time at all to +spare. Now tell me what you have to tell, omitting nothing of the +slightest consequence." + +Amber dropped into a chair, and the Englishman sat near to him. "I say, +thank God for you, Labertouche! You don't know how I've needed you." + +"I can fancy. I've had a ripping time of it myself. Sorry I couldn't +communicate with you safely before you left Calcutta. But we've not a +minute to waste. Get into your yarn, please; explanations later, if we +can afford 'em." + +Inhaling with deep enjoyment, he narrowed his dark eyes, listening +intently to Amber's concise narrative of his experiences since their +parting before the stall of Dhola Baksh in the Machua Bazaar. Not once +was he interrupted by word or sign from Labertouche; and even when the +tale was told the latter said nothing, but dropped his gaze +abstractedly to the smouldering stump of his cigarette. + +"And you?" demanded the Virginian. "Have pity, Labertouche! Can't you +see I'm being eaten alive by curiosity?" + +Labertouche eyed him blankly for an instant. "Oh!" he said, with an +effort freeing his mind from an intense concentration of thought. "I? +What's there to tell? I've been at work. That's all.... I was jostled +off to one side when the row started in the bazaar, and so lost you. +There was then nothing to do but strike back to the hotel and wait for +a clue. You can figure my relief when you dropped out of that +ticca-ghari! I gave you the word to go on to Darjeeling, intending to +join you _en route_. But you know why that jaunt never came off. I +found out my mistake before morning, wired you, and left Calcutta +before you, by the same train that conveyed his Majesty the Maharana of +Khandawar. Fortunately enough we had Ram Nath already on the ground, +working up another case--I'll tell you about it some time. He's one of +our best men--a native, but loyal to the core, and wrapped up in his +work. He'd contrived to get a billet as tonga-wallah to the Kuttarpur +_bunia_ who has the dâk-service contract. I myself had arranged to have +the telegraph-babu here transferred, and myself appointed in his place. +So I was able to attach myself to the 'tail' of the Maharana without +exciting comment. Miss Farrell came by the same train, but Salig Singh +was in too great a hurry to get home to pay any attention to her, and +I, knowing you'd be along, arranged that tonga accident with Ram Nath. +He bribed his brother tonga-wallah to bring it about." + +"Thank you," said Amber from his heart. + +Labertouche impatiently waved the interruption aside. "I looked for you +at the telegraph office this morning, but of course when you didn't +appear I knew something was up. So I concocted a message to you for an +excuse, came down, engaged the khansamah in conversation (I think he +had some idea I was an agent of the other side) and ... he is an old +man, not very strong. Once indoors, I had little trouble with him. He's +now enjoying perfect peace, with a gag to insure it, beneath his own +charpoy. Ram Nath happened along opportunely and created a diversion +with his gin-bottle. That seems to be all, and I'm afraid we mayn't +talk much longer. I must be going--and so must you." + +He glanced anxiously at his watch--a cheap and showy thing, such as +natives delight in. Both men rose. + +"You return to the telegraph station, I presume?" said Amber. + +"Not at all. It wouldn't be worth my while." + +"How's that?" + +"The wires haven't been working since ten this morning," said +Labertouche quietly. Amber steadied himself with the back of his chair. +"You mean they've been cut?" + +"Something of the sort." + +"And that means--" + +"That this infernal conspiracy is scheduled to come to a head +to-night--as you must have inferred, my dear fellow: this is the last +night of your probation. The cutting off of Khandawar from all British +India is a bold move and shows Salig Singh's confidence. It means +simply: 'Governmental interference not desired. Hands off.' He knows +well that we've spies here, that enough has leaked out, unavoidably, to +bring an army corps down on his back within twenty-four hours, if he +permitted even the most innocent-seeming message to get out of the +city." + +Amber whistled with dismay. "And you--" + +"I'm going to find out for myself what's towards in Kathiapur." + +"You're going there--alone?" + +"Not exactly; I shall have company. A gentleman of the Mohammedan +persuasion is going to change places with me for the night. No; he +doesn't know it yet, but I have reason to believe that he got an +R.S.V.P. for the festive occasion and intends to put in a midnight +appearance. So I purpose saving him the trouble. It's only a two-hour +ride." + +"But the risk!" + +Labertouche chuckled grimly. "It's the day's work, my boy. I'm not sure +I shan't enjoy it. Besides, I mayn't hang back where my subordinates +have not feared to go. We've had a man in Kathiapur since day before +yesterday." + +"And I? What am I to do?" + +"Your place is at Miss Farrell's side. No; you'd be only a hindrance to +me. Get that out of your thoughts. Three years ago I found time to make +a pretty thorough exploration of Kathiapur, and, being blessed with an +excellent memory, I shall be quite at home." + +Amber made a gesture of surrender. "Of course you're right," he said. +"You're always right, confound you!" + +"Exactly," agreed Labertouche, smiling. "I'm only here to help you +escape to the Residency. Raikes and Colonel Farrell have already been +advised to make preparations for a siege or for instant flight, if I +give the word. They need you far more than I shall. It would be simple +madness for you to venture to Kathiapur to-night. The case is clear +enough for you to see the folly of doing anything of the sort." + +"It may be clear to you...." + +"See here," said Labertouche, with pardonable impatience; "I'm +presuming that you know enough of Indian history to be aware that the +Rutton dynasty in Khandawar is the proudest and noblest in India; it +has descended in right line from the Sun. There's not a living Hindu +but will acknowledge its supremacy, be he however ambitious. That makes +it plain, or ought to, why Har Dyal Rutton, the last male of his line, +was--and is--considered the natural, the inevitable, leader of the +Second Mutiny. It devolved upon Salig Singh to produce him; Salig Singh +promised and--is on the point of failure. I can't say precisely what +penalty he'll be called upon to pay, but it's safe to assume that it'll +be something everlastingly unpleasant. So he's desperate. I can't +believe he has deceived himself into taking you for Rutton, but whether +or no he intends by hook or crook to get you through this Gateway +affair to-night. He's got to. Now you are--or Rutton is--known to be +disloyal to the scheme. Inevitably, then, the man who passes through +that Gateway in his name is to be quietly eliminated before he can +betray anything--in other words, as soon as he has been put through the +'Ordeal,' as they call it, for the sake of appearances and the moral +effect upon the Hindu race at large. Now I think you understand." + +"I think I do, thanks," Amber returned drily. "You're quite right, as I +said before. So I'm off to the Residency. But how to get through that +guard out there?" + +He received no response. In as little time as it took him to step +backwards from Amber, Labertouche had resumed his temporarily discarded +masquerade. Instantaneously it was the khansamah who confronted the +Virginian--the native with head and shoulders submissively bended, as +one who awaits an order. + +Amber, surprised, stared, started to speak, received a sign, and was +silent, the excuse for Labertouche's sudden change of attitude being +sufficiently apparent in an uproar which had been raised without the +least warning in the compound. The advent of a running horse seemed to +have been responsible for it, for the clatter of hoofs as the animal +was checked abruptly in mid-stride was followed by a clamour of drunken +cries, shrieks of alarm, and protests on the part of the sepoys +disturbed in the midst of their carouse. Over all this there rang the +voice of an Englishman swearing good, round, honest British oaths. + +"Stand aside, you hounds!" + +Amber turned pale. "That's Farrell's voice!" he cried, guessing at the +truth. + +Labertouche made no answer, but edged toward the khansamah's quarters. + +The din subsided as Farrell gained the veranda. His feet rang heavily +on the boards, and a second later he thrust the door violently open and +slammed breathlessly into the room, booted, spurred, his keen old face +livid, a riding-whip dangling from one wrist, a revolver in the other +hand. + +He wheeled on the threshold and lifted his weapon, then, with a gasp of +amazement, dropped it. "By Heaven, sir!" he cried, "that's odd! Those +damned sepoys tried to prevent my seeing you and now they've cleared +out, every mother's son of them!" + +Amber stepped to his side; to his own bewilderment, the compound was +deserted; there was not a sepoy in sight. + +"So much the better," he said quickly, the first to recover. "What's +wrong, sir?" + +"Wrong!" Farrell stumbled over to the table and into a chair, panting. +"Everything's wrong! What's gone wrong with you, that we haven't been +able to find you all day?" + +"I've been lying there," Amber told him, nodding to the charpoy, +"drugged. What's happened? Is Miss Farrell--?" + +"Sophia!" The Political lifted his hand to his eyes and let it fall, +with an effect of confusion. "In the name of charity tell me you know +where she is!" + +"You don't mean--" + +"She's gone, Amber--gone! She's disappeared, vanished, been spirited +away! Don't you understand me? She's been kidnapped!" + +In dumb torment, Amber heard a swift, sharp hiss of breath as pregnant +with meaning as a spoken word, and turned to meet Labertouche's eyes, +and to see that the same thought was in both their minds. Salig Singh +had found the way to lure Amber to Kathiapur. + +No spoken word was needed; their understanding was implicit on the +instant. Indeed the secret-agent dared not speak, lest he be overheard +by an eavesdropper and so be the cause of his own betrayal. With a +flutter of white garments he slipped noiselessly from the room, and +Amber knew instinctively that if they were to meet again that night it +would be upon the farther side of the Gateway of Swords. For himself, +his path of duty lay clear to the Virginian's vision; like +Labertouche's, it was the road to Kathiapur. He had no more doubt that +Sophia had been conveyed thither than he had of Farrell's presence +before him. And in his heart he cursed, not Naraini, not Salig Singh, +but himself for his inept folly in bringing to India the photograph +which had been stolen from him and so had discovered to the +conspirators his interest in the girl. + +He thought swiftly of Dulla Dad's parting admonition: "_You shall find +but one way to Kathiapur_." + +"Well, sir? Well?" Exasperated by his silence the Political sprang to +his feet and brought the riding-crop against his leg with a smack like +a gun-shot. "Have you nothing to say? Don't you realise what it means +when a white woman disappears in this land of devils? Good God! you +stand there, doing nothing, saying nothing, like a man with a heart of +stone!" + +"Speak French," Amber interposed quietly. He continued in that tongue, +his tone so steady and imperative that it brought the half-frantic +Englishman to his senses. "Speak French. You must know that we're spied +upon every instant; every word we speak is overheard, probably. Tell me +what happened--how it happened--and keep cool!" + +"You're right; I beg your pardon." Farrell collected himself. "There's +little enough to go on.... You disappointed us this morning. During the +day we got word from a secret but trustworthy source to look out for +trouble from the native side. Nevertheless, Raikes and I were obliged, +by reason of our position, representing Government, to attend the +banquet in honor of the coronation to-morrow. We called in young +Clarkson--the missionary, you know--to stay in the house during our +absence. When we returned the Residency was deserted--only we found +Clarkson bound, gagged, and nearly dead of suffocation in a closet. He +could tell us nothing--had been set upon from behind. Not a servant +remained.... But, by the way, your man Doggott came in by the evening +dâk-tonga." + +"Where's Raikes?" + +"Gone to the palace to threaten Salig Singh with an army corps." + +"You know the telegraph wires are cut?" + +"Yes, but how--" + +"Never mind how I know--the story's too long. The thing to do is to get +troops here without a day's delay." + +"But how?" + +"Take Raikes, Clarkson, and Doggott and ride like hell to Badshah +Junction. Telegraph from there. The four of you ought to be able to +fight your way through." + +"But, man, my daughter!" + +"I know where to find her--or think I do. No matter which, I'll find +her and bring her back to you safely, or die trying. You spoke just now +of a secret but trustworthy source of information: I work with it this +night. I can't mention names--you know why; but that source was in this +room ten minutes ago. He's gone after your daughter now. I follow. +No--I go alone. It's the only way. I know how you feel about it, but +believe me, the thing for you to do is to find some way to summon +British troops. Now the quicker you go, the quicker I'm off. I +can't--daren't move while you're here." + +Farrell eyed him strangely. "I'll go," he said after a pause. "But ... +why can't I--" + +"There are just two white men living, Colonel Farrell, who can go where +I am going to look for your daughter to-night. I'm one of them. The +other is--you know who." + +"One of us is mad," said Farrell with conviction. "I think you are." + +"Or else I know what I'm talking about. In either event you only hinder +me now. Please go." + +His manner impressed the man; for a moment Farrell lingered, doubting, +then impetuously offered his hand. "I'm hanged if I understand why," he +said, "but somehow I believe you know what you're about. Good-night +and--and God be with you, Amber." + +The Virginian followed him to the doorway. Farrell's horse, a docile, +well-trained animal, had come to the edge of the veranda to wait for +his master. Otherwise the compound was as empty as the night was quiet. +Mounting, the Political waved a silent farewell and spurred off toward +the city. Amber passed back through the bungalow to the bund. + +It was a wonderful blue night of clear moonlight, quickened by a rowdy +wind that rioted down the valley from the north. The roughened surface +of the lake was dark save where the moon had blazed its trail of +shimmering golden scales. There was no boat visible, and for the first +time Amber's heart misgave him and he doubted whether it were not best +to seek a mount from the stables of the Residency and try to reach +Kathiapur on his own initiative. But his ignorance of the neighbouring +topography was too great a handicap to be overcome; and now that +Labertouche had gone, he was without a friendly, guiding hand. He could +but deliver himself into the hands of the enemy and do what he might +thereafter. + +He lifted his voice and called: "_Ohé_, Dulla Dad!" + +There came a soft shuffle of feet on the stones behind him, and the +stunted, white-clad figure of Dulla Dad stood at his side, making +respectful obeisance. "Hazoor!" + +"You damned spying scoundrel!" Amber cried, enraged. "You've been +waiting there by the window, listening!" + +"Hazoor," the native quavered in fright, "it was cold upon the water +and you kept me waiting over-long. I landed, seeking shelter from the +wind. If your talk was not for mine ears, remember that you used a +tongue I did not know." + +"So you were listening!" Amber calmed himself. "Never mind. Where's +your boat?" + +"I thought to hide it in the rushes. If the hazoor will be patient for +a little moment ..." The native dropped down from the bund and +disappeared into the reedy tangle of the lake shore. A minute or so +later Amber saw the boat shoot out from the shore and swing in a long, +graceful curve to the steps of the bund. + +"Make haste," he ordered, as he jumped in and took his place. "If I +have kept you waiting, as you say, then I am late." + +"Nay, there is time to spare." Dulla Dad spun the boat round and away. +"I did but think to anticipate your impatience, knowing that you would +assuredly come." + +"Ah, you knew that, Dulla Dad? How did you know?" + +The man giggled softly, plying a busy paddle. "Am I not of the palace, +hazoor? What are secrets in the house of kings? Gossip of herders and +bazaar-women!" + +"And how much more do you know, Dulla Dad?" Amber's tone was ominous. + +"I, hazoor? Who am I to know aught?... Nay, this have I heard"--he +paused cunningly: "'_You shall find but one way to Kathiapur_.'" + +Amber, realising that he had invited this insolence, was fair enough +not to resent it, and held his peace until he could no longer be blind +to the fact that the native was shaping a course almost exactly away +from the Raj Mahal. "What treachery is this, dog?" he demanded. "This +is not the way--" + +"Be not mistrustful of your slave, hazoor," whined the native. "I do +the bidding of those before whose will I am as a leaf in the wind. It +is an order that I land you on the bund of the royal summer pavilion, +by the northern shore of the lake. There will you find one waiting for +you, my lord." + +Amber contented himself with a fresh examination of his pistol; it was +all one to him, whatever the route by which he was to reach Kathiapur, +so long as the change involved no delay. But this way across the water +was so much longer than that which he had anticipated that he had time +to work himself into a state of fuming impatience before the boat +finally ranged alongside a pretentious marble bund backed by ragged +plantations of palms and bananas. To the left the white-columned facade +of the Maharana's stately pleasure-house glimmered spectral in the +moonlight. It showed no lights, and Amber very naturally concluded that +it was unoccupied. + +He landed on the steps of the bund and waited for Dulla Dad to join +him; but when, hearing a splash of the paddle, he looked round, it was +to find that the native had already put a considerable distance between +himself and the shore. Amber called after him angrily, and Dulla Dad +rested upon his paddle. + +"Nay, Heaven-born!" he replied. "Here doth my responsibility end. +Another will presently appear to be your guide. Go you up to the jungly +path leading from the bund." + +The Virginian lifted his shoulders indifferently, and ascended to +discover a wide footpath running inland between dark walls of +shrubbery, but quite deserted. He stopped with a whistle of vexation, +peering to right and left. "What the deuce!" he said aloud. "Is this +another of their confounded tricks?" + +A low and marvellously sweet laugh sounded at his elbow, and he turned +with a start and a flutter of his pulses. "Naraini!" he cried. + +It had been impossible to mistake the gracious lines of that slight, +round figure, cloaked though it was in many thicknesses of white +veiling. She had stolen upon him without a sound, and seemed pleased +with the completeness of his surprise, for she laughed again before he +spoke. + +"Tell me not thou art disappointed, O my king!" she said, placing a +soft hand firmly upon his arm. "Didst thou hope to meet another here?" + +"Nay, how should I expect thee?" His voice was gentle though he steeled +his heart against her fascinations; for now he had a use for her. "Had +Dulla Dad conveyed me to the palace, then I should have remembered thy +promise to ride with me to Kathiapur. But, being brought to this place..." + +"Then thou didst wish to ride with me?" She nodded approval and +satisfaction. "That is altogether as I would have it be, Lord of my +Heart. By this have I proven thee, for thou hast consented to approach +the Gateway, not altogether because the Voice hath summoned thee, but +likewise, I think, because thine own heart urged thee. Nay, but tell +me, King of my Soul, did it not leap a little at the thought of meeting +me?" + +With a quick gesture she threw her veil aside and lifted her +incomparably fair face to his, and he was conscious that he trembled a +little, and that his voice shook as he answered evasively: "Thou +shouldst know, Ranee." + +"_Ahi!_ Then am I a happy woman, to think that, though thou wert in +open mutiny against the Voice, when I called, thou didst yield.... And +thou art ready?" + +"Am I not here?" + +"Now of a verity do I know that thou art a man, my king!--a Rajput, a +son of kings, and ... my husband!" Pitched to a minor, thrilling key, +her accents were as musical as the singing of a 'cello. "For thou dost +know what thou must dare this night of nights, and he is a brave man +who can dare so much, unfaltering. Tell me thou art not afraid, my +king?" + +"Why should I be?" + +"Thou wilt not draw back in the end?" Her arms clipped him softly about +the neck and drew his head down so that her breath was fragrant in his +face, her lips a sweet peril beneath his own. "Thou wilt brave whatever +may be prepared for thy testing, for the sake of Naraini, who awaits +thee beyond the Gateway; O my Beloved?" + +"I shall not be found wanting." + +Lithe as a snake, she slipped from his arms. "Nay, I trust thee not!" +she laughed, a quiver of tenderness in her merriment. "Let my lips be +mine alone until thou hast proven thyself worthy of them." She raised +her voice, calling: "_Ohé_, Runjit Singh!" + +The cry rang bell-clear in the stillness, and its silver echo had not +died before it was answered by one who stepped out from the black +shadow of a spreading banian, some distance away, and came toward them, +leading three horses. As the moonlight fell upon him, Amber recognised +the uniform the man wore as that of the Imperial Household Guard of +Khandawar, while the horses seemed to be the stallions he had seen in +the palace yard, with another but little their inferior in mettle or +beauty. + +"Now," announced the woman in tones of deep contentment, "we will +ride!" + +She turned to Amber, who took her up in his arms and set her in the +saddle of one of the stallions; who, his bridle being released by the +trooper, promptly leaped away and danced a spirited saraband with his +shadow, until Naraini, with a strength that seemed incredible when one +recalled the slightness of her wrists, curbed him in and taught him +sobriety. + +"By Har!" she panted, "but I think he must know that he carries +to-night the destinies of empire! Mount, mount, my lord, and bear me +company if this son of Eblis tries to run away with me!" + +The sowar surrendered to Amber the reins of the other stallion, and +stepped hastily aside. The Virginian took the saddle with a flying +leap, and a thought later was digging his knees into the brute's sleek +flanks and sawing on the bits, while the path flowed beneath him, +dappled with moonlight and shadow, like a ribbon of grey-green silk, +and trees and shrubbery streaked back on either hand in a rush of +melting blacks and greys. + +Swerving acutely, the path ran into the dusty high-road. Amber heard a +rush of hoofs behind him, and then slowly the gauze-wrapped figure of +the queen drew alongside. + +"_Maro!_ Let him run, my king! The way is not far for such as he. Have +no fear lest he tire!" + +But Amber set his teeth and wrought with the reins until his mount +comprehended the fact that he had met a master, and, moderating his +first furious burst of speed, settled down into a league-devouring +stride, crest low, limbs gathering and stretching with the elegant +precision of clockwork. His rider, regaining his poise, found time to +look about him and began to enjoy, for all his cares, this wild race +through the blue-white night. + +Behind them, carbine on saddle-bow, the sowar thundered in pursuit, at +an interval of about a hundred yards--often greater, when the stallions +would have it so and spent their temper in brief, brisk contests for +the leadership. On Amber's left the woman rode as one to the saddle +born, her face turned eagerly to the open road, smiling a little with +excitement beneath the tissue of thin veiling which the speed-bred +breeze moulded cunningly to the contour of her flawless features. The +fire in her blood shone lambent in the eyes that now and again met +Amber's. More than once he heard her laugh low, with a lilt of +happiness. + +For himself he was drunk with the spirit of adventure. Bred of the +moonlit sky and the far shy stars, of the flooding moonlight breaking +crisply against impenetrable shadows like surf against black rocks, of +the tune of hoofs, of the singing wind and sighing waters, a wild and +reckless humor possessed him, ran molten in his veins, swam in his +brain like fumes of wine. + +As the tale of miles increased, the valley opened out, and presently +they swung to the west from the northerly track, branching off into a +rougher way through a wilder countryside. Rugged hilltops marched +beside them, looming stark black against the silvered purple of the +sky. They met no one, their road winding through a land whose grandeur +was enhanced by its positive desolation--a land tenanted only by a +million devils of loneliness with naught to do save to fling back +mocking echoes of the road-song of the flying hoofs.... + +Toward the close of the second hour the valleys began to widen, the +hills to be less lofty and precipitous. The horses swung up gentler +ascents, down slopes less sharp. The road ran for a time along the bank +of a broad and placid river, then crossed it by a massive arch of +masonry as old as history. They circled finally a great, round, +grassless hillside, and pulled rein in the notch of a gigantic V formed +by two long, prow-like spurs running out upon a plain whose sole, vague +boundary was the vast arc of the horizon. + +Before them loomed dead Kathiapur, an island of stone girdled by the +shallow silver river. Like the rugged pedestal of some mammoth column, +its cliffs rose sheer threescore feet from the water's edge to the foot +of the outermost of its triple walls. From the notch in the hills a +great stone causeway climbed with a long and easy grade to the level of +the first great gate, spanning the chasm over the river by means of a +crazy wooden bridge. + +Above the broken rim of the three-fold walls the moon's unearthly +splendor made visible a vast confusion of crumbling cornices, blank +walls, turrets, domes, and towers, the gnarled limbs of dead trees, the +luxuriant dark foliage of banian and pepal, palm and acacia. But +nothing moved and there was not a light to be seen. These things with +the silence told the tale of death. With the cessation of the ringing +hoofbeats the stillness had closed down upon the riders like a spell to +break the which were to invite the wrath of the undying gods +themselves. Other than the silken breathing of the horses, an +occasional muffled thud or the jingle of a bridle-chain as one pawed +the earth or tossed his head, they heard no sound. The unending hum of +a living city was not there. Sister of Babylon, Nineveh and Tyre, kin +to Chitor and that proud city of the plains that Jai Singh abandoned +when he built him his City of Victory, Kathiapur is as Tadmor--dead. +The shell remains; the soul has flown. + +A gasp from the woman and an oath from the sowar startled Amber out of +somber apprehensions into which he had been plunged by contemplation of +this impregnable fortress of desolation. Gone was his lust for peril, +gone his high, heedless joy of adventure, gone the intoxication which +had been his who had drunk deep of the cup of Romance; there remained +only the knowledge that he, alone and single-handed, was to pit his +wits against the invisible and mighty forces that lurked in hiding +within those walls, to seem to submit to their designs and so find his +way to the woman of his love, tear her from the grasp of the unseen, +and with her escape... + +Naraini had, indeed, no need to cry aloud or clutch his hand in order +to apprise him that the Eye was vigilant. He himself had seen it break +forth, a lurid star of emerald light suspended high above the dark +heart of the city--high in the air where the moment gone there had been +nothing; so powerful that it shaded with sickly pallor the face of the +woman, who clung shuddering to Amber; so unpresaged its appearance and +so malign its augury that it shook even the skepticism of him whose +reason had been nourished by the materialism of the Occident. + +Slowly, while they watched, the star descended, foot by foot dropping +until the topmost pinnacle of a hidden temple seemed to support it; and +there it rested, throbbing with light, now bright, now dull. + +Amber shook himself impatiently. "Silly charlatanry!" he muttered, +irritated by his own susceptibility to its sinister suggestion.... "I'd +like to know how they manage it, though; the light itself's +comprehensible enough, but their control of it.... If there were enough +wind, I'd suspect a kite...." + +"Thou art not dismayed, my king?" + +He laughed, not quite as successfully as he could have wished, and, +"Not I, Naraini," he returned in English: a tongue which seemed somehow +better suited for service in combating the esoteric influences at work +upon his mind. "What's the next turn on the programme?" + +"I like not that tone, nor yet that tongue." The woman shivered. "Even +as the Eye seeth, my lord, so doth the Ear hear. Is it meet and wise to +speak with levity of that in whose power thou shalt shortly be?" + +"Perhaps not," he admitted, thoughtful. "'In whose power I shall +shortly be.' ... Well, of course!" + +"And thou wilt go on? Thou art not minded to withdraw thy hand?" + +"Not so that you'd notice it, Naraini." + +"For the sake of the reward Naraini offers thee?" she persisted +dangerously. + +"I don't mind telling you that you'd turn 'most any man's head, my +dear," he said cheerfully, and let her interpret the words as she +pleased. + +She was not pleased, for her acquaintance with English was more +intimate than she had chosen to admit; but if she felt any chagrin she +dissimulated with her never-failing art. "Then bid me farewell, O my +soul, and go!" + +"Up there?" he enquired, lifting his brows. + +"Aye, up the causeway and over the bridge, into the city of death." + +"Alone?" + +"Aye, alone and afoot, my king." + +"Pleasant prospect, thanks." Amber whistled, a trifle dashed. "And +then, when I get up there--?" + +"One will meet thee. Go with him, fearing naught." + +"And what will you do, meanwhile?" + +"When thou shalt have passed the Gateway, my lord, Naraini will be +waiting for thee." + +"Very well." Amber threw a leg over the crupper, handed the stallion's +reins to the sowar, who had dismounted and drawn near, and dropped upon +his feet. + +Naraini nodded to the sowar, who led the animal away. When he was out +of earshot the woman leaned from the saddle, her glorious eyes to +Amber's. "My king!" she breathed intensely. + +But the thought of Sophia Farrell and what she might be suffering at +that very moment was uppermost--obtruded itself like a wall between +himself and the woman. He had no further inclination for make-believe, +and he saw Naraini with eyes that nothing illuded. Quite as casually as +though she had been no more to him than a chance acquaintance, he +reached up, took her hand, and gave it a perfunctory shake. + +"Good-night, my dear," he said amiably; and, turning, made off toward +the foot of the causeway. + +When he had gained it, he looked back to see her riding off at a wide +angle from the causeway, heading out into the plain. When he looked +again, some two or three minutes later, Naraini, the sowar, and the +horses had vanished as completely as if the earth had opened to receive +them. He rubbed his eyes, stared, and gave it up. + +So he was alone!... With a shrug, he plodded on. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE HOODED DEATH + + +The causeway down which the horsemen of forgotten kings of Khandawar +had clattered forth to war, in its age-old desuetude had come to decay. +Between its great paving blocks grass sprouted, and here and there +creepers and even trees had taken root and in the slow immutable +process of their growth had displaced considerable masses of stone; so +that there were pitfalls to be avoided. Otherwise a litter of rubble +made the walking anything but good. Amber picked his way with caution, +grumbling. + +The grade was rather more steep than it had seemed to be from the +plain. Now and then he stopped to regain his breath and scrub a +handkerchief over his forehead, on which sweat had started despite the +cold. At such times his gaze would seek inevitably and involuntarily, +the lotus-pointed pinnacle whereon the Eye was poised, blazing. Its +baleful emerald glare coloured his mood unpleasantly. He had a fancy +that the thing was actually watching him. The sensation was creepy. + +For that matter, nothing that met his eye was calculated to instil +cheer into his heart. Desolation worked with silence sensibly upon his +thoughts, so that he presently made the alarming discovery that the +bottom had dropped completely out of his stock of scepticism, leaving +him seriously in danger of becoming afraid of the dark. Scowling over +this, he stumbled on, telling himself that he was a fool: a conclusion +so patent that neither then nor thereafter at any time did he find +reason to dispute it. + +After some three-quarters of an hour of hard climbing he came to the +wooden bridge, and halted, surveying it with mistrust. Doubtless in the +olden time a substantial but movable structure, strong enough to +sustain a troop of warriors but light enough to be easily drawn up, had +extended across the chasm, rendering the city impregnable from capture +by assault. If so, it had long since been replaced by an airy and +well-ventilated latticework of boards and timbers, none of which seemed +to the wary eye any too sound. Amber selected the most solid-looking of +the lot and gingerly advanced a pace or two along it. With a soft +crackling a portion of the timber crumbled to dust beneath his feet. He +retreated hastily to the causeway, and swore, and noticed that the Eye +was watching him with malevolent interest, and swore some more. +Entirely on impulse he heaved a bit of rock, possibly twenty pounds in +weight, to the middle of the structure. There followed a splintering +crash and the contraption dissolved like a magic-lantern effect, +leaving a solitary beam about a foot in width and six or eight inches +thick, spanning a flight of twenty and a drop of sixty feet. The river +received the rubbish with several successive splashes, distinctly +disconcerting, and Amber sat down on a boulder to think it over. + +"Clever invention," he mused; "one'd think that, after taking all this +trouble to get me here, they'd changed their minds about wanting me. +I've a notion to change mine." He looked up at the cusped and +battlemented gateway opposite him, shifted his regard to the Eye, and +shook his fist vindictively at the latter. "If ever I get hold of the +chap that invented you...!" An ingenious imagination failing to suggest +any form of torture commensurate with the crime, he relapsed into +gloomy meditation. + +There seemed to be no possibility of turning back at that stage, +however. Kuttarpur was rather far away, and, moreover, he doubted if he +would be permitted to return. Having come thus far, he must go on. +Moreover, Sophia Farrell was on the other side of that Swordwide +Bridge, and such being the case, cross it he would though he were to +find the next world at its end. Finally he considered that he was +presently to undergo an Ordeal of some unknown nature, probably +extremely unpleasant, and that this matter of the vanishing bridge must +have been arranged in order to put him in a properly subdued and +tractable frame of mind. + +He got up and tested the remaining girder with circumspection and +incredulity; but it seemed firm enough, solidly embedded in the +stonework of the causeway and immovable at the city end. So he +straddled it and, averting his eyes from the scenery beneath him, +hitched ingloriously across, collecting splinters and a very distinct +impression that, as a vocation, knight-errantry was not without its +drawbacks. + +When again he stood on his feet he was in the shadow of the outer +gateway, the curtain of the second wall confronting him. The stillness +remained unbroken but the moonlight illuminated with startling +distinctness the frescoes, half obliterated by time, and they were +monstrous, revolting and obscene, from a Western point of view. A +bastion of the third wall hid the Eye, however; he was grateful for +that. + +Casting about, he discovered the second gateway at some distance to the +left, and started toward it, forcing a way through a tangle of scrubby +undergrowth, weeds, and thorny acacia, but had taken few steps ere a +heavy splash in the river below brought him up standing, with a +thumping heart. After an irresolute moment he turned back to see for +himself, and found his apprehension only too well grounded; the +Swordwide Bridge was gone, displaced by an agency which had been prompt +to seek cover--though he confessed himself unable to suggest where that +cover had been found. There was no one visible on the causeway, and +nobody skulked in the shadows of the bastions of the main gate. +Furthermore it seemed hardly possible that in so scant a space of time +human hands could have worked that heavy beam out of its sockets. And +if the hands had been human (of course any other hypothesis were +ridiculous) what had become of their owners? + +He gave it up, considering that it were futile to badger his wits for +the how and the wherefore. The important fact remained that he was a +prisoner in dead Kathiapur, his retreat cut off, and--Here he made a +second discovery, infinitely more shocking: his pistol was gone. + +Amber remembered distinctly examining the weapon in Dulla Dad's boat, +since when he had found no occasion to think of it. Now either it had +jolted out of his pocket in that wild ride from Kuttarpur, or else +Naraini had managed deftly to abstract it while in his arms by the +summer palace, or when, later, she had shrunk against him in real or +affected terror of the Eye. Of the two explanations his reason favoured +the second. But he made no audible comment, though his thoughts were as +black as his brow and as grimly fashioned as the set of his jaw. + +Turning back at length he made his way to the second gateway and from +it to the third, under the lewdly sculptured arch of which he stopped +and gasped, forgetting himself as for the first time Kathiapur the +Fallen was revealed to him in all the awful beauty of its naked +desolation. + +A wide and stately avenue stretched away from the portals, between rows +of dwellings, palaces of marble and stone, tombs and mausoleums, with +meaner houses of sun-dried brick and rubble, roofless all and +disintegrating in the slow, terrible process of the years. Here a wall +had caved in, there an arch had fallen out. The thoroughfare was strewn +with fallen lintels, broken marble screens, blocks of red sandstone, +bricks, and in between them the fig and pipal nourished with the +bebel-thorn, the ak, the mimosa, the insidious convolvulus twining +everywhere. At the far end of the street a yawning black arch rose in +the white, beautiful façade of a marble temple on whose uppermost +pinnacle the Eye hovered, staring horridly. + +As Amber moved forward small, alert ghosts rose from the undergrowth +and scurried silently thence: a circumstance which made him very +unhappy. Even a brilliant chorus of sharp barks from an adjacent street +failed to convince him that he had merely disturbed a pack of jackals, +after all, and not the disconsolate brooding wraiths of those who had +died and been buried in the imposing ruined tombs, what time Kathiapur +boasted ten thousand swords and elephants by the herd. + +The way was difficult and Amber tired. After a while, having seen +nothing but the jackals, an owl or two, several thousand bats and a +crawling thing which had lurched along in the shadow of a wall some +distance away, giving an admirable imitation of a badly wounded man +pulling himself over the ground, and making strange gutteral +noises--Amber concluded to wait for the guide Naraini had promised him. +He turned aside and seated himself upon the edge of a broken sandstone +tomb. The silence was appalling and for relief he took refuge in cheap +irreverence. "Home," he observed aloud, "never was like this." + +A heart-rending sigh from the tomb behind him was followed by a rattle +of dislodged rubbish. Amber found himself unexpectedly in the middle of +the street and, without stopping to debate the method of his getting +there with such unprecedented rapidity, looked back hopefully to the +tomb. At the same moment a black-shrouded figure swept out of it and +moved a few paces down the street, then paused and beckoned him with a +gaunt arm. "I wish," said Amber earnestly, "I had that gun." + +The figure was apparently that of a native swathed in black from his +head to his heels and seemed the more strikingly peculiar in view of +the fact that, as far as Amber could determine, he had neither eyes nor +features although his head was without any sort of covering. He gulped +over the proposition for an instant, then stepped forward. + +"Evidently my appointed cicerone," he considered. "Unquestionably this +ghost-dance is excellently stage-managed.... Though, of course, I _had_ +to pick out that particular tomb." + +He followed in the wake of the figure, which sped on with a singular +motion, something between a walk and a glide, conscious that his +equanimity had been restored rather than shaken by the incident. "You +wouldn't think," he reflected, "that a man like Salig Singh would lend +himself to anything so childish. Still, I'm not through with it yet." +He conceived a scheme to steal up behind his guide and strip him of his +masquerade, but though he mended his pace he got no nearer, and +eventually abandoned it on the consideration that it was probably most +inadvisable. After all, he had to remember that he was there for a +purpose, and a very serious one, and that properly to further that +purpose he must comport himself with dignity, submissively, accepting, +at least with a show of ease, each new development of the affair along +its prearranged lines. And so he held on in pursuit of the black +shadow, passing forsaken temples and lordly pleasure-houses, all marble +tracery and fretwork, standing apart in what had once been noble +gardens, sunken tanks all weed-grown and rank with slime, humbler +dooryards and cots on whose hearthstones the fires for centuries had +been cold--his destination evidently the temple of the unspeakable Eye. + +As they drew nearer the leading shadow forsook the shade of the walls +which he had seemed to favour, sweeping hastily across a plaza white +with moonglare and without pause on into the black, gaping hole beyond +the marble arch. + +Here for the first time Amber hung back, stopping a score of feet from +the door, his nerves a-jangle. He did not falter in his purpose; he was +going to enter the inky portal, but ... would he ever leave it? And the +world was still sweet to him. His quick, darting gaze registered a +dozen impressions in as many seconds: of the silver splendour spilled +so lavishly upon the soulless corpse of the city, of the high, bright +sky, of dead black shadows sharp-edged against the radiance, of the +fleet flitting spectre that was really a flying-fox.... + +Afar a hyena laughed with a sardonic intonation wholly uncalled-for--it +was blood-curdling, besides. And down the street a melancholy air +breathed gently, sighing like a soul astray. + +"This won't do," he told himself; "it can't be worse inside than out +here." + +He took firm hold of his reason and went on across the dark threshold, +took three uncertain strides into the limitless unknown, and pulled up +short, hearing nothing, unable to see a yard before him. Then with a +terrific crash like a thunder-clap the great doors swung to behind him. +He whirled about with a stifled cry, conscious of a mad desire to find +the doors again, took a step or two toward them, paused to wonder if he +were moving in the right direction, moved a little to the left, half +turned, and was lost. Reverberating, the echoes of the crash rolled far +away and back again, diminishing in volume, dying until they were no +more than as a whisper adrift in the silence, until that was gone.... + +Profound night enveloped him, vast, breathless, without dimensions. One +can endure the blackness that abides within four well-kenned walls; but +night unrelieved by the least gleam of light, night without bounds or +measurements, enfolding one like a stifling blanket and instilling into +the brain the fear of nameless things, quickening the respiration and +oppressing the heart--that is another thing entirely, and that is what +Amber found in the Temple of the Bell. Darkness swam visibly before his +eyes, like a fluid. The sound of his constrained breathing seemed most +loud and unnatural. He could hear his heart rumbling like a distant +drum. + +Digging his nails into his palms, he waited; and in the suspense of +dread began to count the seconds. + +One minute ... two ... three ... four.... + +He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.... + +Seven ... + +He passed a hand across his face and brought it away wet with +perspiration.... + +Nine ... + +In some remote spot a bell began to toll; at first slowly--_clang_!... +_clang_!... _clang_!--then more quickly, until the roar of its +sonorous, gong-like tones seemed to fill all the world and to set it +a-tremble. Then, insensibly, the tempo became more sedate, the fierce +clamour of it moderated, and Amber abruptly was alive to the fact that +the bell was _speaking_--that its voice, deep, clear, sound, metallic, +was rolling forth again and again a question couched in purest +Sanskrit: + +"_Who is there_?... _Who is there_?... _Who is there_?..." + +The hair lifted on his scalp and he swallowed hard in the effort to +answer; but the lie stuck in his throat: he was not Rutton and ... and +it is very hard to lie effectively when you stand in stark darkness +with a mouth dry as dust and your hair stirring at the roots because of +the intensely impersonal and aloof accents of an inhuman Bell-voice, +tolling away out of Nowhere. + +"_Who is there_?" + +Again he failed to answer. Somewhere near him he heard a slight noise +as of a man moving impatiently; and then a whisper: "Respond, thou +fool!" + +"Art thou come, O Chosen of the Gateway?" the Bell-voice rang. + +"I ... I am come," Amber managed to reply. And so still and small +sounded his own voice in the huge spaces of the place that he was +surprised to find he had been heard. + +"Hear ye!" rang the Bell. "Hear ye, O Lords and Rulers in Medhyama! O +Children of my Gateway, hear ye well! He is come! He stands upon the +threshold of the Gateway!" + +Resonant, the echoes of those awe-inspiring tones died upon the +stillness, and in response a faint sighing rose and, momentarily +growing in volume, became as the roaring of a mighty wind; and suddenly +it was abrupted, leaving only a ringing in the ears. + +A great drum roared like the crack of Doom; and Amber's jaw dropped. +For in the high roof of the temple a six-foot slab had been noiselessly +withdrawn, and through it a cold shaft of moonlight fell, cutting the +gloom like a gigantic rapier, and smote with its immaculate radiance +the true Gateway of Swords. + +Not six paces from him it leaped out of the darkness in an iridescent +sheen: an arch a scant ten feet in height, and in span double the width +of a big man's shoulders, woven across like a weaver's frame with +ribbons of pale fire. But the ribbons were of steel--steel blades, +sharp, bright, gleaming: a countless array of curved tulwars and +crescent scimetars, broad jataghans, short and ugly kukurees, long +kutars with straight ends, slender deadly patas, snake-like bichwas; +swords with jewelled hilts and engraved and damascened blades; sabres +with channels cut from point to guard wherein small pearls ran singing; +khands built for service and for parade; swords of every style and +period in all the history of India. With their pommels cunningly +affixed so that their points touched and interlaced, yet swung free, +they lined the piers of the arch from base to span and all the graceful +sweep of the intrados, a curtain of shimmering, trembling steel, +barring the way to the Mystery beyond. Which was--darkness. + +"O ye Swords!" belled the Voice.... "O ye Swords that have known no +dishonour! O ye Swords that have sung in the grasp of my greatest! +Swords of Jehangar, Akbar, Alamgir! Swords of Alludin, Humayun, Shah +Jehan! Swords of Timur-Leng, Arungzeb, Rao Rutton!..." + +The invocation seemed interminable. Amber recognised almost every name +noted in the annals and legends of Hindustan.... + +"Hearken, O my Swords! He, thy Chosen, prayeth for entry! What is thy +welcome?" + +One by one the blades began to shiver, clashing their neighbours, until +the curtain of steel glimmered and glistened like phosphorescence in a +summer sea, and the place was filled with the music of their contact; +and through their clamour boomed the Bell: + +"O my Chosen!" Amber started and held himself firmly in hand. "Look +well, look well! Here is thy portal to kingship and glory!" + +He frowned and took a step forward as if he would throw himself through +the archway; for he had suddenly remembered with compelling vividness +that Sophia Farrell was to be won only by that passage. But as he moved +the swords clattered afresh and swung outwards, presenting a bristle of +points. And he stopped, while the Voice, indifferent and remote as +always, continued to harangue him. + +"If thy heart, O my Chosen, be clean, unsullied with fear and guile; if +thy faith be the faith of thy fathers and thy honour rooted in love of +thy land; if thou hast faith in the strength of thy hands to hold the +reins of Empire ... enter, having no fear." + +"Trick-work," he told himself. He set his teeth with determination. +"Hope they don't see fit to cut me to pieces on suspicion. Here goes." +He moved forward with a firm step until his bosom all but touched the +points. + +Instantaneously, with another clash as of cymbals, the blades were +deflected and returned to their first position, closing the way. He +hesitated. Then, "That shan't stop me!" he said through his teeth, and +pushed forward, heart in mouth. He breasted the curtain and felt it +give; the blades yielded jealously, closing round his body like cold +caressing arms; he felt their chill kisses on his cheeks and hands, +even through his clothing he was conscious of their clinging, deadly +touch. Abruptly they swung entirely away, leaving the entrance clear, +and he was drawing a free breath when the moon glare showed him the +swords returned to position with the speed of light. He jumped for his +life and escaped being slashed to pieces by the barest inch. They swung +to behind him; and again the drum roared, while afar there arose a +furious, eldritch wailing of conches. Overhead the opening disappeared +and the light was shut out. In darkness as of the Hall of Eblis the +conches were stilled and the echoes ebbed into a silence that held sway +for many minutes ere again the Bell spoke. + +"Stretch forth thy hand." + +Somewhat shaken, Amber held out an open palm before him. A second time +the gusty sighing arose and breathed through the night, increasing +until the very earth beneath him seemed to rock with the magnitude of +the sound, until, at its highest, it ceased and was as if it had not +been; not even an echo sang its passing. Then out of nothingness +something plopped into Amber's hand and his fingers closed convulsively +about it. It was a hand, very small, small as a child's, gnarled and +hard as steel and cold as ice. + +Amber sunk his teeth into his lower lip and subdued an almost +uncontrollable impulse to scream and fling the thing away; for his +sense of touch told him that the hand was dead. And yet he became +sensible that it was tugging at his own, and he yielded to its +persuasion, permitting himself to be led on for so long a journey that +his fingers clasping the little hand grew numb with cold ere it was +over. He could by no means say whither he was being conducted, but was +conscious of a long, gradual descent. Many times he swept his free arm +out round him, but touched nothing. + +Abruptly the guiding hand was twisted away. He stopped incontinently, +and possessed himself with what patience he could muster throughout +another long wait tempered by strange sibilant whisperings and +rustlings in the void all about him. + +Without any forewarning two heavy hands gripped him, one on either +shoulder, and he was forced to his knees. At the same instant, with a +snapping crackle a spurt of blue flame shot down from the zenith, and +where it fell with a thunderclap a dazzling glare of emerald light shot +up breasthigh. + +To his half-blinded eyes it seemed, for a time, to dance suspended in +the air before him. A vapour swirled up from it, a thin cloud, +luminous. By degrees he made out its source, a small, brazen bowl on a +tripod. + +A confusion of hushed voices swelled as had the sound of that mighty, +rushing, impalpable wind, and died more slowly. + +Conscious that his features were in strong light, he strove to exhibit +an impassiveness that belied his temper; then glancing round beneath +lowered eyelids he sought to determine something of the nature of his +surroundings, but could see little. The hands had left his shoulders +the minute his knees touched the floor; he knelt utterly alone in the +middle of what seemed to be a vast hall, or cavern, of which the size +was but faintly suggested. As his eyes became accustomed to the +chiaroscuro he became aware of monstrous images of stone that appeared +to advance from and retreat to the far walls on either hand as the +green light flared and fell, and of a great silent and motionless +concourse of people grouped about the massive pedestals--a crowd as +contained and impassive as the gods that towered above its heads, +blending into the gloom that shrouded the high roof of the place. + +In front of him he could see nothing beyond the noiselessly wavering +flame. But presently a hand appeared, as if by magic, above the bowl--a +hand, bony, brown, and long of finger, that seemed attached to +nothing--and cast something like a powder into the fire. There followed +a fizz and puff of vapour, and a strong and heady gust of incense was +wafted into Amber's face. Again and again the hand appeared, sprinkling +powder in the brazier, until the smoke clouded the atmosphere with its +fluent, eddying coils. + +The gooseflesh that had pricked out on Amber's skin subsided, and his +qualms went with it. "Greek fire burning in a bowl," he explained the +phenomenon; "and a native with his arm wrapped to the wrist in black is +feeding it. Not a bad effect, though." + +It was, perhaps, as well that he had not been deceived, for there was a +horror to come that required all his strength to face. He became +conscious that something was moving between him and the +brazier--something which he had incuriously assumed to be a piece of +dirty cloth left there carelessly. But now he saw it stir, squirm, and +upend, unfolding itself and lifting its head to the leaping flame: an +immense cobra, sleek and white as ivory, its swelling hood as large as +a man's two hands, with a binocular mark on it as yellow as topaz, and +with vicious eyes glowing like twin rubies in its vile little head. + +Amber's breath clicked in his throat and he shrank back, rising; but +this instinctive move had been provided against and before his knees +were fairly off the rocky floor he was forced down again by the hands +on his shoulders. He was unable to take his eyes from the monster, and +though terror such as man is heir to lay cold upon his heart, he did +not again attempt to stir. + +There was now no sound. Alone and undisturbed the bleached viper warmed +to its dance with the pulsing flame, turning and twisting, weaving and +writhing in its infernal glare.... + +"Hear ye, O my peoples!" + +Amber jumped. The Voice had seemed to ring out from a point directly +overhead. + +He looked up and discovered above him, vague in the obscurity, the +outlines of a gigantic bell, hanging motionless. The green glare, +shining on its rim and partly illumining its empty hollow (he saw no +clapper) revealed the sheen of the bronze of which it was fashioned. + +Out of its immense bowl, the Voice rolled like thunder: + +"Hear ye, O my peoples!" + +A responsive murmur ascended from the company round the walls: + +"We hear! We hear, O Medhyama!" + +"Mark well this man, O Children of my Gateway! Mark well! Out of ye all +have I chosen him to lead thee in the work of healing; for I thy +Mother, I Medhyama, I Bharuta, I the Body from which ye are sprung, +call me by whatever name ye know me--I am laid low with a great +sickness.... Yea, I am stricken and laid low with a sickness." + +A great and bitter wailing arose from the multitude. + +"Yea, I am overcome with a faintness, and my strength is gone out from +me, and my limbs are as water; I am sick with a fever and languish; in +my veins runs the Evil like fire and like poison; and I burn and am +stricken; I toss in my torment and murmur, and the sound of my Voice +has come to thine ears. Ye have heard me and answered. The tale of my +sufferings is known to ye. Say, shall I perish?" + +In the brazier the flame leaped high and subsided, and with it the +cobra leaped and sank low upon its coils. From the people a mighty +shout of negation went up, so that the walls rang with it, and the +echoes were bandied back and forth, insensibly decreasing through many +minutes. When all was still the Voice began to chant again, and the +flames blazed higher and brighter, while the cobra resumed its mystic +dance. + +Amber knelt on in a semi-stupor, staring glassily at the light and the +serpent. + +"I, thine old Mother, have called ye together to help in my healing. +From my feet to my head I am eaten with pestilence; yea, I am devoured +and possessed by the Evil. Even of old was it thus with thy Mother; +long since she complained of the Plague that is Scarlet--moaned and +cried out and turned in her misery.... But ye failed me. Then my +peoples were weaklings and their hearts all were craven; the Scarlet +Evil dismayed them; they fled from its power and left it to batten on +me in my sickness." + +A deep groan welled in uncounted throats and resounded through the +cavern. + +"Will ye fail me again, O my Children?" + +"Nay, nay, O our Mother!" + +"Too long have I suffered and been patient in silence. Now must I be +cleansed and made whole as of old time; yea, I must be purged +altogether and the Evil cast out from me. It is time.... Ye have heard, +ye have answered; make ready, for the day of the cleansing approacheth. +Whet thy swords for the days of the healing, for my cleansing can be +but by steel. Yea, thy swords shall do away with the Evil, and the land +shall run red with the blood of Bharuta, the blood of thy Mother; it +shall run to the sea as a river, bearing with it the Red Evil. So and +no otherwise shall I, thine old Mother, be healed and made whole +again." + +"Aye, aye, O our Mother!" + +The flames, dying, rose once more, and the Voice continued, but with a +change of temper. It was now a clarion call, stirring the blood like +martial music. + +"Ye shall show me your swords for a token.... Swords of the North, are +ye ready?" + +"We are ready, old Mother!" + +With a singing shiver of steel, all around the walls, in knots and +clusters, naked blades leaped up, flashing. + +"Swords of the East, are ye loyal?" + +"Aye, old Mother!" + +And the tally of swords was doubled. + +"Swords of the South, are ye thirsty?" + +A third time the crashing response shattered the echoes. + +"Swords of the West, do ye love me?" + +With the fourth ringing shout and showing of steel, a silence fell. The +walls were veritably hedged with quivering blades, all a-gleam in the +ghastly glare of green. Over the sculptured faces of the great idols +flickering shadows played, so that they seemed to move and grimace, as +if with approbation. + +Amber was watching the serpent--dazed and weary as if with a great need +of sleep. Even the salvos of shouts came to him as from a great +distance. To the clangour of the Bell alone he had become abnormally +sensitive; every fibre of his being shuddered, responsive to its weird +nuances. + +It returned to its solemn and stately intoning. + +"Out of ye all have I chosen and fixed upon one who shall lead ye. +Through him shall my strength be made manifest, my Will be made known +to my peoples. Him must ye serve and obey; to him must ye bow down and +be humble. Say, are ye pleased? Will ye have him, my Children?" + +Without an instant's delay a cry of ratification rang to the roof. +"Yea, O our Mother! Him we will serve and obey, to him bow down and be +humble." + +The Voice addressed itself directly to the kneeling man. He stiffened +and roused. + +"Thou hast heard of the honour we confer upon thee--I Medhyama, thy +Mother, and these my children, thy brothers. Ye shall lead and shall +rule in Bharuta. Are ye ready?" + +Half hypnotised, Amber opened his mouth, but no words came. His chin +dropped to his breast. + +"Thy strength must be known to my peoples; they must see thee put to +the proof of thy courage, that they may know thee to be the man for +their leader.... Ye are ready?" + +He was unable to move a finger. + +"Stretch out thine arms!" + +He shuddered and tried to obey. The Voice rang imperative. + +"Stretch forth thine arms for the testing!" + +Somehow, mechanically, he succeeded in raising his arms and holding +them rigid before him. Alarmed by the movement, the cobra turned with a +hiss, waving his poisonous head. But the Virginian made no offer to +withdraw his hands. His eyes were wide and staring and his face livid. + +A subdued murmur came from the men clustered round the idols, in +semi-darkness. + +The Bell boomed forth like an organ. + +"O hooded Death.... O Death, who art trained to my service! Thou before +whom all men stand affrighted! Thou who canst look into their hearts +and read them as a scroll that is unrolled ... Look deep into the heart +of my Chosen! Judge if he be worthy or wanting, judge if he be false or +true ... Judge him, O Death!" + +Before Amber the great serpent was oscillating like a pendulum, its +little tongue playing like forked red lightning, its loathsome red eyes +holding his own. Terror gripped his heart, and his soul curdled. He +would have cried out, but that his tongue clave to the roof of his +mouth. He could not have moved had he willed to. + +"Look well, O Death, and judge him!" + +The dance of the Hooded Death changed in character, grew more frenzied; +the white writhing coils melted into one another in dizzying confusion; +figure merged into figure like smoke.... The suspense grew intolerable. + +"Hast thou judged him, O Death?" + +Instantly the white cobra reared up to its utmost and remained poised +over Amber, barely moving save for the almost imperceptible throbbing +of the hood and the incessant darting of the forked tongue. + +"If he be loyal, then spare him ..." + +The hood did not move. Amber's flesh crawled with unspeakable dread. + +"If he be faithless, then ... _strike!_" + +For another moment the cobra maintained the tensity. Then slowly, cruel +head waving, hood shrinking, eyes losing their deathly lustre, coil by +coil it sank. + +A thick murmur ran the round of the walls, swelling into an +inarticulate cry, which beat upon Amber's ears like the raving of a +far-off surf. From his lips a strangled sob broke, and, every muscle +relaxing, he lurched forward. + +Alarmed, in a trice the cobra was up again, hood distended to the +bursting point, head swinging so swiftly that the eye could not follow +it. In another breath would come the final thrust.... + +A firearm exploded behind Amber, singeing his cheek with its flame. He +fell over sideways, barely escaping the head of the cobra, which, with +its hood blown to tatters, writhed in convulsions, its malignant tongue +straining forth as if in one last attempt to reach his hand. + +A second shot followed the first and then a brisk, confused fusillade. +Amber heard a man scream out in mortal agony, and the dull sound of a +heavy body falling near him; but, coincident with the second report, +the brazier had been overturned and its light extinguished as if sucked +up into the air. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +RUTTON'S DAUGHTER + + +In darkness the blacker for the sudden disappearance of the light, +somebody stumbled over Amber--stumbled and swore in good English. The +Virginian sat up, crying out as weakly as a child: "Labertouche!" A +voice said: "Thank God!" He felt strong hands lift him to his feet. He +clung to him who had helped him, swaying like a drunkard, wits a-swirl +in the brain thus roughly awakened from semi-hypnosis. + +"Here," said Labertouche's voice, "take my hand and follow. We're in +for it now!" + +He caught Amber's hand and dragged him, yielding and unquestioning, +rapidly through a chaotic rush of unseen bodies. + +The firing had electrified the tense-strung audience. With a +pandemonium of shrieks, oaths, shouts, orders unheard and commands +unheeded, a concerted rush was made from every quarter to the spot +where the doomed man had been kneeling. Men running blundered into +running men and cannoned off at direct angles to their original +courses, without realising it. Disorder reigned rampant, and the cavern +rang with a thousand echoes, while the Bell awoke and roared a raging +tocsin, redoubling the din. No man could have said where he stood or +whither he ran--save one, perhaps. That one was at Amber's side and had +laid his course beforehand and knew that both their lives depended upon +his sticking to it without deviation. To him a rush of a hundred feet +in a direct line meant salvation, the least deviation from it, death. +He plunged through the scurrying masses without regard for any hurt +that might come either to him or to his charge. + +A red glare of torches was breaking out over the heads of the mob +before they gained their destination. Amber saw that they were making +for a corner formed by the junction of one of the pedestals with a +rocky wall. He was now recovering rapidly and able to appreciate that +they stood a good chance of winning away; for the natives were all +converging toward the centre of the cavern, and apparently none heeded +them. Nevertheless Labertouche, releasing him, put a revolver in his +hand. + +"Don't hesitate to shoot if any one comes this way!" he said. "I've got +to get this door open and..." + +He broke off with an ejaculation of gratitude; for while he had been +speaking, his fingers busily groping in the convolutions of the +sculptured pedestal had encountered what he sought, and now he pulled +out an iron bar two feet or so in length and as thick as a woman's +wrist. Inserting this in a socket, as one familiar with the trick, he +put his weight upon it; a carved sandstone slab slid back silently, +disclosing a black cavernous opening. + +"In with you," panted Labertouche, removing the lever. "Don't +delay...." + +Amber did not. He took with him a hazy impression of a vast, vaulted +hall filled with a ruddy glare of torchlight, a raving rabble of +gorgeously attired natives in its centre. Then the opening received him +and he found himself in a black hole of an underground gallery--a place +that reeked with the dank odours of the tomb. + +Labertouche followed and with the aid of a small electric pocket-lamp +discovered another socket for the lever. A moment later the slab moved +back into place, and the Englishman dropped the metal bar. "If there +were only some way of locking that opening," he gasped, "we'd be fairly +safe. As it is, we'll have to look nippy. That was a near call--as near +a one as ever you'll know, my boy; and we're not out yet. What are you +doing?" he added, as Amber stopped to pick up the lever. + +"It isn't a bad weapon," said the Virginian, "at a pinch. You'll want +your gun, and that she-devil, Naraini, got mine." + +"Keep the one I gave you and don't be afraid to use it. I've another +and a couple of knives for good measure. That Mohammedan prince whom I +persuaded to change places with me was a walking arsenal." Labertouche +chuckled. "Come along," he said, and drew ahead at a dog-trot. + +They sped down a passage which delved at a sharp grade through solid +rock. Now and again it turned and struck away in another direction. +Once they descended--or rather fell down--a short, steep flight of +steps. At the bottom Amber stopped. + +"Hold on!" he cried. + +Labertouche pulled up impatiently. "What's the matter?" + +"Sophia--!" + +"Trust me, dear boy, and come along." + +Persuaded, Amber gave in, blundering on after Labertouche, who loped +along easily, with the confidence of one who threads known ways, the +spot-light from his lamp dancing along the floor several feet before +him. Otherwise they moved between walls of Stygian darkness. + +It was some time later that Labertouche extinguished his lamp and threw +a low word of warning over his shoulder. Synchronously Amber discerned, +far ahead, a faint glow of yellow light. As they bore down upon it with +unmoderated speed, he could see that it emanated from a rough-hewn +doorway, opening off the passage. Before it a man stood guard with a +naked sword. + +"_Johar!_" he greeted them in the Mahar form: "O, warrior!" + +"_Johar!_" returned Labertouche, panting heavily. He closed upon the +native confidently, but was brought up short by a peremptory sweep of +the sword, coupled with an equally imperative demand for an explanation +of their haste. The Englishman replied with apparent difficulty, as if +half-winded. "It is an order, _Johar_. The woman is to be brought to +the Hall of the Bell." + +"You have the word?" The Mahar lowered his sword. "It hath been said to +me that--" + +Labertouche stumbled over his feet, and caught the speaker for support. +The native gurgled in a sodden fashion, dropped his sword, stared +stupidly at Labertouche, and put an uncertain hand to his throat. Then +he lurched heavily and collapsed upon himself. + +The secret-agent stepped back, dropping the knife he had used. "Poor +devil!" he said in a compassionate undertone. "That was cold-blooded +murder, Mr. Amber." + +"Necessary?" gasped Amber, regarding with horror the bloodstained heap +of rags and flesh at his feet. + +"Judge for yourself," said Labertouche coolly, stepping over the body. +"Here," he added, pausing by the doorway, "you go first; she knows +you." + +He pushed Amber on ahead. Stooping, the Virginian entered a small, rude +chamber hollowed out of the rock of Kathiapur. A crude lamp in a +bracket furnished all its illumination, filling it with a reek of hot +oil. Amber was vaguely aware of the figures of two women--one standing +in a corner, the other seated dejectedly upon a charpoy, her head +against the wall. As he lifted his head after passing under the low +lintel, the woman in the corner fired at him point-blank. + +The Virginian saw the jet of flame spurt from her hand and felt the +bullet's impact upon the wall behind his head. He flung himself upon +her instantly. There was a moment of furious struggle, while the cell +echoed with the reverberations of the shot and the screaming of the +woman on the charpoy. The pistol exploded again as he grappled with the +would-be murderess; the bullet, passing up his sleeve, creased his left +arm as with a white-hot iron, and tore out through the cloth on his +shoulder. He twisted brutally the wrist that held the weapon, and the +woman dropped it with a cry of pain. + +"You would!" he cried, and threw her from him, putting a foot upon the +pistol. + +She reeled back against the wall and crouched there, trembling, her +cheeks on fire, her eyes aflame with rage. "You dog!" she shrilled in +Hindi--and spat at him like a maddened cat. Then he recognised her. + +"Naraini!" He stepped back in his surprise, his right hand seeking +instinctively the wrist of his left, which was numb with pain. + +His change of position left the pistol unguarded, and the woman swooped +down upon it like a bird of prey; but before she could get her fingers +on its grip, Labertouche stepped between them, fended her off, and +quietly possessed himself of the weapon. + +"Your pardon, madam," he said gravely. + +Naraini retreated, shaking with fury, and Amber employed the respite to +recognise Sophia Farrell in the woman on the charpoy. She was still +seated, prevented from rising by bonds about her wrists and ankles, and +though unnaturally pale, her anguish of fear and despair had set its +marks upon her face without one whit detracting from the appeal of her +beauty. He went to her immediately, and as their eyes met, hers flamed +with joy, relief and--he dared believe--a stronger emotion. + +"You--you're not hurt, Mr. Amber?" + +"Not at all. The bullet went out through my sleeve. And you?" He +dropped on his knees, with his pocket-knife severing the ends of rope +that bound her. + +"I'm all right." She took his hands, helping herself to rise. "Thank +you," she said, her eyes shining, a flush of colour suffusing her face +with glory. + +"Did you cut those ropes, Amber?" Labertouche interposed curtly. + +"Yes. Why?" + +The Englishman explained without turning from his sombre and morose +regard of Naraini. "Too bad--we'll have to tie this woman up, somehow. +She's a complication I hadn't foreseen.... Here; you'd better leave me +to attend to her--you and Miss Farrell. Go on down the gallery--to the +left, I'll catch up with you." + +The pistol which he still held lent to his demand a sinister +significance of which he was, perhaps, thoughtless. But Sophia Farrell +heard, saw, and surmised. + +"No!" she cried, going swiftly to the secret-agent. "No!" She put a +hand upon his arm, but he shook it off. + +"Did you hear me, Amber?" said Labertouche, still watching the queen. + +"What do you mean to do?" insisted Sophia. "You can't--you mustn't--" + +"This is no time for half-measures, Miss Farrell," Labertouche told her +brusquely. "Our lives hang in the balance--Mr. Amber's, yours, mine. +Please go." + +"You promise not to harm her?" + +"Amber!" cried the Englishman impatiently. "Will you--" + +"Please, Miss Farrell!" begged Amber, trying to take the girl's hand +and draw her away. + +"I won't!" she declared. "I'll not move a step until he promises. You +don't understand. No matter what the danger she's--" + +"She's a fiend incarnate," Labertouche broke in. "Amber, get that +girl--" + +"She's my sister!" cried Sophia. "_Now_ will you understand?" + +"What!" The two men exclaimed as one. + +"She's my sister," the girl repeated, holding up her head defiantly, +her cheeks burning--"my sister by adoption. We were brought up +together. She was the daughter of an old friend of my father's--an +Indian prince. A few years ago she ran away--" + +"Thank God!" said Amber from the bottom of his soul; and, "Ah, you +would!" cried Labertouche tensely, as Naraini seized the opportunity, +when his attention was momentarily diverted, to break for freedom. + +Amber saw the flash of a steel blade in the woman's hand as she struck +at the secret-agent, and the latter, stepping back, deflected the blow +with a guarding forearm. Then, with the quickness of a snake, Naraini +stooped, glided beneath his arms, and slipped from the cell. + +With a smothered oath Labertouche leaped to the doorway, lifting his +pistol; but he was no quicker than Sophia, who caught his arm and held +him back. "No," she panted; "not even for our lives--not at that +price!" + +He yielded unexpectedly. "Of course you are perfectly right, Miss +Farrell," said he, with a little bow. "I'm sorry that circumstances ... +But come! She'll have this hornet's nest about our ears in a brace of +seconds. Hark to that!" + +A long, shrill shriek echoed down the gallery. Labertouche shrugged and +turned to the left. "Come along," he said. "Amber, take Miss Farrel's +hand and keep close to me." He led the way from the cell at a brisk +pace--one, indeed, that taxed Sophia's powers of endurance to maintain. +Amber aided her as much as he might, but that was little; the walls of +the passageway were too close together to permit him to be by her side +much of the time. For the most part he had to lead the way, himself +guided by the swiftly moving patch of light cast by Labertouche's +bull's-eye. But through it all he was buoyed up and exhilarated out of +all reason by the consciousness of the hand that lay trustfully in his +own; a hand soft and small and warm and (though he could not see it) +white, all white! More, it was the hand of his wife to be; he felt this +now with an unquestioning assurance. He wondered if she shared the +subject of his thoughts ... + +The gallery sloped at varying grades, more or less steep--mostly +more--and minute by minute the air became more dank and cold. At an +unseen turning, where another passage branched away, a biting wind +swept out of the black nowhere, chilling them to the marrow. Deeper and +still deeper, into the very bowels of the earth, it seemed, the +secret-agent led them, finding his way with an unfaltering confidence +that exalted Amber's admiration of him to the pitch of hero-worship. + +At length the gallery dipped and ran level, and now, while still cold, +the wind that blew in their faces was cleaner, burdened with less of +the clammy effluvium of death and decay; and then, abruptly, the walls +narrowed suddenly, so that Amber was forced to surrender possession of +the girl's hand and to fall behind her. She went forward without +question, following the dancing spotlight. + +Amber paused to listen for sounds of pursuit, but hearing nothing save +the subdued sigh of the draught between the straitened walls of rock, +followed until the walls fell away and his hands, outstretched, failed +to touch them, and he was aware that the stone beneath his feet had +given way to gravel. He halted, calling guardedly to Labertouche. + +The secret-agent's voice came from some distance. "It's all right, my +boy. Miss Farrell is with me. Come along." + +There was an _élan_ in his tone that bespoke a spirit of gratulation +and relief and led Amber to suspect that they were very close upon the +end of their flight, near to escape from the subterranean ways of +Kathiapur the dead. He proceeded at discretion in the direction of +Labertouche's voice--the light being invisible--and brought up flat +against a dead wall. Coincidently he heard Sophia exclaim with surprise +and delight, somewhere off on his left, and, turning, he saw her head +and shoulders move across a patch of starlit sky. In half a dozen +strides he overtook her. + +They stood on a low, pebbly ledge, just outside the black maw of the +passage--an entrance hidden in a curtain-like fold in the face of the +cliff that towered above them, casting an ink-black shadow. But beyond +it the emblazoned firmament glowed irradiant, and at their feet the +encircling waters ran, a broad ribbon of black silk purling between the +cliff and the opposing shores, where a thicket of tamarisks rose, a +black and ragged wall. + +Labertouche strode off into the water. "Straight ahead," he announced; +"don't worry--'tisn't more than knee-deep at the worst. I've horses +waiting on the other side--" + +"Horses!" Amber interrupted. "Great heavens, man, you're--you're +omniscient!" + +"No--lucky," Labertouche retorted briskly. "Where'd I've been without +Ram Nath? He's taking care of the animals.... Come along. What're you +waiting for? Don't you know--" He turned to see the girl hesitant, +though with lifted skirts. "Oh," he said in an accent of understanding, +and came back. "If you'll help me, Amber, I daresay we can get Miss +Farrell across without a wetting." + +He offered to clasp hands with the Virginian and so make a seat; but +Amber had a happier thought. + +"I think I can manage by myself, thank you--if Miss Farrell will trust +me." + +His eyes met the girl's, and in hers he read trust and faith unending: +he was conscious of a curious fluttering in his bosom. + +"Trust _you!_" she said, with a little, broken laugh, and gave herself +freely to his arms. + +Labertouche grunted and turned his back, wading out into the stream +with a great splashing. + +Amber straightened up, holding her very close to him, and that with +ease. Had she been thrice as heavy he could have borne her with as +little care as he did his own immeasurably lightened heart in that hour +of fulfilment. And she lay snug and confident, her arms round his neck, +the shadowed loveliness of her face very near to him. The faint and +elusive fragrance of her hair was sweet and heady in the air he +breathed; he could read her eyes, and their allure and surrender was +like a draught of wine to him. He felt the strength of ten men +invigorate him, and his soul was sober with a great happiness. But a +little while and she would be in safety; already her salvation seemed +assured.... The further bank neared all too quickly. He would willingly +have lingered to prolong the stolen sweetness of that moment, forgetful +altogether of the danger that lay behind them. + +Ahead, he saw Labertouche step out upon a shelving shore and, shaking +his legs with an effect irresistibly suggestive of a dog leaving the +water, peer inland through the tamarisks. His low, whistled signal +sounded as Amber joined him and put down the girl--reluctantly. Her +whispered thanks were interrupted by an exclamation from Labertouche. + +"Hang it all! he can't've mistaken the spot. I told him to wait right +here, and now ... We daren't delay." He cast an apprehensive glance +across the stream. "Look lively, please." + +He shouldered away through the thicket, and for several moments they +struggled on through the hindering undergrowth, their passage betrayed +by much noisy rustling. Then, as they won through to open ground, +Labertouche paused and whistled a second time, staring eagerly from +right to left. + +"I'm blessed!" he declared, with a vehemence that argued his desire for +stronger language. "This is bad--bad--bad! He never failed me before! +I--" + +A mocking chuckle seemed to break from the ground at their feet, and in +the flicker of an eyelash a shadow lifted up out of the +scrub-encumbered level. Sophia cried aloud with alarm; Labertouche +swore outright, heedless; and Amber put himself before her, drawing his +revolver, heartsick with the conviction that they were trapped, that +their labour had gone all for naught, that all futilely had they +schemed and dared.... + +But while his finger was yet seeking the trigger the first shadow was +joined by a score of fellows--shades that materialised with like +swiftness and silence from the surface of the earth--and before he +could level the weapon Labertouche seized his wrist. For an instant he +resisted, raging with disappointment; but the Englishman was cool, +strong, determined; inevitably in the outcome the weapon was pointed to +the sky. + +"Steady, you ass!" breathed the secret-agent in his ear. "Can't you +see--" + +And Amber gave over, in amazement unbounded, seeing the starlight +glinting down a dozen levelled rifle-barrels, glowing pale on the +spiked, rounded crowns of pith helmets, and striking soft fire from +burnished accoutrements; while a voice, thick with a brogue that was +never bred out of hearing of Bow Bells, was hectoring them to +surrender. + +"'Ands up, ye bloomin' black beggars! 'Ands up, I s'y!" + +"Tommies!" cried Amber; and incontinently he dropped the revolver as +though it had turned hot in his hand. + +"Steady, my man!" Labertouche interrupted what threatened to develop +into a string of intolerable abuse. "Hold your tongue! Can't you see +we've a lady with us?" + +"Ul-_lo!_" The soldier lowered his rifle and stepped closer, his voice +vibrating with astonishment. "Blimme, 'ere's a go!... beggar of a +nigger givin' me wot-for 's if 'e was a gent! 'Oo in 'ell d'ye think +y'are, yer 'ighness?' + +"That'll do. Put down those guns, and call your commanding officer. +I'll explain to him. Where is he? What troops are you? When did you +arrive?" + +Such queries and commands discharged quickly in crisp English from the +mouth of one who wore the color and costume of a Mohammedan of high +degree, temporarily dazed his captors. In a body they pressed round the +three, peering curiously into their faces--the two white and the one +dark; and their murmurings rose and swelled discordant. "Blimme if 'e +_ain't_ a gent!" "T'other un is!" "An this un a leddy!"...But to his +interrogations Labertouche got no direct reply. While as for Amber, he +could have laughed aloud from a heart that brimmed with thanksgiving +for the honest sound of their rich rough voices; besides which, Sophia +stood very close to him, and her fingers were tight about his.... + +"What's this?" A sharp voice cut the comments of the Tommies, and they +were smitten silent by it. An officer, with jingling spurs and sword in +hand, elbowed through the heart of the press. "Stop that row instantly. +What's this? Who are you, sir?" + +"I sent the message from Kathiapur, and I'm uncommonly happy to meet +you, whoever you may be, sir. Tell your men to fall back, please, and +I'll introduce myself properly." + +Two words secured the secret-agent the privacy he desired; the officer +offered him an ungloved hand as the troopers withdrew out of hearing. + +"Happy, indeed!" he said cheerfully. "I'm Rowan, Captain, Fourteenth +Pioneers." + +"I'm Labertouche, I.S.S. This is Miss Farrell, daughter of Colonel +Farrell, and this Mr. Amber, of New York. We're just escaped from that +rock over there and--if you'll pardon--I'd suggest you set a strong +guard over the ford behind those tamarisks." + +"One moment, please." The officer strode off to issue instructions in +accordance with Labertouche's advice. "We got here only a quarter of an +hour ago," he apologised, swinging back as the men deployed into the +thicket, "and haven't had time to nose out the lay of the land +thoroughly." + +"I infer you got my man with the horses--native calling himself Ram +Nath?" + +"He's with the Colonel-commanding now, Mr. Labertouche. As I was +saying, we've hardly had time to do more than throw a line of pickets +round the rock. It's been quick work for us--marching orders at +midnight yesterday, down by train to Sar, and forced march across the +desert ever since daybreak." + +"I'd hardly hoped the thing could be done so quickly. If I had been +able to get the information an instant earlier, my mind would've been +easier, captain, but--Hello!" + +From the ford an abrupt clamour of voices interrupted. The officer +hooked up his scabbard. "Sounds as if my men had gathered in somebody +else," he said hastily. "If you'll excuse me, I'll have a look." He +trotted off into the shade of the tamarisks. + +As he disappeared the disturbance abated somewhat. "False alarm," Amber +guessed. + +"I fancy not," said Labertouche. "If I'm not mistaken our friend +Naraini left for the special purpose of raising the hue and cry. This +should be the vanguard of the pursuit." + +Amber looked upward. Overhead the soulless city slumbered in a +stillness apparently unbroken, yet he who saw its profile rugged +against the stars, could fancy what consternation was then, or +presently would be, running riot through its haunted ways. + +"How many of 'em are there, do you reckon?" he asked. + +"Three or four hundred," replied the secret-agent absently; "the pick +and flower of Indian unrest. My word, but this will kick up a row! +Think of it, man! three hundred and fifty-odd lords and princes bagged +all at once in the act of plotting the Second Mutiny! What a change it +will work on the political face of the land! ... And the best of it is, +they simply can't get away." + +"Is this the only exit, then--the way we escaped?" + +"Not by three--all on the other side of the rocky where they rode up +and left their horses. And that's where the most of 'em will come out, +by twos and threes, like the animals out of the Ark, you know. What a +catch!" + +"And we've you to thank!" + +"I? Oh, dear boy, thank the Tommies!" + +"But what would we have done, or the Tommies either, without you?" + +"What indeed!" Sophia echoed warmly. "I've had no chance, as yet--" + +"Not another word, my dear Miss Farrell!" Labertouche protested, +acutely uncomfortable. "To've been able to help you out of the scrape +is enough." + +"But I must--" she began, and stopped with a little cry as a shot rang +out from the heart of the thicket, to be followed by another and then +by a shriek of agony and a great confusion of sounds--shouts and oaths +and noisy crashings in the tamarisks as of many men blundering hither +and yon. + +Silenced, with a slight shudder of apprehension, the girl drew to +Amber's side, as if instinctively. He took her hand and drew it through +his arm. + +"Run to earth at last!" cried Labertouche. "I wonder--" + +"If my hope's good for anything," Amber laughed, less because he felt +like laughing than for the purpose of reassuring Sophia, "this will be +the gentleman who trained the Hooded Death to dance, or else he who--" + +He was thinking with vindictive relish of what fate he would mete out +to the manipulator of the Bell, were it left to him to pass sentence. +But he broke off as a body of soldiery burst from the tamarisks, and, +headed by young Rowan, hurried toward the three, bringing with them a +silent and unresisting prisoner. + +"I say," the officer called excitedly in advance, "here's something +uncommon' rum. It's a woman, you know." + +"Aha!" said Labertouche, and "Ah!" said Amber, "with a click of his +teeth, while the woman on his arm clung to him the closer. + +"I thought we'd better bring her to you, for she said ..." Rowan +paused, embarrassed, and took a fresh start. "My men got to the ford +just as she was coming ashore with three other men, and the whole pack +took to cover on this side. Two of the men are still missing, but we +routed out the other just now with this--ah--lady. He showed fight and +got bayonetted. But the woman--excuse me, Mr. Amber--she protests--by +George, it's too ridiculous!--" + +"I have claimed naught that is not true!" an unforgettably sweet voice +interrupted from the centre of the group. It opened out, disclosing +Naraini between two guards, in that moment of passion and fear perhaps +more incomparably beautiful than any woman they had ever looked upon, +save her who held to Amber's arm, a-quiver with womanly sympathy and +compassion. + +During her flight and her resistance Naraini's veil had been rent away; +in the clear starlight her countenance, framed in hair of lustrous jet +and working with uncontrollable rage and despair, shone like that of +some strange tempestuous Aphrodite fashioned of palest gold. Beneath +its folds of tightly drawn, bespangled gauze her bosom swelled and fell +convulsively, and on her perfect arms, more softly beautiful than any +Phidias ever dreamed to chisel, the golden bracelets and bangles +clashed and tinkled as she writhed and fought to free herself of the +defiling hands. Half-mad with disappointment, she raged amid the +scattered shreds of her dream of power like a woman hopelessly +deranged. + +"Aye, I have claimed!" she stormed. "I have claimed justice and the +rights of wifehood, the protection of him whose wife I am; or, if he +deny me, I claim that he must suffer with me--he who hath played the +traitor's part to-night, betraying his Cause and his wife alike to +their downfall!... I claim," she insisted, lifting, in spite of the +soldiers' restraining hands, one small quivering arm to single Amber +out and point him to scorn, "that this is the man who, wedded to me by +solemn right and the custom of the land, hath deserted and abandoned +me, hath denied me even as he denies his birthright, when it doth +please him, and forswears the faith of his fathers! I claim to be +Naraini, Queen, wife to Har Dyal Rutton, rightful ruler of +Khandawar--coward, traitor, renegade--who stands there!" + +"For the love of Heaven, Rowan, shut her up!" cried Labertouche. "It's +all a pack of lies; the woman's raving. Rutton's dead, in the first +place; in the second, he's her father. She can't be his wife very well, +whether he's alive or dead. It's simply a dodge of hers to gain time. +Shut her up and take her away--she's as dangerous as a wildcat!" + +"Nay, I will not be gagged nor taken hence till I have said my say!" +With a sudden furious wrench Naraini wrested her arms from the grasp of +the guards and sprang away, eluding with lithe and snake-like movements +their attempts to recapture her. "Not," she cried, "until I have +wrought my will upon the two of them. Thou hast stood in my light too +long, O my sister!" + +A hand blazing with jewels tore at the covering of her bosom and +suddenly came away clutching a dagger, thin, long, and keen; and +snarling she sprang toward the girl, to whose influence, however +unwitting, she rightly ascribed the downfall of her scheme of empire. +Rowan and Labertouche leaped forward and fell short, so lightning swift +she moved; only Amber stood between her and her vengeance. Choking with +horror, he put the girl behind him with a resistless hand, and took +Naraini to his arms. + +"Ah, hast thou changed thy mind, Beloved?" The woman caught him +fiercely to her with an arm about his waist, and her voice rose shrill +with mocking triumph, "Are my lips become so sweet to thee again? Then +see how I kiss, thou fool!" + +She thrust with wicked cunning, twice and again, before the men tore +her away and disarmed her. For an instant wrestling like a demon with +them, still animated by her murderous frenzy, still wishful to fill her +cup of vengeance to the brim with the blood of the girl, she of a +sudden ceased to resist and fell passive in their hands, a dying +flicker of satisfaction in the eyes that watched the culmination of her +crime.... + +To Amber it was as if his body had been penetrated thrice by a needle +of fire. The anguish of it was exquisite, stupefying. He was aware of a +darkening, reeling world, wherein men's faces swam like moons, pallid, +staring, and of a mighty and invincible lethargy that pounced upon him, +body, brain and soul, like a black panther springing from the ambush of +the night. Yet there were still words that must be spoken, lest they +live in his subconsciousness to torment him through all the long, black +night that was to receive him. He tried to steady himself, and lifted +an arm that vibrated like the sprung limb of a sapling, signing to the +secret-agent. + +"_Labertouche_," he said thickly ... "_Sophia ... out of India ... at +once ... life_ ..." + +The girl's arms received him as he fell. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +A LATER DAY + + +A man awoke from a long dream of night and fear, of passion, pain, and +death, and opened eyes whose vision seemed curiously clear, to realise +a new world, very unlike that in which the incoherent action of his +dream had moved--a world of light and lively air, as sweet and +wholesome as glistening white paint, sunshine, and an abundance of +pure, cool air could render it. + +Because he had known these things in a former existence, he understood +that he lay in the lower berth of a first-cabin stateroom, aboard an +ocean steamship; a spacious, bright box of a room, through whose open +ports swayed brilliant shafts of temperate sunlight, together with +great gusts of the salt sweet breath of the open sea. Through them, +too, he could see patches of unclouded blue, athwart which now and +again gulls would sweep on flashing, motionless pinions. + +The man lay still and at peace, watching, wondering idly, soothed by +the sense of being swung through space, only vaguely conscious of the +plunging pulsations of the ship's engines, hammering away indomitably +far in the hold beneath him. His thoughts busied themselves lightly +with a number of important questions, to whose answers the man realised +that he was singularly indifferent. Who was he? What had happened to +bring him back to life (for he was sure that he had died, a long time +ago)? How had he come to that stateroom? What could the name of the +vessel be? Where ... Deep thoughts were these and long; the man drowsed +over them, but presently was aroused by the sensation of being no +longer alone, of being watched. + +His eyeballs seemed to move reluctantly in their sockets, and his head +felt very light and empty, although so heavy that he could not lift it +from the pillow. But he managed to shift his gaze from the window until +it rested upon a man's face--a gaunt, impassive brown face illuminated +by steady and thoughtful eyes, filled with that mystic, unshakable +spirit of fatalism that is the real Genius of the eastern peoples. The +head itself stood out with almost startling distinctness against the +background of pure white. It was swathed with an immaculate white +turban. The thin, stringy brown neck ran into a loose surtout of snowy +white. + +The sick man felt that he recognised this countenance--had known it, +rather, in some vague, half-remembered life before his latest death. +The name...? He felt his lips move and that they were thin and glazed. +Moistening them with his tongue he made another attempt to articulate. +A thin whisper passed them in two breaths: "Ram ... Nath ..." + +Hearing this, the dark man started out of his abstraction, cast a +swift, pitiful glance at the sick man's face, and came to hold a +tumbler to his lips. The liquid, colourless, acrid, and pungent, +slipped into his mouth, and he had to swallow whether he would or no. +When the final drop disappeared, Ram Nath put down the glass, smiled, +laid a finger on his lips, and went on tiptoe from the stateroom. + +After awhile the man without an identity fell asleep, calmly, +restfully, in absolute peace. When again he awakened it was with the +knowledge that he was David Amber, and that a woman sat beside him. + +Her face was turned from him, and her brown eyes, clouded with dreams, +were staring steadfastly out through the open port; the flowing banners +of sunshine now and again touched her hair with quick fire--her +wonderfully spun hair, itself scarcely less radiant than the light that +illumined it. Against the blue-white background her gracious profile +showed womanly and sweet. There was rich colour in cheeks fresh from +the caress of the sea wind. She smiled in her musing, scarlet lips +apart. + +"Sophia..." + +His voice sounded in his own hearing very thin and brittle. The girl +turned her gaze upon him swiftly, the soft smile deepening, the +dream-light in her eyes burning brighter and more steady. She bent +forward, placing over his wasted hand a hand firm and warm, strong yet +gentle, its whiteness enhanced by the suggested tracery of blue veins +beneath the silken skin, and by the rosy tips of her slender, subtle +fingers. + +"David!" she said. + +He sighed and remembered. His brows knitted, then smoothed themselves +out; for with memory came the realisation that, since he was there and +she by his side, God was surely in his Heaven, all well with the world! + +"How long...Sophia?" + +"Five days, David." + +"Where...?" + +"At sea, David, on a _Messageries_ boat for Marseilles. Dear ..." + +He closed his eyes in beatific content: "David ... Dear ...!" + +"Can you listen?" + +"Yes ... sweetheart." + +Her voice faltered; she flushed adorably. "You mustn't talk. But I'll +tell you.... They refused to let us go back to Kuttarpur; an escort +took us across the desert to Nok, you in a litter, I on horseback. +There we took train to Haidarabad and Karachi. Ram Nath came with us, +as bearer, it being necessary that he too should leave India. My father +and your man Doggott joined us at Karachi, where this steamer touched +the second day." + +"You understand, now--?" + +"Everything, dearest." + +"Labertouche--?" + +"He told me nothing. I haven't seen him since that morning, when, just +after you were wounded, we started for Nok. He posted off to Kuttarpur +to find my father.... No; it was you who told me--everything--in your +delirium." + +"And ... you forgive--?" + +"Forgive!" + +He smiled faintly. "That photograph?" + +"I had it ready to return to you that morning, David." + +"Knowing what it meant to me?" + +"Knowing what it meant to _me_--what it meant to both of us, David." + +"So you weren't offended, that night?" + +"I loved you even then, David. I think I must have loved you from that +first day at Nokomis. Do you remember...?" + +His eyes widened, perplexed, staring into her grave, dear eyes. "Then +why did you pretend--?" + +With the low, caressing laugh of a happy child, the girl knelt by the +side of his berth, and laid her cheek against his own. "Oh, David, my +David! When do you expect to understand the heart of a woman, dear +heart of mine?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE FINAL INCARNATION + + +About five o'clock of an evening in April the Cunarder _Caronia_, four +hours out from Queenstown and buckling down to a night's hard work +against the northwesterly gale, shipped a sea. It was not much of a +sea--merely a playful slap of a wave that broke against the staunch +black side and glanced upward in a shower of spray, spattering +liberally a solitary passenger who had been showing enough interest in +the weather to remain on deck until that particular moment. Apparently +undisconcerted by the misadventure, he shook himself and laughed a +sober, contented laugh, found a handkerchief and mopped his face with +it, then, with a final approving survey of the lowering and belligerent +canopy of wind-cloud that overhung the tortured ocean, permitted +himself to be blown aft to the door of the first-cabin smoking-room. +Opening this by main strength, he entered. The gale saved him the +bother of closing it. + +Removing his rain-coat and cap and depositing them on a convenient +chair, he glanced round the room and discovered that he shared it with +a single passenger, who was placidly exhausting the virtues of an +excellent cigarette. Upon this gentleman the newcomer bent a regard +steadfast and questioning, but after returning it casually the smoker +paid him no further attention. Dissatisfied, the other moved toward +him, and the deck slanted suddenly and obligingly the better to +accelerate his progress, so that he brought up with a lurch in the seat +next the smoker. The latter raised the eyebrows of surprise and hoped +that the gentleman had not hurt himself. + +"I didn't, thank you, Mr. David Amber." + +Mr. David Amber looked the gentleman over with heightened interest. He +saw a man of medium height, with a sturdy figure that bore without +apparent fatigue the years that go with slightly greyish hair. He was +quietly dressed and had intelligent eyes, but was altogether +unimpressive of manner, save for a certain vague air of reserve that +assorted quaintly with his present attitude. + +"You've the advantage of me, sir," Amber summed up the result of his +scrutiny. + +"It's not the first time," asserted the other, with an argumentative +shake of his head. "No-o?" Light leaped in Amber's eyes. "Labertouche!" + +"Surprised you, eh?" The Englishman grinned with pleasure, pumping +Amber's arm cordially. "I don't mind owning that I meant to." + +"Well, considering that this is positively your first appearance as +yourself on the stage of my life, you don't deserve any credit for +being able to deceive me. When one gets accustomed to remembering you +only as a native--generally as a babu in dirty pink satin--...Do you +know, I made all sorts of enquiries after you, but they told me, in +response to my wires to Calcutta, that you'd dropped out of the world +entirely. I had begun to fear that those damned natives must have got +you, after all, and that I'd never see you again." + +"I'd almost given up hope of ever seeing myself again," said +Labertouche drily. + +"But why didn't you--?" + +"Business, dear boy, business.... I was needed for several days in the +neighbourhood of Kathiapur." + +"It seems as though I'd waited several years for news of Kathiapur. The +papers--" + +"There are a good many things that happen in India that fail to get +into the newspapers, Amber. It wasn't thought necessary to advise the +world, including Russia, that half the native potentates in Hindustan +had been caught in the act of letting the Second Mutiny loose upon +India." A network of fine wrinkles appeared about his eyes as he smiled +enjoyment of what he seemed to consider a memorable joke. + +"Go on," pleaded Amber. + +"Kathiapur was a sort of mousetrap; the brutes came out by twos and +three, just as I said they would, for the better part of three days. It +was either surrender or starve with them, and after five-sixths of them +had elected not to starve we turned a couple of companies of Tommies +into the place, and I don't believe they left unturned a stone big +enough to hide a rabbit. One by one they routed 'em out and booted 'em +down to us. Meanwhile we had rushed enough troops to Kuttarpur to keep +their tails quiet." + +"And Salig Singh--and Naraini?" + +"Salig Singh, it turned out, was the chap that got bayoneted in the +tamarisks. Naraini managed somehow to steal away the next night, under +the noses of any number of sentries; beauty such as hers would bribe +her way out of hell, I think. What became of her I don't know, but I +can prophesy that she won't live long. She was rather too advanced in +her views, for India--some centuries ahead of her race. She and Salig +Singh had it all planned, you know; his was the master-mind, hers the +motive-power. They were to crown you, instead of Salig's son, the next +day--in the name of Har Dyal Rutton; and then you were to die suddenly +by virtue of hemp poison or some other contagious disease, and Salig +was to step into your shoes as Emperor of Hindustan, with Naraini as +his Empress.... She should have stayed home and been a suffragette." + +"Better for her," said Amber. "Of course I've found out about her, from +Farrell. It seems that she was brought up in England, with Sophia, and +always given to believe she was his own daughter, but she was a wild +thing and hard to handle. One day she found out about her +parentage--how, it's not known, but Farrell suspects that the men who +were hounding Rutton got into communication with her. At all events, +she brooded over the thing, and when, five years or so ago, Mrs. +Farrell died and the Colonel sent for Sophia to join him in India, +Naraini--well, she rebelled. He refused to let her leave England, and +she finally took the bit in her teeth and ran away--vanished and was +never heard of again until Sophia recognised her in Kathiapur." + +"I myself can fill in the gap," Labertouche volunteered. "She joined +some of Salig's underlings in Paris and went thence direct to +Khandawar, assuming the name of one of the old queens who had elected +opportunely to die.... Queer case--singular instance of reversion to +type." + +"A mighty distressing one to the old colonel; you know Rutton kept +religiously to his promise not to see the child after he'd given her +into Farrell's care. Farrell lost all track of him and was unable to +communicate with him, of course, when Naraini chose to strike out for +herself.... One thing has always puzzled me; the girl called me by her +father's name, pretending to recognise me as her husband; you can't +reconcile such conduct." + +"You can, easily enough--beg pardon, my dear fellow. Neither she nor +Salig Singh was for an instant deceived. But Salig _had_ to deliver up +_a_ Har Dyal Rutton to the Council, so Naraini was set to seduce you. +Their plans only required that you should be madly infatuated with her +for a couple of days; after that ..." Labertouche turned down his thumb +significantly. "I fancy there must have been a family secret or +tradition, handed down from father to son in the Rutton line, that some +day one of the family would be called upon to raise the standard of the +Second Mutiny. That will explain why Har Dyal Rutton, a gentleman of +parts and cultivation, dared not live in India, and why--because he was +sworn to keep the secret--he laid stress on the condition that you were +not to mention his name." + +"Still, he gave me permission to talk to Dhola Baksh." + +"True; but it seems that Dhola Baksh had been his confidential +body-servant in Kuttarpur, during his too-brief reign. Rutton thought +he would be able to help you, and knew that he would be loyal to his +master's memory." + +"Finally, what about that photograph?" + +"You've Salig Singh to thank for its return, I fancy. I had nothing to +do with it. But they were bent on luring you to Naraini's bower, and +they figured that after receiving it you'd go anywhere to meet the man +who returned it. By the way, where's Ram Nath?" + +"He's staying in England as body-servant to Colonel Farrell." + +"He's well off, so; his sphere of usefulness in India was at an end. +So, in fact, was mine. That's why I'm here--on indefinite leave of +absence. One or two things grew out of the affair of the Gateway to +make me a person of interest to the natives, and when that happens in +India it's just as well for the interesting person to pack up and get +thence with all possible expedition. It's too bad; I was really doing +some good work there. Well...! When the East gets into a fellow's +blood, he's a hopeless, incurable case; I shall go back, I presume, +some day. If the big trouble comes in my lifetime--and I think it will; +come it will unquestionably, soon or late--I shan't be able to keep +away, you know." He glanced at his watch and rose. "Time to dress for +dinner," said he; and as they were moving to the door, he added: "What +ever became of that emerald ring, Amber?" + +"The Eye?" Amber laughed. "Well--it was silly enough; but women are +superstitious, you know--Sophia dropped it overboard one day as we were +coming through the Mediterranean. She said she was afraid of it ... and +I don't know but I sympathise with her." + +"I'm certain I do. And yet, in your case, it was the means of +introducing you, wasn't it?... But there! It's been on the tip of my +tongue a dozen times to ask, but other things got in the way.... How +_is_ Mrs. Amber?" + +"You shall see for yourself," said Amber, "when we meet for dinner." + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bronze Bell, by Louis Joseph Vance + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BRONZE BELL *** + +***** This file should be named 9927-8.txt or 9927-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/9/2/9927/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Janice Piette, Sheila Vogtmann, +Elaine Walker, and Project Gutenberg Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/9927-8.zip b/9927-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fde0823 --- /dev/null +++ b/9927-8.zip diff --git a/9927.txt b/9927.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a78e7e6 --- /dev/null +++ b/9927.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11195 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bronze Bell, by Louis Joseph Vance + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Bronze Bell + +Author: Louis Joseph Vance + +Posting Date: November 12, 2011 [EBook #9927] +Release Date: February, 2006 +First Posted: October 31, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BRONZE BELL *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Janice Piette, Sheila Vogtmann, +Elaine Walker, and Project Gutenberg Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + + + + + + + +THE BRONZE BELL + +By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE + +1909 + + + + + + + +To + +F. E. Z. + +Chatelaine of Juniper Lodge + +This story is dedicated by one to whom her hospitality, transplanted +from its Kentucky home, will ever remain a charming memory. + + + +[Illustration: "NOT ONCE DID HE LOOK BACK WHILE AMBER WATCHED--HIMSELF +DIVIDED BETWEEN AMUSEMENT, ANNOYANCE, AND ASTONISHMENT" (PAGE 14)] + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + I DESTINY AND THE BABU + + II THE GIRL AND THE TOKEN + + III MAROONED + + IV THE MAN PERDU + + V THE GOBLIN NIGHT + + VI RED DAWN + + VII MASKS AND FACES + + VIII FIRST STEPS + + IX PINK SATIN + + X MAHARANA OF KHANDAWAR + + XI THE TONGA + + XII THE LONG DAY + + XIII THE PHOTOGRAPH + + XIV OVER THE WATER + + XV FROM A HIGH PLACE + + XVI SUNRISE FOR TWO + + XVII THE WAY TO KATHIAPUR + +XVIII THE HOODED DEATH + + XIX RUTTON'S DAUGHTER + + XX A LATER DAY + + XXI THE FINAL INCARNATION + + + + +CHAPTER I + +DESTINY AND THE BABU + + +Breaking suddenly upon the steady drumming of the trucks, the prolonged +and husky roar of a locomotive whistle saluted an immediate +grade-crossing. + +Roused by this sound from his solitary musings in the parlour-car of +which he happened temporarily to be the sole occupant, Mr. David Amber +put aside the magazine over which he had been dreaming, and looked out +of the window, catching a glimpse of woodland road shining white +between sombre walls of stunted pine. Lazily he consulted his watch. + +"It's not for nothing," he observed pensively, "that this railroad +wears its reputation: we are consistently late." + +His gaze, again diverted to the flying countryside, noted that it had +changed character, pine yielding to scrub-oak and second-growth--the +ragged vestments of an area some years since denuded by fire. This, +too, presently swung away, giving place to cleared land--arable acres +golden with the stubble of garnered harvests or sentinelled with +unkempt shocks of corn. + +In the south a shimmer of laughing gold and blue edged the faded +horizon. + +Eagerly the young man leaned forward, dark eyes the functions of +waiting-room and ticket and telegraph offices. From its eaves depended +a weather-worn board bearing the legend: "Nokomis." + +The train, pausing only long enough to disgorge from the baggage-car a +trunk or two and from the day-coaches a thin trickle of passengers, +flung on into the wilderness, cracked bell clanking somewhat +disdainfully. + +By degrees the platform cleared, the erstwhile patrons of the road and +the station loafers--for the most part hall-marked natives of the +region--straggling off upon their several ways, some afoot, a majority +in dilapidated surreys and buckboards. Amber watched them go with +unassumed indifference; their type interested him little. But in their +company he presently discovered one, a figure so thoroughly foreign and +aloof in attitude, that it caught his eye, and, having caught, held it +clouded with perplexity. + +Abruptly he abandoned his belongings and gave chase, overtaking the +object of his attention at the far end of the station. + +"Doggott!" he cried. "I say, Doggott!" + +His hand, falling lightly upon the man's shoulder, brought him squarely +about, his expression transiently startled, if not a shade truculent. + +Short and broad yet compact of body, he was something round-shouldered, +with the stoop of those who serve. In a mask of immobility, +full-colored and closely shaven, his lips were thin and tight, his eyes +steady, grey and shallow: a countenance neither dishonest nor +repellent, but one inscrutable. Standing solidly, once halted, there +remained a suggestion of alertness in the fellow's pose. + +"Doggott, what the deuce brings you here? And Mr. Rutton?" + +Amber's cordiality educed no response. The grey eyes, meeting eyes +dark, kindly, and penetrating, flickered and fell; so much emotion they +betrayed, no more, and that as disingenuous as you could wish. + +"Doggott!" insisted Amber, disconcerted. "Surely you haven't forgotten +me--Mr. Amber?" + +The man shook his head. "Beg pardon, sir," he said; "you've got my nyme +'andy enough, but I don't know _you_, and--" + +"But Mr. Rutton?" + +"Is a party I've never 'eard of, if you'll excuse my sayin' so, no +more'n I 'ave of yourself, sir." + +"Well!" began Amber; but paused, his face hardening as he looked the +man up and down, nodding slowly. + +"Per'aps," continued Mr. Doggott, unabashed, "you mistyke me for my +brother, 'Enery Doggott. 'E was 'ome, in England, larst I 'eard of 'im. +We look a deal alike, I've been told." + +"You would be," admitted Amber drily; and, shutting his teeth upon his +inherent contempt for a liar, he swung away, acknowledging with a curt +nod the civil "Good-arfternoon, sir," that followed him. + +The man had disappeared by the time Amber regained his kit-bag and +gun-case; standing over which he surveyed his surroundings with some +annoyance, discovering that he now shared the station with none but the +ticket-agent. A shambling and disconsolate youth, clad in a three-days' +growth of beard, a checked jumper and khaki trousers, this person +lounged negligently in the doorway of the waiting-room and, caressing +his rusty chin with nicotine-dyed fingers, regarded the stranger in +Nokomis with an air of subtle yet vaguely melancholy superiority. + +"If ye're lookin' for th' hotel," he volunteered unexpectedly, "there +aint none;" and effected a masterly retreat into the ticket-booth. + +Amused, the despised outlander picked up his luggage and followed +amiably. "I'm not looking for the hotel that aint," he said, planting +himself in front of the grating; "but I expected to be met by someone +from Tanglewood--" + +"Thet's the Quain place, daown by th' ba-ay," interpolated the youth +from unplumbed depths of mournful abstraction. + +"It is. I wired yesterday--" + +"Yeour name's Amber, aint it?" + +"Yes, I--" + +"Well, Quain didn't get yeour message till this mornin'. I sent a kid +daown with it 'baout ten o'clock." + +"But why the--but I wired yesterday afternoon!" + +"I knaow ye did," assented the youth wearily. "It come through raound +closin' time and they wa'n't nobody baound that way, so I held it +over." + +"This craze for being characteristic," observed Mr. Amber obscurely, +"is the only thing that really stands in the way of Nokomis becoming a +thriving metropolis. Do you agree with me? No matter." He smiled +engagingly: a seasoned traveller this, who could recognise the futility +of bickering over the irreparable. Moreover, he had to remind himself +in all fairness, the blame was, in part at least, his own; for he had +thoughtlessly worded his telegram, "Will be with you to-morrow +afternoon"; and it was wholly like Quain that he should have accepted +the statement at its face value, regardless of the date line. + +"I _can_ leave my things here for a little while, I presume?" Amber +suggested after a pause. + +The ticket-agent stared stubbornly into the infinite, making no sign +till a coin rang on the window-ledge; when he started, eyed the +offering with fugitive mistrust, and gloomily possessed himself of it. +"I'll look after them," he said. "Be ye thinkin' of walkin'?" + +"Yes," said Amber over his shoulder. He was already moving toward the +door. + +"Knaow yeour wa-ay?" + +"I've been here before, thank you." + +"Fer another quarter," drawled the agent with elaborate apathy, "I'd +leave the office long enough to find somebody who'd fetch ye daown in a +rig for fifty cents." + +But Amber was already out of ear-shot. + +Crossing the tracks, he addressed himself to the southward-stretching +highway. Walking briskly at first, he soon left behind the +railway-station with its few parasitic cottages; a dip in the land hid +them, and he had hereafter for all company his thoughts, the desultory +road, a vast and looming sky, and bare fields hedged with impoverished +forest. + +A deep languor brooded over the land: the still, warm enchantment of an +Indian Summer which, protracted though it were unseasonably into the +Ides of November, had yet lost nothing of its witchery. There was no +wind, but now and again the air stirred softly, and when it stirred was +cool; as if the earth sighed in sheer lassitude. Out of a cloudless +sky, translucent sapphire at its zenith fading into hazy topaz-yellow +at the horizon, golden sunlight slanted, casting shadows heavy and +colourful; on the edge of the woodlands they clung like thin purple +smoke, but motionless, and against them, here and there, a clump of +sumach blazed like a bed of embers, or some tree loath to shed its +autumnal livery flamed scarlet, russet, and mauve. The peace of the +hour was intense, and only emphasised by a dull, throbbing +undertone--the muted murmur of the distant sea. + +Amber had professed acquaintance with his way; it seemed rather to be +intimacy, for when he chose to forsake the main-travelled road he did +so boldly, striking off upon a wagon-track which, leading across the +fields, delved presently into the heart of the forest. Here it ran +snakily and, carved by broad-tired wheels and beaten out by slowly +plodding hoofs in a soil more than half sand, glimmered white as +rock-salt where the drifting leaves had left it naked. + +Once in this semi-dusk made luminous by sunlight which touched and +quivered upon dead leaf and withered bush and bare brown bough like +splashes of molten gold, the young man moved more sedately. The hush of +the forest world bore heavily upon his senses; the slight and stealthy +rustlings in the brush, the clear dense ringing of some remote axe, an +attenuated clamour of cawing from some far crows' congress, but served +to accentuate its influence. On that windless day the vital breath of +the sea might not moderate the bitter-sweet aroma of decay that swam +beneath the unmoving branches; and this mournful fragrance of dying +Autumn wrought upon Amber's mood as might a whiff of some exquisite +rare perfume revive a poignant memory in the bosom of a bereaved lover. +His glance grew aimless, his temper as purposeless, lively anticipation +giving way to a retrospection tinged with indefinable sadness. + +Then into the silence crept a sound to rouse him from his formless +reverie: at first a mere pulsing in the stillness, barely to be +distinguished from the song of the surf; but presently a pounding, ever +louder and more insistent. He paused, attentive; and while he waited +the drumming, minute by minute gaining in volume, swept swiftly toward +him--the rhythmic hoofbeats of a single horse madly ridden. When it was +close upon him he stepped back into the tangled undergrowth, making +room; for the track was anything but wide. + +Simultaneously there burst into view, at the end of a brief aisle of +trees, the horse--a vigorous black brute with white socks and +muzzle--running freely, apparently under constraint neither of whip nor +of spur. In the saddle a girl leaned low over the horn--a girl with +eyes rapturous, face brilliant, lips parted in the least of smiles. A +fold of her black habit-skirt, whipping out, almost snapped in Amber's +face, so close to him she rode; yet she seemed not to see him, and very +likely did not. A splendid sketch in black-and-white, of youthful +spirit and joy of motion: so she passed and was gone.... + +Hardly, however, had the forest closed upon the picture, ere a cry, a +heavy crashing as of a horse threshing about in the underbrush, and a +woman's scream of terror, sent Amber, in one movement, out into the +road again and running at a pace which, had he been conscious of it, +would have surprised him. + +A short fifty yards separated him from the bend in the way round which +the horse and its rider had vanished. He had no more than gained this +point than he was obliged to pull up sharply to avoid running into the +girl herself. + +Although dismounted, she was on her feet, and apparently uninjured. She +stood with one hand against the trunk of a tree, on the edge of a small +clearing wherein the axes of the local lumbermen had but lately been +busy. Her horse had disappeared; the rumble of his hoofs, diminuendo, +told the way he had gone. + +So much Amber comprehended in a single glance; with a second he sought +the cause of the accident, and identified it with a figure so _outre_ +and bizarre that he momentarily and excusably questioned the testimony +of his senses. + +At a little distance from the girl, in the act of addressing her, stood +a man, obese, gross, abnormally distended with luxurious and sluggish +living, as little common to the scene as a statue of Phoebus Apollo had +been: a babu of Bengal, every inch of him, from his dirty red-and-white +turban to his well-worn and cracked patent-leather shoes. His body was +enveloped in a complete suit of emerald silk, much soiled and faded, +and girt with a sash of many colours, crimson predominating. His hands, +fat, brown, and not overclean, alternately fluttered apologetically and +rubbed one another with a suggestion of extreme urbanity; his lips, +thick, sensual, and cruel, mouthed a broken stream of babu-English; +while his eyes, nearly as small and quite as black as shoe-buttons +--eyes furtive, crafty, and cold--suddenly distended and became +fixed, as with amazement, at the instant of Amber's appearance. + +Instinctively, as soon as he had mastered his initial stupefaction, +Amber stepped forward and past the girl, placing himself between her +and this preposterous apparition, as if to shield her. He was neither +overly imaginative nor of a romantic turn of mind; but, the +circumstances reviewed, it's nothing to his discredit that he +entertained a passing suspicion of some curious conspiracy against the +girl, thought of an ambuscade, and with quick eyes raked the +surroundings for signs of a confederate of the Bengali. + +He found, however, nothing alarming, no indication that the man were +not alone; nor, for that matter, could he reasonably detect in the +fellow's bearing anything but a spirit of conciliation almost servile. +None the less he held himself wary and alert, and was instant to halt +the babu when he, with the air of a dog cringing to his master's feet +for punishment, would have drawn nearer. + +"Stop right there!" Amber told him crisply; and got for response +obedience, a low salaam, and the Hindu salutation accorded only to +persons of high rank: "Hazoor!" But before the babu could say more the +American addressed the girl. "What did he do?" he inquired, without +looking at her. "Frighten your horse?" + +"Just that." The girl's tone was edged with temper. "He jumped out from +behind that woodpile; the horse shied and threw me." + +"You're not hurt, I trust?" + +"No--thank you; but"--with a nervous laugh--"I'm furiously angry." + +"That's reasonable enough." Amber returned undivided attention to the +Bengali. "Now then," he demanded sternly, "what've you got to say for +yourself? What do you mean by frightening this lady's horse? What are +you doing here, anyway?" + +Almost grovelling, the babu answered him in Urdu: "Hazoor, I am your +slave--" + +Without thinking Amber couched his retort in the same tongue: "Count +yourself lucky you are not, dog!" + +"Nay, hazoor, but I meant no harm. I was resting, being fatigued, in +the shelter of the wood, when the noise of hoofs disturbed me and I +stepped out to see. When the woman was thrown I sought to assist her, +but she threatened me with her whip." + +"That is quite true," the girl cut in over Amber's shoulder. "I don't +think he intended to harm me, but it's purely an accident that he +didn't." + +Inasmuch as the babu's explanation had been made in fluent, vernacular +Urdu, Amber's surprise at the girl's evident familiarity with that +tongue was hardly to be concealed. "You understand Urdu?" he stammered. + +"Aye," she told him in that tongue, "and speak it, too." + +"You know this man, then?" + +"No. Do you?" + +"Not in the least. How should I?" + +"You yourself speak Urdu." + +"Well but--" The situation hardly lent itself to such a discussion; he +had the babu first to dispose of. Amber resumed his cross-examination. +"Who are you?" he demanded. "And what is your business in this place?" + +The fat yellowish-brown face was distorted by a fugitive grimace of +deprecation. "Hazoor, I am Behari Lal Chatterji, solicitor, of the +Inner Temple." + +"Well? And your business here?" + +"Hazoor, that is for your secret ear." The babu drew himself up, +assuming a certain dignity. "It is not meet that the message of the +Bell should be uttered in the hearing of an Englishwoman, hazoor." + +"What are you drivelling about?" In his blank wonder, Amber returned to +English as to a tongue more suited to his urgent need of forcible +expression. "And, look here, you stop calling me 'Hazoor.' I'm no more +a hazoor than you are--idiot!" + +"Nay," contended the babu reproachfully; "is it right that you should +seek to hoodwink me? Have I not eyes with which to see you, ears that +can hear you speak our tongue, hazoor? I am no child, to be played +with--I, the appointed Mouthpiece of the Voice!" + +"I know naught of your 'Voice' or its mouthpiece; but certainly you are +no child. You are either mad, or insolent--or a fool to be kicked." And +in exasperation Amber took a step toward the man as if to carry into +effect his implied threat. + +Alarmed, the babu cringed and retreated a pace; then, suddenly, raising +an arm, indicated the girl. "Hazoor!" he cried. "Be quick--the woman +faints!" And as Amber hastily turned, with astonishing agility the babu +sprang toward him. + +Warned by his moving shadow as much as by the girl's cry, Amber leapt +aside and lifted a hand to strike; but before it could deliver a blow +it was caught and a small metallic object thrust into it. Upon this his +fingers closed instinctively, and the babu sprang back, panting and +quaking. + +"The Token, hazoor, the Token!" he quavered. "It is naught but +that--the Token!" + +"Token, you fool!" cried Amber, staring stupidly at the man. "What in +thunder----!" + +"Nay, hazoor; how should I tell you now, when another sees and hears? +At another time, hazoor, in a week, or a day, or an hour, mayhap, I +come again--for your answer. Till then and forever I am your slave, +hazoor: the dust beneath your feet. Now, I go." + +And with a haste that robbed the courtesy of its grace, the Bengali +salaamed, then wheeled square about and, hitching his clothing round +him, made off with a celerity surprising in one of his tremendous bulk, +striking directly into the heart of the woods. + +For as much as a minute he was easily to be followed, his head and +shoulders rising above the brush through which he forged purposefully, +with something of the heedless haste of a man bent on keeping a +pressing engagement--or a sinner fleeing the wrath to come. Not once +did he look back while Amber watched--himself divided between +amusement, annoyance, and astonishment. Presently the trees blotted out +the red-and-white turban; the noise of the babu's elephantine retreat +diminished; and Amber was left to knit his brows over the object which +had been forced upon him so unexpectedly. + +It proved to be a small, cubical box, something more than an inch +square, fashioned of bronze and elaborately decorated with minute +relief work in the best manner of ancient Indian craftsmanship. + +"May I see, please?" The voice of the girl at his side recalled to +Amber her existence. "May I see, too, please, Mr. Amber?" she repeated. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE GIRL AND THE TOKEN + + +In his astonishment he looked round quickly to meet the gaze of +mischievous eyes that strove vainly to seem simple and sincere. His +own, in which amusement was blended with wonder, noted that they were +very handsome eyes and rather curiously colourful, the delicate sepia +shade of the pupils being lightened by a faint sheen of gold in the +irides; they were, furthermore, large and set well apart. On the whole +he decided that they were even beautiful, for all the dancing glimmer +of perverse humour in their depths; he could fancy that they might well +seem very sweet and womanly when their owner chose to be serious. + +Aware that he faced an uncommonly pretty woman, who chose to study him +with a straightforward interest he was nothing loath to imitate, he +took time to see that she was very fair of skin, with that creamy, +silken whiteness that goes with hair of the shade commonly and unjustly +termed red. This girl's hair was really brown, a rich sepia interwoven +with strands of raw, ruddy gold, admirably harmonious with her eyes. +Her nose he thought a trace too severely perfect in its modelling, but +redeemed by a broad and thoughtful brow, a strong yet absolutely +feminine chin, and a mouth.... Well, as to her mouth, the young man +selected a rosebud to liken it to; which was really quite a poor +simile, for her lips were nothing at all like rose-leaves save in +colour; but they were well-shapen and wide enough to suggest +generosity, without being in the least too wide. + +Having catalogued these several features, together with the piquant +oval of her face, and remarked that her poise was good and gracious in +the uncompromising lines of her riding-habit, he had a mental portrait +of her he was not likely soon to forget. For it's not every day that +one encounters so pretty a girl in the woods of Long Island's southern +shore--or anywhere else, for that matter. He felt sure of this. + +But he was equally certain that he was as much a stranger to her as she +to him. + +She, on her part, had been busy satisfying herself that he was a very +presentable young man, in spite of the somewhat formidable reputation +he wore as a person of learned attainments. There could be no better +way to show him to you than through her eyes, so you must know that she +saw a man of less than thirty years, with a figure slight and not +over-tall but well-proportioned, and with a complexion as dark as hers +was light. His eyes, indeed, were a very dark grey, and his hair was +black, and his face and hands had been coloured by the sun and wind +until the tan had become indelible, almost, so that his prolonged +periods of studious indoor seclusion worked little toward lightening +it. If his looks attracted, it was not because he was handsome, for +that he wasn't, but because of certain signs of strength to be +discerned in his face, as well as an engaging manner which he owned by +right of ancestry, his ascendants for several generations having been +notable representatives of one of the First Families of Virginia. Amber +was not inordinately proud of this fact, at least not more so than nine +out of any ten Virginians; but his friends--who were many but mostly +male--claimed that he wrote "F.F.V." before the "F.R.S." which he was +entitled to inscribe after his name. + +The pause which fell upon the girl's use of his name, and during which +they looked one another over, was sufficiently prolonged to excuse the +reference to it which Amber chose to make. + +"I'm sure," he said with his slow smile, "that we're satisfied we've +never met before. Aren't we?" + +"Quite," assented the girl. + +"That only makes it the more mysterious, of course." + +"Yes," said she provokingly; "doesn't it?" + +"You know, you're hardly fair to me," he asserted. "I'm rapidly +beginning to entertain doubts of my senses. When I left the train at +Nokomis station I met a man I know as well as I know myself--pretty +nearly; and he denied me to my face. Then, a little later, I encounter +a strange, mad Bengali, who apparently takes me for somebody he has +business with. And finally, you call me by name." + +"It isn't so very remarkable, when you come to consider it," she +returned soberly. "Mr. David Amber is rather well known, even in his +own country. I might very well have seen your photograph published in +connection with some review of--let me see.... Your latest book was +entitled 'The Peoples of the Hindu Kush,' wasn't it? You see, I haven't +read it." + +"That's sensible of you, I'm sure. Why should you?... But your theory +doesn't hold water, because I won't permit my publishers to print my +picture, and, besides, reviews of such stupid books generally appear in +profound monthlies which abhor illustrations." + +"Oh!" She received this with a note of disappointment. "Then my +explanation won't do?" + +"I'm sorry," he laughed, "but you'll have to be more ingenious--and +practical." + +"And you won't show me the present the babu made you?" + +He closed his fingers jealously over the bronze box. "Not until...." + +"You insist on reciprocity?" + +"Absolutely." + +"That's very unkind of you." + +"How?" he demanded blankly. + +"You will have it that I must surrender my only advantage--my +incognito. If I tell you how I happen to know who you are, I must tell +you who I am. Immediately you will lose interest in me, because I'm +really not at all advanced; I doubt if I should understand your book if +I had to read it." + +"Which Heaven forfend! But why," he insisted mercilessly, "do you wish +me to be interested in you?" + +She flushed becomingly at this and acknowledged the touch with a +rueful, smiling glance. But, "Because I'm interested in you," she +admitted openly. + +"And ... why?" + +"Are you hardened to such adventures?" She nodded in the direction the +babu had taken. "Are you accustomed to being treated with extraordinary +respect by stray Bengalis and accepting tokens from them? Is romance +commonplace to you?" + +"Oh," he said, disappointed, "if it's only the adventure--! Of course, +that's easily enough explained. This half-witted mammoth--don't ask me +how he came to be here--thought he recognised in me some one he had +known in India. Let's have a look at this token-thing." + +He disclosed the bronze box and let her take it in her pretty fingers. + +"It must have a secret spring," she concluded, after a careful +inspection. + +"I think so, but...." + +She shook it, holding it by her ear. "There's something inside--it +rattles ever so slightly. I wonder!" + +"No more than I." + +"And what are you going to do with it?" She returned it reluctantly. + +"Why, there's nothing to do but keep it till the owner turns up, that I +can see." + +"You won't break it open?" + +"Not until curiosity overpowers me and I've exhausted every artifice, +trying to find the catch." + +"Are you a patient person, Mr. Amber?" + +"Not extraordinarily so, Miss Farrell." + +"Oh, how did you guess?" + +"By remembering not to be stupid. You are Miss Sophia Farrell, daughter +of Colonel Farrell of the British Diplomatic Service in India." He +chuckled cheerfully over this triumph of deductive reasoning. "You are +visiting the Quains for a few days, while _en route_ for India with +some friends whose name I've forgotten--" + +"The Rolands," she prompted involuntarily. + +"Thank you.... The Rolands, who are stopping in New York. You've lived +several years with your father in India, went back to London to 'come +out' and are returning, having been presented at the Court of St. +James. Your mother was an American girl, a schoolmate of Mrs. Quain's. +I'm afraid that's the whole sum of my knowledge of you." + +"You've turned the tables fairly, Mr. Amber," she admitted. "And Mr. +Quain wrote you all that?" + +"I'm afraid he told me almost as much about you as he told you about +me; we're old friends, you know. And now I come to think of it, Quain +has one of the few photographs of me extant. So my chain of reasoning's +complete. And I think we'd better hurry on to Tanglewood." + +"Indeed, yes. Mrs. Quain will be wild with worry if that animal finds +his way back to the stable without me; I've been very thoughtless." She +caught up her riding-skirt and started down the path with Amber +trudging contently beside her. "However," she considered demurely, "I'm +not at all sorry, really; it's quite an experience to have a notability +at a disadvantage, even if only for a few minutes." + +"I wish you wouldn't," he begged in boyish embarrassment. "I'm not a +notability, really; Quain's been talking too much. I'll get even with +him, though." + +"That sounds so modest that I almost believe I've made a mistake about +your identity. But I've no doubt you're right; Mr. Quain does +exaggerate in praise of his friends. Very likely it is as you insist, +and you're only an ordinary person, after all. At least, you would be +if stray babus didn't make you mysterious presents." + +"So long as there is that to hold your interest in me, I'm content," he +told her, diverted. "How much longer shall you stay at Tanglewood, Miss +Farrell?" + +"Unhappily," she sighed, "I must leave on the early train to-morrow, to +join the Rolands in New York." + +"You don't want to go?" + +"I'm half an American, Mr. Amber. I've learned to love the country +already. Besides, we start immediately for San Francisco, and it'll be +such a little while before I'll be in India." + +"You don't care for India?" + +"I've known it for less than six years, but already I've come to hate +it as thoroughly as any exiled Englishwoman there. It sits there like a +great, insatiable monster, devouring English lives. Indirectly it was +responsible for my mother's death; she never recovered from the illness +she contracted when my father was stationed in the Deccan. In the +course of time it will kill my father, just as it did his father and +his elder brother. It's a cruel, hateful, ungrateful land--not worth +the price we pay for it." + +"I know how you feel," he said with sympathy. "It's been a good many +years since I visited India, and of course I then saw and heard little +of the darker side. Your people are brave enough, out there." + +"They are. I don't know about Government; but its servants are loyal +and devoted and unselfish and cheerful. And I don't at all understand," +she added in confusion, "why I should have decided to inflict upon you +my emotional hatred of the country. Your question gave me the opening, +and I forgot myself." + +"I assure you I was thoroughly shocked, Miss Farrell." + +"You should have been--surprised, at least. Why should I pour out my +woes to you--a man I've known not fifteen minutes?" + +"Why not, if you felt like it? After all, you know, we're both of us +merely making talk to--ah--to cover our interest in one another." + +She paused momentarily to laugh at his candour. "You are outspoken, Mr. +Amber! It's very pretty of you to assert an interest in me; but why +should you assume that I--" + +"You said so, didn't you?" + +"Wel-l ... yes, so I did." + +"You can change your mind, of course." + +"I shan't, honestly, until you turn stupid. And you can't do that until +you stop having strange adventures. Will you tell me something?" + +"If I can." + +"About the man who wouldn't acknowledge knowing you? You remember +saying three people had been mistaken about your identity this +afternoon." + +"No, only one--the babu. You're not mistaken--" + +"I knew you must be David Amber the moment I heard you speaking Urdu." + +"And the man at the station wasn't mistaken--unless I am. He knew me +perfectly, I believe, but for reasons of his own refused to recognise +me." + +"Yes--?" + +"He was an English servant named Doggott, who is--or once was--a valet +in the service of an old friend, a man named Rutton." + +She repeated the name: "Rutton? It seems to me I've heard of him." + +"You have?" + +"I don't remember," she confessed, knitting her level brows. "The name +has a familiar ring, somehow. But about the valet?" + +"Well, I was very intimate with his employer for a long time, though we +haven't met for several years. Rutton was a strange creature, a man of +extraordinary genius, who lived a friendless, solitary life--at least, +so far as I knew; I once lived with him in a little place he had in +Paris, for three months, and in all that time he never received a +letter or a caller. He was reticent about himself, and I never asked +any questions, of course, but in spite of the fact that he spoke +English like an Englishman and was a public school man, apparently, I +always believed he had a strain of Hungarian blood in him--or else +Italian or Spanish. I know that sounds pretty broad, but he was +enigmatic--a riddle I never managed to make much of. Aside from that he +was wonderful: a linguist, speaking a dozen European languages and more +Eastern tongues and dialects, I believe, than any other living man. We +met by accident in Berlin and were drawn together by our common +interest in Orientalism. Later, hearing I was in Paris, he hunted me up +and insisted that I stay with him there while finishing my big +book--the one whose title you know. His assistance to me then was +invaluable. After that I lost track of him." + +"And the valet?" + +"Oh, I'd forgotten Doggott. He was a Cockney, as silent and +self-contained as Rutton.... To get back to Nokomis: I met Doggott at +the station, called him by name, and he refused to admit knowing +me--said I must have mistaken him for his twin brother. I could tell by +his eyes that he lied, and it made me wonder. It's quite impossible +that Rutton should be in this neck of the woods; he was a man who +preferred to live a hermit in centres of civilisation.... Curious!" + +"I don't wonder you think so. Perhaps the man had been up to some +mischief.... But," said the girl with a note of regret, "we're almost +home!" + +They had come to the seaward verge of the woodland, where the trees and +scrub rose like a wild hedgerow on one side of a broad, well-metalled +highway. Before them stretched the eighth of a mile of neglected land +knee-deep with crisp, dry, brown stalks of weedy growths, beyond which +the bay smiled, a still lake of colour mirroring the intense +lapis-lazuli of the calm eastern skies of evening. Over across its +waters the sand dunes of a long island glowed like a bar of new red +gold, tinted by the transient scarlet and yellow glory of the +smouldering Autumnal sunset. Through the woods the level, brilliant, +warmthless rays ran like wild-fire, turning each dead, brilliant leaf +to a wisp of incandescent flame, and tingeing the air with an +evanescent ruby radiance against which the slim young boles stood black +and stark. + +To the right, on the other side of the road, a rustic fence enclosed +the trim, well-groomed plantations of Tanglewood Lodge; through the +dead limbs a window of the house winked in the sunset glow like an eye +of garnet. And as the two appeared a man came running up the road, +shouting. + +"That's Quain!" cried Amber; and sent a long cry of greeting toward +him. + +"Wait!" said the girl impulsively, putting out a detaining hand. "Let's +keep our secret," she begged, her eyes dancing--"just for the fun of +it!" + +"Our secret!" + +"About the babu and the Token; it's a bit of mystery and romance to +me--and we don't often find that in our lives, do we? Let us keep it +personal for a while--between ourselves; and you will promise to let me +know if anything unusual ever comes of it, after I've gone. We can say +that I was riding carelessly, which is quite true, and that the horse +shied and threw me, which again is true; but the rest for ourselves +only.... Please.... What do you say?" + +He was infected by her spirit of irresponsible mischief. "Why, yes--I +say yes," he replied; and then, more gravely: "I think it'll be very +pleasant to share a secret with you, Miss Farrell. I shant say a word +to any one, until I have to." + + * * * * * + +As events turned he had no need to mention the incident until the +morning of the seventh day following the girl's departure. In the +interim nothing happened, and he was able to enjoy some excellent +shooting with Quain, his thoughts undisturbed by any further appearance +of the babu. + +But on that seventh morning it became evident that a burglary had been +visited upon the home of his hosts. A window had been forced in the +rear of the house and a trail of burnt matches and candle-grease +between that entrance and the door of Amber's room, together with the +somewhat curious circumstance that nothing whatever was missing from +the personal effects of the Quains, forced him to make an explanation. +For his own belongings had been rifled and the bronze box alone +abstracted--still preserving its secret. + +In its place Amber found a soiled slip of note-paper inscribed with the +round, unformed handwriting of the babu: "Pardon, sahib. A mistake has +been made. I seek but to regain that which is not yours to possess. +There will be naught else taken. A thousand excuses from your hmbl. +obt. svt., Behari Lal Chatterji." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +MAROONED + + +A cry in the windy dusk; a sudden, hollow booming overhead; a vision of +countless wings in panic, sketched in black upon a background of dulled +silver; two heavy detonations and, with the least of intervals, a +third; three vivid flashes of crimson and gold stabbing the purple +twilight; and then the acrid reek of smokeless drifting into Amber's +face, while from the sky, where the V-shaped flock had been, two +stricken bundles of blood-stained feathers fell slowly, fluttering.... + +Honking madly, the unscathed brethren of the slain wheeled abruptly +and, lashed by the easterly gale, fled out over the open sea, +triangular formation dwindling rapidly in the clouded distances. + +Shot-gun poised abreast, his keen eyes marking down the fall of his +prey, Amber stood without moving, exultation battling with a vague +remorse in his bosom--as always when he killed. Quain, who had dropped +back a pace after firing but one shot and scoring an unqualified miss +at close range, now stood plucking clumsily, with half frozen fingers, +at an obstinate breech-lock. This latter resisting his every wile, his +temper presently slipped its leash; as violently as briefly he swore: +"Damn!" + +"Gladly," agreed Amber, without turning. "But what?" + +"This gun!" + +"Your gun?" + +"Of course." There were elaborations which would not lend themselves to +decorative effect upon a printed page. + +"Then damn it yourself, Quain; I'm sure you can do it ever so much more +thoroughly than I. But what's the matter?" + +"Rim-jammed cartridge," explained Quain between his teeth. The lock +just then yielding to his awkward manipulation, stock and barrel came +apart in his hands. "Just my beastly luck!" he added gratuitously. "It +wouldn't've been me if--! How many'd you pot, Davy?" + +"Only two," said Amber, lowering his weapon, extracting the spent +shells, and reloading. + +"Only _two!_" The information roused in Quain a demon of sarcasm. +Fumbling in his various pockets for a shell-extractor, he grunted his +disgust. "Here, lend us your thingumbob; I've lost mine. Thanky.... +Only two! How many'd you expect to drop, on a snapshot like that?" + +"Two," returned Amber so patiently that Quain requested him, +explosively, to go to the devil. "If you don't mind," he said, "I'll go +after my ducks instead. You'll follow? They're over there, on our way." +And accepting Quain's snort for an affirmative he strolled off in the +direction indicated, hugging his gun in the crook of his arm. + +Fifty yards or so away he found the ducks, side by side in a little +hollow. "Fine fat birds," he adjudged them sagely, weighing each in his +hand ere dropping it into his lean game-bag. "This makes up for a lot +of cold and waiting." + +Satisfaction glimmering in his grave dark eyes, he lingered in the +hollow, while the frosty air, whipping madly through the sand-hills, +stung his face till it glowed beneath the brown. But presently, like +the ghost of a forgotten kiss, something moist and chill touched gently +his cheek, and was gone. Startled, he glanced skywards, then extended +an arm, watching it curiously while the rough fabric of his sleeve was +salted generously with fine white flakes. Though to some extent +apprehended (they had been blind indeed to have ignored the menace of +the dour day just then dying) snow had figured in their calculations as +little as the scarcity of game. Amber wondered dimly if it would work a +change in their plans, prove an obstacle to their safe return across +the bay. + +The flurry thickening in the air, a shade of anxiety colored his mood. +"This'll never do!" he declared, and set himself to ascend a nearby +dune. For a moment he slipped and slid vainly, the dry sand treacherous +to his feet, the brittle grasses he clutched snapping off or coming +away altogether with their roots; but in time he found himself upon the +rounded summit, and stood erect, straining the bitter air into panting +lungs as he cast about for bearings. + +Behind him a meagre strip of sand held back a grim and angry sea; +before him lay an eighth of a mile of sand-locked desolation, and then +the weltering bay--a wide two miles of leaping, shouting waves, +slate-coloured but white of crests. Beyond, seen dimly as a wall +through driving sheets of snow, were the darkly wooded rises of the +mainland. In the west, to his left, the blank, impersonal eye of the +light-house, its pillar invisible, winked red, went out, and flashed up +white. Over all, beneath a low and lustreless sky as flat as a plate, +violet evening shadows were closing in like spectral skirts of the +imminent night. But, in the gloom, their little cat-boat lay occult to +his searching gaze. + +Quain's voice recalling him, he turned to discover his host stumbling +through a neighbouring vale, and obeying a peremptory wave of the elder +man's hand, descended, accompanied by an avalanche in miniature. + +"Better hurry," shouted Amber, as soon as he could make himself heard +above the screaming of the gale. "Wind's freshening; it looks like mean +weather." + +"Really?" Quain fell into step at his side. "You 'stonish me. But the +good Lord knows I'm willin'. Whereabout's the boat?" + +"Blessed if I know: over yonder somewhere," Amber told him, waving +toward the bay-shore an arm as vaguely helpful as his information. + +"Thank you so much. Guess I can find her all right. Hump yo'self, +Davy." + +They plodded on heavily, making fair progress in spite of the hindering +sand. Nevertheless it had grown sensibly darker ere they debouched upon +the frozen flats that bordered the bay; and now the wind bore down upon +them in full-winged fury, shrieking in their ears, searing their eyes, +tearing greedily at the very breath of their nostrils, and searching +out with impish ingenuity the more penetrable portions of their +clothing. + +For a moment Quain paused, irresolute, peering right and left, then +began to trudge eastwards, heavy boots crunching the thin sedge-ice. A +little later they came to the water's edge and proceeded steadily along +it, Quain leading confidently. Eventually he tripped over some +obstacle, stumbled and lurched forward and recovered his balance with +an effort, then remained with bowed head, staring down at his feet. + +"Hurt yourself, old man?" + +"No!" snapped Quain rudely. + +"Then what in--" + +"Eh?" Quain roused, but an instant longer looked him blankly in the +eye. "Oh," he added brightly--"oh, she's gone." + +"The boat----?" + +"The boat," affirmed Quain, too discouraged for the obvious retort +ungracious. He stooped and caught up a frayed end of rope, exhibiting +it in witness to his statement. "Ain't it hell?" he inquired +plaintively. + +Amber's gaze followed the rope, the further end of which was rove +through the ring of a small grapnel anchor half buried in the spongy +earth. "Gone!" he echoed dismally. + +"Gone away from here," said Quain deliberately, nodding at the rope's +end. "The tide floated her off, of course; but how this happened is +beyond me. I could kill Antone." He named the Portuguese labourer +charged with the care of the boats at Tanglewood. "It's his job to see +that these cables are replaced when they show signs of wear." He cast +the rope from him in disdain and wheeled to stare baywards. "There!" he +cried, levelling an arm to indicate a dark and fleeting shadow upon the +storm-whipped waters. "There she goes--not three hundred feet off. It +can't be five minutes since she worked loose. I don't see why...! If it +hadn't been for that damned cartridge...! It's the devil's own luck!" + +A blur of snow swept between boat and shore; when it had passed the +former was all but indistinguishable. From a full heart Quain +blasphemed fluently.... "But if she holds as she stands," he amended +quickly, his indomitable spirit fostering the forlorn hope, "she'll go +aground in another five minutes--and I know just where. I'll go after +her." + +"The deuce you will! How?" + +"There's an old skimmy up the shore a ways." Already Quain was moving +off in search of it. "Noticed her this morning. Daresay she leaks like +a sieve, but at worst the water's pretty shoal inshore, hereabouts." + +"Cold comfort in that." + +"Better than none, you amiable--" + +"Can you swim?" Amber demanded pointedly. + +"Like a fish. And you?" + +"Not like a fish." + +"Damn!" Quain brought up short with a shin barked against a thwart of +the rowboat he had been seeking, and in recognition of the mishap +liberally insulted his luck. + +Amber, knowing that his hurt was as inconsiderable as his ill-temper, +which was more than half-feigned to mask his anxiety, laughed quietly, +meanwhile inspecting their find with a critical eye. + +"You don't seriously mean to put off in this crazy hen-coop, do you?" +he asked. + +"Just precisely that. It's the only way." + +"It simple madness. I won't--" + +"You don't want to stay here all night, do you?" + +"No, but--" + +"Well, then, lend us a hand and don't stand there grumbling. Be +thankful for what you've got, which is me and my enterprise." + +"Oh, all right." + +Together they put their shoulders to the bows of the old, flat-bottomed +rowboat, with incredible exertions uprooting it from its ancient bed, +and at length had it afloat. + +Panting, Quain mopped his forehead with a handkerchief much the worse +for a day's association with gun-grease, and peered beneath his hand +into the murk that veiled the bay. + +"There she is," he declared confidently: "aground." He pointed. "I'll +fetch up with her in no time." + +But Amber could see nothing in the least resembling the catboat, and +said so with decision. + +"She's there, all right," insisted Quain. "'Tain't my fault if you're +blind. Here, hold this, will you, while I find me a pole of some sort." +He thrust into Amber's hand an end of rotten painter at which the +rowboat strained, and wandered off into the night, in the course of +time returning with an old eel-pot stake, flotsam of some summer storm. +"Pure, bull-headed luck!" he crowed, jubilant, brandishing his trophy; +and jumped into the boat. "Now sit tight till I come back?... +Huh--what?" + +"I'm coming, too," Amber repeated quietly. + +"The hell you are! D'you want to sink us? What do you think this is, +anyway--an excursion steamer? You stay where you are and--I say--take +care of this till I come back, like a good fellow." + +He thrust the butt of his shot-gun into Amber's face, and the latter, +seizing it, was rewarded by a vigorous push that sent him back half a +dozen feet. At the same time the painter slipped from his grasp and +Quain, lodging an end of the eel-pot stake on the hard sand bottom, put +his weight upon it. Before Amber could recover, the boat had slid off +and was melting swiftly into the shadows. + +After a bit Quain's voice came back: "Don't fret, Davy. I'm all right." + +Amber cupped hands to mouth and sent a cheerful hail ringing in +response. Simultaneously the last, least, indefinite blur that stood +for the boat in the darkness, vanished in a swirl of snow; and he was +alone with the storm and his misgivings. Upon these he put a +check--would not dwell upon them; but their influence none the less +proved strong enough to breed in him a resistless restlessness and keep +him tramping up and down a five-yard stretch of comparatively solid +earth: to and fro, stamping his feet to keep his blood circulating, +lugging both guns, one beneath either arm, hunching his shoulders up +about his ears in thankless attempt to prevent wet flakes from sifting +in between his neck and collar--thus, interminably it seemed, to and +fro, to and fro.... + +In the course of time this occupation defeated its purpose; the very +monotony of it sent his thoughts winging back to Quain; he worried more +than ever for his friend, reproaching himself unmercifully for that he +had suffered him to go alone--or at all. Quain had a wife and children; +that thought proved insupportable.... Had he missed the catboat +altogether? Or had he gained it only to find the motor disabled or the +propeller fouled with the wiry eel-grass that choked the shoals? In +either instance he would be at the mercy of the wind, for even with the +sail close-reefed he would have no choice other than to fly before the +fury. Or had the boat possibly gone aground so hard and fast that Quain +had found himself unable to push her off and doomed to lie in her, +helpless, against the fulling of the tide? Or (last and most grudged +guess of all) had the "skimmy" proved as unseaworthy as its dilapidated +appearance had proclaimed it? + +Twenty minutes wore wearily away. Falling ever more densely, the snow +drew an impenetrable wan curtain between Amber and the world of life +and light and warmth; while with each discordant blast the strength of +the gale seemed to wax, its high hysteric clamour at times drowning +even the incessant deep bellow of the ocean surf. Once Amber paused in +his patrol, having heard, or fancying he had heard, the staccato +_plut-plut-plut_ of a marine motor. On impulse, with a swelling heart, +he swung his gun skywards and pulled both triggers. The double report +rang in his ears loud as a thunderclap. + +In the moments that followed, while he stood listening, with every +fibre of his being keyed to attention, the sense of his utter isolation +chilled his heart as with cold steel. + +A little frantically he loaded and fired again; but what at first might +have been thought the faint far echo of a hail he in the end set down +reluctantly to a trick of the hag-ridden wind; to whose savage voice he +durst not listen long; in such a storm, on such a night, a man had but +to hearken with a credulous ear to hear strange and terrible voices +whispering, shrieking, gibbering, howling untold horrors.... + +An hour passed, punctuated at frequent intervals by gunshots. Though +they evoked no answer of any sort, hope for Quain died hard in Amber's +heart. With all his might he laboured to convince himself that his +friend must have overtaken the drifting boat, and, forced to relinquish +his efforts to regain the beach, have scudded across the bay to the +mainland and safety; but this seemed a surmise at best so far-fetched, +and one as well not overlong to be dwelt upon, lest by that very +insistence its tenuity be emphasised, that Amber resolutely turned from +it to a consideration of his own plight and problematic way of escape. + +His understanding of his situation was painfully accurate: he was +marooned upon what a flood tide made a desert island but which at the +ebb was a peninsula--a long and narrow strip of sand, bounded on the +west by the broad, shallow channel to the ocean, on the east connected +with the mainland by a sandbar which half the day lay submerged. + +He had, then, these alternatives: he might either compose himself to +hug the leeward side of a dune till daybreak (or till relief should +come) or else undertake a five-mile tramp on the desperate hope of +finding at the end of it the tide out and the sandbar a safe footway +from shore to shore. Between the two he vacillated not at all; anything +were preferable to a night in the dunes, beaten by the implacable +storm, haunted by the thought of Quain; and even though he were to find +the eastern causeway under water, at least the exercise would have +served to keep him from freezing. + +Ten minutes after his last cartridge had been fruitlessly discharged, +he set out for the ocean beach, pausing at the first dune he came upon +to scrape a shallow trench in the sand and cache therein both guns and +his game-bag. Marking the spot with a bit of driftwood stuck upright, +he pressed on, eventually pausing on the overhanging lip of a +twenty-foot bluff. To its foot the beach below was aswirl knee-deep +with the wash of breakers, broad patches of water black and glossy as +polished ebony alternating with vast expanses of foam and clotted +spume, all aglow with pale winter phosporescence. Momentarily, as he +watched, at once fascinated and appalled, mountainous ridges of +blackness heaved up out of the storm's grey heart, offshore, and, +curling crests edged with luminous white, swung in to crash and shatter +thunderously upon the sands. + +Awed and disappointed, Amber drew back. The beach was impassable; here +was no wide and easy road to the east, such as he had thought to find; +to gain the sandbar he had now to thread a tortuous and uncertain way +through the bewildering dunes. And the prospect was not a little +disconcerting; afraid neither of wind nor of cold, he was wretchedly +afraid of going astray in that uncertain, shifting labyrinth. To lose +oneself in that trackless wilderness...! + +A demon of anxiety prodded him on: he must learn Quain's fate, or go +mad. Once on the mainland it were a matter of facility to find his way +to the village of Shampton, telephone Tanglewood and charter a "team" +to convey him thither. He shut his teeth on his determination and set +his face to the east. + +Beset and roughly buffeted by the gale; the snow settling in rippling +drifts in the folds of his clothing and upon his shoulders clinging +like a cloth; his face cut by clouds of sand flung horizontally with +well-nigh the force of birdshot from a gun: he bowed to the blast and +plodded steadily on. + +Imperceptibly fatigue benumbed his senses, blunted the keen edge of his +emotions; even the care for Quain became a mere dull ache in the back +of his perceptions; of physical suffering he was unconscious. He fell a +prey to freakish fancies--could stand aside and watch himself, an atom +whirling in the mad dance of the tempest, as the snow-flakes whirled, +as little potent. He saw himself pitting his puny strength of mind and +body against the infinite force of the elements: saw himself fall and +rise and battle on, gaining nothing: an atom, sport of high gods! To +the flight of time he grew quite oblivious, his thoughts wandering in +the past, oddly afar to half-remembered scenes, to experiences more +than half-forgotten, both wholly irrelevant; picturesque and painful +memories cast up from the deeps of the subconsciousness by some +inexplicable convulsion of the imagination. For a long time he moved on +in stupid, wondering contemplation of a shining crescent of sand backed +by a green, steaming wall of jungle; there was a dense blue sky above, +and below, on the beach, dense blue waters curled lazily up the feet of +a little, naked, brown child that played contentedly with a shell of +rainbow hues. Again he saw a throng upon a pier-head, and in its +forefront an unknown woman, plainly dressed, with deep brown eyes +wherein Despair dwelt, tearless but white to the lips as she watched a +steamer draw away. And yet again, he seemed to stand with others upon +the threshold of the cardroom of a Hong-Kong club: in a glare of garish +light a man in evening dress lay prone across a table on whose +absorbent, green cloth a dark and ugly stain was widening slowly.... +But for the most part he fancied himself walking through scented, +autumnal woods, beside a woman whose eyes were kind and dear, whose +lips were sweet and tempting: a girl he had known not an hour but whom +already he loved, though he himself did not dream it nor discover it +till too late.... And with these many other visions formed and +dissolved in dream-like phantasmagoria; but of them all the strongest +and most recurrent was that of the girl in the black riding-habit, +walking by his side down the aisle of trees. So that presently the +tired and overwrought man believed himself talking with her, reasoning, +arguing, pleading desperately for his heart's desire;... and wakened +with a start, to hear the echo of her voice as though she had spoken +but the instant gone, to find his own lips framing the syllables of her +name--"Sophia!" + +Thus strangely he came to know that beyond question he loved. And he +stopped short and stood blinking blindly at nothing, a little +frightened by the depth and strength of this passion which had come to +him with such scant presage, realising for the first time that his need +for her was an insatiable hunger of the soul.... And she was lost to +him; half a world lay between them--or soon would. All his days he had +awaited, a little curiously, a little sceptical, the coming of the +thing men call Love; and when it had come to him he had not known it +nor guessed it until its cause had slipped away from him.... Beyond +recall? + +Abruptly he regained consciousness of his plight, and with an effort +shook his senses back into his head. It was not precisely a time when +he could afford to let his wits go wool-gathering. And he realised that +he had been, in a way, more than half-asleep as he walked; even now he +was drowsy, his eyes were heavy, his feet leaden--and numb with cold +besides. He had no least notion of what distance he might have +travelled or whether he had walked in a straight line or a circle; but +when he thought to glance over his shoulder--there was at the moment +perhaps more wind with less snow than there had been for some time--he +found the lighthouse watching him as it had from the first: as if he +had not won a step away from it for all his struggle and his pains. The +white, staring eye winked sardonically through a mist of flakes, was +blotted out and turned up a baleful red. It seemed to mock him, but +Amber nodded at it with no unfriendly feeling. It still might serve his +purpose very well, if his strength held, since he had merely to keep +his back to the light and the ocean beach upon his right to win to the +Shampton sandbar, whether soon or late. + +Inflexible of purpose in the face of all his weariness and +discouragement, he was on the point of resuming his march when he was +struck by the circumstance that the whitened shoulder of a dune, quite +near at hand, should seem as if frosted with light--coldly luminous. + +Staring, speculative, he hung in the wind--inquisitive as a cat but +loath to waste time in footless inquiry. The snow-fall, setting in with +augmented violence, decided him. Where light was, there should be man, +and where man, shelter. + +His third eager stride opened up a wide basin in the dunes, filled with +eddying veils of snow, and set, at some distance, with two brilliant +squares of light--windows in an invisible dwelling. In the space +between them, doubtless, there would be a door. But a second time he +paused, remembering that the island was said to be uninhabited. Only +yesterday he had asked and been so informed.... Odd! + +So passing strange he held it, indeed, that he was conscious of a +singular reluctance to question the phenomenon. That superstitious +dread of the unknown which lies dormant in us all, in Amber stirred and +awoke and held him back like a strong hand. Or, if there be such a +thing as a premonition of misfortune, he may be said to have +experienced it in that hour; certainly a presentiment of evil crawled +in his brain, and he hesitated at a time when he desired naught in the +world so much as that which the windows promised--light, heat and human +companionship. He had positively to force himself on to seek the door, +and even when he had stumbled against its step he twice lifted his hand +and let it fall without knocking. + +There was not a sound within that he could hear above the clamour of +the goblin night. + +In the end, however, he knocked stoutly enough. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE MAN PERDU + + +A shadow swept swiftly across one of the windows, and the stranger at +the door was aware of a slight jarring as though some more than +ordinarily brutal gust of wind had shaken the house upon its +foundation, or an inner door had been slammed violently. But otherwise +he had so little evidence that his summons had fallen on aught but +empty walls or deaf ears that he had begun to debate his right to enter +without permission, when a chain rattled, a bolt grated, and the door +swung wide. A flood of radiance together with a gust of heated air +struck him in the face. Dazzled, he reeled across the threshold. + +The door banged, and again the house in the dunes shuddered as the +storm fell upon it with momentarily trebled ferocity; as if, cheated of +its foreordained prey, it would rend apart his frail refuge to regain +him. + +Three paces within the room Amber paused, waiting for his eyes to +adjust themselves to the light. Vaguely conscious of a presence behind +him, he faced another--the slight, spare silhouette of a man's figure +between him and the lamp; and at the same time felt that he was being +subjected to a close scrutiny--both searching and, at its outset, the +reverse of hospitable. But he had no more than become sensitive to this +than the man before him stepped quickly forward and with two strong +hands clasped his shoulders. + +"David Amber!" he heard his name pronounced in a voice singularly +resonant and pleasant. "So you've run me to earth at last!" + +Amber's face was blank with incredulity as he recognised the speaker. +"Rutton!" he stammered. "Rutton--why--by all that's strange!" + +"Guilty," said the other with a quiet laugh. "But sit down." He swung +Amber about, gently guiding him to a chair. "You look pretty well done +up. How long have you been out in this infernal night? But never mind +answering; I can wait. Doggott!" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Take Mr. Amber's coat and boots and bring him my dressing-gown and +slippers." + +"Yes, sir." + +"And a hot toddy and something to eat--and be quick about it." + +"Very good, sir." + +Rutton's body-servant moved noiselessly to Amber's side, deftly helping +him remove his shooting-jacket, whereon snow had caked in thin and +brittle sheets. His eyes, grey and shallow, flickered recognition and +softened, but he did not speak in anticipation of Amber's kindly +"Good-evening, Doggott." To which he responded quietly: "Good-evening, +Mr. Amber. It's a pleasure to see you again. I trust you are well." + +"Quite, thank you. And you?" + +"I'm very fit, thank you sir." + +"And"--Amber sat down again, Doggott kneeling at his feet to unlace and +remove his heavy pigskin hunting-boots--"and your brother?" + +For a moment the man did not answer. His head was lowered so that his +features were invisible, but a dull, warm flush overspread his cheeks. + +"And your brother, Doggott?" + +"I'm sorry, sir, about that; but it was Mr. Rutton's order," muttered +the man. + +"You're talking of the day you met Doggott at Nokomis station?" +interposed his employer from the stand he had taken at one side of the +fireplace, his back to the broad hearth whereon blazed a grateful +driftwood fire. + +Amber looked up inquiringly, nodding an unspoken affirmative. + +"It was my fault that he--er--prevaricated, I'm afraid; as he says, it +was by my order." + +Rutton's expression was masked by the shadows; Amber could make nothing +of his curious reticence, and remained silent, waiting a further +explanation. It came, presently, with an effect of embarrassment. + +"I had--have peculiar reasons for not wishing my refuge here to be +discovered. I told Doggott to be careful, should he meet any one we +knew. Although, of course, neither of us anticipated...." + +"I don't think Doggott was any more dumfounded than I," said Amber. "I +couldn't believe he'd left you, yet it seemed impossible that you +should be here--of all places--in the neighbourhood of Nokomis, I mean. +As for that--" Amber shook his head expressively, glancing round the +mean room in which he had found this man of such extraordinary +qualities. "It's altogether inconceivable," he summed up his +bewilderment. + +"It does seem so--even to me, at times." + +"Then why--in Heaven's name--" + +By now Doggott had invested Amber in his master's dressing-gown and +slippers; rising he left them, passing out through an inner door which +led, evidently, to the only other room in the cottage. Rutton delayed +his reply until the man had shut the door behind him, then suddenly, +with the manner of one yielding to the inevitable, drew a chair up to +face Amber's and dropped into it. + +"I see I must tell you something--a little; as little as I can help--of +the truth." + +"I'm afraid you must; though I'm damned if I can detect a glimmer of +either rhyme or reason in this preposterous situation." + +Rutton laughed quietly, lounging in his armchair and lacing before him +the fingers of hands singularly small and delicate in view of their +very considerable strength--to which Amber's shoulder still bore aching +testimony. + +"In three words," he said deliberately: "I am hiding." + +"Hiding!" + +"Obviously." + +Amber bent forward, studying the elder man's face intently. Thin and +dark--not tanned like Amber's, but with a native darkness of skin like +that of the Spanish--it was strongly marked, its features at once +prominent and finely modelled. The hair intensely black, the eyes as +dark and of peculiar fire, the lips broad, full, and sympathetic, the +cheekbones high, the forehead high and something narrow: these combined +to form a strangely striking ensemble, and none the less striking for +its weird resemblance to Amber's own cast of countenance. + +Indeed, their likeness one to the other was nothing less than weird in +that it could be so superficially strong, yet so elusive. No two men +were ever more unalike than these save in this superficial accident of +facial contours and complexion. No one knowing Amber (let us say) could +ever have mistaken him for Rutton; and yet any one, strange to both, +armed with a description of Rutton, might pardonably have believed +Amber to be his man. Yet manifestly they were products of alien races, +even of different climes--their individualities as dissimilar as the +poles. Where in Rutton's bearing burned an inextinguishable, almost an +insolent pride, beneath an ice-like surface of self-constraint, in +Amber's one detected merely quiet consciousness of strength and +breeding--his inalienable heritage from many generations of Anglo-Saxon +forebears; and while Rutton continually betrayed, by look or tone or +gesture, a birthright of fierce passions savagely tamed, from Amber one +seldom obtained a hint of aught but the broad and humourous tolerance +of an American gentleman. + +But to-night the Virginian had undergone enough to have lost much of +his habitual poise. "Hiding!" he reiterated in a tone scarcely louder +than a whisper. + +"And you have found me out, my friend." + +"But--but I don't--" + +Rutton lifted a hand in deprecation; and as he did so the door in the +rear of the room opened and Doggott entered. Cat-like, passing behind +Amber, he placed upon the table a small tray, and from a steaming +pitcher poured him a glass of hot spiced wine. At a look from his +employer he filled a second. + +"There's sandwiches, sir," he said; "the best I could manage at short +notice, Mr. Amber. If you'll wait a bit I can fix you up something +'ot." + +"Thank you, Doggott, that won't be necessary; the sandwiches look +mighty good to me." + +"Thank you, sir. Will there be anything else, Mr. Rutton?" + +"If there is, I'll call you." + +"Yes, sir. Good-night, sir. Good-night, Mr. Amber." + +As Doggott shut himself out of the room, Amber lifted his fragrant +glass. "You're joining me, Rutton?" + +"With all my heart!" The man came forward to his glass. "For old sake's +sake, David. Shall we drink a toast?" He hesitated, with a marked air +of embarrassment, then impulsively swung his glass aloft. "Drink +standing!" he cried, he voice oddly vibrant. And Amber rose. "To the +King--the King, God bless him!" + +"To the King!" It was more an exclamation of surprise than an echo to +the toast; nevertheless Amber drained his drink to the final drop. As +he resumed his seat, the room rang with the crash of splintering glass; +Rutton had dashed his tumbler to atoms on the hearthstone. + +"Well!" commented Amber, lifting his brows questioningly. "You _are_ +sincere, Rutton. But who in blazes would ever have suspected you of +being a British subject?" + +"Why not?" + +"But it seems to me I should have known--" + +"What have you ever really known about me, David, save that I am +myself?" + +"Well--when you put it that way--little enough--nothing." Amber laughed +nervously, disconcerted. + +"And I? Who and what am I?" No answer was expected--so much was plain +from Rutton's tone; he was talking to himself more than addressing his +guest. His long brown fingers strayed to the box and conveyed a +cigarette to his lips; staring dreamily into the fire, he smoked a +little ere continuing. "What does it mean, this eternal 'I' round which +the world revolves?" His voice trailed off into silence. + +Amber snapped the tension with a chuckle. "You can search me," he said +irreverently. And his host returned his smile. "Now, will you please +pay attention to me, my friend? Or do you wish me to turn and rend +myself with curiosity--after I've attended to these excellent +sandwiches?... Seriously, I want to know several things. What have you +been doing with yourself these past three years?" + +Rutton shook his head gravely. "I can't say." + +"You mean you won't?" + +"If you will have it that way." + +"Well ... I give you up." + +"That's the most profitable thing you could do, David." + +"But, seriously now, this foolish talk about hiding is all a joke, +isn't it?" + +"No," said Rutton soberly; "no, it's no joke." He sighed profoundly. +"As for my recent whereabouts, I have been--ah--travelling +considerably; moving about from pillar to post." To this the man added +a single word, the more significant in that it embodied the nearest +approach to a confidence that Amber had ever known him to make: +"Hunted." + +"Hunted by whom?" + +"I beg your pardon." Rutton bent forward and pushed the cigarettes to +Amber's elbow. "I am--ah--so preoccupied with my own mean troubles, +David, that I had forgotten that you had nothing to smoke. Forgive me." + +"That's no matter, I--" + +Amber cut short his impatient catechism in deference to the other's +mute plea. And Rutton thanked him with a glance--one of those looks +which, between friends, are more eloquent than words. Sighing, he shook +his head, his eyes once more seeking the flames. And silently studying +his face--the play of light from lamp and hearth throwing its features +into salient relief--for the first time Amber, his wits warmed back to +activity from the stupor the bitter cold had put upon them, noticed how +time and care had worn upon the man since they had last parted. He had +never suspected Rutton to be his senior by more years than ten, at the +most; to-night, however, he might well be taken for fifty were his age +to be reckoned by its accepted signs--the hollowing of cheek and +temple, the sinking of eyes into their sockets, the deepening of the +maze of lines about the mouth and on the forehead. + +Impulsively the younger man sat up and put a hand upon the arm of +Rutton's chair. "What can I do?" he asked simply. + +Rutton roused, returning his regard with a smile slow, charming, +infinitely sad. "Nothing," he replied; "absolutely nothing." + +"But surely----!" + +"No man can do for me what I cannot do for myself. When the time +comes"--he lifted his shoulders lightly--"I will do what I can. Till +then...." He diverged at a tangent. "After all, the world is quite as +tiny as the worn-out aphorism has it. To think that you should find me +here! It's less than a week since Doggott and I hit upon this place and +settled down, quite convinced we had, at last, lost ourselves ... and +might have peace, for a little space at least!" + +Amber glanced curiously round the room; sparely furnished, bare, +unlovely, it seemed a most cheerless sort of spot to be considered a +haven of peace. + +"And now," concluded Rutton, "we have to move on." + +"Because I've found you here?" + +"Because you have found me." + +"I don't understand." + +"My dear boy, I never meant you should." + +"But if you're in any danger--" + +"I am not." + +"You're not! But you just said--" + +"I'm in no danger whatever; humanity is, if I'm found." + +"I don't follow you at all." + +Again Rutton smiled wearily. "I didn't expect you to, David. But this +misadventure makes it necessary that I should tell you something; you +must be made to believe in me. I beg you to; I'm neither mad nor making +game of you." There was no questioning the sane sincerity of the man. +He continued slowly. "It's a simple fact, incredible but absolute, +that, were my whereabouts to be made public, a great, a staggering blow +would be struck against the peace and security of the world.... Don't +laugh, David; I mean it." + +"I'm not laughing, Rutton; but you must know that's a pretty large +order. Most men would--" + +"Call me mad. Yes, I know," Rutton took up his words as Amber paused, +confused. "I can't expect you to understand me: you couldn't unless I +were to tell you what I may not. But you know me--better, perhaps, than +any living man save Doggott ... and one other. You know whether or not +I would seek to delude you, David. And, knowing that I could not, you +know why it seems to me imperative that, this hole being discovered, +Doggott and I must betake ourselves elsewhere. Surely there must be +solitudes----!" He rose with a gesture of impatience and began +restlessly to move to and fro. + +Amber started suddenly, flushing. "If you mean--" + +Rutton's kindly hand forced him back into his chair. "Sit down, David. +I never meant that--never for an instant dreamed you'd intentionally +betray my secret. It's enough that you should know it, should +occasionally think of me as being here, to bring misfortune down upon +me, to work an incalculable disaster to the progress of this +civilisation of ours." + +"You mean," Amber asked uncertainly, "thought transference?" + +"Something of the sort--yes." The man came to a pause beside Amber, +looking down almost pitifully into his face. "I daresay all this sounds +hopelessly melodramatic and neurotic and tommyrotic, David, but ... I +can tell you nothing more. I'm sorry." + +"But only let me help you--any way in my power, Rutton. There's nothing +I'd not do...." + +"I know, David, I know it. But my case is beyond human aid, since I am +powerless to apply a remedy myself." + +"And you _are_ powerless?" + +Rutton was silent a long moment. Then, "Time will tell," he said +quietly. "There is one way...." He resumed his monotonous round of the +room. + +Mechanically Amber began to smoke, trying hard to think, to penetrate +by reasoning or intuition the wall of mystery which, it seemed, Rutton +chose to set between himself and the world. The intense earnestness of +the man's hopeless confession had carried conviction. Amber believed +him, believed in the reality of his trouble; and, divining it dimly, a +monstrous, menacing shape in the vagueness of the unknown, was himself +dismayed and a little fearful. He owed much to this man, was bound to +him by ties not only of gratitude but of affection, yet, finding him +distressed, found himself simultaneously powerless to render aid. +Inwardly mutinous, he had to school himself to quiescence; lacking the +confidence which Rutton so steadfastly refused him, he was impotent. + +Presently he grew conscious that Rutton was standing as if listening, +his eyes averted to the windows. But when Amber looked they showed, +beneath their half-drawn muslin shades, naught save the grey horizontal +rush of snow beyond the panes. And he heard nothing save the endless +raving of the maniac wind. + +"What is it?" he inquired at length, unable longer to endure the +tensity of the pause. + +"Nothing. I beg your pardon, David." Rutton returned to his chair, +making a visible effort to shake off his preoccupation. "It's an ugly +night, out there. Lucky you blundered on this place. Tell me how it +happened. What became of the other man--your friend?" + +The thought of Quain stabbed Amber's consciousness with a mental pang +as keen as acute physical anguish. He jumped up in torment. "God!" he +cried chokingly. "I'd forgotten! He's out there on the bay, poor +devil!--freezing to death if not drowned. Our boat went adrift somehow; +Quain would insist on going after her in a leaky old skiff we found on +the shore ... and didn't come back. I waited till it was hopeless, then +concluded I'd make a try to cross to Shampton by way of the tidal bar. +And I must!" + +"It's impossible," Rutton told him with grave sympathy. + +"But I must; think of his wife and children, Rutton! There's a chance +yet--a bare chance; he may have reached the boat. If he did, every +minute I waste here is killing him by inches; he'll die of exposure! +But from Shampton we could send a boat--" + +"The tide fulls about midnight to-night," interrupted Rutton, +consulting his watch. "It's after nine,--and there's a heavy surf +breaking over the bar now. By ten it'll be impassable, and you couldn't +reach it before eleven. Be content, David; you're powerless." + +"You're right--I know that," groaned Amber, his head in his hands. "I +was afraid it was hopeless, but--but--" + +"I know, dear boy, I know!" + +With a gesture of despair Amber resumed his seat. For some time he +remained deep sunk in dejection. At length, mastering his emotion, he +looked up. "How did you know about Quain--that we were together?" he +asked. + +"Doggott saw you land this morning, and I've been watching you all day +with my field-glasses, prepared to take cover the minute you turned my +way. Don't be angry with me, David; it wasn't that I didn't yearn to +see you face to face again, but that ... I didn't dare." + +"Oh, that!" exclaimed Amber with an exasperated fling of his hand. +"Between the two of you--you and Quain--you'll drive me mad with +worry." + +"I'm sorry, David. I only wish I might say more. It hurts a bit to have +you doubt me." + +"I don't doubt," Amber declared in desperation; "at least, I mean I +won't if you'll be sensible and let me stand by and see you through +this trouble--whatever it is." + +Rutton turned to the fire, his head drooping despondently. "That may +not be," he said heavily. "The greatest service you can do me is to +forget my existence, now and henceforth, erase our friendship from the +tablets of your memory, pass me as a stranger should our ways ever +cross again." He flicked the stub of a cigarette into the flames. +"Kismet!... I mean that, David, from my heart. Won't you do this for +me--one last favour, old friend?" + +"I'll try; I'll even promise, on condition that you send me word if +ever you have need of me." + +"That will be never." + +"But if--" + +"I'll send for you if ever I may, David; I promise faithfully. And in +return I have your word?" + +Amber nodded. + +"Then...." Rutton attempted to divert the subject. "I think you said +Quain? Any relation to Quain's 'Aryan Invasion of India?" + +"The same man. He asked me down for the shooting--owns a country place +across the bay: Tanglewood." + +"A very able man; I wish I might have met him.... What of yourself? +What have you been doing these three years? Have you married?" + +"I've been too busy to think of that.... I mean, till lately." + +"Ah?" + +Amber flushed boyishly. "There was a girl at Quain's--a guest.... But +she left before I dared speak. Perhaps it was as well." + +"Why?" + +"Because she was too fine and sweet and good for me, Rutton." + +"Like every man's first love." + +The elder man's glance was keen--too keen for Amber to dissimulate +successfully under it. "You're right," he admitted ruefully. "It's the +first sure-enough trouble of the sort I ever experienced. And, of +course, it had to be hopeless." + +"Why?" persisted Rutton. + +"Because--I've half a notion there's a chap waiting for her at home." + +"At home?" + +"In England." The need for a confidant was suddenly imperative upon the +younger man. "She's an English girl--half English, that is; her mother +was an American, a schoolmate of Quain's wife; her father, an +Englishman in the Indian service." + +"Her name?" + +"Sophia Farrell." A peculiar quality, a certain tensity, in Rutton's +manner, forced itself upon Amber's attention. "Why?" he asked. "Do you +know the Farrells? What's the matter?" + +Rutton's eyes met his stonily; out of the ashen mask of his face, that +suddenly had whitened beneath the brown, they glared, afire but +unseeing. His hands writhed, the fingers twisting together with cruel +force, the knuckles grey. Abruptly, as if abandoning the attempt to +reassert his self-control, he jumped up and went quickly to a window, +there to stand, his back to Amber, staring fixedly out into the +storm-racked night. "I knew her father," he said at length, his tone +constrained and odd, "long ago, in India." + +"He's out there now--a Political, I believe they call him, or something +of the sort." + +"Yes." + +"She's going out to rejoin him." + +"What!" Rutton came swiftly back to Amber, his voice shaking. "What did +you say?" + +"Why, yes. She travels with friends by the western route to join +Colonel Farrell at Darjeeling, where he's stationed just now. Shortly +after I came down she left; Mrs. Quain had a wire a day or so ago, +saying she was on the point of sailing from San Francisco.... Good +Lord, Rutton! are you ill?" + +Something in the man's face had brought Amber to his feet, a prey to +inexpressible concern; it was as if a mask had dropped and he were +looking upon the soul of a man in mortal torture. + +"No," gasped Rutton, "I'm all right. Besides," he added beneath his +breath, so that Amber barely caught the syllables, "it's too late." + +As rapidly as he had lost he seemed to regain mastery of his +inexplicable emotion. His face became again composed, almost immobile, +and stepping to the table he selected a cigarette and rolled it gently +between his slim brown fingers. "I'm sorry to have alarmed you," he +said, his tone a bit too even not to breed a doubt in the mind of his +hearer. "It's nothing serious--a little trouble of the heart, of long +standing, incurable--I hope." + +Perplexed, yet hesitating to press him further, Amber watched him +furtively, instinctively assured that between this man and the Farrells +there existed some extraordinary bond; wondering how that could be, +convinced in his soul that somehow the entanglement involved the woman +he loved, he still feared to put his suspicions to the question, lest +he should learn that which he had no right to know ... and while he +watched was startled by the change that came over Rutton. At ease, one +moment, outwardly composed if absorbed in thought, the next he was +rigid, every muscle taut, every nerve tense as a steel spring, his +keen, thoughtful face hardening with a look of brutal hatred, his eyes +narrowing until no more than a glint of fire was visible between the +lashes, lips straining apart until they showed thin and bloodless, with +a gleam of white, set teeth between. His head jerked back suddenly, his +gaze fixing itself first upon the window, then shifting to the door. +And his fingers, contracting, tore the cigarette in half. + +"Rutton, what the deuce is the matter?" + +Rutton seemed not to hear; Amber got his answer from the door, which +was swung wide and slammed shut. A blast of frosty air and a flurry of +snow swept across the room. And against the door there leaned a man +puffing for breath and coughing spasmodically--a gross and monstrous +bulk of flesh, unclean and unwholesome to the eye, attired in an +extravagant array of coloured garments, tawdry silks and satins +clinging, sodden, to his ponderous and unwieldy limbs. + +"The babu!" cried Amber unconsciously; and was rewarded by a flash of +recognition from the coal-black, beady, evil eyes of the man. + +But for that involuntary exclamation the tableau held unbroken for a +space; Rutton standing transfixed, the torn halves of the cigarette +between his fingers, his head well up and back, his stare level, +direct, uncompromising, a steady challenge to the intruder; the babu +resting with one shoulder against the door, panting stertorously and +trembling with the cold and exposure he had undergone, yet with his +attention unflinchingly concentrated upon Rutton; and, finally, Amber, +a little out of the picture and quite unconsidered of the others, not +without a certain effect as of a supernumerary standing in the wings +and watching the development of the drama. + +Then, demanding Amber's silence with an imperative movement of his +hand, Rutton spoke. "Well, babu?" he said quietly, the shadow of a +bitter and weary smile curving his thin, hard lips. + +The Bengali moved a pace or two from the door, and plucked nervously at +the throat of his surtout, finally managing to insert one hand in the +folds of silk across his bosom. + +"I seek," he said distinctly in Urdu, and not without a definite note +of menace in his manner, "the man calling himself Rutton Sahib?" + +Very deliberately Rutton inclined his head. "I am he." + +"Hazoor!" The babu laboriously doubled up his enormous body in profound +obeisance. Having recovered, he nodded to Amber with the easy +familiarity of an old acquaintance. "To you, likewise, greeting, Amber +Sahib." + +"What!" Rutton swung sharply to Amber with an exclamation of amazement. +"You know this fellow, David?" + +The babu cut in hastily, stimulated by a pressing anxiety to clear +himself. "Hazoor, I did but err, being misled by his knowledge of our +tongue as well as by that pale look of you he wears. And, indeed, is it +strange that I should take him for you, who was told to seek you in +this wild land?" + +"Be silent!" Rutton told him angrily. + +"My lord's will is his slave's." Resignedly the babu folded his fat +arms. + +"Tell me about this," Rutton demanded of Amber. + +"The ass ran across me in the woods south of the station, the day I +came down," explained Amber, summarising the episode as succinctly as +he could. "He didn't call me by your name, but I've no doubt he's +telling the truth about mistaking me for you. At all events he +hazoor-ed me a number of times, talked a lot of rot about some silly +'Voice,' and finally made me a free gift of a nice little bronze box +that wouldn't open. After which he took to his heels, saying he'd call +later for my answer--whatever he meant by that. He did call by night +and stole the box. That's about all I know of him, thus far. But I'd +watch out for him, if I were you; if he isn't a raving lunatic, I miss +my guess." + +"Indeed, my lord, it is all quite as the sahib says," the babu admitted +graciously, his eyes gleaming with sardonic amusement. "Circumstances +conspired to mislead me; but that I was swift to discover. Nor did I +lose time in remedying the error, as you have heard. Moreover--" + +He shut up suddenly at a sign from Rutton, with a ludicrous shrug of +his huge shoulders disclaiming any ill-intent or wrong-doing; and while +Rutton remained deep in thought by the table, the babu held silence, +his gaze flickering suspiciously round the room, searching the shadows, +questioning the closed door behind which Doggott lay asleep (evidence +of which fact was not wanting in his snores), resting fleetingly on +Amber's face, returning to Rutton. His features were composed; his +face, indeed, might have been taken as a model for some weird mask of +unctuous depravity, but for his eyes, which betrayed a score of +differing phases of emotion. He was by turns apparently possessed by +fear, malice, distrust, a subtle sense of triumph, contempt for Amber, +deference to Rutton, and a feeling that he was master not alone of the +situation but of the man whom he professed to honor so extravagantly. + +At length Rutton looked up, suppressing a sigh. "Your errand, babu?" + +"Is it, then, your will that I should speak before this man?" The +Bengali nodded impudently at Amber. + +"It is my will." + +"Shabash! I bear a message, hazoor, from the Bell." + +"You are the Mouthpiece of the Voice?" + +"That honor is mine, hazoor. For the rest I am--" + +"Behari Lal Chatterji," interrupted Rutton impatiently; "solicitor of +the Inner Temple--disbarred; anointed thief, liar, jackal, lickspittle, +and perjurer--I know you." + +"My lord," said the man insolently, "omits from his catalogue of my +accomplishments my chiefest honour; he forgets that, with him, I am an +accepted Member of the Body." + +"The Body wears strange members that employs you, babu," commented +Rutton bitterly. "It has fallen upon evil days when such as you are +charged with a message of the Bell." + +"My lord is harsh to one who would be his slave in all things. +Fortunate indeed am I to own the protection of the Token." A slow leer +widened greasily upon his moon-like face. + +"Ah, the Token!" Rutton repeated tensely, beneath his breath. "It is +true that you have the Token?" "Aye; it is even here, my lord." The +heavy brown hand returned to the spot it had sought soon after the +babu's entrance, within the folds of silk across his bosom, and groped +therein for an instant. "Even here," he iterated with a maddening +manner of supreme self-complacency, producing the bronze box and +waddling over to drop it into Rutton's hand. "My lord is satisfied?" he +gurgled maliciously. + +Without answering Rutton turned the box over in his palm, his slender +fingers playing about the bosses of the relief work; there followed a +click and one side of it swung open. The Bengali fell back a pace with +a whisper of awe--real or affected: "The Token, hazoor!" Amber himself +gasped slightly. + +Unheeded, the box dropped to the floor. Between Rutton's thumb and +forefinger there blazed a great emerald set in a ring of red old gold. +He turned it this way and that, inspecting it critically; and the +lamplight, catching on the facets, struck from it blinding shafts of +intensely green radiance. Rutton nodded as if in recognition of the +stone and, turning, with an effect of carelessness, tossed it to Amber. + +"Keep that for me, David, please," he said. And Amber, catching it, +dropped the ring into his pocket. + +"My lord is satisfied with my credentials, then?" the babu persisted. + +"It is the Token," Rutton assented wearily. "Now, your message. Be +brief." + +"The utterances of the Voice be infrequent, hazoor, its words few--but +charged with meaning: as you know of old." The Bengali drew himself up, +holding up his head and rolling forth his phrases in a voice of great +resonance and depth. "These be the words of the Voice, hazoor: + +"'_To all my peoples: + +"'Even now the Gateway of Swords yawns wide, that he who is without +fear may pass within; to the end that the Body be purged of the Scarlet +Evil. + +"'The Elect are bidden to the Ordeal with no exception._'" + +The sonorous accents subsided, and a tense wait ensued, none speaking. +Rutton stood in stony apathy, his eyes lifted to a dim corner of the +ceiling, his gaze--like his thoughts--perhaps ranging far beyond the +dreary confines of the cabin in the dunes. Minute after minute passed, +he making no sign, the babu poised before him in inscrutable triumph, +watching him keenly with his black and evil eyes of a beast. Amber hung +breathless upon the issue, sensing a conflict of terrible forces in +Rutton's mind, but comprehending nothing of their natures. In the hush +within-doors he became acutely conscious of the war of elements +without: the mad elfin yammering of the gale tearing at the cabin as +though trying to seize it up bodily and whirl it off into the witches' +dance of the storm; the deep and awful booming of the breakers, whose +incessant impact upon the beach seemed to rock the very island on its +base. Somehow he divined a similitude between the struggle within and +the struggle without, seemed to see the contending elements personified +before his eyes--the spirit of evil incarnate in the Bengali, vast, +loathsome, terrible in his inflexibility of malign purpose; the force +of right symbolized in Rutton, frail of stature, fine of mould, strong +in his unbending loyalty to his conception of honour and duty. The +Virginian could have predicted the outcome confidently, believing as he +did in his friend. It came eventually on the heels of a movement of the +babu's; unable longer to hold his pose, he shifted slightly. And Rutton +awoke as from a sleep. + +"The Voice has spoken, babu," he said, not ungently, "and I have +heard." + +"And your answer, lord?" + +"There is no answer." + +"Hazoor!" + +"I have said," Rutton confirmed evenly, "there is no answer." + +"You will obey?" + +"That is between me and my God. Go back to the Hall of the Bell, Behari +Lal Chatterji, and deliver your report; say that you have seen me, that +I have listened to the words of the Voice, and that I sent no answer." + +"Hazoor, I may not. I am charged to return only with you." + +"Make your peace with the Bell in what manner you will, babu; it is no +concern of mine. Go, now, while yet time is granted you to avoid a +longer journey this night." + +"Hazoor!" + +"Go." Rutton pointed to the door, his voice imperative. + +Upon this the babu abandoned argument, realising that further +resistance were futile. And in a twinkling his dignity, his Urdu and +his cloak of mystery, were discarded, and he was merely an +over-educated and over-fed Bengali, jabbering babu-English. + +"Oah, as for thatt," he affirmed easily, with an oleaginous smirk, "I +daresay I shall be able to make adequate explanation. It shall be as +you say, sar. I confess to fright, however, because of storm." He +included Amber affably in his confidences. "By Gad, sar, thees climate +iss most trying to person of my habits. The journey hither _via_ +causeway from mainland was veree fearful. Thee sea is most agitated. +You observe my wetness from association with spray. I am of opinion if +I am not damn-careful I jolly well catch-my-death on return. But +_thatt_ is all in day's work." + +He rolled sluggishly toward the door, dragging his inadequate overcoat +across his barrel-like chest; and paused to cough affectingly, with one +hand on the knob. Rutton eyed him contemptuously. + +"If you care to run the risk," he said suddenly, "you may have a chair +by the fire till the storm breaks, babu." + +"Beg pardon?" The babu's eyes widened. "Oah, yess; I see. 'If I care to +run risk.' Veree considerate of you, I'm sure. But as we say in Bengal, +'thee favour of kings iss ass a sword of two edges.' Noah, thanks; the +servants of thee Bell do not linger by wayside, soa to speak. Besides, +I am in great hurree. Mister Amber, good night. Rutton Sahib"--with a +flash of his sinister humour--"_au revoir_; I mean to say, till we meet +in thee Hall of thee Bell. Good night." + +He nodded insolently to the man whom a little time since he had hailed +as "my lord," shrugged his coat collar up round his fat, dirty neck, +shivered in anticipation, jerked the door open and plunged ponderously +out. + +A second later Amber saw the confused mass of his turban glide past the +window. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE GOBLIN NIGHT + + +Amber whistled low. "Impossible!" he said thoughtfully. + +Rutton had crossed to and was bending over a small leather trunk that +stood in one corner of the room. In the act of opening it, he glanced +over his shoulder. "What?" he demanded sharply. + +"I was only thinking; there's something I can't see through in that +babu's willingness to go." + +"He was afraid to stay." + +"Why?" + +Rutton, rummaging in the trunk, made no reply. After a moment Amber +resumed. + +"You know what Bengalis are; that fellow'd do anything, brave any +ordinary danger, rather than try to cross that sandbar again--if he +really came that way; which I am inclined to doubt. On the other hand, +he's intelligent enough to know that a night like this in the dunes +would kill him. Well, what then?" + +Rutton was not listening. As Amber concluded he seemed to find what he +had been seeking, thrust it hurriedly into the breast-pocket of his +coat, and with a muttered word, unintelligible, dashed to the door and +flung it open and himself out. + +With a shriek of demoniac glee the wind entered into and took +possession of the room. A cloud of snow swept across the floor like a +veil. The door battered against the wall as if trying to break it down. +A pile of newspapers was swept from the table and scattered to the four +corners of the room. The rug lifted beneath the table and flapped +against it like a broken wing. The cheap tin kerosene lamp jumped as +though caught up by a hand; its flame leapt high and blue above the +chimney--and was not. In darkness but for the fitful flare of the fire +that had been dying in embers on the hearth, Amber, seeking the +doorway, fell over a chair, blundered flat into the wall, and stumbled +unexpectedly out of the house. + +His concern was all for Rutton; he had no other thought. He ran a +little way down the hollow, heartsick with horror and cold with dread. +Then he paused, bewildered. Other than the wan glimmer of the snow-clad +earth he had no light to guide him; with this poor aid he could see no +more than that the vale was deserted. Whither in that white whirling +world Rutton might have wandered, it was impossible to surmise. In +despair the Virginian turned back. + +When he had found his way to the door of the cabin, it was closed; as +he entered and shut it behind him, a match flared and expired in the +middle of the room, and a man cursed brokenly. + +"Rutton?" cried Amber in a flush of hope. + +"Is that you, Mr. Amber? Thank Gawd! Wyte a minute." + +A second match spluttered, its flame waxing in the pink cup of +Doggott's hands. The servant's head and shoulders stood out in dim +relief against the darkness. + +"I've burnt me 'and somethin' 'orrid on this damn' 'ot chimney," he +complained nervously. + +He succeeded in setting fire to the wick. The light showed him barefoot +and shivering in shirt and trousers. He lifted a bemused red face to +Amber, blinking and nursing his scorched hand. "For pity's syke, sir, +w'at's 'appened?" + +"It's hard to say," replied Amber vaguely, preoccupied. He went +immediately to a window and stood there, looking out. + +"But w'ere's Mr. Rutton, sir?" + +"Gone--out there--I don't know just where." Amber moved back to the +table. "You see, he had a caller." + +"A caller, sir--on a night like this?" + +"The man he came here to hide from," said Amber. + +"I knew 'e was tryin' to dodge somethin', sir; but 'e never told me +aught about it. What kind of a person was 'e, sir, and what made Mr. +Rutton go aw'y with 'im?" + +"He didn't; he went after him to...." Amber caught his tongue on the +verge of an indiscretion; no matter what his fears, they were not yet +become a suitable subject for discussion with Rutton's servant. "I +think," he amended lamely, "he had forgotten something." + +"And 'e's out there now! My Gawd, what a night!" He hung in hesitation +for a little. "Did 'e wear 'is topcoat and 'at, sir?" + +"No; he went suddenly. I don't think he intended to be gone long." + +"I'd better go after 'im, then. 'E'll 'ave pneumonia ... I'll just jump +into me clothes and--" He slipped into the back room, to reappear with +surprisingly little delay, fully dressed and buttoning a long ulster +round his throat. "You didn't 'appen to notice which w'y 'e went, sir?" + +"As well as I could judge, to the east." + +Doggott took down a second ulster and a cap from pegs in the wall. +"I'll do my best to find 'im; 'e might lose 'imself, you know, with no +light nor nothin'." + +"And you?" + +"I'll be all right; I'll follow 'is footprints in the snow. I've a +'andy little electric bull's-eye to 'elp me, in my pocket." + +"Are you armed, Doggott?" + +"By Mr. Rutton's orders, sir, I've carried a revolver for years. You +aren't thinkin' it's come to that, sir?" + +"I don't know.... If I was sure I wouldn't let you go alone," said +Amber, frowning. "It's only that Mr. Rutton may not want me about ... I +wish I knew!" + +"It'll be better, sir, for you to stay and keep the fire up--if you +don't mind my makin' so free as to advise--in case 'e's 'arf-froze when +'e gets back, as is likely. But I'd better 'urry, 'specially if...." +Doggott's color faded a little and his mouth tightened. "But I 'ope +you're mistyken, sir. Good-night." + +The door slammed behind him. + +Alone, and a prey to misgivings he scarce dared name to himself, Amber +from the window watched the blot of light from Doggott's handlamp fade +and vanish in the storm; then, becoming sensible to the cold, went to +the fireplace, kicked the embers together until they blazed, and piled +on more fuel. + +A cosy, crackling sound began to be audible in the room; sibilant jets +of flame, scarlet, yellow, violet, and green, spurted up from the +driftwood. Under the hypnotic influence of the comforting warmth, +weariness descended upon Amber like a burden; he was afraid to close +his eyes or to sit down, lest sleep should overcome him for all his +intense excitement and anxiety. He forced himself to move steadily +round the room, struggling against a feeling that all that he had +witnessed must have been untrue, an evil dream, akin to the waking +visions that had beset him between the loss of Quain and the finding of +Rutton. The very mediocrity of the surroundings seemed to discredit the +testimony of his wits. + +Unmistakably a camp erected for its owners' convenience during the +hunting season, alike in design and furnishing the cabin was almost +painfully crude and homely. The walls were of rough-hewn logs from +which the bark had not been removed; the interstices were stopped only +with coarse plaster; the partition dividing it into two rooms was of +pine, unpainted. In one corner near Rutton's trunk, a bed-hammock swung +from a beam. The few chairs were plain and rude. There were two deal +tables, a plate-rack nailed to the partition, and a wall-seat in the +chimney-corner. On the centre table, aside from the lamp, were a couple +of books, some out-of-date magazines, and a common tin alarm-clock +ticking stolidly. + +In a setting so hopelessly commonplace and everyday, one act of a drama +of blood and fire had been played; into these mean premises the breath +of the storm, as the babu entered, had blown Romance.... Incredible! + +And yet Amber's hand, dropping idly in his coat-pocket, encountered a +priceless witness to the reality of what had passed. Frowning, +troubled, he drew forth the ring and slipped it upon his finger; rays +of blinding emerald light coruscated from it, dazzling him. With a low +cry of wonder he took it to the lamplight. Never had he looked upon so +fine a stone, so strangely cut. + +It was set in ruddy soft gold, worked and graven with exquisite art in +the semblance of a two-headed cobra; inside the band was an inscription +so worn and faint that Amber experienced some difficulty in deciphering +the word RAO (king) in Devanagari, flanked by swastikas. Aside from the +stone entirely, he speculated, the value of the ring as an antique +would have proven inestimable. As for the emerald itself, in its +original state, before cutting, it must have been worth the ransom of +an emperor; much had certainly been sacrificed to fashion it in its +present form. The cunning of a jewel-cutter whose art was lost before +Tyre and Nineveh upreared their heads must have been taxed by the task. +Its innumerable facets reproduced with wonderful fidelity a human +eyeball, unwinking, sleepless. In the enigmatic heart of its +impenetrable iris cold fire lived, cold passionless flames leaped and +died and leaped again like the sorcerous fire of a pythoness. + +To gaze into its depths was like questioning the inscrutable green +heart of the sea. Fascinated, Amber felt his consciousness slip from +him as a mantle might slip from his shoulders; awake, staring wide-eyed +into the emerald eye, he forgot self, forgot the world, and dreamed, +dreamed curiously.... + +The crash of the door closing behind him brought him to the right-about +in a panic flutter. He glared stupidly for a time before comprehending +that Rutton and Doggott had returned. How long they had been absent he +had no means of reckoning; the interval might have been five minutes or +an hour in duration. The time since he had stooped to examine the ring +was as indefinite; but his back was aching and his thoughts were drowsy +and confused. He had a sensation as of being violently recalled to a +dull and colourless world from some far realm of barbaric enchantment. +His brain reeled and his vision was blurred as if by the flash and +glamour of many vivid colours. + +With an effort he managed to force himself to understand that Rutton +was back. After that he felt more normal. His thoughts slid back into +their accustomed grooves. + +If there were anything peculiar in his manner, Rutton did not remark +it. Indeed, he seemed unconscious, for a time, of the presence either +of Amber or of Doggott. The servant relieved him of his overcoat and +hat, and he strode directly to the fire, bending over to chafe and warm +his frost-nipped hands. Unquestionably he laboured under the influence +of an extraordinary agitation. His limbs twitched and jerked nervously; +his eyebrows were tensely elevated, his eyes blazing, his nostrils +dilated; his face was ashen grey. + +From across the room Doggott signalled silence to Amber, with a +forefinger to his lips; and with a discretion bred of long knowledge of +his master's temper, tiptoed through into the back room and shut the +door. + +Amber respected the admonition throughout a wait that seemed endless. + +The tin clock hammered off five minutes or more. Suddenly Rutton +started and wheeled round, every trace of excitement smoothed away. +Meeting Amber's gaze he nodded as if casually, and said, "Oh, Amber," +quietly, with an effect of faint surprise. Then he dropped heavily into +a chair by the table. + +"Well," he said slowly, "that is over." + +Amber, without speaking, went to his side and touched his shoulder with +that pitifully inadequate gesture of sympathy which men so frequently +employ. + +"I killed him," said Rutton dully. + +"Yes," replied Amber. He was not surprised; he had apprehended the +tragedy from the moment that Rutton had fled him, speechless; the +feeling of horror that he had at first experienced had ebbed, merged +into a sort of apathetic acknowledgment of the inevitable. + +After a bit Rutton turned to the table and drew an automatic pistol +from his pocket, opening the magazine. Five cartridges remained in the +clip, showing that two had been exploded. "I was not sure," he said +thoughtfully, "how many times I had fired." His curiosity satisfied, he +reloaded the weapon and returned it to his pocket. "He died like a +dog," he said, "whimpering and blaspheming in the face of eternity ... +out there in the cold and the night.... It was sickening--the sound of +the bullets tearing through his flesh...." + +He shuddered. + +"Didn't he resist?" Amber asked involuntarily. + +"He tried to. I let him pop away with his revolver until it was empty. +Then...." + +"What made you wait?" + +"I didn't care; it didn't matter. One of us had to die to-night; he +should have known that when I refused to accompany him back to ... I +was hungry for his bullet more than for his life; I gave him every +chance. But it had to be as it was. That was Fate. Now...." He paused +and after a little went on in a more controlled voice. "Quaintly +enough, if there's anything in the theory of heredity, David, my hands +have been stained with no man's blood before to-night. Yet my forebears +were a murderous lot.... Until this hour I never realised how swift and +uncontrollable could be the impulse to slay...." + +His voice trailed off into silence and he sat staring into the +flickering flames that played about the driftwood. Now and again his +lips moved noiselessly. + +With a wrench Amber pulled himself together. He had been mentally a +witness to the murder--had seen the Bengali, obese, monstrous, flabby, +his unclean carcass a gross casing for a dark spirit of iniquity and +treachery, writhing and whining in the throes of death.... "Rutton," he +demanded suddenly, without premeditation, "what are you going to do?" + +"Do?" Rutton looked up, his eyes perplexed. + +"Why, what is there to do? Get away as best I can, I presume--seek +another hole to hide in." + +"But how about the law?" + +"The law? Why need it ever be known--what has happened to-night? I can +count on your silence--I have no need to ask. Doggott would die rather +than betray me. He and I can dispose of--it. No one comes here at this +time of the year save hunting parties; and their eyes are not upon the +ground. You will go your way in the morning. We'll clear out +immediately after." + +"You'd better take no chances." + +Suddenly Rutton smote the table with his fist. "By Indur!" he swore +strangely, his voice quavering with joy; "I had not thought of that!" +He jumped up and began to move excitedly to and fro. "I am free! None +but you and I know of the passing of the Token and the delivery of the +message--none can possibly know for days, perhaps weeks. For so much +time at least I am in no danger of--" + +He shut his mouth like a trap on words that might have enlightened +Amber. + +"Of what?" + +"Let me see: there are still waste places in the world where a man may +lose himself. There's Canada--the Hudson Bay region, Labrador...." + +A discreet knock sounded on the door in the partition, and it was +opened gently. Doggott appeared on the threshold, pale and careworn. +Rutton paused, facing him. + +"Well?" + +"Any orders, sir?" + +"Yes; begin packing up. We leave to-morrow." + +"Very good, sir." + +"That is all to-night." + +"Yes, sir. Good-night. Good-night, Mr. Amber." The man retired and at +intervals thereafter Amber could hear him moving about, apparently +obeying orders. + +Rutton replenished the fire and stood with his back to it, smiling +almost happily. All evidence of remorse had disappeared. He seemed +momentarily almost light-hearted, certainly in better spirits than he +had been at any time that night. "Free!" he cried softly. "And by the +simplest of solutions. Strange that I should never have thought before +to-night of--" He glanced carelessly toward the window; and it was as +if his lips had been wiped clean of speech. + +Amber turned, thrilling, his flesh creeping with the horror that he had +divined in Rutton's transfixed gaze. + +Outside the glass, that was lightly silvered with frost, something +moved--the spectral shadow of a turbaned head--moved and was stationary +for the space of twenty heartbeats. Beneath the turban Amber seemed to +see two eyes, wide staring and terribly alight. + +"God!" cried Rutton thickly, jerking forth his pistol. + +The shadow vanished. + +With a single thought Amber sprang upon Rutton, snatched the weapon +from his nerveless fingers, and, leaping to the door, let himself out. + +The snow had ceased; only the wind raved with untempered force. +Overhead it was blowing clear; through rifts and rents in the +fast-moving cloud-rack pale turquoise patches of moonlit sky showed, +here and there inlaid with a far shining star. The dunes were coldly +a-glimmer with the meagre light that penetrated to the earth and was +cast back by its white and spotless shroud. + +But Amber, at pause a few paces beyond the doorstep, his forefinger +ready upon the trigger of the automatic pistol, was alone in the +hollow. + +Cautiously, and, to be frank, a bit dismayed, he made a reconnaissance, +circling the building, but discovered nothing to reward his pains. The +snow lay unbroken except in front of the cabin, where the traces of +feet existed in profuse confusion; Amber himself, Rutton, Doggott, the +babu, and perhaps another, had passed and repassed there; the trail +they had beaten streamed out of the vale, to the eastwards. Only, +before the window, through which he had seen the peering turbaned head, +he found the impressions of two feet, rather deep and definite, toes +pointing toward the house, as though some one had lingered there, +looking in. The sight of them reassured him ridiculously. + +"At least," he reflected, "disembodied spirits leave no footprints!" + +He found Rutton precisely as he had left him, his very attitude an +unuttered question. + +"No," Amber told him, "he'd made a quick getaway. The marks of his feet +were plain enough, outside the window, but he was gone, and ... somehow +I wasn't over-keen to follow him up." + +"Right," said the elder man dejectedly. "I might have known Chatterji +would not have come alone. So my crime was futile." He spoke without +spirit, as if completely fagged, and moved slowly to the door. "I don't +want another interruption to-night," he continued, shooting the bolts. +He turned to the windows, "Nor peeping Toms," he added, drawing the +shade of one down to the sill. + +Amber started for him in a panic. "Get away from that window, Rutton! +For the love of heaven don't be foolhardy!" + +Rutton drew the second shade deliberately. "Dear boy!" he said with his +slow, tired smile, "I'm in no danger personally. Not a hair of my head +will be touched until...." Again he left his thought half-expressed. + +"But if that fellow out there was Chatterji's companion----!" + +"He undoubtedly was. But you don't understand; my life is not +threatened--yet." + +"Chatterji fired at you," Amber argued stubbornly. + +"Only when he found it was his life or mine. I tell you, David, if our +enemy in the outer darkness were the babu's brother, he would not touch +a hair of my head unless in self-defense." + +"I don't understand. It's all so impossible!" Amber threw out his hands +helplessly, "Unbelievable! For God's sake wake me up and tell me I've +had a nightmare!" + +"I would that were so, David. But the end is not yet." + +"What do you mean by that?" demanded Amber, startled. + +"Simply, that we have more to endure, you and I. Consider the +limitations of the human understanding, David; a little while ago I +promised to ask your aid if ever the time should come when I might be +free to do so; I said, 'That hour will never strike.' Yet already it is +here; I need you. Will you help me?" + +"You know that." + +"I know.... One moment's patience, David." Rutton glanced at the clock. +"Time for my medicine," he said; "that heart trouble I mentioned...." + +He drew from a waistcoat pocket a small silver tube, or phial, and +uncorking this, measured out a certain number of drops into a silver +spoon. As he swallowed the dose the phial slipped from his fingers and +rang upon the hearthstone, spilling its contents in the ashes. A +pungent and heady odour flavoured the air. + +"No matter," said Rutton indifferently. "I shan't need it again for +some time." He picked up and restored the phial to his pocket. "Now let +me think a bit." He took a quick turn up the room and down again. Amber +remarked that the medicine was having its effect; though the brilliance +of Rutton's eyes seemed somewhat dimmed a dull flush had crept into his +dark cheeks, and when he spoke it was in stronger accents--with a +manner more assured, composed. + +"A mad dance," he observed thoughtfully: "this thing we call life. We +meet and whirl asunder--motes in a sunbeam. To-night Destiny chose to +throw us together for a little space; to-morrow we shall be irrevocably +parted, for all time." + +"Don't say that, Rutton." + +"It is so written, David." The man's smile was strangely placid. "After +this night, we'll never meet. In the morning Doggott will ferry you +over--" + +"Shan't we go together?" + +"No," said Rutton serenely; "I must leave before you." + +"Without Doggott?" + +"Without Doggott; I wish him to go with you." + +"Where?" + +"On the errand I am going to ask you to do for me. You are free to +leave this country for several months?" + +"Quite. I corrected the final galleys of my 'Analysis of Sanskrit +Literature' just before I came down. Now I've nothing on my mind--or +hands. Go on." + +"Wait." Rutton went a second time to the leather trunk, lifted the lid, +and came back with two small parcels. The one, which appeared to +contain documents of some sort, he cast negligently on the fire, with +the air of one who destroys that which is no longer of value to him. It +caught immediately and began to flame and smoke and smoulder. The other +was several inches square and flat, wrapped in plain paper, without a +superscription, and sealed with several heavy blobs of red wax. + +Rutton drew a chair close to Amber and sat down, breaking the seals +methodically. + +"You shall go a long journey, David," he said slowly--"a long journey, +to a far land, where you shall brave perils that I may not warn you +against. It will put your friendship to the test." + +"I'm ready." + +The elder man ripped the cover from the packet, exposing the back of +what seemed to be a photograph. Holding this to the light, its face +invisible to Amber, he studied it for several minutes, in silence, a +tender light kindling in his eyes to soften the almost ascetic +austerity of his expression. "In the end, if you live, you shall win a +rich reward," he said at length. He placed the photograph face down +upon the table. + +"How--a reward?" + +"The love of a woman worthy of you, David." + +"But----!" In consternation Amber rose, almost knocking over his chair. +"But--Great Scott, man!" + +"Bear with me, David, for yet a little while," Rutton begged. "Sit +down." + +"All right, but----!" Amber resumed his seat, staring. + +"You and Doggott are to seek her out, wherever she may be, and rescue +her from what may be worse than death. And it shall come to pass that +you shall love one another and marry and live happily ever after--just +as though you were a prince and she an enchanted princess in a fairy +tale, David." + +"I must say you seem pretty damn' sure about it!" + +"It must be so, David; it shall be so! I am an old man--older than you +think, perhaps--and with age there sometimes comes something strangely +akin to the gift of second-sight. So I know it will be so, though you +think me a madman." + +"I don't, indeed, but you.... Well! I give it up." Amber laughed +uneasily. "Go on. Where's this maiden in distress?" + +"In India--I'm not sure just where. You'll find her, however." + +"And then----?" + +"Then you are to bring her home with you, without delay." + +"But suppose--" + +"You must win her first; then she will come gladly." + +"But I've just told you I loved another woman, Rutton, and besides--" + +"You mean the Miss Farrell you mentioned?" + +"Yes. I--" + +"That will be no obstacle." + +"What! How in thunder d'you know it won't?" Amber expostulated. A faint +suspicion of the truth quickened his wits. "Who is this woman you want +me to marry?" + +"My daughter." + +"Your daughter!" + +"My only child, David." + +"Then why won't my--my love for Sophia Farrell interfere?" + +"Because," said Rutton slowly, "my daughter and Sophia Farrell are the +same.... No; listen to me; I'm not raving. Here is my proof--her latest +photograph." He put it into Amber's hands. + +Dazed, the younger man stared blankly at the likeness of the woman he +loved; it was unquestionably she. Fair, sweet, and imperious, her face +looked up to his from the bit of cardboard in his hands; the direct and +fearless eyes met his--eyes frank, virginal, and serene, beautiful with +the beauty of a soul as unsullied and untroubled as the soul of a +child. + +He gasped, trembling, astounded. "Sophia...!" he said thickly, +colouring hotly. He was conscious of a tightening of his throat +muscles, making speech a matter of difficulty. "But--but--" he +stammered. + +"Her mother," said Rutton softly, looking away, "was a Russian +noblewoman. Sophia is Farrell's daughter by adoption only. Farrell was +once my closest friend. When my wife died...." He covered his eyes with +his hand and remained silent for a few seconds. "When Sophia was left +motherless, an infant in arms, Farrell offered to adopt her. Because I +became, about that time, aware of this horror that has poisoned my +life--this thing of which you have seen something to-night--I accepted +on condition that the truth be never revealed to her. It cost me the +friendship of Farrell; he was then but lately married and--and I +thought it dangerous to be seen with him too much. I left England, +having settled upon my daughter the best part of my fortune, retaining +only enough for my needs. From that day I never saw her or heard from +Farrell. Yet I knew I could trust him. Last summer, when my daughter +was presented at Court, I was in London; I discovered the name of her +photographer and bribed him to sell me this." He indicated the +photograph. + +"And she doesn't know!" + +"She must never know." Rutton leaned forward and caught Amber's hand in +a compelling grasp. "Remember that. Whatever you do, my name must never +pass your lips--with reference to herself, at least. No one must even +suspect that you know me--Farrell least of all." + +"Sophia knows that now," said Amber. "Quain and I spoke of you one +night, but the name made no impression on her. I'm sure of that." + +"That is good; Farrell has been true. Now ... you will go to India?" + +"I will go," Amber promised. + +"You will be kind to her, and true, David? You'll love her faithfully +and make her love you?" + +"I'll do my best," said the young man humbly. + +"It must be so--she must be taught to love you. It is essential, +imperative, that she marry you and leave India with you without a day's +delay." + +Amber sat back in his chair, breathing quickly, his mouth tense. "I'll +do my best. But, Rutton, why? Won't you tell me? Shouldn't I know--I, +who am to be her husband, her protector?" + +"Not from me. I am bound by an oath, David. Some day it may be that you +will know. Perhaps not. You may guess what you will--you have much to +go on. But from me, nothing. Now, let us settle the details. I've very +little time." He glanced again at the shoddy tin clock, with a slight +but noticeable shiver. + +"How's that? It's hours till morning." + +"I shall never see the dawn, David," said Rutton quietly. + +"What--" + +"I have but ten minutes more of life.... If you must know--in a word: +poison.... That I be saved a blacker sin, David!" + +"You mean that medicine--the silver phial?" Amber stammered, sick with +horror. + +"Yes. Don't be alarmed; it's slow but sure and painless, dear boy. It +works infallibly within half an hour. There'll be no agony--merely the +drawing of the curtain. Best of all, it leaves no traces; a +diagnostician would call it heart-failure.... And thus I escape that." +He nodded coolly toward the door. + +"But this must not be, Rutton!" Amber rose suddenly, pushing back his +chair. "Something must be done. Doggott--" + +"Not so loud, please--you might alarm him. After it's all over, call +him. But now--it's useless; the thing is done; there's no known +antidote. Be kind to me, David, in this hour of mine extremity. There's +much still to be said between us ... and in seven minutes more...." + +Rutton retained his clutch upon Amber's hand; and his eyes, their +lustre dimmed, held Amber's, pitiful, passionate, inexorable in their +entreaty. Amber sat down, his soul shaken with the pity of it. + +"Ah-h!" sighed Rutton. Relieved, the tension relaxed; he released +Amber's hand; his body sank a little in the chair. Becoming conscious +of this, he pulled himself together.... "Enter India by way of +Calcutta," he said in a dull and heavy voice. "There, in the Machua +Bazaar, you will find a goldsmith and money-lender called Dhola Baksh. +Go to him secretly, show him the ring--the Token. He will understand +and do all in his power to aid you, should there be any trouble about +your leaving with Sophia. To no one else in India are you to mention my +name. Deny me, if taxed with knowing me. Do you understand?" + +"No. Why?" + +"Never mind--but remember these two things: you do not know me and you +must under no circumstances have anything to do with the police. They +could do nothing to help you; on the other hand, to be seen with them, +to have it known that you communicate with them, would be the +equivalent of a seal upon your death warrant. You remember the +money-lender's name?" + +"Dhola Baksh of the Machua Bazaar." + +"Trust him--and trust Doggott.... Four minutes more!" + +"Rutton!" cried Amber in a broken voice. Cold sweat broke out upon his +forehead. + +The man smiled fearlessly. "Believe me, this is the better way--the +only way.... Some day you may meet a little chap named Labertouche--a +queer fish I once knew in Calcutta. But I daresay he's dead by now. But +if you should meet him, tell him that you've seen his B-Formula work +flawlessly in one instance at least. You see, he dabbled in chemistry +and entomology and a lot of uncommon pursuits--a solicitor by +profession, he never seemed to have any practice to speak of--and he +invented this stuff and named it the B-Formula." Rutton tapped the +silver phial in his waistcoat pocket, smiling faintly. "He was a good +little man.... Two minutes. Strange how little one cares, when it's +inevitable...." + +He ceased to speak and closed his eyes. A great stillness made itself +felt within the room. In the other, Doggott was silent--probably +asleep. Amber noted the fact subconsciously, even as he was aware that +the high fury of the wind was moderating. But consciously he was bowed +down with sorrow, inexpressibly racked. + +In the hush the metallic hammering of the mean tin clock rang loud and +harsh; Amber's heart seemed to beat in funeral time to its steady, +unhurried, immutable ticking. + +It was close upon two in the morning. + +"Amber," said Rutton suddenly and very clearly, "you'll find a will in +my despatch box. Doggott is to have all I possess. The emerald +ring--the Token--I give to you." + +"Yes, I--I--" + +"Your hand.... Mine is cold? No? I fancied it was," said the man +drowsily. And later: "Sophia. You will be kind to her, David?" + +"On my faith!" + +Rutton's fingers tightened cruelly upon his, then relaxed suddenly. He +began to nod, his chin drooping toward his breast. + +"The Gateway ... the Bell...." + +The words were no more than whispers dying on lips that stilled as they +spoke. For a long time Amber sat unmoving, his fingers imprisoned in +that quiet, cooling grasp, his thoughts astray in a black mist of +mourning and bewilderment. + +Through the hush of death the tin clock ticked on, placidly, +monotonously, complacently. In the fireplace a charred log broke with a +crash and a shower of live cinders. + +Out of doors something made a circuit of the cabin, like a beast of the +night, stealthy footsteps muffled by the snow: _pad--pad--pad_.... + +In the emerald ring on Amber's finger the deathless fire leaped and +pulsed. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +RED DAWN + + +Presently Amber rose and quietly exchanged dressing-gown and slippers +for his own shooting-jacket and boots--which by now were dry, thanks to +Doggott's thoughtfulness in placing them near the fire. + +The shabby tin clock had droned through thirty minutes since Rutton had +spoken his last word. In that interval, sitting face to face, and for a +little time hand in hand, with the man to whom he had pledged his +honour, Amber had thought deeply, carefully weighing ways and means; +nor did he move until he believed his plans mature and definite. + +But before he could take one step toward redeeming his word to Rutton, +he had many cares to dispose of. In the hut, Rutton lay dead of poison; +somewhere amongst the dunes the babu lay in his blood, shot to +death--foully murdered, the world would say. Should these things become +known, he would be detained indefinitely in Nokomis as a witness--if, +indeed, he escaped a graver charge. + +It was, then, with a mind burdened with black anxiety that he went to +arouse Doggott. + +The rear room proved to be as cheerless as the other. Of approximately +the same dimensions, it too had been furnished with little regard for +anything but the barest conveniences of camp-life. It contained a small +sheet-iron stove for cooking, a table, a rack of shelves, two chairs, +and a rickety cot-bed in addition to another trunk. On the table a tin +kerosene-lamp had burned low, poisoning the air with its bitter reek. +On the cot Doggott sprawled in his clothing, his strained +position--half reclining, feet upon the floor--suggesting an +uncontemplated surrender to fatigue. His face was flushed and he was +breathing heavily. + +The Virginian stood over him for several minutes before he could bring +himself to the point of awakening the man to the news of Rutton's +death. Aware of that steadfast loyalty which Doggott had borne his +master through many years of service, he shrank with conceivable +reluctance from the duty. But necessity drove him with a taut rein; and +finally he bent over and shook the sleeper by the shoulder. + +With a jerk the man sat up and recognised Amber. + +"Beg pardon, sir," he muttered, lifting himself sluggishly; "I didn't +mean to fall asleep--I'd only sat down for a moment's rest. Has--has +anything gone bad, sir?" he added hastily, remarking with troubled eyes +the sympathy and concern in Amber's expression. + +Amber looked away. "Mr. Rutton is dead, Doggott," he managed to say +with some difficulty. + +Doggott exclaimed beneath his breath. "Dead!" he cried in a tone of +daze. In two strides he had left Amber and was kneeling by Rutton's +side. The most cursory examination, however, sufficed to resolve his +every doubt: the hanging head and arms, the livid face with its staring +yet sightless eyes, the shrunken figure seeming so pitifully slight and +unsubstantial in comparison with its accustomed strong and virile +poise, hopelessly confirmed Amber's statement. + +"Dead!" whispered the servant. He rose and stood swaying, his lips +a-tremble, his eyes blinking through a mist, his head bowed. "'E always +was uncommon' good to me, Mr. Amber," he said brokenly. "It's a bit +'ard, comin' this w'y. 'Ow--'ow did it--" He broke down completely for +a time, and staggered away to the wall, there to stand with his head +pillowed on his crossed forearms. + +When he had himself in more control Amber told him as briefly as +possible of the head at the window and of its sequel--Rutton's +despairing suicide. + +Doggott listened in silence, nodding his comprehension. "I've always +looked for it, sir," he commented. "'E'd warned me never to touch that +silver tube; 'e never said poison, but I suspected it, 'e being blue +and melancholy-like, by fits and turns--'e never told me why." + +Then, reverently, they took up the body and laid it out upon the +hammock-bed, Doggott arranging the limbs and closing the eyes before +spreading a sheet over the rigid form. + +"And now, what, Mr. Amber?" he asked. + +Amber had returned to the table. He pondered his problems for some time +before answering; a distasteful duty devolved upon him of questioning +the servant about his master's secrets, of delving into the mystery +which Rutton had chosen always to preserve about himself--which, +indeed, he had chosen to die without disclosing to the man whom he had +termed his sole intimate. Yet this task, too, must be gone through +with. + +"Mr. Rutton spoke of a despatch-box, Doggott. You know where to find +it?" + +"Yes, sir." + +The servant brought from Rutton's leather trunk a battered +black-japanned tin box, which, upon exploration, proved to contain +little that might not have been anticipated. A bankbook issued by the +house of Rothschild Freres, Paris, showed a balance to the credit of +H.D. Rutton of something slightly under a million francs. There was +American money, chiefly in gold certificates of large denominations, to +the value of, roundly, twenty thousand dollars, together with a handful +of French, German and English bank-notes which might have brought in +exchange about two hundred and fifty dollars. In addition to these +there was merely a single envelope, superscribed: "To be opened in +event of my death only. H.D.R." + +Amber broke the seal and read the enclosures once to himself and a +second time aloud to Doggott. The date was barely a year old. + +"For reasons personal to myself and sufficient," Rutton had written, "I +choose not to make a formal will. I shall die, probably in the near +future, by my own hand, of poison. I wish to emphasise this statement +in event the circumstances surrounding my demise should appear to +attach suspicion of murder upon any person or persons whatever. I am a +widower and childless. What relations may survive me are distant and +will never appear to claim what estate I may leave--this I know. I +therefore desire that my body-servant, Henry Doggott, an English +citizen, shall inherit and appropriate to his own use all my property +and effects, providing he be in my service at the time of my death. To +facilitate his entering into possession of my means, whatever they may +be, without the necessity of legal procedure of any kind, I enclose a +cheque to his order upon my bankers, signed by myself and bearing the +date of this memorandum. He is to fill it in with the amount remaining +to my credit upon my bank-book. Should he have died or left me, +however, the disposition of my effects is a matter about which I am +wholly careless." + +The signature was unmistakably genuine--the formal "H.D. Rutton" with +which Amber was familiar. It was unwitnessed. + +The Virginian put aside the paper and offered Doggott the blank cheque +on Rothschilds'. "This," he said, "makes you pretty nearly +independently rich, Doggott." + +"Yes, sir." Doggott took the slip of paper in a hand that trembled even +as his voice, and eyed it incredulously. "I've never 'ad anything like +this before, sir; I 'ardly know what it means." + +"It means," explained Amber, "that, when you've filled in that blank +and had the money collected from the Rothschilds, you'll be worth--with +what cash is here--in the neighbourhood of forty five thousand pounds +sterling." + +Doggott gasped, temporarily inarticulate. "Forty-five thousand +pounds!... Mr. Amber," he declared earnestly, "I never looked for +nothin' like this I--I never--I--" Quite without warning he was quiet +and composed again. "Might I ask it of you as a favour, sir, to look +after this"--he offered to return the cheque--"for a while, till I can +myke up my mind what to do with it." + +"Certainly." Amber took the paper, folded it and placed it in his +card-case. "I'd suggest that you deposit it as soon as possible in a +New York bank for collection. In the meantime, these bills are yours; +you'd better take care of them yourself until you open the banking +account. I'll keep Mr. Rutton's bank-book with the cheque." He placed +the book in his pocket with the singular document Rutton had called his +"will," and motioned Doggott to possess himself of the money in the +despatch-box. + +"It'll keep as well in 'ere as anywheres," Doggott considered, +relocking the box. "I 'aven't 'ardly any use for money, except, of +course, to tide me over till I find another position." + +"What!" exclaimed Amber in amaze. + +"Yes, sir," affirmed Doggott respectfully. "I'm a bit too old to chynge +my w'ys; a valet I've been all my life and a valet I'll die, sir. It's +too lyte to think of anything else." + +"But with this money, Doggott--" + +"Beg pardon, sir, but I know; I could live easy like a gentleman if I +liked--but I wouldn't be a gentleman, so what's the use of that? I +could go 'ome and buy me a public-'ouse; but that wouldn't do neither. +I'd not be 'appy; if you'll pardon my s'ying so, I've associated too +long with gentlemen and gentlemen's gentlemen to feel at ease, so to +speak, with the kind that 'angs round publics. So the w'y I look at it, +there's naught for me but go on valeting until I'm too old; after that +the money'll be a comfort, I dares'y.... Don't you think so, sir?" "I +believe you're right, Doggott; only, your common-sense surprises me. +But it makes it easier in a way...." Amber fell thoughtful again. + +"'Ow's that, sir--if I m'y ask?" + +"This way," said Amber: "Before he died, Mr. Rutton asked me to do him +a service. I agreed. He suggested that I take you with me." + +"I'm ready, sir," interrupted Doggott eagerly. "There's no gentleman +I'd like to valet for better than yourself." + +"But there will be dangers, Doggott--I don't know precisely what. +That's the rub: we'll have to travel half-way round the world and face +unknown perils. If Mr. Rutton were right about it, we'll be lucky to +get away with our lives." + +"I'll go, sir; it was 'is wish. I'll go with you to India, Mr. Amber." + +"Very well...." Amber spoke abstractedly, reviewing his plans. "But," +he enquired suddenly, "I didn't mention India. How did you know----?" + +"Why--I suppose I must 'ave guessed it, sir. It seemed so likely, +knowing what I do about Mr. Rutton." + +Amber sat silent, unable to bring himself to put a single question in +regard to the dead man's antecedents. But after a pause the servant +continued voluntarily. + +"He always 'ad a deal to do with persons who came from +India--niggers--I mean, natives. It didn't much matter where we'd +be--London or Paris or Berlin or Rome--they'd 'unt 'im up; some 'e'd +give money to and they'd go aw'y; others 'e'd be locked up with in 'is +study for hours, talking, talking. They'd 'ardly ever come the same one +twice. 'E 'ated 'em all, Mr. Rutton did. And yet, sir, I always 'ad a +suspicion--" + +Doggott hesitated, lowering his voice, his gaze shifting uneasily to +the still, shrouded figure in the corner. + +"What?" demanded Amber tensely. + +"I alw'ys thought per'aps 'e was what we call in England a man of +colour, 'imself, sir." + +"Doggott!" + +"I don't mean no 'arm, sir; it was just their 'ounding him, like, and +'is being a dark-complected man the syme as them, and speakin' their +language so ready, that made me think it. At least 'e might 'ave 'ad a +little of their blood in 'im, sir. Things 'd seem unaccountable +otherwise," concluded Doggott vaguely. + +"It's impossible!" cried Amber. + +"Yes, sir; at least, I mean I 'ope so, sir. Not that it'd myke any +difference to me, the w'y I felt towards 'im. 'E was a gentleman, white +or black. I'd've died for 'im any d'y." + +"Doggott!" The Virginian had risen and was pacing excitedly to and fro. +"Doggott! don't ever repeat one word of this to man or woman--while +you're faithful to the memory of Mr. Rutton." + +The servant stared, visibly impressed. "Very good, Mr. Amber. I'll +remember, sir. I don't ordinarily gossip, sir; but you and him being so +thick, and everything 'appening to-night so 'orrible, I forgot myself. +I 'ope you'll excuse me, sir." + +"God in Heaven!" cried the young man hoarsely. "It can't be true!" He +flung himself into his chair, burying his face in his hands. "It +can't!" + +Yet irresistibly the conviction was being forced upon him that Doggott +had surmised aright. Circumstance backed up circumstance within his +knowledge of or his experience with the man, all seeming to prove +incontestably the truth of what at the first blush had seemed so +incredible. What did he, Amber, know of Rutton's parentage or history +that would refute the calm belief of the body-servant of the dead man? +Rutton himself had consistently kept sealed lips upon the subject of +his antecedents; in Amber's intercourse with him the understanding that +what had passed was a closed book had been implicit. But it had never +occurred to Amber to question the man's title to the blood of the +Caucasian peoples. Not that the mystery with which Rutton had ever +shrouded his identity had not inevitably of itself been a provocation +to Amber's imagination; he had hazarded many an idle, secret guess at +the riddle that was Rutton. Who or what the man was or might have been +was ever a field of fascinating speculation to the American, but his +wildest conjecture had never travelled east of Italy or Hungary. He had +always fancied that one, at least, of Rutton's parents had been a +native of the European Continent. He had even, at a certain time when +his imagination had been stimulated by the witchery of "Lavengro" and +"The Romany Rye," gone so far as to wonder if, perchance, Rutton were +not descended from Gipsy stock--a fancy which he was quick to dismiss +as absurd. Yet now it seemed as if he had not been far wrong; if +Doggott were right--and Amber had come to believe that the valet was +right--it was no far cry from the Hindu to the Romany, both offshoots +of the Aryan root. + +And then Amber's intelligence was smitten by a thought as by a club; +and he began to tremble violently, uncontrollably, being weakened by +fatigue and the strain of that endless, terrible night. A strangled cry +escaped him without his knowledge: "Sophia!" + +Sophia Farrell, the woman he had promised to wed, nay even the woman he +loved with all his being--a half-breed, a mulatto! His mind sickened +with the horror of that thought. All the inbred contempt of the +Southerner for the servile races surged up to overwhelm his passion, to +make it seem more than impossible, revolting, that the mistress of his +dreams should be a creature tainted by the blood of a brown-skinned +people. Though her mother had been of noble Russian family, as her +father had declared; though her secret were contained in his knowledge +and Farrell's alone, and though it were to be preserved by them ever +inviolate--could he, David Amber, ever forget it? Could he make her his +bride and take her home to his mother and his sisters in +Virginia--offer them as daughter and sister a woman who, though she +were fairer than the dawn, was in part a product of intermarriage +between white and black? + +His very soul seemed to shudder and his reason cried out that the thing +could never be.... Yet in his heart of hearts still he loved her, still +desired her with all his strength and will; in his heart there was no +wavering. Whatever Rutton had been, whatever his daughter might be, he +loved her. And more, the honour of the Ambers was in pledge, holding +him steadfast to his purpose to seek her out in India or wherever she +might be and to bear her away from the unnamed danger that threatened +her--even to marry her, if she would have him. He had promised; his +word had passed; there could now be no withdrawal.... + +An hour elapsed, its passing raucously emphasised by the tin clock. +Amber remained at the table, his head upon it, his face hidden by his +arms, so still that Doggott would have thought him sleeping but for his +uneven breathing. + +On tiptoe the man-servant moved in and out of the room, making ready +for the day, mechanically carrying out his dead master's last +instructions, to pack up against an early departing. His face was grave +and sorrowful and now and again he paused in the midst of his +preparations to watch for an instant the sheeted form upon the +hammock-bed, his head bowed, his eyes filling; or to cast a sympathetic +glance at the back and shoulders of the living, his new employer. In +his day Doggott had known trouble; he was ignorant of the cause, but +now intuitively he divined that Amber was suffering mental torment +indescribable and beyond his power to assuage. + +At length the young man called him and Doggott found him sitting up, +with a haggard and careworn face but with the sane light of a mind +composed in his eyes. + +"Doggott," he asked in an even, toneless voice, "have you ever +mentioned to anybody your suspicion about Mr. Rutton's race?" + +"Only to you, sir." + +"That's good. And you won't?" + +"No, sir." + +"Have you," continued Amber, looking away and speaking slowly, "ever +heard him mention his marriage?" + +"Never, sir. 'E says in that paper 'e was a widower; I fancy the lady +must have died before I entered 'is service. 'E was always a lonely +man, all the fifteen year I've been with 'im, keepin' very much to +'imself, sir." + +"He never spoke of a--daughter?" + +"No, sir. Didn't 'e say 'e was childless?" + +"Yes. I merely wondered.... Tell me, now, do you know of any letters or +papers of his that we should destroy? If there are any, he would wish +us to." + +"'E never 'ad many, sir. What letters 'e got 'e answered right away and +destroyed 'em. There was a little packet in 'is trunk, but I see that's +gone." + +"He burned it himself this evening. There's nothing else?" + +"Nothing whatever, sir." + +"That's all right, then. We have nothing to do but ... see that he's +decently buried and get away as soon as we can. There's no time to +lose. It's after four, now, and as soon as it's daylight----You must +have a boat somewhere about?" + +"Yes, sir. Mr. Rutton 'ad me 'ire a little power launch before 'e came +down. It's down by the bayside, 'alf a mile aw'y." + +"Very well. The wind is dying down and by sunrise the bay will be safe +to cross--if it isn't now. These shallow waters smoothe out very +quickly. We'll--" + +He cut his words short and got up abruptly with a sharp exclamation: +"What's that?" + +Doggott, too, had heard and been startled. "It sounded like a gun-shot, +sir, and a man shouting," he said, moving toward the door. + +But Amber anticipated him there. + +As he stepped out into the bitter-cold air of early morning, he +received an impression that a shadow in the hollow had been alarmed by +his sudden appearance and had flitted silently and swiftly out upon the +beaten eastward path. But of this he could not be sure. + +He stood shivering and staring, waiting with attentive senses for a +repetition of the sound. The wind had indeed fallen, and the world was +very still--a hush that overspread and lay unbroken upon the deep, +ceaseless growling of the sea, like oil on water. The moon had set and +the darkness was but faintly tempered by the starlight on the snow--or +was it the first wan promise of the dawn that seemed to quiver in the +formless void between earth and sky? + +In the doorway Doggott grew impatient. "You don't 'ear anything, sir?" + +"Not a sound." + +"It's cruel cold, Mr. Amber. 'Adn't you better come inside, sir?" + +"I suppose so." He abandoned hope disconsolately and returned to the +hut, his teeth inclined to chatter and his stomach assailed by +qualms--premonitions of exhaustion in a body insufficiently nourished. + +Doggott, himself similarly affected, perhaps, was quick to recognise +the symptoms. "I'll get a bite of breakfast, sir," he suggested; "you +'aven't 'ad enough to eat, and 'unger's tyking 'old of you. If you'll +pardon my saying so, you look a bit sickly; but a cup of hot coffee'll +set that right in a jiffy." + +"Thank you, Doggott; I believe you're right. Though disappointment has +a good deal to do with the way I look. I'd hoped it might be Mr. Quain +come to look for me." + +Doggott disappeared to prepare the meal, but within five minutes a +second gun-shot sounded startlingly near at hand. The Virginian's +appearance at the door was coincident with a clear hail of "Aho-oy, +Amber!"--unmistakably Quain's voice, raised at a distance of not over +two hundred yards. + +Amber's answering cry quavered with joy. And with a bear-like rush +Quain topped the nearest dune, dropped down into the hollow, and was +upon him. + +"By the Lord Harry!" he cried, almost embracing Amber in his excitement +and relief; "I'd almost given you up for good and all!" + +"And I you," said Amber, watching curiously and somewhat distrustfully +a second man follow Quain into the vale. "Who's that?" he demanded. + +"Only Antone. We've him to thank. He remembered this old camp here--I'd +completely forgotten it--and was sure you'd taken refuge in it. Come +inside." He dragged Amber in, the Portuguese following. "Let's have a +look at you by the light. Lord! you seem to be pretty comfortable--and +I've been worrying myself sick for fear you--" He swept the room with +an approving glance which passed over Doggott and became transfixed as +it rested upon the hammock-bed with its burden; and his jaw fell. +"What's this? What's this?" He swung upon Amber, appraising with +relentless eyes the havoc his night's experience had wrought upon the +man. "You look like hell!" he exploded. "What's up here? Eh?" + +Amber turned to Doggott. "Take Antone out there with you and keep him +until I call, please. This is Mr. Quain; I want to talk with him +undisturbed.... But you can bring us coffee when it's ready." + +Quain motioned to Antone; the Portuguese disappeared into the back room +with Doggott, who closed the communicating door. + +"You first," said Amber. "If you've fretted about me, I've been crazy +about you--what time I've had to think." + +Quain deferred to his insistence. "It was simple enough--and damned +hard," he explained. "I caught the _Echo_ by the skin of my teeth, the +skimmy almost sinking under me. She was hard and fast aground, but I +managed to get the motor going and backed her off. As soon as that was +all right we got a wave aboard that soused the motor--like a fool I'd +left the hatch off--and short-circuited the coil. After that there was +hell to pay. I worked for half an hour reefing, and meanwhile we went +aground again. The oar broke and I had to go overboard and get wet to +my waist before I got her off. By that time it was blowing great guns +and dead from the beach. I had to stand off and make for the +mainland--nothing else to do. We beached about a mile below the +lighthouse and I had the four-mile tramp home. Then after I'd thawed +out and had a drink and a change of clothes, we had to wait two hours +for the sea to go down enough to make a crossing in the launch +practicable. That's all for mine. Now you? What's that there?" + +"A suicide; a friend of mine--the man Rutton whom we were discussing +the night I came down. And that's not half. There's a man out there +somewhere, shot to death by Rutton--a Bengali babu.... Quain, I've +lived in Purgatory ever since we parted and now ... I'm about done." + +He was; the coming of Quain with the ease of mind it brought had +snapped the high nervous tension which had sustained Amber. He was now +on the edge of collapse and showed it plainly. But two circumstances +aided him to recover his grip upon himself: Quain's compassionate +consideration in forbearing to press his story from him, and Doggott's +opportune appearance with a pot of coffee, steaming and black. Two cups +of this restored Amber to a condition somewhat approaching the normal. +He lit a cigarette and began to talk. + +For all his affection for and confidence in his friend, there were +things he might not tell Quain; wherefore he couched his narrative in +the fewest possible words and was miserly of detail. Of the coming of +the babu and his going Amber was fairly free to speak; he suppressed +little if any of that episode. Moreover he had forgotten to remove the +Token from his finger, and Quain instantly remarked it and demanded an +explanation. But of the nature of the errand on which he was to go, +Amber said nothing; it was, he averred, Rutton's private business. Nor +did he touch upon the question of Rutton's nationality. Sophia Farrell +he never mentioned. + +Nevertheless, he said enough to render Quain thoughtful.... "You're set +on this thing, I suppose?" he asked some time after Amber had +concluded. + +"Set upon it, dear man? I've no choice. I must go--I promised." + +"Of course. That's you, all over. Personally, I think it'll turn out a +fool's errand. But there's something you haven't told me--I'm not ass +enough to have missed that and no doubt that influences you." + +"I've told you everything that, in honor, I could." + +"Hmm--yes; I dare say...." Quain scowled over the problem for some +time. "It's plain enough," he asserted forcibly: "that man was involved +in some infernal secret society. Just how and why's the question. Think +I'll have a look at him." + +Amber would have protested, but thought better of it and held his peace +while Quain went to the hammock-bed, turned back the sheet, and for +several minutes lingered there, scrutinising the stony, upturned face. + +"So!" he said, coming back. "Here's news that'll help you some. You +were blind not to see it yourself. That man's--was, I should say--a +Rajput." He waited for the comment which did not come. "You knew it?" + +"I ... suspected, to-night." + +"It's as plain as print; the mark of his caste is all over him. But +perhaps he was able to disguise it a little with his manner--alive; +undoubtedly, I'd say. He was a genius of his kind--a prodigy; a mental +giant. That translation of the 'Tantras'----! Wonderful!... Well, he's +gone his own way: God be with him.... When do you want to start?" + +"As soon as possible--sooner. I've not a day to lose--not an hour." + +"Urgent as that, eh?" Quain peered keenly into his face. "I wish I knew +what you know. I wish to Heaven I might go with you. But I'm married +now--and respectable. If I ''ear the East a-callin'' and daren't +answer, it's my own fault for ever being fool enough to have heard it. +Well...." He proceeded to take charge of the situation with his +masterful habit. "The morning train leaves Nokomis at seven-thirty. You +can make that, if you must. But you need sleep--rest." + +"I'll get that on the train." + +"'Knew you'd say that. Very well. This is Tuesday. The _Mauretania_--or +the _Lusitania_, I don't know which--sails to-morrow. You can catch +that, too. It's the quickest route, eastwards--" + +"But I've decided to go west." + +"That means a week more, and you said you were in a hurry." + +"I am; but by going westwards it's barely possible I may be able to +transact or wind up the business on the way." + +As a matter of fact Amber was hoping the Rolands, with Sophia Farrell, +might linger somewhere _en route_, remembering that the girl had +discussed a tentative project to stop over between steamers at +Yokohama. + +"Very well," Quain gave in; "you're the doctor. Now as for things here, +make your mind easy. I'll take charge and keep the affair quiet. +There's no reason I can see for its ever getting out. I can answer for +myself and Antone; and the two of us can wind things up. That man +Rutton is at peace now--'chances are he'd prefer a quiet grave here on +the island. Then that devilish babu--he doesn't count; Antone and I'll +get him under the ground in a jiffy. No one ever gets over here but me, +now; come summer and there'll be a few wanderers, but by that time.... +The dunes'll hold their secrets fast: be sure of that. Finally, if any +one round here knows about this place being occupied, your departure'll +be public enough to make them think it's being abandoned again. Keep +your hat-brim down and your coat-collar up at the station; and they'll +never know you aren't Rutton himself; and you'll have Doggott to back +up the deception. So there'll be no questions asked.... Get ready now +to trot along, and I'll take care of everything." + +"There's no way of thanking you." + +"That's a comfort. Call Doggott now and tell him to get ready. You +haven't much time to lose. I'd land at the lighthouse dock, if I were +you, and take the short-cut up to the station by the wood road. If you +land at Tanglewood, Madge'll hold you up for a hot breakfast and make +you miss your train. I'll cook up some yarn to account for your +defection; and when you get back with your blooming bride you can tell +her the whole story, by way of amends." + +Amber wheeled upon him, colouring to the brows. "My bride! What do you +mean by that? I said nothing--" + +Quain rubbed his big hands, chuckling. "Of course you didn't. But I'm +wise enough to know there's bound to be a woman in this case. Besides, +it's Romance--and what's a romance without a woman?" + +"Oh, go to thunder," said Amber good-naturedly, and went to give +Doggott his orders. + +While they waited for the servant to pack his handbag--it being obvious +that to take the trunks with them was not feasible; while Quain was to +care for Amber's things at Tanglewood until his return from +India--Quain was possessed by an idea which he was pleased to christen +an inspiration. + +"It's this," he explained: "what do you know about Calcutta?" + +"Little or nothing. I've been there--that's about all." + +"Precisely. Now _I_ know the place, and I know you'll never find this +goldsmith in the Machua Bazaar without a guide. The ordinary, +common-or-garden guide is out of the question, of course. But I happen +to know an Englishman there who knows more about the dark side of India +than any other ten men in the world. He'll be invaluable to you, and +you can trust him as you would Doggott. Go to him in my name--you'll +need no other introduction--and tell him what you've told me." + +"That's impossible. Rutton expressly prohibited my mentioning his name +to any one in India." + +"Oh, very well. You haven't, have you? And you won't have to. I'll take +care of that, when I write and tell Labertouche you're coming." + +"What name?" + +"Labertouche. Why? You don't know him." + +"No; but Rutton did. Rutton got that poison from him." + +Quain whistled, his eyes round. "Did, eh? So much the better; he'll +probably know all about Rutton and'll take a keener interest." + +"But you forget--" + +"Hang your promise. I'm not bound by it and this is business--blacker +business than you seem to realise, Davy. You're bent on jumping +blindfold and with your hands tied into the seething pool of infamy and +intrigue that is India. And I won't stand for it. Don't think for an +instant that I'm going to let you go without doing everything I can to +make things as pleasant as possible for you.... No; Labertouche is your +man." + +And to this Quain held inflexibly; so that, in the end, Amber, unable +to move him, was obliged to leave the matter in his hands. + +A sullen and portentous dawn hung in the sky when the little party left +the cabin. In the east the entire firmament was ensanguined with +sinister crimson and barred with long reefs of purple-black clouds in +motionless suspense. Upon the earth the red glare fell ominously; the +eastern faces of the snow-clad dunes shone like rubies; westward the +shadows streamed long and dense and violet. The stillness was intense. + +A little awed, it may be, and certainly more than a little depressed, +they left the hollow by the beaten way, the Portuguese Antone leading +with a pick and spade, Amber and Quain following side by side, Doggott +with his valise bringing up the rear. Beyond the hollow the tracks +diverged toward the bay shore; and presently they came to the scene of +the tragedy. + +Between two sandhills the Bengali lay supine, a huddled heap of garish +colour--scarlet, yellow, tan--against the cold bluish-grey of snow. A +veil of unmelted flakes blurred his heavy, contorted features and his +small, black eyes--eyes as evil now, staring glassily up to the zenith, +as when quickened by his malign intelligence. About him were many +footprints, some recently made--presumably by his companion. The +latter, however, kept himself discreetly invisible. + +At a word from Quain the Portuguese paused and began to dig. Quain, +Amber, and Doggott went on a little distance, then, by mutual consent, +halted within sight of Antone. + +"I wouldn't leave him if I were you," Amber told Quain, nodding back at +the Portuguese. "It mightn't be safe, with that other devil skulking +round--Heaven knows where." + +"Right-O!" agreed Quain. His hand sought Amber's. "Good-bye, and God be +with you," he said huskily. + +Amber tightened his clasp upon the man's fingers. "I can't improve on +that, Tony," said he with a feeble smile. "Good-bye, and God be with +you." He dropped his hand and turned away. "Come along, Doggott." + +The servant led the way baywards. Behind them the angry morning blazed +brighter in the sky. + +In the sedge of the shore they found a rowboat and, launching it, +embarked for the power-boat, which swung at her mooring in deeper +water. When they were aboard the latter, Doggott took charge of the +motor, leaving to Amber the wheel, and with little delay they were in +motion. + +As their distance from the shore increased Amber glanced back. The +island rested low against the flaming sky, a shape of empurpled +shadows, scarcely more substantial to the vision than the rack of cloud +above. In the dark sedges the pools, here and there, caught the light +from above and shone blood-red. And suddenly the attention of the +Virginian was arrested by the discovery of a human figure--a man +standing upon a dune-top some distance inland, and staring steadfastly +after the boat. He seemed of extraordinary height and very thin; upon +his head there was a turban; his arms were folded. While Amber watched +he held his pose, a living menace--like some fantastic statue bulking +black against the grim red dawn. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MASKS AND FACES + + +Like many a wiser and a better man, Amber was able upon occasion to +change his mind without entertaining serious misgivings as to his +stability of purpose. Therefore, on second thought, he elected to +journey India-wards _via_ the Suez Canal rather than by the western +route. As he understood the situation, he had no time to waste; the +quicker way to his destination was the eastern way; and, viewed +soberly, the chance upon which he had speculated, that of overtaking +the girl's party somewhere _en route_, appeared a long one--a gambler's +risk, and far too risky if he did not exaggerate the urgency of his +errand. Rutton's instructions had, moreover, been explicit upon one +point: Amber was to enter India only by the port of Calcutta. In +deferring to this the Virginian lost several days waiting in London for +the fortnightly P. & O. boat for Calcutta: a delay which might have +been obviated by taking the overland route to Brindisi, connecting +there with the weekly P. & O. boat for Bombay, from which latter point +Calcutta could have been quickly reached by rail across the Indian +Peninsula. + +Now Quain's letter to Labertouche went by this quicker route and so +anticipated Amber's arrival at the capital of India by about a week; +during all of which time it languished unread. + +A nice young English boy in Mr. Labertouche's employ received and +stamped it with the date of delivery and put it away with the rest of +the incoming correspondence in a substantial-looking safe. After which +he returned to his desk in the ante-room and resumed his study of the +law; which he pursued comfortably enough with a cigarette in his mouth, +his chair tilted back, and his feet gently but firmly implanted upon +the fair printed pages of an open volume of Blackstone. His official +duties, otherwise, seemed to consist solely in imparting to all and +sundry the information that Mr. Labertouche was "somewhere up in the +Mofussil, hunting bugs--I don't know exactly where." + +This was, broadly speaking, perfectly true, within the limitations of +the youth's personal knowledge. He was a pleasant-mannered boy of +twenty or thereabouts, with an engaging air of candour which +successfully masked a close-mouthed reticence, even as his ostensibly +heedless, happy-go-lucky ways disguised a habit of extreme caution and +keen and particular observation: qualities which caused him to be +considered an invaluable office-assistant to a solicitor without any +clientele worth mentioning, and who chose to spend most of his time +somewhere up in the Mofussil hunting bugs. + +The Mofussil, by the way, is an extremely elastic term, standing as it +does in the vocabulary of the resident Calcutta-man, for the Empire of +India outside the seat of its Government. + +Precisely why Mr. Labertouche maintained his office was a matter for +casual conjecture to his wide circle of acquaintances; although it's +not unlikely that, were he the subject of discussion, the bulk of the +wonder expressed would be inspired by his unreasonable preference for +Calcutta as a place of residence. The Anglo-Indian imagination is +incapable of comprehending the frame of mind which holds existence in +Calcutta tolerable when one has the rest of India--including +Simla--open to one. And Labertouche was unmarried, unconnected with the +Government, and independent of his profession; certainly it would seem +that the slender stream of clients which trickled in and out of the +little offices on Dhurrumtollah Street, near the Maidan, could hardly +have provided him with a practice lucrative enough to be a +consideration. On the other hand it had to be admitted that the man +kept up his establishment in Calcutta rather than lived there; for he +was given to unexpected and extended absences from home, and was +frequently reported as having been seen poking sedulously over this +plain or through that jungle, with a butterfly net, a bottle of +chloroform, and an air of abstraction. In view of all of which he was +set down as an original and wholly irresponsible. The first of which he +was and the second of which he emphatically was not. + +Henry Charles Beresford Labertouche was, in person, a quiet and +unassuming body, with nothing particularly remarkable about him save +his preference for boot-heels nearly three inches high and a habit of +dying his hair--naturally greyish--a jet-black. Inasmuch as he was +quite brazen about these matters and would cheerfully discuss with +comparative strangers the contrasted merits of this hair-dye and that +and the obvious advantages of being five feet nine and one-half inches +in height instead of five feet seven, his idiosyncrasies were not held +against him. Otherwise he was a man strikingly inconspicuous; his eyes +were a very dark brown, which is nothing remarkable, and his features +were almost exasperatingly indefinite. You would have found him hard to +recall to memory, visually, aside from the boot-heels, which might +easily have been overlooked, and the black hair, which was, when all's +said, rather becoming than otherwise. Living with two native servants +in a modest bungalow somewhere between Chitpur and Barrackpur, he went +to and from his office, or didn't, at his whim, with entire lack of +ostentation. Soft-spoken and gifted with a distinct sense of the +humorous, he would converse agreeably and intelligently upon any +impersonal topic for hours at a time, when the spirit so moved him. As +an entomologist his attainments were said to be remarkable; he was +admittedly an interested student of ethnology; and he filled in his +spare time compounding unholy smells in a little laboratory connected +with his suburban home. This latter proceeding earned him the wholesome +fear and respect of the native population, who firmly believed him an +intimate of many devils. + +Such, at least, was the superficial man. + +Now upon the morning of the day that found the steamship _Poonah_ +nuzzling up the Hooghly's dirty yellow flood, Mr. Labertouche's clerk +arrived at the Dhurrumtollah Street office at the usual hour; which, in +the absence of his employer, was generally between eleven o'clock and +noon. Having assorted and disposed of the morning's mail, he donned his +office-coat, sat down, thumbed through Blackstone until he found two +perfectly clean pages, opened the volume at that place, tipped back his +chair, and with every indication of an untroubled conscience imposed +his feet upon the book and began the day's labours with a cigarette. + +The window at his right was open, affording an excellent view, from an +elevation of one storey, of the tide of traffic ebbing and flowing in +Dhurrumtollah Street. The clerk watched it sleepily, between +half-closed eyelids. Presently he became aware that an especially dirty +and travel-worn Attit mendicant had squatted down across the way, in +the full glare of sunlight, and was composing himself for one of those +apparently purposeless and interminable vigils peculiar to his +vocation. Beneath their drooping lashes the eyes of the clerk +brightened. But he did not move. Neither did the Attit mendicant. + +In the course of the next half-hour the clerk consumed two cigarettes +and entertained a visitor in the person of a dapper little Greek +curio-dealer from the Lal Bazaar, who left behind him an invitation to +Mr. Labertouche to call and inspect some scarabs in which he had +professed an interest. It was quite a fresh importation, averred the +Greek; the clerk was to be careful to remember that. + +When he had gone the clerk made a note of it. Then, glancing out the +window, he became aware that the Attit mendicant, for some reason +dissatisfied, was preparing to move on. Yawning, the clerk resumed his +street coat, and went out to lunch, carelessly leaving the door +unlocked, and the memorandum of the Greek's invitation exposed upon his +blotter. When he returned at three o'clock, the door of Mr. +Labertouche's private office was ajar and that gentleman was at his +desk. The memorandum was, however, gone. + +Mr. Labertouche was in the process of opening and reading a ten-days' +accumulation of correspondence, an occupation which he suspended +temporarily to call his clerk in and receive his report. This proved to +be a tolerably lengthy session, for the clerk, whose name appeared to +be Frank, demonstrated his command of a surprising memory. Without +notes he enumerated the callers at the office day by day from the time +when Labertouche had left for the Mofussil with his specimen-box and +the rest of his bug-hunting paraphernalia; naming those known to his +employer, minutely describing all others, even repeating their words +with almost phonographic fidelity. + +Labertouche listened intently, without interrupting, abstractedly +tapping his desk with a paper-cutter. At the end he said "Thank you," +with a dry, preoccupied air; and resumed consideration of his letters. +These seemed to interest him little; one after the other he gave to his +clerk, saying "File that," or "Answer that so-and-thusly." Two he set +aside for his personal disposition, and these he took up again after +the clerk had been dismissed. The first he read and reconsidered for a +long time; then crumpled it up and, drawing to him a small tray of +hammered brass, dropped the wadded paper upon it and touched a match to +it, thoughtfully poking the blazing sheets with his paper-cutter until +they were altogether reduced to ashes. + +Quain's was the second letter. Having merely glanced at the heading and +signature, Labertouche had reserved the rather formidable document--for +Quain had written fully--as probably of scant importance, to be dealt +with at his absolute leisure. But as he read his expression grew more +and more serious and perturbed. Finishing the last page he turned back +to the first and went over it a second time with much deliberation and +frequent pauses, apparently memorising portions of its contents. +Finally he said, "Hum-m!" inscrutably and rang for Frank. + +"He left New York by the _Lusitania_, eh?" said Mr. Labertouche aloud. +The clerk entering interrupted his soliloquy. "Bring me, please," he +said, "Bradshaw, the _News_--and the latest P. & O. schedule." And when +Frank had returned with these articles, he desired him to go at once +and enquire at Government House the whereabouts of Colonel Dominick +James Farrell, and further to search the hotels of Calcutta for a Miss +Farrell, or for information concerning her. "Have this for me +to-night--come to the bungalow at seven," he said. "And ... I shall +probably not be at the office again for several days." + +"Insects?" enquired the clerk. + +"Insects," affirmed Mr. Labertouche gravely. + +"In the Mofussil?" + +"There or thereabouts, Frank." + +"Yes, sir. I presume you don't feel the need of a capable assistant +yet?" + +"Not yet, Frank," said Labertouche kindly. "Be patient. Your time will +come; you're doing famously now." + +"Thank you." + +"Good-afternoon. Lock the door as you leave." + +Immediately that he found himself alone, Labertouche made of Quain's +letter a second burnt offering to prejudice upon the tray of hammered +brass. He was possessed of an incurable aversion to waste-paper baskets +and other receptacles from which the curious might fish out torn bits +of paper and, with patience, piece together and reconstruct documents +of whose import he preferred the world at large to remain unadvised. +Hence the tray of brass--a fixture among the furnishings of his desk. + +This matter attended to, he lost himself in Bradshaw and the Peninsular +& Oriental Steamship Company's list of sailings; from which he derived +enlightenment. "He was to come direct," mused Labertouche. "In that +case he'll have waited over in London for the _Poonah_." He turned to +the copy of the _Indian Daily News_ which lay at his elbow, somewhat +anxiously consulting its shipping news. Under the heading of "Due this +Day" he discovered the words: "_Poonah_, London--Calcutta--Straits +Settlements." And his face lengthened with concern. + +"That's short notice," he said. "Lucky I got back to-day--uncommon +lucky!... Still I may be mistaken." But the surmise failed to comfort +him. + +He drew a sheet of paper on which there was no letter-head to him and +began to write, composing deliberately and with great care. + +The building in which his offices were located stood upon a corner; at +either end of the long corridor on the upper floor, upon which the +various offices opened, were stairways, one descending to Dhurrumtollah +Street, the other to a side street little better than an alley. It may +be considered significant that, whereas Labertouche himself was not +seen either to enter or to leave the building at any time that day, an +Attit mendicant did enter from Dhurrumtollah Street shortly after Frank +had gone to lunch--and disappeared forthwith; while, in the dusk of +evening, a slim Eurasian boy with a clerkly air left by the stairs to +the alley. I say a boy, but he may have been thirty; he was carefully +attired in clothing of the mode affected by the Anglo-Indian, but wore +shoes that were almost heelless. His height may have been five-feet +seven inches, but he carried himself with a slight, studious rounding +of the shoulders that assorted well with the effect of his large +gold-rimmed spectacles. + +He stumbled out of the alley into Free School Street and set his face +to the Maidan, shuffling along slowly with a peering air, his +spectacles catching the light from the shop-windows and glaring +glassily through the shadows. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +FIRST STEPS + + +Forward on the promenade deck of the _Poonah,_ in the shadow of the +bridge, Amber stood with both elbows on the rail, dividing his somewhat +perturbed attention between a noisy lot of lascar stewards, deckhands, +and native third-class passengers in the bows below, and the long lines +of Saugor Island, just then slipping past on the starboard beam. + +On either hand, ahead, the low, livid green banks of the Hooghly were +closing in, imperceptibly constricting the narrow channel through which +the tawny tide swirled down to the sea at the full force of its ebb. +Struggling under this handicap, the _Poonah_ trembled from stem to +stern with the heavy labouring of the screw, straining forward like a +thoroughbred, its strength almost spent, with the end of the race in +sight. Across the white gleaming decks, as the bows swung from port to +starboard and back again, following the channel, purple-black shadows +slipped like oil. A languid land-wind blew fitfully down the estuary, +in warm puffs dense with sickly-sweet jungle reek. The day was hot and +sticky with humidity; a haze like a wall of dust coloured the skies +almost to the zenith. + +It was ten o'clock in the morning; Calcutta lay a hundred miles up the +river, approximately. By evenfall Amber expected to be in the city, +whether he stuck by the steamer until she docked in the port, or left +her at Diamond Harbour, sixty miles upstream, and finished his journey +by rail. At the present moment he hardly knew which to do; in the +ordinary course of events he would have gone ashore at Diamond Harbour, +thereby gaining an hour or two in the city. But within the last +eighteen hours events had been diverted from their normal course; and +Amber was deeply troubled with misgivings. + +Up to the day that the Poonah had sailed from Tilbury Dock, London, +from the time he had left Quain among the sand-dunes of Long Island, he +had not been conscious of any sort of espionage upon his movements. +That gaunt and threatening figure which he had seen silhouetted against +the angry dawn had not again appeared to disturb or trouble him. His +journey across the Atlantic had been uneventful; he had personally +investigated the saloon passenger lists, the second and third cabins +and the steerage of the _Lusitania,_ not forgetting the crew, only to +be reassured by the absence of anybody aboard who even remotely +suggested an Indian spy. But from the hour that the _Poonah_ with its +miscellaneous ship's company, white, yellow, brown, and black, had +warped out into the Thames, he had felt he was being watched--had +realised it instinctively, having nothing definite whereon to base his +feeling. He was neither timorous nor given to conjuring up shapes of +terror from the depths of a nervous imagination; the sensation of being +under the surveillance of unseen, prying eyes is unmistakable. Yet he +had tried to reason himself out of the belief--after taking all +sensible precautions, such as never letting the photograph of Sophia +Farrell out of his possession and keeping the Token next his skin, in a +chamois bag that nestled beneath his arm, swinging from a leather cord +round his neck. And as day blended into eventless day, he had lulled +himself into an uneasy indifference. What if he were watched? What +could it profit any one to know what he did or how he did it, day by +day? And with increasing infrequency he had come to question himself as +to the reason for the spying on his movements. + +Possibly the fruitlessness of any such speculation had much to do with +his gradual cessation of interest in the enigma. He was not credulous +of the power of divination popularly ascribed to the Oriental; he was +little inclined to believe that the nature of his errand to India had +been guessed, or that any native intelligence in India knew or +suspected the secret of Sophia Farrell's parentage--Rutton's solicitude +to the contrary notwithstanding. The theory that he most favoured in +explanation of the interest in him was that it had somehow become known +that he bore with him the emerald. It was quite conceivable that that +jewel, intrinsically invaluable, was badly wanted by its former +possessors, whether for the simple worth of it or because it played an +important part in the intrigue, or whatever it was, that had resulted +in Rutton's suicide. For his own part, Amber cared nothing for it; he +had christened it, mentally, the Evil Eye--with a smile to himself; +nonetheless he half-seriously suspected it of malign properties. He was +imaginative enough for that--or superstitious, if you prefer. + +He would, however, gladly have surrendered the jewel to those who +coveted it, in exchange for a promise of immunity from assassination, +had he known whom to approach with the offer and been free to make it. +But he must first show it to Dhola Baksh of the Machua Bazaar. After +that, when its usefulness had been discharged, he would be glad of the +chance to strike such a bargain.... + +Such, in short, had been his frame of mind up to eight o'clock of the +previous evening. At that hour he had made a discovery which had +diverted the entire trend of his thoughts. + +Doggott, ever a poor sailor, had been feeling ill and Amber had excused +him early in the afternoon. About six o'clock he had gone to his +stateroom and dressed for dinner, unattended. Absorbed in anticipations +of the morrow, when first he should set foot in Calcutta and take the +first step in pursuit of Sophia Farrell, he had absent-mindedly +neglected to empty the pockets of his discarded clothing. At seven he +had gone to dinner, leaving his stateroom door open, as was his +habit--a not unusual one with first-cabin passengers on long +voyages--and his flannels swinging from hooks in the wall. About eight, +discovering his oversight through the absence of his cigarette-case, he +had hurried back to the stateroom to discover that he had been +curiously robbed. + +His watch, his keys, his small change and his sovereign purse, his +silver cigarette-case--all the articles, in fact, that he was +accustomed to stuff into his pockets--with one exception, were where he +had left them. But the leather envelope containing the portrait of +Sophia Farrell was missing from the breast-pocket of his coat. + +From the hour in which he had obtained it he had never but this once +let it out of his personal possession. The envelope he had caused to be +constructed for its safe-keeping during his enforced inaction in +London. He had never once looked at it save in strict privacy, secure +even from the eyes of Doggott; and the latter did not know what the +leather case contained. + +Thus his preconceived and self-constructed theory as to the extent of +The Enemy's knowledge, was in an instant overthrown. "They" had seized +the very first relaxation of his vigilance to rob him of that which he +valued most. And in his heart he feared and believed that the incident +indicated "their" intimacy not alone with his secret but with that +which he shared with Colonel Farrell. + +Since then his every move toward regaining the photograph had been +fruitless. His stateroom steward, a sleek, soft Bengali boy who had +attended him all through the voyage with every indication of eagerness +to oblige him, professed entire ignorance of the theft. That was only +to be expected. But when Amber went to the purser and the latter +cross-examined the steward in his presence, the Bengali stuck to his +protestations of innocence without the tremor of an eyelash. In fact, +he established an alibi by the testimony of his fellow-stewards. +Further, when Amber publicly offered a reward of five guineas "and no +questions asked" and in private tempted the Bengali with much larger +amounts, he accomplished nothing. + +In the end, and in despair, Amber posted a notice on the ship's +bulletin-board, offering fifty guineas reward for the return of the +photograph to him either before landing or at the Great Eastern Hotel, +Calcutta, and having thereby established his reputation as a mild +lunatic, sat down to twirl his thumbs and await the outcome, +confidently anticipating there would be none. "They" had outwitted him +and not five hundred guineas would tempt "them," he believed. It +remained only to contrive a triumph in despite of this setback. + +But how to set about it? How might he plan against forces of whose very +nature he was ignorant--save that he guessed them to be evil? How could +he look ahead and scheme to circumvent the unguessable machinations of +the unknown?... His wits, like wild things in a cage, battered +themselves to exhaustion against the implacable bars of his +understanding. + +For the thousand-and-first time he reviewed the maddeningly scanty +store of facts at his command, turning them over and over in his mind, +vainly hopeful of inferring a clue. But, as always, he found his +thoughts circling a beaten track of conjecture.... What dread power had +hounded Rutton, forth from the haunts of his kind, from pillar to post +of the world (as he had said) to his death among the desolate dunes of +Long Island? What "staggering blow against the peace and security of +the world" could that or any power possibly strike, with Rutton for its +tool, once it had caught and bent him to its will? What fear had set +upon his lips a seal so awful that even in the shadow of death he had +not dared speak, though to speak were to save the one being to whom his +heart turned in the end? To save his daughter from what, had he +voluntarily renounced her, giving her into another's care, forswearing +his paternal title to her love, refusing himself even the cold comfort +of seeing her attain to the flower of her womanly beauty as another's +child? What--finally--was the ordeal of the Gateway of Swords, and what +could it be that made the Gateway of Death seem preferable to it? + +For the thousand-and-first time Amber abandoned his efforts to divine +the inscrutable, to overcome the insurmountable, to attain to the +inaccessible, but abandoned them grudgingly, grimly denying the +possibility of ultimate failure. Though he were never to know the dark +heart of the mystery, yet would he snatch from its pythonic coils the +woman he had sworn to save, the woman he loved! + +And while the black steamer with the buff super-structure toiled on, +cleaving its arduous way through the turbulent yellow flood between the +contracting shores of the Sunderbunds, while the offshore wind buffeted +Amber's cheeks with the hot panting breath of Bengal, his eyes, dimmed +with dreaming, saw only Her face. + +So often of late had he in solitude pondered her photograph, striving +to solve the puzzle of her heart that was to him a mystery as +unfathomable as that which threatened her, that he had merely to think +of her to bring her picture vividly before him. He could close his eyes +(he closed them now, shutting out the moving panorama of the river) and +see the girl that he had known in those few dear hours: the girl with +eyes as brown as sepia but illumined by traces of gold in the +irides--eyes that could smile and frown and be sweetly grave, all in +the time that a man needs to catch his breath; the girl with the +immaculate, silken skin, milk-white, with the rose-blush of young blood +beneath; with lips softly crimson as satin petals of a flower, that +could smile a man into slavery; the girl to contemplate whose adorably +modelled chin and firm, round, young neck would soften the austerity of +an anchorite; in whose hair was blended every deep shade of bronze and +gold.... + +Something clutched at his heart as with a hand of ice. He could never +forget, dared not remember what he could not believe yet dared not +deny. To him, reared as he had been, the barrier of mixed blood rose +between them, a thing surmountable only at the cost of caste; the +shadow of that horror lay upon his soul like ink--as black as the +silhouetted rails and masts and rigging of the _Poonah_ on her dead +white decks. He could win her heart only to lose his world. And still +he loved, still pursued his steadfast way toward her, knowing that, +were he to find her and his passion to be returned, death alone could +avert their union in marriage. He might not forget but ... he loved. +With him the high wind of Romance was a living gale, levelling every +obstacle between him and the desire of his heart. + +This is to be borne in mind: it was the man's first love. Theretofore +the habits of a thinker had set his feet in paths apart from those of +other men. Pretty women he had always admired--from a discreet +distance; that distance abridged, he had always found himself a little +afraid of and dismayed by them. They were the world's disturbing +element; they took men's lives in the rosy hollows of their palms and +moulded them as they would. While Amber had desired to mould his own +life. The theme of love that runs a golden thread through the drab +fabric of existence had to him been an illusion--a hallucination to +which others were subject, from which he was happily, if unaccountably, +exempt. But that had been yesterday; to-day.... + +In the afternoon the _Poonah_ touched at Diamond Harbour, landing the +majority of her passengers. Amber was among those few who remained +aboard. + +When the steamer swung off from the jetty and, now aided by a +favourable tide, resumed her progress up the river, he replaced his +notice on the bulletin-board with one offering a hundred guineas for +the return of the photograph before they docked in the port of +Calcutta; the offer of fifty guineas for its return to the Great +Eastern Hotel remained unaltered. + +His anticipations were not disappointed; positively nothing came of it. +All afternoon the _Poonah_ plodded steadily on toward the pall of smoke +that hemmed the northern horizon. The reedy river banks narrowed and +receded, gorgeous with colour, unvaryingly monotonous, revealing +nothing. Behind walls of rank foliage, dense green curtains almost +impenetrable even to light, the flat and spongy delta of the Ganges lay +decorously screened. If now and again the hangings parted they +disclosed nothing more than a brief vista of half-stagnant water or a +little clearing, half-overgrown, with the crumbling red brick walls of +some roofless and abandoned dwelling. + +In the lavender and gold and scarlet of a windless sunset, Calcutta +lifted suddenly up before them, a fairy city, mystic and unreal with +its spires and domes and minarets a-glare with hot colour behind a +hedge of etched black masts and funnels--all dimmed and made indefinite +by a heavy dun haze of smoke: lifted up in glory against the evening +sky and was blotted out as if by magic by the swooping night; then +lived again in a myriad lights pin-pricked upon the dense +bluish-blackness. + +The _Poonah_ slipped in to her dock under cover of darkness. Amber, +disembarking with Doggott, climbed into an open ghari on the landing +stage and was driven swiftly to his hotel. + +As he alighted and, leaving Doggott to settle with the ghariwallah, +crossed the sidewalk to the hotel entrance, a beggar slipped through +the throng of wayfarers, whining at his elbow: + +"Give, O give, Protector of the Poor!" + +Preoccupied, Amber hardly heard, and passed on; but the native stuck +leech-like to his side. + +"Give, hazoor--and the mercy of God shall be upon the Heaven-born for +ten-thousand years!" + +Now "Heaven-born" is flattery properly reserved for those who sit in +high places. Amber turned and eyed the man curiously, at the same time +dropping into the filthy, importunate palm a few annas. + +"May the shadow of the Heaven-born be long upon the land, when he shall +have passed through the Gateway of Swords!" + +And like a flash the man was gone--dodging nimbly round the ghari and +across Old Court House Street, losing himself almost instantly in the +press of early evening traffic. + +"The devil!" said Amber thoughtfully. "Why should it be assumed that I +have any shadow of an intention of entering that damnable Gateway of +Swords?" + +An incident at the desk, while he was arranging for his room, further +mystified him. He had given his name to the clerk, who looked up, +smiling. + +"Mr. David Amber?" he said. + +"Why, yes--" + +"We were expecting you, sir. You came by the _Poonah_?" + +"Yes, but--" + +"There's a note for you." The man turned to a rack, sorting out a small +square envelope from others pigeon-holed under "A." + +Could it be possible that Sophia Farrell had been advised of his +coming? Amber's hand trembled slightly with eagerness and excitement as +he took the missive. + +"An Eurasian boy left it for you half an hour ago," said the clerk. + +"Thank you," returned Amber, controlling himself sufficiently to wait +until he should be conducted to his room before opening the note. + +It was not, he observed later, superscribed in a feminine hand. Could +it be from Quain's friend Labertouche? Who else?... Amber lifted his +shoulders resignedly. "I wish Quain had minded his own business," he +said ungratefully; "I can take care of myself. This Labertouche'll +probably make life a misery for me." + +There was a quality in the note, however, to make him forget his +resentment of Quain's well-meant interference. + +"My dear Sir," it began formally: "Quain's letter did not reach me +until this afternoon; a circumstance which I regret. Otherwise I should +be better prepared to assist you. I have, on the other hand, set afoot +enquiries which may shortly result in some interesting information +bearing upon the matters which engage you. I expect to have news of the +Fs. to-night, and shall be glad to communicate it to you at once. I am +presuming that you purpose losing no time in attending to the affair of +the goldsmith, but I take the liberty of advising you that to attempt +to find him without proper guidance or preparation would be an +undertaking hazardous in the extreme. May I offer you my services? If +you decide to accept them, be good enough to come before ten to-night +to the sailors' lodging house known as 'Honest George's,' back of the +Lal Bazaar, and ask for Honest George himself, refraining from +mentioning my name. Dress yourself in your oldest and shabbiest +clothing; you cannot overdo this, since the neighbourhood is +questionable and a well-dressed man would immediately become an object +of suspicion. Do not wear the ring; keep it about you, out of sight. +Should this fail to reach you in time, try to-morrow night between +eight and ten. You would serve us both well by _burning_ this +immediately. Pray believe me yours to command in all respects." + +There was no signature. + +Amber frowned and whistled over this. "Undoubtedly from Labertouche," +he considered. "But why this flavour of intrigue? Does he know anything +more than I do? I presume he must. It'd be a great comfort if.... Hold +on. 'News of the Fs.' That spells the Farrells. How in blazes does he +know anything about the Farrells? I told Quain nothing.... Can it be a +trap? Is it possible that the chap who took that photograph +recognised...?" + +The problem held him in perplexity throughout the evening meal. He +turned it over this way and that without being able to arrive at any +comforting solution. Impulse in the end decided him--impulse and a +glance at his watch which told him that the time grew short. "I'll go," +he declared, "no matter what. It's nearly nine, but the Lal Bazaar's +not far." + +In the face of Doggott's unbending disapproval he left the hotel some +twenty minutes later, having levied on Doggott's wardrobe for suitable +clothing. Dressed in an old suit of soft grey serge, somewhat too large +for him, and wearing a grey felt hat with the brim pulled down over his +eyes, he felt that he was not easily to be identified with his +every-day self--the David Amber whose exacting yet conservative +"correctness" had become a by-word with his friends. + +Once away from the Great Eastern he quietly insinuated himself into the +tide of the city's night life that tirelessly ebbs and flows north of +Dalhousie Square--the restless currents of native life that move +ceaselessly in obedience to impulses so meaningless and strange to the +Occidental understanding. Before he realised it he had left +civilisation behind him and was breathing the atmosphere, heady and +weird, of the Thousand-and-One Nights. The Lal Bazaar seethed round him +noisily, with a roaring not unlike that of a surf in the hearing of him +who had so long lived separate from such scenes. But gradually the +strangeness of it passed away and he began to feel at home. And ere +long he passed in a single stride from the glare of many lights and the +tumult of a hundred tongues to the dark and the quiet hush of an alley +that wormed a sinuous way through the hinterland of the bazaar. Here +the air hung close and still and gravid with the odour of the East, +half stench, half perfume, wholly individual and indescribable; here +black shadows clung jealously to black and slimy walls, while lighter +ones but vaguely suggestive of robed figures glided silently hither and +yon; and odd noises, whispers, sobs, sounds of laughter and of rage, +assailed the ear and excited the imagination.... + +At a corner where there was more light he came upon a policeman whose +tunic, helmet, and truncheon were so closely patterned after those of +the London Bobby that the simple sight of them was calculated to revive +confidence in the security of one's person. He inspected Amber shrewdly +while the latter was asking his way to Honest George's, and in response +jerked a white-gloved thumb down the wide thoroughfare. + +"You carn't miss it, sir--s'ylors' boardin'-'ouse, all lit up and +likely with a row on at the bar. Mind your eye, guv'nor. It ayn't a +plyce you'd ought to visit on your lone." + +"Thanks; I've business there. I reckon to take care of myself." + +Nevertheless it was with a mind preyed upon by forebodings that Amber +stumbled down the cobbled way, reeking with filth, toward the +establishment of Honest George. Why on earth should Labertouche make an +appointment in so unholy a spot? Amber's doubts revived and he became +more than half persuaded that this must be a snare devised by those +acute intelligences which had instigated both the theft of the +photograph and that snarled mock-benediction of the mendicant. + +"I don't like it," he admitted ruefully; "it's so canny." + +He stopped in front of a building whose squat brick facade was lettered +with the reassuring sobriquet of its proprietor. A bench, running the +width of the structure, was thick with sprawling loafers, who smoked +and spat and spoke a jargon of the seas, the chief part of which was +blasphemy. Within, visible through windows never closed, was a crowded +barroom ablaze with flaring gas-jets, uproarious with voices thick with +drink. + +One needed courage of no common order to run the gauntlet of that rowdy +room and brave the more secret dangers of the infamous den. "You've got +to have your nerve with you," Amber put it. "But I suppose it's all in +the game. Let's chance it." And he entered. + +Compared with the atmosphere of that public-room a blast from Hell were +sweet and cooling, thought Amber; the first whiff he had of it all but +staggered him; and he found himself gasping, perspiration starting from +every pore. Faint with disgust he elbowed his way through the mob to +the bar, thankful that those about him, absorbed in the engrossing +occupation of getting drunk, paid him not the least heed. Flattening +himself against the rail he cast about for the proprietor. A blowsy, +sweating barmaid caught his eye and without a word slapped down upon +the sloppy counter before him a glass four fingers deep with +unspeakable whiskey. And he realised that he would have to drink it; to +refuse would be to attract attention, perhaps with unpleasant +consequences. "It's more than I bargained for," he grumbled, making a +pretence of swallowing the dose, and to his huge relief managing to +spill two-thirds of it down the front of his coat. What he swallowed +bit like an acid. Tears came to his eyes, but he choked down the cough, +and as soon as he could speak paid the girl. "Where's the boss?" he +asked. + +"Who?" Her glance was penetrating. "Oh, he's wytin' for you." She +nodded, lifting a shrill voice. "Garge, O Garge! 'Ere's that Yankee." +With a bare red elbow she indicated the further end of the room. +"You'll find 'im down there," she said, her look not unkindly. + +Amber thanked her quietly and, extricating himself from the press round +the bar, made his way in the direction indicated. A couple of billiard +tables with a small mob of onlookers hindered him, but by main strength +and diplomacy he wormed his way past and reached the rear of the room. +There were fewer loafers here and he had little hesitation about +selecting from an attendant circle of sycophants the genius of the +dive--Honest George himself, a fat and burly ruffian who filled to +overflowing the inadequate accommodation of an armchair. Sitting thus +enthroned in his shirt-sleeves, his greasy and unshaven red face +irradiating a sort of low good-humour that was belied by the cold +cunning of his little eyes, he fulfilled admirably the requirements of +the role he played self-cast. + +"'Ere, you!" he hailed Amber brusquely. "You're a 'ell of a job-'unter, +ain't you? Mister Abercrombie's been wytin' for you this hour gone. +'Know the w'y upstairs?" + +His tone was boisterous enough to fix upon Amber the attention of the +knot of loafers round the arm-chair. Amber felt himself under the +particular regard of a dozen pair of eyes, felt that his measure was +taken and his identification complete. Displeased, he answered curtly: +"No." + +"This w'y, then." Honest George hoisted himself ponderously out of his +arm-chair and lumbered heavily across the room, shouldering the crowd +aside with a high-handed contempt for the pack of them. Jerking open a +small door in the side wall, he beckoned Amber on with a backward nod +of his heavy head. "Be a bit lively, carn't you?" he growled; and +Amber, in despite of qualms of distrust, followed the fellow into a +small and noisome hallway lighted by a single gas-jet. On the one hand +a flight of rickety steps ran up into repellent obscurity; on the other +a low door stood open to the night. + +The crimp lowered his voice. "Your friend's this w'y." He waved his fat +red hand toward the door. "Them fools back there 'll think you're +tryin' for a berth with Abercrombie, the ship-master. I 'opes you'll +not tyke offense at the w'y I 'ad to rag you back there, sir." + +"No," said Amber, and Honest George led the way out into a small, +flagged well between towering black walls and left him at the threshold +of a second doorway. "Two flights up, the door at the top," he said; +"knock twice and then twice." And without waiting for an answer he +lurched heavily back to his own establishment. + +Amber watched his broad back fill the dimly-lighted doorway opposite +and disappear, of two minds whether or not to turn tail and run. +Suspicious enough in the beginning, the affair had now an exceeding +evil smell--as repulsive figuratively as was the actual effluvium of +the premises. He hung hesitant in doubt, with a heart oppressed by +those grim and silent walls of blackness that loomed above him. With +feet slipping on slimy flags he might be pardoned for harbouring +suspicions of some fouler treachery. The yawning mouth of the narrow +doorway, with the blackness of Erebus within, was deterring at its +best; in such a hole a man might be snared and slain and his screams, +though they rang to high Heaven, would fall meaningless on mundane +ears. Honest George's with its flare of lights and its crowd had been +questionable enough.... + +With a shrug, at length, he took his courage in his hands--and his +life, too, for all he knew to the contrary--and moved on into the +blackness, groping his way cautiously down a short corridor, his +fingers on either side brushing walls of rotten plaster. He had +absolutely nothing to guide him beyond the crimp's terse instructions. +Underfoot the flooring seemed to sag ominously; it creaked hideously. +Abruptly he stumbled against an obstruction, halted, and lighted a +match. + +The insignificant flame showed him a flight of stairs, leading up to +darkness. With a drumming heart he began to ascend, counting twenty-one +steps ere his feet failed to find another. Then groping again, one hand +encountered a baluster-rail; with this for guide he turned and followed +it until it began to slant upwards. This time he counted sixteen steps +before his eyes, rising above the level of the upper floor, discovered +to him a thin line of light, bright along the threshold of a door. He +began to breathe more freely, yet apprehension kept him strung up to a +high tension of nerves. + +He knuckled the door loudly--one double knock followed by another. + +From within a voice called cheerfully, in English: "Come in." + +He fumbled for the knob, found and turned it, and entered a small, +low-ceiled chamber, very cosy with lamplight, and simply furnished with +a single chair, a charpoy, a water-jug, a large mirror, and beneath the +latter a dressing-table littered with a collection of toilet gear, +cosmetics and bottles, which would have done credit to an actress. + +There was but a single person in the room and he occupied the chair +before the dressing-table. As Amber came in, he rose; a middle-aged +babu in a suit of pink satin, very dirty. In one hand something caught +the light, glittering. + +"Oah, Mister Amber, I believe?" he gurgled, oily and affable. "Believe +me most charmed to make acquaintance." And he laughed agreeably. + +But Amber's face had darkened. With an oath he sprang back, threw his +weight against the door, and with his left hand shot the bolt, while +his right whipped from his pocket Rutton's automatic pistol. + +"Drop that gun, you monkey!" he cried sharply. "I was afraid of this, +but I think you and I'll have an accounting before any one else gets in +here." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +PINK SATIN + + +Shaking with rage, Amber stood for a long moment with pistol poised and +eyes wary; then, bewildered, he slowly lowered the weapon. "Well," he +observed reflectively, "I'm damned." For the glittering thing he had +mistaken for a revolver lay at his feet; and it was nothing more nor +less than a shoehorn. While as for the babu, he had dropped back into +the chair and given way to a rude but reassuring paroxysm of gusty, +silent laughter. + +"I'm a fool," said Amber; "and if I'm not mistaken you're Labertouche." + +With a struggle the babu overcame his emotion. "I am, my dear fellow, I +am," he gasped. "And I owe you an apology. Upon my word, I'd forgotten; +one grows so accustomed to living the parts in these masquerades, after +a time, that one forgets. Forgive me." He offered a hand which Amber +grasped warmly in his unutterable relief. "I'm really delighted to meet +you," continued Labertouche seriously. "Any man who knows India can't +help being glad to meet the author of 'The Peoples of the Hindu Kush.'" + +"You did frighten me," Amber confessed, smiling. "I didn't know what to +expect--or suspect. Certainly,"--with a glance round the incongruously +furnished room--"I never looked forward to anything like this--or you, +in that get-up." + +"You wouldn't, you know," Labertouche admitted gravely. "I might have +warned you in my note; but that was a risky thing, at best. I feared to +go into detail--it might have fallen into the wrong hands." + +"Whose?" demanded Amber. + +"That, my dear man, is what we're here to find out--if we can. But sit +down; we shall have to have quite a bit of talk." He scraped a heap of +gaily-coloured native garments off one end of the charpoy and motioned +Amber to the chair. At the same time he fished a cigar-case out of some +recess in his clothing. "These are good," he remarked, opening the case +and offering it to Amber; "I daren't smoke anything half so good when +at work. The native tobacco is abominable, you know--_quite_ +three-fourths filth." + +"At work?" questioned Amber, clipping the end of his cigar and lighting +it. "You don't mean to say you travel round in those clothes?" + +"But I do. It's business with me--though few people know it. Quain +didn't; only I had a chance, one day, to tell him some rather startling +facts about native life. This sort of thing, done properly, gives a man +insight into a lot of unusual things." + +Labertouche puffed his cigar into a glow and leaned back, clasping one +knee with two brown hands and squinting up at the low, discoloured +ceiling. And Amber, looking him over, was amazed by the absolute +fidelity of his make-up; the brownish stain on face and hands, the +high-cut patent-leather boots, the open-work socks through which his +tinted calves showed grossly, his shapeless, baggy, soiled +garments--all were hopelessly babu-ish. + +"And if it isn't done properly?" + +"Oh, then----!" Labertouche laughed, lifting his shoulders +expressively. "No Englishman incapable of living up to a disguise has +ever tried it more than once in India; few, very few, have lived to +tell of the experiment." + +"You're connected with the police?" Amber's brows contracted as he +remembered Rutton's emphatic prohibition. + +But Quain had not failed to mention that. "Officially, no," said +Labertouche readily. "Now and again, of course, I run across a bit of +valuable information; and then, somehow, indirectly, the police get +wind of it. But this going _fantee_ in an amateur way is simply my +hobby; I've been at it for years--and very successfully, too. Of +course, it'll have its end. One's bound to slip up eventually. You can +train yourself to live the life of the native, but you can't train your +mind to think as he thinks. That's how the missteps happen. Some +day...." He sighed, not in the least unhappily.... "Some day I'll dodge +into this hole, or another that I know of, put on somebody else's +rags--say, these I'm wearing--and inconspicuously become a mysterious +disappearance. That's how it is with all of us who go in for this sort +of thing. But it's like opium, you know; you try it the first time for +the lark of it; the end is tragedy." + +Amber drew a long breath, his eyes glistening with wonder and +admiration of the man. "You don't mean to tell me you run such risks +for the pure love of it?" + +"Well ... perhaps not altogether. But we needn't go into details, need +we?" Labertouche's smile robbed the rebuke of its sting. "The opium +simile is a very good one, though I say it who shouldn't. One acquires +a taste for the forbidden, and one hires a little room like this from +an unprincipled blackguard like Honest George, and insensibly one goes +deeper and deeper until one gets beyond one's depth. That is all. It +explains me sufficiently. And," he chuckled, "you'd never have known it +if your case hadn't been exceptional." + +"It is, I think." Amber's expression became anxious. "I want to know +what you think of it--now Quain's told you. And, I say, what did you +mean by 'news of the Fs.'?" + +"News of the Farrells--father and daughter, of course." Labertouche's +eyes twinkled. + +"But how in the name of all that's strange--!" + +"Did I connect the affair Rutton with the Farrells? At first by simple +inference. You were charged with a secret errand, demanding the utmost +haste, by Rutton; your first thought was to travel by the longer +route--which, as it happens, Miss Farrell had started upon a little +while before. You had recently met her, and I've heard she's rather a +striking young woman. You see?" + +"Yes," admitted Amber sheepishly. "But--" + +"And then I remembered something," interrupted Labertouche. "I recalled +Rutton. I knew him years ago, when he was a young man.... You know the +yarn about him?" + +"A little--mighty little. I know now that he was a Rajput--though he +never told me that; I know that he married a Russian noblewoman"--Amber +hesitated imperceptibly--"that she died soon after, that he chose to +live out of India and to die rather than return to it." + +"He was," said Labertouche, "a singular man, an exotic result of the +unnatural conditions we English have brought about in India. The word +renegade describes him aptly, I think: he was born and bred a Brahmin, +a Rajput, of the hottest and bluest blood in Rajputana; he died to all +intents and purposes a European--with an English heart. He is--was--by +rights Maharana of Khandawar. As the young Maharaj he was sent to +England to be educated. I'm told his record at Oxford was a brilliant +one. He became a convert to Christianity--that was predestined--was +admitted to the Church of England, a communicant. When his father died +and he was summoned to take his place, Rutton at first refused. +Pressure was brought to bear upon him by the English Government and he +returned, was enthroned, and for a little time ruled Khandawar. It was +then that I knew him. He was continually dissatisfied, however, and +after a year or two disappeared. It was rumoured that he'd struck a +bargain with his prime-minister, one Salig Singh. At all events Salig +Singh contrived to usurp the throne, Government offering no objection. +Rutton turned up eventually in Russia and married a woman there who +died in childbirth--twenty years ago, perhaps. The child did not +survive its mother...." Labertouche paused deliberately, his glance +searching Amber's face. "So the report ran, at least," he concluded +quietly. + +"How do you know all this?" Amber countered evasively. + +"Government watches its wards very tenderly," said Labertouche with a +grin. "Besides, India's a great place for gossip.... And then," he +pursued tenaciously, "I remembered something else. I recalled that +Rutton had one very close friend, an Englishman named Farrell--" + +"Oh, what's the use?" Amber cut in nervously. "You understand the +situation too well. It's no good my trying to keep anything from you." + +"Such as the fact that Colonel Farrell adopted Rutton's daughter, who, +as it happens, did survive her mother? Yes; I knew that--or, rather, +part I knew and part I guessed. But don't worry, Mr. Amber; I'll keep +the secret." + +"For the girl's sake," said Amber, twisting his hands together. + +"For her sake. I pledge you my word." + +"Thank you." + +"And now ... for what purpose did Rutton ask you to come to India? +Wasn't it to get Miss Farrell out of the country?" + +"I think you're the devil himself," said Amber. + +"I'm not," confessed Labertouche; "but I am a member of the Indian +Secret Service--not officially connected with the police, observe!--and +I know a deal that you don't. I think, in short, I can place my finger +on the reason why Rutton was so concerned to get his daughter out of +the country." + +Amber looked his question. + +"You read the papers, don't you, in America?" + +"Rather." Amber smiled. + +"You've surely not been so blind as to miss the occasional reports that +leak out about native unrest in India?" + +"Surely you don't mean----" + +"I assuredly do mean that the Second Mutiny impends," declared +Labertouche solemnly. "Such, at least, is my belief, and such is the +belief of every thinking man in India who is at all informed. The +entire country is undermined with conspiracy and sedition; day after +day a vast, silent, underground movement goes on, fomenting rebellion +against the English rule. The worst of it is, there's no stopping it, +no way of scotching the serpent; its heads are myriad, seemingly. And +yet--I don't know--since yesterday I have hoped that through you we +might eventually strike to the heart of the movement." + +"Through me!" cried Amber, startled. + +Labertouche nodded. "Just so. The information you have already brought +us is invaluable. Have you thought of the significance of Chatterji's +'Message of the Bell'?" + +"'_Even now,_'" Amber quoted mechanically, "'_The Gateway of Swords +yawns wide, that he who is without fear may pass within; to the end +that the Body be purged of the Scarlet Evil._'" He shook his head +mystified. "No; I don't understand." + +"It's so simple," urged Labertouche; "all but the Gateway of Swords. I +don't place that--yet.... But the 'Body'--plainly that is India; the +'Scarlet Evil'--could anything more fittingly describe English rule +from the native point of view?" + +Amber felt of his head solicitously. "And yet," he averred plaintively, +"it doesn't _feel_ like wood." + +Labertouche laughed gently. "Now to-night you will learn something from +this Dhola Baksh--something important, undoubtedly. May I see this +ring--this Token?" + +Unbuttoning his shirt, Amber produced the Eye from the chamois bag. +Labertouche studied it for a long time in silence, returning it with an +air of deep perturbation. + +"The thing is strange to me," he said. "For the present we may dismiss +it as simply what it pretends to be--a token, a sign by which one man +shall know another.... Wear it but turn the stone in; and keep your +hands in your pockets when we're outside." + +Amber obeyed. "We'll be going, now?" + +"Yes." Labertouche rose, throwing away his cigar and stamping out its +fire. + +"But the Farrells?" + +"Forgive me; I had forgotten. The Farrells are at Darjeeling, where the +Colonel is stationed just now--happily for him." + +"Then," said Amber, with decision, "I leave for Darjeeling to-morrow +morning." + +"I know no reason why you shouldn't," agreed Labertouche. "If anything +turns up I'll contrive to let you know." He looked Amber up and down +with a glance that took in every detail. "I'm sorry," he observed, "you +couldn't have managed to look a trace shabbier. Still, with a touch +here and there, you'll do excellently well as a sailor on a spree." + +"As bad as that?" + +"Oah, my dear fallow!"--it was now the babu speaking, while he hopped +around Amber with his head critically to one side, like an inquisitive +jackdaw, now and again darting forward to peck at him with hands that +nervously but deftly arranged details of his attire to please a taste +fastidious and exacting in such matters--"Oah, my dear fallow, surely +you appreciate danger of venturing into nateeve quarters in European +dress? As regular-out-and-out sahib, I am meaning, of course. It is +permeesible for riff-raff, sailors and Tommies from the Fort, and soa +on, to indulge in debauchery among nateeves, but first-class +sahib--Oah, noah! You would be mobbed in no-time-at-all, where we are +going." + +"All right; I guess I can play the part, babu. At least, I've plenty of +atmosphere," Amber laughed, mentioning the incident of the peg he had +not consumed over Honest George's bar. + +"I had noticed that; a happy accident, indeed. I think"--Labertouche +stepped back to look Amber over again--"I think you will almost do. One +moment." + +He seized Amber's hat and, dashing it violently to the floor, +deliberately stamped it out of shape; when restored to its owner it had +aged five years in less than half as many minutes. Amber laughed, +putting it on. "Surely you couldn't ask me to look more disreputable," +he said with a dubious survey of himself in the mirror. + +His collar had been confiscated with his tie; his coat collar was +partially turned up in the back; what was visible of his shirt was +indecently dirty. His polished shoes had been deprived of their +pristine lustre by means of a damp rag, vigorously applied, and then +rubbed with dust. An artistic stain had been added to one of his +sleeves by the simple device of smudging it with the blacking from his +shoes. As for his hat, with the brim pulled down in front, it was +nothing more nor less than shocking. + +"You'll do," chuckled Labertouche approvingly. "Just ram your hands +into your trouser pockets without unbuttoning your coat, and shuffle +along as if nocturnal rambles in the slums of Calcutta were an everyday +thing to you. If you're spoken to, don't betray too much familiarity +with the vernacular. You know about the limit of the average Tommy's +vocabulary; don't go beyond it." He unbolted and locked the door by +which Amber had entered, putting the key in his pocket, and turned to a +second door across the room. "We'll leave this way; I chose this place +because it's a regular rabbit warren, with half a dozen entrances and +exits. I'll leave you in a passage leading to the bazaar. Wait in the +doorway until you see me stroll past; give me thirty yards lead and +follow. Keep in the middle of the way, avoid a crowd as the plague, and +don't lose sight of me. I'll stop in front of Dohla Baksh's shop long +enough to light a cheroot and go on without looking back. When you come +out I'll be waiting for you. If we lose one another, get back to your +hotel as quickly as possible. I may send you word. If I don't, I shall +understand you've taken the first morning train to Darjeeling. I think +that's all." + +As Amber left the room Labertouche extinguished the lamp, shut and +locked the door, and followed, catching Amber by the arm and guiding +him through pitch darkness to the head of the stairs. "Don't talk," he +whispered; "trust me." They descended an interminable flight of steps, +passed down a long, echoing corridor, and again descended. From the +foot of the second flight Labertouche shunted Amber round through what +seemed a veritable maze of passages--in which, however, he was +evidently quite at home. At length, "_Now go ahead!_" was breathed at +Amber's ear and at the same time his arm was released. + +He obeyed blindly, stumbling down a reeking corridor, and in a minute +more, to his unutterable relief, was in the open air of the bazaar. + +Blinking with the abrupt transition from absolute night to garish +light, he skulked in the shadow of the doorway, waiting. Beneath his +gaze Calcutta paraded its congress of peoples--a comprehensive +collection of specimens of every tribe in Hindustan and of nearly every +other race in the world besides: red-bearded Delhi Pathans, towering +Sikhs, lean sinewy Rajputs with bound jaws, swart agile Bhils, Tommies +in their scarlet tunics, Japanese and Chinese in their distinctive +dress, short and sturdy Gurkhas, yellow Saddhus, Jats stalking proudly, +brawling knots of sailormen from the Port, sleek Mahrattas, polluted +Sansis, Punjabis, Bengalis, priests, beggars, dancing girls; a blaze of +colour ever shifting, a Babel of tongues never stilled, a seething scum +on a witch's brew of humanity.... + +Like a fat, tawdry moth in his garments of soiled pink, a babu loitered +past, with never a sidelong glance for the loaferish figure in the +shadowed doorway; and the latter seemed himself absorbed in the family +of Eurasians who were shrilly squabbling with the keeper of a +vegetable-stall adjacent. But presently he wearied of their noise, +yawned, thrust both hands deep in his pockets, and stumbled away. The +bazaar accepted him as a brother, unquestioning, and he picked his way +through it with an ease that argued nothing but absolute familiarity +with his surroundings. But always you may be sure, he had the gleam of +pink satin in the corner of his eye. + +Before long Pink Satin diverged into the Chitpur Road, with Amber a +discreet shadow. So far the latter had been treading known ground, but +a little later, when Pink Satin dived abruptly into a darksome alleyway +to the right, drawing Amber after him as a child drags a toy on a +string, the Virginian lost his bearings utterly and was thereafter +helplessly dependent upon the flutter of Pink Satin, and unworried only +so long as he could see him, in a fidget of anxiety whenever the +labyrinth shut Labertouche from his sight for a moment or two. + +It was quiet enough away from the main thoroughfare, but with a +sinister quiet. Tall dwellings marched shoulder to shoulder along the +ways, shuttered, dark, grim, with an effect of conspirators, their +heads together in lawless conference. The streets were intolerably +narrow, the paving a farce; pools of stagnant water stood in the +depressions, piles of refuse banked the walls. The fetid air hung +motionless but sibilant with stealthy footsteps and whisperings.... +Preferable to this seemed even the infinitely more dangerous and +odorous Coolootollah purlieus into which they presently passed--nesting +place though it were for the city's most evil and desperate classes. + +In time broad Machua Bazaar Street received them--Pink Satin and the +sailorman out for a night of it. And now Pink Satin began to stroll +more sedately, manifesting a livelier interest in the sights of the +wayside. Amber's impatience--for he guessed that they neared the +goldsmith's stall--increased prodigiously; the shops, the stalls, the +thatched dance-halls in which arose the hideous music of the nautch, +had no lure for him, though they illustrated all that was most evil and +most depraved in the second city of the Empire. He was only eager to +have done with this unsavoury adventure, to know again the clean walls +of his room in the Great Eastern, to taste again the purer air of the +Maidan. + +Without warning Pink Satin pulled up, extracted from the recesses of +his costume a long, black and vindictive-looking native cigar, and +lighted it, thoughtfully exhaling the smoke through his nose while he +stared covetously at the display of a slipper-merchant whose stand was +over across from the stall of a goldsmith. + +With true Oriental deliberation Pink Satin finally made up his mind to +move on; and Amber lurched heavily into the premises occupied by one +Dhola Baksh, a goldsmith. + +A customer, a slim, handsome Malayan youth, for the moment held the +attention of the proprietor. The two were haggling with characteristic +enjoyment over a transaction which seemed to involve less than twenty +rupees. Amber waited, knowing that patience must be his portion until +the bargain should be struck. Dhola Baksh himself, a lean, +sharp-featured Mahratta grey with age, appraised with a single look the +new customer, and returned his interest to the Malay. But Amber +garnered from that glance a sensation of recognition. He wondered +dimly, why; could the goldsmith have been warned of his coming? + +Two or three more putative customers idled into the shop. Beyond its +threshold the stream of native life rolled on, ceaselessly fluent; a +pageant of the Middle Ages had been no more fantastic and unreal to +Western eyes. Now and again a wayfarer paused, his interest attracted +by the goldsmith's rush of business. + +Unexpectedly the proprietor made a substantial concession. Money passed +upon the instant, sealing the bargain. The Malay rose to go. Dhola +Baksh lifted a stony stare to Amber. + +"Your, pleasure, sahib?" he enquired with a thinly-veiled sneer. What +need to show deference to a down-at-the-heel sailor from the Port? + +"I want money--I want to borrow," said Amber promptly. + +"On your word, sahib?" + +"On security." + +"What manner of security can you offer?" + +"A ring--an emerald ring." + +Dhola Baksh shrugged. His eyes shifted from Amber to the encircling +faces of the bystanders. "I am a poor man," he whined. "How should I +have money to lend? Come to me on the morrow; then mayhap I may have a +few rupees. To-night I have neither cash nor time." + +The hint was lost upon Amber. "A stone of price----" he persisted. + +With a disturbed and apprehensive look, the money-lender rose. "Come, +then," he grumbled, "if you must----" + +A voice cried out behind Amber--"_Heh_!"----more a squeal than a cry. +Intuitively, as at a signal of danger, he leaped aside. Simultaneously +something like a beam of light sped past his head. The goldsmith +uttered one dreadful, choking scream, and went to his knees. For as +many as three seconds he swayed back and forth, his features terribly +contorted, his thin old hands plucking feebly at the handle of a +broadbladed dagger which had transfixed his throat. Then he tumbled +forward on his face, kicking. + +There followed a single instant of suspense and horror, then a mad rush +of feet as the street stampeded into the shop. Voices clamoured to the +skies. Somehow the lights went out. + +Amber started to fight his way out. As he struggled on, making little +headway through the press, a hand grasped his arm and drew him another +way. + +"Make haste, hazoor!" cried the owner of the hand, in Hindustani. "Make +haste, lest they seek to fasten this crime upon your head." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +MAHARANA OF KHANDAWAR + + +Both hand and voice might well have been Labertouche's; Amber believed +they were. And the darkness rendered visual identification impossible. +No shadow of doubt troubled him as he yielded to the urgent hand, and +permitted himself to be dragged, more than led, through the reeking, +milling mob, whose numbers seemed each instant augmented. He had +thought, dully, to find it a difficult matter to worm through and +escape, but somehow his guide seemed to have little trouble. Others, +likewise, evidently wished to get out of sight before the arrival of +the police, and in the wake of a little knot of these Amber felt +himself drawn along until, within less than two minutes, they were on +the outskirts of the crowd. + +He drew a long breath of relief. Ever since that knife had flown +whining past his cheek, his instinct of self-preservation had been +dominated by a serene confidence that Pink Satin was at hand to steer +him in safety away from the brawl. For his own part he was troubled by +a feeling of helplessness and dependence unusual with him, who was of a +self-reliant habit, accustomed to shift for himself whatever the +emergency. But this was something vastly different from the run of +experiences that had theretofore fallen to his lot. In. the foulest +stews of a vast city, with no least notion of how to win his way back +to the security of the Chowringhee quarter; in the heart of a howling +native rabble stimulated to a pitch of frenzy by the only things that +ever seem really to rouse the Oriental from his apathy--the scent and +sight of human blood; and with a sense of terror chilling him as he +realised the truth at which his guide had hinted--that the actual +assassin would not hesitate an instant to cry the murder upon the head +of one of the Sahib-logue: Amber felt as little confidence in his +ability to work out his salvation as though he had been a child. He +thanked his stars for Labertouche--for the hand that clasped his arm +and the voice that spoke guardedly in his ear. + +And then, by the light of the street, he discovered that his gratitude +had been premature and misplaced. His guide had fallen a pace behind +and was shouldering him along with almost frantic energy; but a glance +aside showed Amber, in Labertouche's stead, a chunky little Gurkha in +the fatigue uniform of his regiment of the British Army in India. Pink +Satin was nowhere in sight and it was immediately apparent that an +attempt to find him among the teeming hundreds before the goldsmith's +stall would be as futile as foolish--if not fatal. Yet Amber's impulse +was to wait, and he faltered--something which seemed to exasperate the +Gurkha, who fairly danced with excitement and impatience. + +"Hasten, hazoor!" he cried. "Is this a time to loiter? Hasten ere they +charge you with this spilling of blood. The gods lend wings to our feet +this night!" + +"But who are you?" demanded Amber. + +"What matter is that? Is it not enough that I am here and well disposed +toward you, that I risk my skin to save yours?" He cannoned suddenly +against Amber, shunting him unceremoniously out of the bazaar road and +into a narrow black alley. + +Simultaneously Amber heard a cry go up, shrill above the clamour of the +mob, screaming that a white sailor had knifed the goldsmith. And he +turned pale beneath his tan. + +"You hear, hazoor? They are naming you to the police-wallahs. Come!" + +"You're right." Amber fell into a long, free stride that threatened +quickly to distance the Gurka's short, sturdy legs. "Yet why do you +take this trouble for me?" + +"Why ask?" panted the Gurkha. "Did I not stand behind you and see that +you did not throw the knife? Am I a dog to stand by and see an innocent +man yoked to a crime?" He laughed shortly. "Am I a fool to forget how +great is the generosity of Kings? This way, hazoor!" + +"Why call me King?" Amber hurdled a heap of offal and picked up his +pace again. "Yet you will find me generous, though but a sahib." + +"The sahibs are very generous." Again the Gurkha laughed briefly and +unpleasantly. "But this is no time for words. Save your breath, for now +we must run." + +He broke into a springy lope, with his chin up, elbows in and chest +distended, his quick small feet slopping regardlessly through the +viscous mud of the unpaved byway. "Hear that!" he cried, as a series of +short, sharp yells rose in the bazaar behind them. "The dogs have found +the scent!" And for a time terror winged their flight. Eastern mobs are +hard to handle; if overtaken the chances were anything-you-please to +one that the fugitives would be torn to pieces as by wild animals ere +the police could interfere. + +They struck through stranger and more awful quarters than Amber had +believed could be tolerated, even in India. For if there were a better +way of escape they had no time to pause and choose it. From the racket +in their rear the pursuit was hot upon their trail, and with every +stride, well-nigh, they were passing those who would mark them down +and, when the rabble came up, cry it on with explicit directions. + +And so Amber found himself pounding along at the heels of his Gurkha, +threading acres of flimsy huts huddled together in meaningless +confusion--frail boxes of bamboo, mud, and wattles thrown roughly +together upon corrupt, naked earth that reeked of the drainage of +uncounted generations. Whence they passed through long, brilliant, +silent streets lined with open hovels wherein Vice and Crime bred +cheek-by-jowl, the haunts of Shame, painted and unabashed, sickening in +the very crudity of its nakedness.... There is no bottom to the Pit +wherein the native sinks.... And on, panting, with labouring chests and +aching limbs, into the abandoned desolation of the Chinese quarter, and +back through the still, deadly ways which Amber had threaded in the +footsteps of Pink Satin--where the houses towered high and were +ornamented with dingy, crumbling stucco and rusty, empty, treacherous +balconies of iron, and the air hung in stagnation as if the very winds +here halted to eavesdrop upon the iniquities that were housed behind +the jealous, rotting blinds of wood and iron. + +By now the voice of the chase had subsided to a dull and distant +muttering far behind them, and the way was clear. Beyond its age-old, +ineradicable atmosphere of secret infamy there was nothing threatening +in the aspect of the neighbourhood. And the Gurkha pulled up, breathing +like a wind-broken horse. + +"Easily, hazoor!" he gasped. "There is time for rest." + +Willingly Amber dropped into a wavering stride, so nearly exhausted +that his legs shook under him and he reeled drunkenly; and, fighting +for breath, they stumbled on, side by side, in the shadow of the +overhanging walls, until as they neared a corner the Gurkha stopped and +halted Amber with an imperative gesture. + +"The police, sahib, the police!" he breathed, with an expressive sweep +of his hand toward the cross street. "Let us wait here till they pass." +And in evident panic he crowded Amber into the deep and gloomy recess +afforded by a door overhung by a balcony. + +Taken off his guard, but with growing doubt, Amber was on the point of +remonstrating. Why should the police concern themselves with peaceful +wayfarers? They could not yet have heard of the crime in the Bazaar, +miles distant. But as he opened his lips he heard the latch click +behind him, and before he could lift a finger, the Gurkha had flung +himself bodily upon him, fairly lifting the American across the +threshold. + +They went down together, the Gurkha on top. And the door crashed to +with a rattle of bolts, leaving Amber on his back, in total darkness, +betrayed, lost, and alone with his enemies.... + +Now take a man--a white man--an American by preference--such an one as +David Amber--who has led an active if thoughtful life and lived much +out of doors, roughing it cheerfully in out-of-the-way corners of the +world, and who has been careful to maintain his physical condition at +something above par; bedevil him with a series of mysterious +circumstances for a couple of months, send him on a long journey, +entangle him in a passably hopeless love affair, work his expectations +up to a high pitch of impatience, exasperate him with disappointment, +and finally cause him to be tripped up by treachery and thrust into a +pitch-black room in an unknown house in one of the vilest quarters of +Calcutta: treat him in such a manner and what may you expect of him? +Not discretion, at least. + +Amber went temporarily mad with rage. He was no stranger to fear--no +man with an imagination is; but for the time being he was utterly +foolhardy. He forgot his exhaustion, forgot the hopelessness of his +plight, forgot everything save his insatiable thirst for vengeance. He +was, in our homely idiom, fighting-mad. + +One instant overpowered by and supine beneath the Gurkha, the next he +had flung the man off and bounded to his feet. There was the automatic +pistol in his coat-pocket, but he, conscious that many hands were +reaching out in the darkness to drag him down again, found no time to +draw it. He seemed to feel the presence of the nearest antagonist, whom +he could by no means see; for he struck out with both bare, clenched +fists, one after the other, with his weight behind each, and both blows +landed. The sounds of their impact rang like pistol-shots, and beneath +his knuckles he felt naked flesh crack and give. Something fell away +from him with a grunt like a poled ox. And then, in an instant, before +he could recover his poise, even before he knew that the turned-in +stone of the emerald ring had bitten deep into his palm, he was the +axis of a vortex of humanity. And he fought like a devil unchained. +Those who had thrown themselves upon him, clutching desperately at his +arms and legs and hanging upon his body, seemed to be thrown off like +chips from a lathe--for a time. In two short minutes he performed +prodigies of valour; his arms wrought like piston-rods, his fists flew +like flails; and such was the press round him that he struck no blow +that failed to find a mark. The room rang with the sounds of the +struggle, the shuffle, thud, and scrape of feet both booted and bare, +the hoarse, harsh breathing of the combatants, their groans, their +whispers, their low tense cries.... + +And abruptly it was over. He was borne down by sheer weight of numbers. +Though he fought with the insanity of despair they were too many for +him. He went a second time to the floor, beneath a dozen half-nude +bodies. Below him lay another, with an arm encircling his throat, the +elbow beneath his chin compressing his windpipe. Powerless to move hand +or foot, he gave up ... and wondered dully why it was that a knife had +not yet slipped between his ribs--between the fifth and sixth--or in +his back, beneath the left shoulder-blade, and why his gullet remained +unslit. + +Gradually it was forced upon him that his captors meant him no bodily +harm, for the present at least. His wrath subsided and gave place to +curiosity while he rested, regaining his wind, and the natives squirmed +away from him, leaving one man kneeling upon his chest and four others +each pinioning a limb. + +There followed a wait, while some several persons indulged in a +whispered confabulation at a distance from him too great for their +words to be articulate. Then came a croaking laugh out of the darkness +and words intended for his ear. + +"By Malang Shah! but my lord doth fight like a Rajput!" + +Amber caught his breath and exploded. "Half a chance, you damned thugs, +and I'd show you how an American can fight!" + +But he had spoken in English, and his hearers gathered the import of +his words only from his tone, apparently. He who had addressed him +laughed applausively. + +"It was a gallant fight," he commented, "but like all good things hath +had its end. My lord is overcome. Is my lord still minded for battle or +for peace? Dare I, his servant, give orders for his release, or----" + +Here Amber interrupted; stung by the bitter irony, he told the speaker +in fluent idiomatic Hindustani precisely what he might expect if his +"lord" ever got the shadow of a chance to lay hands upon him. + +The grim cackling laugh followed his words, a mocking echo, and was his +only answer. But for all his defiance, he presently heard orders issued +to take him up and bear him to another chamber. Promptly the man on his +chest moved away, and his fellows lifted and carried Amber, gently and +with puzzling consideration, some considerable distance through what he +surmised to be an underground corridor. He suffered this passively, +realising his impotence, and somewhat comforted if perplexed by the +tenderness accorded him in return for his savage fight for freedom. + +Unexpectedly he was let down upon the floor and released. Bare feet +scurried away in the darkness and a door closed with a resounding bang. +He was alone, for all he could say to the contrary--alone and unharmed. +He was more: he was astonished; he had not been disarmed. He got up and +felt of himself, marvelling that his pocket still sagged with the +weight of the pistol as much as at the circumstance that, aside from +the inevitable damage to his clothing--a coat-sleeve ripped from the +arm-hole, several buttons missing, suspenders broken--he had come out +of the melee unhurt, not even bruised, save for the hand that had been +cut by the emerald. He wrapped a handkerchief about this wound, and +took the pistol out, deriving a great deal of comfort from the way it +balanced, its roughened grip nestling snugly in his palm. + +He fairly itched to use the thing, but lacking an excuse, had time to +take more rational counsel of himself. It were certainly unwise to +presume upon the patience of his captors; though he had battered some +of them pretty brutally and himself escaped reprisals, the part of +wisdom would seem to be to save his ammunition. + +With this running through his mind, the room was suddenly revealed to +his eyes, that had so long strained fruitlessly to see. A flood of +lamplight leaped through some opening behind him and showed him his +shadow, long and gigantic upon a floor of earth and a wall of stone. He +wheeled about, alert as a cat; and the sight of his pistol hung steady +between the eyes of one who stood at ease, with folded arms, in an open +doorway. Over his shoulder was visible the bare brown poll of an +attendant whose lank brown arm held aloft the lamp. + +One does not shoot down in cold blood a man who makes no aggressive +move, and he who stood in the doorway endured impassively the mute +threat of the pistol. Above its sight his eyes met Amber's with a level +and unwavering glance, shining out of a dark, set face cast in a mould +of insolence and pride. A bushy black beard was parted at his chin and +brushed stiffly back. Between his thin hard lips, parted in a shadowy +smile, his teeth gleamed white. Standing a head taller than Amber and +very gracefully erect in clothing of a semi-military cut and of regal +magnificence, every inch of his pose bespoke power, position, and the +habit of authority. His head was bound with a turban of spotless white +from whose clasp, a single splendid emerald, a jewelled aigret nodded; +the bosom of his dark-green tunic blazed with orders and decorations; +at his side swung a sabre with richly jewelled hilt. Heavy white +gauntlets hid his hands, top-boots of patent leather his legs and feet. + +At once impressed and irritated by his attitude, Amber lowered his +weapon. "Well?" he demanded querulously. "What do you want? What's your +part in this infamous outrage?" + +On the other's face the faint smile became more definite. He nodded +nonchalantly at Amber's pistol. "My lord intends to shoot?" he enquired +in English, his tone courteous and suave. + +"That's as may be," retorted Amber defiantly. "I'm going to have +satisfaction for this outrage if I die getting it. You may count on +that, first and last." + +The man lifted his eyebrows and his shoulders in deprecation; then +turned to his attendant. "Put down the light and leave us," he said +curtly in Hindustani. + +Bowing obsequiously, the servant entered and departed, leaving the lamp +upon a wooden shelf braced against one side of the four-square, +stone-walled dungeon. As he went out he closed the door, and Amber +noted that it was a heavy sheet of iron or steel, very substantial. His +face darkened. + +"I presume you know what that means," he said, with a significant jerk +of his head toward the door. "It'll never be shut on me alone. We'll +leave together, you and I, if we both go out feet first." He lifted the +pistol and took the measure of the man, not in any spirit of bravado +but with absolute sincerity. "I trust I make my meaning plain?" + +"Most clear, hazoor." The other showed his teeth in an appreciative +smile. "And yet"--with an expressive outward movement of both +hands--"what is the need of all this?" + +"What!" Amber choked with resentment. "What was the need of setting +your thugs upon me--of kidnapping me?" + +"That, my lord, was an error of judgment on the part of one who shall +pay for it full measure. I trust you were not rudely treated." + +"I'd like to know what in blazes you call it," snapped Amber. "I'm +dogged by your spies--Heaven knows why!--lured to this place, butted +bodily into the arms of a gang of ruffians to be manhandled, and +finally locked up in a dark cell. I don't suppose you've got the nerve +to call that courteous treatment." + +He had an advantage, and knowing it, was pushing it to the limit; for +all his nonchalance the black man was not unconscious of the pistol; +his eye never forgot it. And Amber's eyes left his not an instant. +Despite that the fellow's next move was a distinct surprise. + +Suddenly and with superb grace, he stepped forward and dropped to one +knee at Amber's feet, bowing his head and offering the hilt of his +sword to the American. + +"My lord," he said swiftly in Hindustani, "if I have misjudged thee, if +I have earned thy displeasure, upon my head be it. See, I give my life +into thy hands; but a little quiver of thy forefinger and I am as +dust.... An ill report of thee was brought to me, and I did err in +crediting it. It is true that I set this trap for thee; but see, my +lord! though I did so, it was with no evil intent. I thought but to +make sure of thee and bid thee welcome, as a faithful steward should, +to thy motherland.... Maha Rao Rana, Har Dyal Rutton Bahadur, +Heaven-born, King of Kings, Chosen of the Voice, Cherished of the Eye, +Beloved of the Heart, bone of the bone and flesh of the flesh of the +Body, Guardian of the Gateway of Swords!... I, thy servant, Salig +Singh, bid thee welcome to Bharuta!" + +Sonorous and not unpleasing, his voice trembled with intense and +unquestionable earnestness; and when it ceased he remained motionless +in his attitude of humility. Amber, hardly able to credit his hearing, +stared down at the man stupidly, his head awhirl with curiously +commingled sensations of amazement and enlightenment. Presently he +laughed shortly. + +"Get up," he said; "get up and stand over there by the wall and don't +be a silly ass." + +"Hazoor!" There was reproach in Salig Singh's accents; but he obeyed, +rising and retreating to the further wall, there to hold himself at +attention. + +"Now see here," began Amber, designedly continuing his half of the +conversation in English--far too much misunderstanding had already been +brought about by his too-ready familiarity with Urdu. He paused a +little to collect his thoughts, then resumed: "Now see here, you're +Salig Singh, Maharana of Khandawar?" This much he recalled from his +conversation with Labertouche a couple of hours gone. + +"Hazoor, why dost thou need ask? Thou dost know." The Rajput, on his +part, steadfastly refused to return to English. + +"But you are, aren't you?" + +"By thy favour, it is even so." + +"And you think I'm Rutton--Har Dyal Rutton, as you call him, the former +Maharana who abdicated in your favour?" + +The Rajput shrugged expressively, an angry light in his dark, bold +eyes. "It pleases my lord to jest," he complained; "but am I a child, +to be played with?" + +"I'm not joking, Salig Singh, and this business is no joke at all. What +I'm trying to drive into your head is the fact that you've made the +mistake of your life. I'm not Rutton and I'm nothing like Rutton; I am +an American citizen and----" + +"Pardon, hazoor, but is this worth thy while? I am no child; what I +know I know. If thou art indeed not Har Dyal Rutton, how is it that +thou dost wear upon thy finger the signet of thy house"--Salig Singh +indicated the emerald which Amber had forgotten--"the Token sent thee +by the Bell? If thou are not my lord the rightful Maharana of +Khandawar, how is it that thou hast answered the summons of the Bell? +Are the servants of the Body fools who have followed the hither, losing +trace of thee no single instant since thou didst slay the Bengali who +bore the Token to thee? Am I blind--I, Salig Singh, thy childhood's +playmate, the Grand Vizier of thy too-brief rule, to whom thou didst +surrender the reins of government of Khandawar? I know thee; thou canst +not deceive me. True it is that thou art changed--sadly changed, my +lord; and the years have not worn upon thee as they might--I had +thought to find thee an older man and, by thy grace, a wiser. But even +as I am Salig Singh, thou art none other than my lord, Har Dyal +Rutton." + +Salig Singh put his shoulders against the wall and, leaning so with +arms folded, regarded Amber with a triumph not unmixed with contempt. +It was plain that he considered his argument final, his case complete, +the verdict his. While Amber found no words with which to combat his +false impression, and could only stare, open-mouthed and fascinated. +But at length he recollected himself and called his wits together. + +"That's all very pretty," he admitted fairly, "but it won't hold water. +I don't suppose these faithful servants of the Bell you mentioned +happened to tell you that Chatterji himself mistook me for Rutton, to +begin with, and just found out his mistake in time to recover the +Token. Did they?" + +The man shook his head wearily. "Nothing to that import hath come to +mine ears," he said. + +"All right. And of course they didn't tell you that Rutton committed +suicide down there on Long Island, just after he had killed the babu?" + +Again Salig Singh replied by a negative movement of his head. + +"Well, all I've got to say is that your infernal 'Body' employs a giddy +lot of incompetents to run its errands." + +Salig Singh said nothing, and Amber pondered the situation briefly. He +understood now how the babu's companion had fallen into error: how +Chatterji, possessing sufficient intelligence to recognise his initial +mistake, had, having rectified it, saved his face by saying nothing to +his companion of the incident; and how the latter had remained in +ignorance of Rutton's death after the slaying of Chatterji, and had +pardonably mistaken Amber for the man he had been sent to spy upon. The +prologue was plain enough, but how to deal with this its sequel was a +problem that taxed his ingenuity. A single solution seemed practicable, +of the many he debated: to get in touch with Labertouche and leave the +rest to him. + +He stood for so long in meditation that the Rajput began to show traces +of impatience. He moved restlessly, yawned, and at length spoke. + +"Is not my lord content? Can he not see, the dice are cast? What profit +can he think to win through furtherance of this farce?" + +"Well," curiosity prompted Amber to ask, "what do you want of me, +then?" + +"Is there need to ask? Through the Mouthpiece, the Bengali, Behari Lai +Chatterji, whom thou didst slay, the message of the Bell was brought to +thee. Thou hast been called; it is for thee to answer." + +"Called----?" + +"To the Gateway of Swords, hazoor." + +"Oh, yes; to be sure. But where in thunderation is it?" + +"That my lord doth know." + +"You think so? Well, have it your own way. But suppose I decline the +invitation?" + +Salig Singh looked bored. "Since thou hast come so far," he said, "thou +wilt go farther, hazoor." + +"Meaning--by force?" + +"Of thine own will. Those whom the Voice calleth are not led to the +Gateway by their noses." + +"But," Amber persisted, "suppose they won't go?" + +"Then, hazoor, doth the Council of the Hand sit in judgment upon them." + +The significance was savagely obvious, but Amber merely laughed. "And +the Hand strikes, I presume?" Salig Singh nodded. "Bless your heart, +I'm not afraid of your 'Hand'! But am I to understand that compulsion +is not to be used in order to get me to the Gateway--wherever that is? +I mean, I'm free to exercise my judgment, whether or not I shall +go--free to leave this place and return to my hotel?" + +Gravely the Rajput inclined his head. "Even so," he assented. "I caused +thee to be brought hither solely to make certain what thou hast out of +thine own mouth confirmed--the report that thou hadst become altogether +traitor to the Bell. So be it. There remains but the warning that for +four days more, and four days only, the Gateway remains open to those +summoned. On the fifth it closes." + +"And to those who remain in the outer darkness on that fifth day, Salig +Singh----?" + +"God is merciful," said the Rajput piously. + +"Very well. If that is all, I think I will now leave you, Salig Singh," +said Amber, fondling his pistol meaningly. + +"One word more," Salig Singh interposed, very much alive to Amber's +attitude: "I were unfaithful to the trust thou didst once repose in me +were I not to warn thee that whither thou goest, the Mind will know; +what thou dost, the Eye will see; the words thou shalt utter, the Ear +will hear. To all things there is an end, also--even to the patience of +the Body. Shabash!" + +"Thank you 'most to death, Salig Singh. Now will you be good enough to +order a ghari to take me back to the Great Eastern?" + +"My lord's will is his servant's." Salig Singh started for the door the +least trace too eagerly. + +"One moment," said Amber sharply. "Not so fast, my friend." He tapped +his palm with the barrel of the pistol to add weight to his peremptory +manner. "I think if you will lift your voice and call, some one will +answer. I've taken a great fancy to you, if you don't know it, and I +don't purpose letting you out of my sight until I'm safely out of this +house." + +With a sullen air the Rajput yielded. From his expression Amber would +have wagered much that there was a bad quarter of an hour in store for +those who had neglected to disarm him when the opportunity was theirs. + +"As you will," conceded Salig Singh; and he clapped his hands smartly, +crying: "Ohe, Moto!" + +Almost instantly the iron door swung open and the lamp-bearer appeared, +salaaming. + +"Tell him," ordered Amber, "to bring me a cloak of some sort--not too +conspicuous. I've no fancy to kick up a scandal at the hotel by +returning with these duds visible. You can charge it up to profit and +loss; if it hadn't been for the tender treatment your assassins gave +me, I'd be less disreputable." + +A faint smile flickered in Salig Singh's eyes--a look that was not +wholly devoid of admiration for the man who had turned the tables on +him with such ease. "Indeed," he said, "I were lacking in courtesy did +I refuse thee that." And turning to the servant he issued instructions +in accordance with Amber's demands, adding gratuitously an order that +the way of exit should be kept clear. + +As the man bowed and withdrew Amber grinned cheerfully. "It wasn't a +bad afterthought, Salig Singh," he observed; "precautions like that +relieve the mind wonderfully sometimes." + +But the humour of the situation seemed to be lost upon the Rajput. + +In the brief wait that followed Amber shifted his position to one +wherefrom he could command both the doorway and Salig Singh; his +solicitude, however, was without apparent warrant; nothing happened to +justify him of his vigilance. Without undue delay the servant returned +with a light cloak and the announcement that the ghari was in waiting. + +His offer to help the American don the garment was graciously declined. +"I've a fancy to have my arms free for the present," Amber explained; +"I can get it on by myself in the ghari." He took the cloak over his +left arm. "I'm ready; lead on!" he said, and with a graceful wave of +the pistol bowed Salig Singh out of the cellar. + +Moto leading with the light, they proceeded in silence down a musty but +deserted passage, Amber bringing up the rear with his heart in his +mouth and his finger nervous upon the trigger. After a little the +passage turned and discovered a door open to the street. Beyond this a +ghari could be seen. + +Amber civilly insisted that both the servant and his master leave the +house before him, but, once outside, he made a wary detour and got +between them and the waiting conveyance. Then, "It's kind of you, Salig +Singh," he said; "I'm properly grateful. I'll say this for you: you +play the game fairly when anybody calls your attention to the rules. +Good-night to you--and, I say, be kind enough to shut the door as you +go in. I'll just wait until you do." + +The Rajput found no answer; conceivably, his chagrin was intense. With +a curt nod he turned and reentered the house, Moto following. The door +closed and Amber jumped briskly into the ghari. + +"Home, James," he told the ghariwallah, in great conceit with himself. +"I mean, the Great Eastern Hotel--and _juldee jao_!" + +The driver wrapped a whiplash round the corrugated flanks of his horse +and the ghari turned the corner with gratifying speed. In half a minute +they were in the Chitpur Road. In fifteen they drew up before the +hotel. + +It was after midnight and the city had begun to quiet down, but Old +Court House Street was still populous with carriages and pedestrians, +black and tan and white. There was a Viceregal function of some sort +towards in the Government House, and broughams and victorias, coaches, +hansoms, and coupes, with lamps alight and liveried coachmen--turn-outs +groomed to the last degree of smartness--crowded the thoroughfare to +the peril and discomfort of the casual ghari. The scene was +unbelievably brilliant. Amber felt like rubbing his eyes. Here were +sidewalks, pavements, throbbing electric arcs, Englishmen in evening +dress, fair Englishwomen in dainty gowns and pretty wraps, the hum of +English voices, the very smell of civilisation. And back there, just +across the border he had so recently crossed, still reigned the +midnight of the Orient, glamorous with the glamour of the Arabian +Nights, dreadful with its dumb menace, its atmosphere of plot and +counterplot, mutiny, treason, intrigue, and death. Here, a little +island of life and light and gay, heedless laughter; there, all round +it, pressing close, silence and impenetrable darkness, like some dark +sea of death lapping its shores.... + +In a cold sweat of horror Amber got out of the vehicle and paid his +fare. As he turned he discovered an uniformed policeman stalking to and +fro before the hotel, symbol of the sane power that ruled the land. +Amber was torn by an impulse to throw himself upon the man and shriek +aloud his tale of terror--to turn and scream warning in the ears of +those who lived so lightly on the lip of Hell.... + +A Bengali drifted listlessly past, a bored and blase babu in a suit of +pink satin, wandering home and interested in nothing save his own bland +self and the native cigarette that drooped languidly from his lips. He +passed within a foot of Amber, and from somewhere a voice spoke--the +Virginian could have taken an oath that the babu's lips did not +move--in a clear yet discreet whisper. + +"To-morrow," it said; "Darjeeling." + +Amber hitched his cloak round him and entered the hotel. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE TONGA + + +"Badshah Junction, Mr. Amber ... Badshah Junction ... We'll be there in +'alf an hour ..." + +Inexorably the voice droned on, repeating the admonition over and over. + +Mutinous, Amber stirred and grumbled in his sleep; stirred and, +grumbling, wakened to another day. Doggott stood over him, doggedly +insistent. + +"Not much time to dress, sir; we're due in less than 'alf an hour." + +"Oh, _all_ right." Drowsy, stiff and sore in bone and muscle, Amber sat +up on the edge of the leather-padded bunk and stared out of the window, +wondering. With thundering flanges the train fled from east to west +across a landscape that still slept wrapped in purple shadows. Far in +the north the higher peaks of a long, low range of treeless hills were +burning with a pale, cold light. A few stars glimmered in the cloudless +vault--glimmered wan, doomed to sudden, swift extinction. Beside the +railroad a procession of telegraph poles marched with dipping loops of +wire between. There was nothing else to see. None the less the young +man, now fully alive to the business of the day, said "Thank God!" in +all sincerity. + +"Even a tonga will be a relief after three days of this, Doggott," he +observed, surrendering himself to the ministrations of the servant. + +It was the third morning succeeding that on which he had risen from his +bed in the Great Eastern Hotel in Calcutta, possessed by a wild anxiety +to find his way with the least possible delay to Darjeeling and Sophia +Farrell--a journey which he was destined never to make. For while he +breakfasted a telegram had been brought to him. + +"_Your train for Benares_," he read, "_leaves Howrah at nine-thirty. +Imperative_." It was signed: "_Pink Satin_." + +He acted upon it without thought of disobedience; he was in the hands +of Labertouche, and Labertouche knew best. Between the lines he read +that the Englishman considered it unwise to attempt further +communication in Calcutta. Something had happened to eliminate the trip +to Darjeeling. Labertouche would undoubtedly contrive to meet and +enlighten him, either on the way or in Benares itself. + +In the long, tiresome, eventless journey that followed his faith was +sorely tried; nor was it justified until the train paused some time +after midnight at Mogul Serai. There, before Amber and Doggott could +alight to change for Benares, their compartment was invaded by an +unmistakable loafer, very drunk. Tall and burly; with red-rimmed eyes +in a pasty pockmarked face, dirty and rusty with a week-old growth of +beard; clothed with sublime contempt for the mode and exalted beyond +reason with liquor--a typical loafer of the Indian railways--he flung +the door open and himself into Amber's arms, almost knocking the latter +down; and resented the accident at the top of his lungs. + +"You miserable, misbegotten blighter of a wall-eyed American----" At +this point he became unprintably profane, and Doggott fell upon him +with the laudable intention of throwing him out. In the struggle Amber +caught his eye, and it was bright with meaning. "Pink Satin!" he +hissed. "He's gone ahead.... You're to keep on to Agra.... Change for +Badshah Junction, Rajputana Route.... Then tonga to Kuttarpur.... +Farrell's there and his daughter.... That's right, my man, throw me +out!..." + +His downfall was spectacular. In his enthusiasm for the part he played, +he had erred to the extent of delivering a blow in Doggott's face more +forcible, probably, than he had intended it to be. Promptly he landed +sprawling on the station platform and, in the sight of a multitude of +natives, but the moment gone by his shrieks roused from their sleep in +orderly ranks upon the floor, was gathered into the arms of the +stationmaster and had the seriousness of his mistake pointed out to him +forthwith and without regard to the sensitiveness of human anatomy. + +And the train continued on its appointed way, bearing both Amber and +the injured Doggott. + +Thus they had come to the heart of Rajputana. + +In the chill of dawn they were deposited at Badshah Junction. A scanty +length of rude platform received them and their two small travelling +bags. + +On their left the Haiderabad express roared away, following the night, +its course upon the parallel ribbons of shining steel marked by a +towering pillar of dust. On their right, beyond the sharp-cut edge of +the world, the sun had kindled a mighty conflagration in the skies. On +every hand, behind and before them, the desert lay in ebbing shadows, a +rolling waste seared by arid nullahs--the bone-dry beds of +long-forgotten streams. Off in the north the hills cropped up and stole +purposelessly away over the horizon. + +They stood, then, forlorn in a howling desolation. For signs of life +they had the station, a flimsy shelter roofed with corrugated iron, a +beaten track that wandered off northwards and disappeared over a +grassless swell, a handful of mud huts at a distance, and the +ticket-agent. The latter a sleepy, surly Eurasian in pyjamas, surveyed +them listlessly from the threshold of the station, and without a sign +either of interest or contempt turned and locked himself in. + +Amber sat down on his upturned suit-case and laughed and lit a +cigarette. Doggott growled. The noise of the train died to silence in +the distance, and a hyena came out of nowhere, exhibited himself upon +the ridge of a dry desert swell, and mocked them sardonically. Then he, +like the ticket-agent, went away, leaving an oppressive silence. + +Presently the sun rose in glory and sent its burning level rays to cast +a shadow several rods long of an enraged American beating frantically +with clenched fists upon the door of an unresponsive railway station. + +He hammered until he was a-weary, then deputised his task to Doggott, +who resourcefully found him a stone of size and proceeded to make dents +in the door. This method elicited the Eurasian. He came out, listened +attentively to abuse and languidly to their demands for a tonga to bear +them to Kuttarpur, and observed that the mail tonga left once a day--at +three in the afternoon. Doggott caught him as he was on the point of +returning to his interrupted repose and called his attention to the +unwisdom of his ways. + +Apparently convinced, this ticket-agent announced his intention of +endeavouring to find a tonga for the sahib. Besides, he was not +unwilling to acquire rupees. He scowled thoughtfully at Amber, +ferociously at Doggott, went back into the station, gossipped casually +with the telegraph sounder for a quarter of an hour, and finally +reappearing, without a word or a nod left the platform for the road and +walked and walked and walked and walked. Within thirty yards his figure +was blurred by the dance of new-born heat devils. Within a hundred he +disappeared; the desert swallowed him up. + +An hour passed as three. The heat became terrific; not a breath of wind +stirred. The face of the world lost its contours in wavering mirage. +The travellers found lukewarm water in the station and breakfasted +sparingly from their own stores of biscuit and tinned things. Then, in +the shadow of the station, they settled down to wait, bored to +extinction. Lulled by the hushed chatter of the telegraph sounder, +Doggott nodded and slept audibly; Amber nodded, felt himself going, +roused with a struggle, and lapsed into a dreary mid-world of +semi-stupor. + +In the simple fulness of Asiatic time a tonga came from Heaven knew +where and roused him by rattling up beside the platform. He got up and +looked it over with a just eye and a temper none the sweeter for his +experience. It was a brute of a tonga, a patched and ramshackle wreck +of what had once been a real tonga, with no top to protect the +travellers from the sun, and accommodation only for three, including +the driver. + +The Eurasian ticket-agent alighted and solicited rupees. He got them +and with them Amber's unvarnished opinion of the tonga; something which +was not received with civility by the driver. + +He remained in his seat--a short, swart native with an evil countenance +and, across his knees, a sheathed tulwar--arguing with Amber in broken +English and, abusing him scandalously in impurest Hindi, flinging at +him in silken tones untranslatable scraps of bazaar Billingsgate. For, +as he explained in an audible aside to the ticket-agent, this sahib was +an outlander and, being as ignorant as most sahibs, could not +understand Hindi. At this the Eurasian turned away to hide a grin of +delight and the driver winked deliberately at Amber the while he +broadly sketched for him his ancestry and the manner of his life at +home and abroad. + +Thunderstruck, Amber caught himself just as he was on the point of +attempting to drag the driver from his seat and beat him into a more +endurable frame of mind. He swallowed the hint and gave up the contest. + +"Oh, very well," he conceded. "I presume you're trying to say there +isn't another tonga to be had and it can't be helped; but I don't like +your tone. However, there doesn't seem to be anything to do but take +you. How much for the two of us?" + +"Your servant, sahib? He cannot ride in this tonga," asserted the +driver impassively. + +"He can't! Why not?" + +"You can see there is room for but two, and I have yet another +passenger." + +"Where?" + +"At the first dak-bungalow, Sahib, where the mail-tonga broke down last +night. This tonga, which I say is an excellent tonga, an _aram_ tonga, +a tonga for ease, is sent to take its place. More than this, I am +bidden to go in haste; therefore there is little time for you to decide +whether or not you will go with me alone. As for your servant, he can +follow by this afternoon's mail tonga." + +Upon this ultimatum he stood, immovable; neither threats nor bribery +availed. It was an order, he said: he had no choice other than to obey. +Shabash! Would the sahib be pleased to make up his mind quickly? + +Perforce, the sahib yielded. "It'll be Labertouche; he's arranged +this," he told himself. "That loafer said he'd gone on ahead of us." +And comforted he issued his orders to Doggott, who received and acceded +to them with all the ill-grace imaginable. He was to remain and follow +to Kuttarpur by the afternoon's tonga. He forthwith sulked--and Amber, +looking round upon the little Tephet that was Badshah Junction, had not +the heart to reprove the man. + +"It's all very well, sir," said Doggott. "I carn't s'y anything, I +know. But, mark my words, sir--beggin' your pardon--there'll be trouble +come of this. That driver's as ill-favoured a scoundrel as ever I see. +And as for this 'ere ape, if 'e smiles at me just once more, I'll give +'im what-for." And he scowled so blackly upon the Eurasian that that +individual hastily sought the seclusion which the station granted. + +Amber left him, then, with a travelling-bag and a revolver for company, +and the ticket-agent and his bad temper to occupy his mind. + +Climbing aboard, the Virginian settled himself against the endless +discomforts of the ride which he foresaw; the tonga was anything but +"an _aram_ tonga--a tonga for ease," there was no shade and no breeze, +and the face of the land crawled with heat-bred haze. + +To a crisp crackling of the whip-lash over the backs of the two sturdy, +shaggy, flea-bitten ponies, the tonga swept away from the station, +swift as a hunted fox with a dusty plume. The station dropped out of +sight and the desert took them to its sterile heart. + +On every hand the long swales rolled away, sunbaked, rocky, innocent of +any sign of life other than the trooping telegraph poles in the south, +destitute of any sort of vegetation other than the inevitable ak and +gos. Wherever the eye wandered the prospect was the same--limitless +expanses of raw blistering ochres, salmon-pinks, and dry faded reds, +under a sky of brass and fire. + +Amber leaned forward, watching the driver's face. "Your name, +tonga-wallah?" he enquired. + +"Ram Nath, sahib." The man spoke without moving his head, attending +diligently to the management of his ponies. + +"And this other passenger, who awaits us at the dak-bungalow, Ram +Nath--is he, perchance, one known both to you and to me?" + +Ram Nath flicked the flagging ponies. "How should I know?" he returned +brusquely. + +"One," persisted Amber, "who might be known by such a name as, say, +Pink Satin?" + +"What manner of talk is this?" demanded Ram Nath. "I am no child to be +amused by a riddle. I know naught of your 'Pink Satin.'" He bent +forward, shortening his grasp upon the reins, as if to signify that the +interview was at an end. + +Amber sat back, annoyed by the fellow's impudence yet sensitive to a +suspicion that Ram Nath was playing his part better than his passenger, +that the rebuke was merited by one who had ventured to speak of secret +things in a land whose very stones have ears. For all that he could say +their every move was watched by invisible spies, of whom the +rock-strewn waste through which they sped might well harbour a hidden +legion.... But perhaps, after all, Ram Nath had nothing whatever to do +with Labertouche. Undeniable as had been his wink, it might well have +been nothing more than an impertinence. At the thought Amber's eyes +darkened and hardened and he swore bitterly beneath his breath. If that +were so, he vowed, the tonga-wallah would pay dearly for the +indiscretion. He set his wits to contrive a way to satisfy his doubts. + +Meanwhile the tonga rocked and bounded fiendishly over an infamous +parody of a road, turning and twisting between huge boulders and in and +out of pebbly nullahs, Ram Nath tooling it along with the hand of a +master. But all his attention was of necessity centred upon the ponies, +and presently his tulwar slipped from his knees and clattered upon the +floor of the tonga. Amber saw his chance and put his foot upon it. + +"Ram Nath," he asked gently, "have you no other arms?" + +"I were a fool had I not." The man did not deign to glance round. "He +hath need of weapons who doth traffick with the Chosen of the Voice, +sahib." + +"Ah, that Voice!" cried Amber in exasperation. "I grow weary of the +word, am Nath." + +"That may well be," returned the man, imperturbable. "None the less it +were well for you to have a care how you fondle the revolver in your +pocket, sahib. Should it by any chance go off and the bullet find +lodgment in your tonga-wallah, you are like to hear more of that Voice, +and from less friendly lips." + +"I think you have eyes in the back of your head, Ram Nath." Amber +withdrew his hand from his coat pocket and laughed shortly as he spoke. + +"There is a saying in this country, sahib, that even the stones in the +desert have ears to hear and eyes to see and tongues withal to tell +what they have seen and heard." + +"Ah-h!... That is a wise saying, Ram Nath." + +"There be those I could name who would do well to lay that saying to +heart, sahib." + +"You are right, indeed.... Now if there be aught of truth in that +saying, and if one were unwisely to speak a certain name, even +here----" + +"The echo of that name might be heard beyond the threshold of a certain +Gateway, sahib." + +Amber grunted and said no more, contented now with the assurance that +he was in truth in touch with Labertouche, that this Ram Nath was an +employee of the I.S.S. The wink was now explained away with all the +rest of the tonga-wallah's churlishness. Since there was a purpose +behind it all, the Virginian was satisfied to contain his curiosity. +Nevertheless he could not help thinking that there must be some +fantastic exaggeration in the excessive degree of caution that was thus +tacitly imposed upon him. + +He looked round him, narrowing his eyes against the sun-glare; and the +desert showed itself to his eyes a desert waste and nothing more. The +day lay stark upon its lifeless face and it seemed as if, within the +wide rim of the horizon, no thing moved save the tonga. They were then +passing rapidly over higher ground and seemed to have drawn a shade +nearer to the raw red northern hills. Amber would have said that they +could never have found a solitude more absolute. + +The thought was still in his mind when the tonga dipped unexpectedly +over another ridge, began to descend another long grade of dead, +parched earth, and discovered some distance ahead of them on the +wagontrack a cloud of dust like a tinted veil, so dense, opaque, and +wide and high that its cause was altogether concealed in its reddish, +glittering convolutions. But the Virginian knew the land well enough to +recognise the phenomenon and surmise its cause, even before his ears +began to be assailed by the hideous rasping screech of wheels of solid +wood revolving reluctantly on rough-hewn axles guiltless of grease. And +as the tonga swiftly lessened the distance, his gaze, penetrating the +thinning folds, discerned the contours of a cotton-wain drawn by twin +stunted bullocks, patient noses to the ground, tails a-switch. Beside +his cattle the driver plodded, goad in hand, a naked sword upon his +hip. Within his reach, between the rude bales of the loaded cart, the +butt of a brass-bound musket protruded significantly.... All men went +armed in that wild land: to do as much is one of the boons attendant +upon citizenship in an unprogressive, independent native State. + +Deliberately enough the carter swerved his beasts aside to make way for +the tonga, lest by undue haste he should make himself seem other than +what he was--a free man and a Rajput. But when his fierce, hawk-like +eyes encountered those of the dak traveller, his attitude changed +curiously and completely. Recognition and reverence fought with +surprise in his expression, and as Ram Nath swung the tonga past the +man salaamed profoundly. His voice, as he rose, came after them, +resonant and clear: + +"_Hail, thou Chosen of the Gateway! Hail_!" + +Amber neither turned to look nor replied. But his frown deepened. The +incident passed into his history, marked only by the terse comment it +educed from Ram Nath--words which were flung curtly over the +tonga-wallah's shoulder: "Eyes to see and ears to hear and a tongue +withal ... sahib!" + +The Virginian said nothing. But it was in his mind that he had indeed +thrust his head into the lion's mouth by thus adventuring into the +territory which every instinct of caution and common-sense proclaimed +taboo to him--the erstwhile kingdom of the Maharana Har Dyal Rutton. It +was, in a word, foolhardy--nothing less. But for his pledged word it +had been so easy to order Ram Nath to convey him back to Badshah +Junction to order and to enforce obedience at the pistol's point, if +needs be! Honour held him helpless, bound upon the Wheel of his +Destiny: he must and would go on.... + +He sat in silent gloom while sixty minutes were drummed out by the +flying hoofs. The hills folded in about the way, diverting it hither +and yon with raw, seamed spurs, whose flanks flung back harsh and heavy +echoes of the tonga's flight through riven gulch and scrub-grown +valley. And then it was that Ram Nath proved his mettle. Hardened +himself, he showed no mercy to his passenger, and never once drew rein, +though the tonga danced from rock to ridge and ridge to rut and back +again, like a tin can on the tail of an astonished dog. As for Amber, +he wedged his feet and held on with both hands, grimly, groaning in +spirit when he did not in the flesh, foreseeing as he did nine hours +more of this heroic torture punctuated only by brief respites at the +end of each stage. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE LONG DAY + + +One travels dak by relays casually disposed along the route at the whim +of the native contractor. Between Badshah Junction and Kuttarpur there +were ten stages, of which the conclusion of the first was at +hand--Amber having all but abandoned belief in its existence. + +Slamming recklessly down the bed of an ancient watercourse, the tonga +spun suddenly upon one wheel round a shoulder of the banks and dashed +out upon a rolling plain, across which the trail snaked to other +farther hills that lay dim and low, a wavy line of blue, upon the +horizon--the hills in whose heart Kuttarpur itself lay occult. And, by +the roadside, in a compound fenced with camel-thorn, sat an aged and +indigent dak-bungalow, marking the end of the first stage, the +beginning of the second. + +It wore a look of Heaven to the traveller. In the shade of its veranda +he read an urgent invitation to rest and surcease of sunlight. He +approved it thoroughly; the ramshackle rest-house itself, the sheds in +the rear for the accommodation of relays, the syce squatting asleep in +the sunshine, the few scrawny chickens squabbling and scratching over +their precarious sustenance in the deep hot dust of the compound, even +the broken tonga reposing with its shafts uplifted at a piteous angle +of decrepitude--all these Amber surveyed with a kindly eye. + +Ram Nath reined in with a flourish and lifted a raucous voice, hailing +the syce, while Amber, painfully disengaging his cramped limbs, climbed +down and stumbled toward the veranda. The abrupt transition from +violent and erratic motion to a solid and substantial footing affected +him unpleasantly, with an undeniable qualm; the earth seemed to rock +and flow beneath him as if under the influence of an antic earthquake. +He was for some seconds occupied with the problem of regaining his +poise, and it was not until he heard an Englishwoman's voice uplifted +in accents of anger, that he remembered the other wayfarer with whom he +was to share his tonga, or associated the white-clad figure in the dark +doorway of the bungalow with anything but the khansamah, coming to +greet and cheat the chance-brought guest. + +"Where is that tonga-wallah who deserted me here last night?" the woman +was demanding of Ram Nath, too preoccupied with her resentment to have +eyes for the other traveller, who at sight of her had stopped and +removed his pith helmet and now stood staring as if he had come from a +land in which there were no women. "Where," she continued, with an +imperative stamp of a daintily-shod foot, "is that wretched +tonga-wallah?" + +"Sahiba," protested Ram Nath, with a great show of deference, "how +should I know? Belike he is in Badshah Junction, whither he returned +very late last night, being travel-worn and weary, and where I left +him, being sent with this excellent tonga to take his place." + +"You were? And why have I been detained here, alone and unprotected, +this long night? Simply because that other tonga-wallah was a fool, am +I to be imposed upon in this fashion?" + +"What am I," whimpered Ram Nath, "to endure the wrath of the sahiba for +a fault that is none of mine?" + +"I beg your pardon, sir," said the girl, turning to Amber, "but it is +very annoying." She looked him over, first with abstraction, then with +a puzzled gathering of her brows, for he was far from her thoughts--the +last person she would have expected to meet in that place, and very +effectually disguised in dust and dirt besides, "The tire came off the +wheel just as we got here, late yesterday evening, and in trying, or +pretending to try, to fit it on again, that block-head of a +tonga-wallah hammered the rim with a rock as big as his head and +naturally smashed it to kindling-wood. Then, before I could stop him, +he flung himself on the back of a pony and went away, saying that it +was the will of God that he should return to Badshah for a better +tonga. Since when I have had for company one stable-syce, one +deaf-and-dumb patriarch of a khansamah and ... the usual dak-bungalow +discomforts--insects, bad food, and a terrible fear of dacoits." + +"I am so sorry, Miss Farrell," Amber put in. "If I had only been +here...." + +The girl gave a little gasp and sat down abruptly in one of the veranda +chairs, thereby threatening it with instant demolition and herself with +a bad spill; for the chair was feeble with the burden of its many +years, and she was a quite substantial young person. Indeed, so loudly +did it croak a protest and a warning that she immediately arose in +alarm. + +"Mr. Amber!" she said; and, "Well ...!" + +"You'll forgive me the surprise?" he begged, going up on the veranda to +her. "I myself had no hope of finding you here." + +"But," she protested, with a pretty flush of colour--"but I left you in +the States such a little while ago!" + +"Yes?" he said gravely. "It seems so long to me.... And when you had +gone, Long Island was a very lonely place indeed," he added, with +calculated impudence. + +Her colour deepened and she sought another chair, seating herself with +gingerly decision. "I'm sure you don't mean me to assume that you've +followed me half round the world?" + +"Why not?" He brought another chair to face her. "Besides, I haven't +seen anything of ... India for a good many years." + +"Mr. Amber!" + +"Ma'am?" he countered with affected humility. + +"You're spoiling it all. I was so glad to see you--I'd have been glad +to see any white man, of course----" + +"Much obliged, I'm sure." + +"And now you're actually flirting with me--or pretending to." + +"I'm not," he declared soberly. "As a matter of solemn fact, I had to +come to India." + +"You _had_ to?" + +"On a matter of serious business. Please don't ask me what, just yet; +but it's very serious, to my way of thinking. This happy accident--I +count myself a very happy man to have been so fortunate--only makes my +errand the more pleasant." + +She regarded him intently, chin in hand, her brown eyes sedate with +speculation, for some time. "I believe you've been speaking in +parables," she asserted, at length. "If I'm unjust, bear with me; +appearances are against you. There isn't any reason I know of why you +should tell me what brought you here----" + +"There's every reason, in point of fact, Miss Farrell; only ... I can't +explain just now." + +"Very well," she agreed briskly; "let's be content with that. I am glad +to see you again, truly; and--we're to travel on to Kuttarpur in the +same tonga?" + +"If you'll permit----" + +"After what I've endured, this awful night, I wouldn't willingly let +you out of my sight." + +"Or any other white man?" + +She laughed, pleased. "I presume you're wondering what I'm doing here?" + +"You were to join your father in Darjeeling, I believe?" he countered, +cautious. + +"But I found he'd been transferred unexpectedly to Kuttarpur. So, of +course, I had to follow. I telegraphed him day before yesterday when I +was to arrive at Badshah Junction, and naturally expected he'd come in +person or have some one meet me, but I presume the message must have +gone astray. At all events there was no one there for me and I had to +come on alone. It's hardly been a pleasant experience; that incompetent +tonga-wallah behaved precisely as though he had deliberately made up +his mind to delay me.... And the tonga's nearly ready; I must lock my +kit-bag." + +She went into the bungalow, leaving him thoughtful, for perhaps.... But +the back of Ram Nath, as that worthy busied himself superintending the +harnessing in of fresh ponies, conveyed to him no support for his +half-credited hypothesis that this "accident" had been carefully +planned by Labertouche for Amber's especial benefit. + +He vexed himself with vain speculations, for it was perfectly certain +that he would get nothing in the way of either denial or confirmation +out of Ram Nath; and, presently, acknowledging this, he called the +khansamah and ordered a peg for the sake of the dust in his throat. + +The girl joined him on the veranda in due course, very demure and sweet +to look upon in her travelling-dress of light pongee and her pith +helmet, whose green under-brim and puggaree served very handsomely to +set off her fair colouring. If she overlooked the adoration of his +eyes, she was rather less than woman; for it was in them, plain to be +seen for the looking. The khansamah followed her from the bungalow, +staggering under the weight of her box and kit-bag, and with Ram Nath's +surly assistance made them fast to the front seat. While Amber gave the +girl his hand to help her to her place, and lifted himself to her side +in a mute glow of ecstasy. Fate, he thought with reason, was most kind +to him. + +They rattled headlong from the compound, making for the distant hills +of blue. The girl drew down her puggaree, with its soft, thin folds +sheltering the pure contours of her face from the dust and burning +sun-glare. He watched her hungrily, holding his breath as the thought +came to him that he was seated elbow to elbow with the woman who was to +be his wife, his hand still a-tingle with the reminiscence of her +gloved fingers that had touched it so transiently. She caught his +intent look and smiled, her eyes lustrous through the veiling. + +She was very tired after her night-long vigil, and after a few words of +commonplace as they drew away from the station, he forebore to weary +her with talk, and a silence as sweet as communion lengthened between +them as the stage lengthened. He was very intent upon her presence; the +consciousness of her there beside him seemed, at times, almost +suffocating. He could by no means forget that she had in a curious way +been assigned to him--set aside to be his wife, the partner of all his +days; and she tolerated him kindly, all unsuspicious of the +significance of his advent into her life.... If she were made to +suspect, to understand, what effect would it have upon their relations, +slight and but lately established as they were? Would she shrink from +or encourage him? + +His wife! He wagged his head in solemn stupefaction, trying to +appreciate the intangible, the chimerical dream of yesterday resolved +into the actuality of to-day; realising that, even when most intrigued +by the adventure of which she was at once the cause and the prize, even +though he had met and been charmed by her before becoming enmeshed in +its web of incident, he had thought of her with a faint trace of +incredulity, as though she had been a thing of fable, trapped with all +the fanciful charms of beleaguered fairy princesses, rather than a +living woman of flesh and fire and blood--such as she proved to be who +rode with him, her thoughts drowsily astray in the vastnesses of her +inscrutable, virginal moods. + +To think that she was foreordained to be his wife was not more +unbelievable than the consciousness that he, her undeclared lover, her +predestined mate and protector, was listlessly permitting her to delve +further into the black heart of a land out of which he had promised to +convey her with all possible speed, for the salvation of her body and +soul.... Yet what could he do, save be passive for the time, and wait +upon the turn of events? He could not, dared not seize her in his arms +and insist that she love him, marry him, fly with him--all within the +compass of an hour or even of a day. For words of love came haltingly +to his unskilled tongue, though they came from a surcharged heart, and +to him the strategy of love was as a sealed book, at whose contents he +could but guess, and that with a diffidence and distrust sadly +handicapping to one who had urgent need of expedition in his courting. + +With a rueful smile and a perturbed heart he pondered his problem. The +second stage wore away without a dozen words passing between them; so +also the third. The pauses were brief enough, the ponies being +exchanged with gratifying despatch. The tonga would pull up, Ram Nath +would jump down ... and in a brace of minutes or little more the +vehicle would be _en route_ again, Amber engaged with the infinite +ramifications of this labyrinthal riddle of his, and the girl +insensibly yielding to the need of sleep. She passed, at length, into +sound unconsciousness. + +Thus the morning stages flowed beneath the tonga, personified in a +winding ribbon of roadway, narrow, deep-rutted, inexpressibly dusty, +lined uncertainly over a scrubby, sun-scorched waste. Sophia napped +uneasily by fits and starts, waking now and again with a sleepy smile +and a fragmentary, murmured apology. She roused finally very much +refreshed for the midday halt for rest and tiffin, which they passed at +one of the conventional bungalows, in nothing particularly unlike its +fellows unless it were that they enjoyed, before tiffin, the gorgeous +luxury of plenty of clean water, cooled in porous earthen jars. Amber, +overwhelmed by the discovery of this abundance, promptly went to the +extreme of calling in the khansamah to sluice him down with jar after +jar, and felt like himself for the first time in five days when, shaved +and dressed, he returned to the common living-room of the resthouse. + +The girl kept him waiting but a little while. Lacking the attentions of +an ayah she had probably been unable to bathe so extensively as he, but +eventually she appeared in an immeasurably more happy state of body and +mind, calling up to him the simile, stronger than any other, of a tall, +fair lily after a morning shower. And she was in a bewitching humour, +one that ingenuously enough succeeded in entangling him more thoroughly +than ever before in the web of her fascinations. Over an execrable +curry of stringy fowl and questionable rice, eked out with tea and +tinned delicacies of their own, their chatter, at the beginning +sufficiently gay and inconsequent, drifted by imperceptible and +unsuspected gradations perilously close to the shoals of intimacy. And +subsequently, when they had packed themselves back into the narrow +tonga-seat and again were being bounced and juggled breathlessly over +shocking roads, the exchange of confidences continued with unabated +interest. Amber on his part was led to talk of his life and work, of +his adventures in the name of Science, of his ambitions and +achievements. In return he received a vivid impression of the lives of +those women who share with their men the burden of official life in +British India: of serene days in the brisk, invigorating, clear +atmosphere of hill stations; of sunsmitten days and steaming nights in +the Deccan; of the uncertain, anchorless existences of those who know +not from one day to another when they may be whisked half across an +Empire at the whim of that awful force simply nominated Government.... + +For all the taint upon her pedigree, she proved herself to Amber at +heart a simple, lonely Englishwoman--a stranger in a sullen and +suspicious land, desiring nothing better than to return to the England +she had seen and learned to love, the England of ample lawns, of +box-hedges, and lanes, of travelled highways, pavements and gaslights, +of shops and theatres, of home and family ties.... + +But India she knew. "I sometimes fancy," she told him with the +conscious laugh that deprecates a confessed superstition, "that I must +have lived here in some past incarnation." She paused, but he did not +speak. "Do you believe in reincarnation?" Again he had no answer for +her, though temporarily he saw the daylight as darkness. "It's hard to +live here for long and resist belief in it.... But as a matter of fact +I seem to understand these people better than they're understood by +most of _my_ people. Don't you think it curious? Perhaps it's merely +intuition----" + +"That's the birthright of your sex," he said, rousing. "On the other +hand, you have to remember that your father is one of a family that for +generations has served the Empire. And your mother?" + +"She, too, came of an Anglo-Indian family. Indeed, they met and courted +here, though they were married in England.... So you think my insight +into native character a sort of birthright--a sense inherited?" + +"Perhaps--something of the sort." + +"You may be right. We'll never know. At all events, I seem to have a +more--more painful comprehension of the native than most of the English +in this country have; I seem to feel, to sense their motives, their +desires, aspirations, even sometimes their untranslatable thoughts. I +believe I understand perfectly their feeling toward us, the governing +race." + +"Then," said Amber, "you know something his Highness the Viceroy +himself would give his ears to be sure of." + +"I know that; but I do." + +"And that feeling is----?" + +"Not love, Mr. Amber." + +"Much to the contrary----?" + +"Very much," she affirmed with deep conviction. + +"This 'Indian unrest' one reads of in the papers is not mere gossip, +then?" + +"Anything but that; it's the hidden fire stirring within the volcano we +told ourselves was dead. The quiet of the last fifty years has been not +content but slumber; deep down there has always been the fire, slow, +deadly, smouldering beneath the ashes. The Mutiny still lives in +spirit; some day it will break out afresh. You must believe me--I +_know_. The more we English give our lives to educate the natives, the +further we spread the propaganda of discontent; day by day we're +teaching them to understand that we are no better than they, no more +fit to rule; they are beginning to look up and to see over the rim of +the world--and we have opened their eyes. They have learned that +Japanese can defeat Caucasians, that China turns in its sleep, that +England is no more omnipotent than omniscient. They've heard of anarchy +and socialism and have learned to throw bombs. Only the other day a +justice in Bengal was killed by a bomb.... I fancy I talk," the girl +broke off with her clear laugh, "precisely like my father, who talks +precisely as a political pamphleteer writes. You'll see when you meet +him." + +"Do you take much interest in politics?" + +"No more than the every-day Englishwoman; it's one of our staples of +conversation, when we've exhausted the weather, you know. But I'm not +in the least advanced, if that's what you mean; I hunger after +fashion-papers and spend more time than I ought, devouring home-made +trash imported in paper-covers. I only feel what I feel by instinct--as +I said awhile ago." + +Perhaps if he had known less about the girl, he would have attached +less importance to her statements. As it was, she impressed him +profoundly. He pondered her words deeply, storing them in his memory, +remembering that another had spoken in the same manner--one for whose +insight into the ways of the native he had intense respect. + +As the slow afternoon dragged out its blazing hours, their spirits +languished, and they fell silent, full weary and listless. Towards the +last quarter of the journey their road forsook the spacious, haggard +plain and again entered a hilly country, but this time one wherein +there was no lack either of water or of life: a green and fertile land +parcelled into farms and dotted with villages. + +Night overtook the tonga when it was close upon Kuttarpur, swooping +down upon the world like a blanket of darkness, at the moment that the +final relay of ponies was being hitched in. The sun dipped behind the +encircling hills; the west blazed with the lambent flame of fire-opal; +the wonderful translucent blue of the sky shaded suddenly to deep +purple lanced by great shafts of mauve and amethyst light, and in the +east stars popped out; the hills shone like huge, crude gems--sapphire, +jade, jasper, malachite, chalcedony--their valleys swimming with mists +of mother-of-pearl.... And it was night, the hills dark and still, the +sky a deeper purple and opaque, the ruddy fires of wayfarers on the +roadside leaping clear and bright. + +With fresh ponies the tonga took the road with a wild initial rush soon +to be moderated, when it began to climb the last steep grade to the +pass that gives access to Kuttarpur from the south. For an hour the +road toiled up and ever upward; steep cliffs of rock crowded it, +threatening to push it over into black abysses, or to choke it off +between towering, formidable walls. It swerved suddenly into a broad, +clear space. The tonga paused. Voluntarily Ram Nath spoke for almost +the first time since morning. + +"Kuttarpur," he said, with a wave of his whip. + +Aloof, austere and haughty, the City of Swords sits in the mouth of a +ravine so narrow that a wall no more than a hundred yards in length is +sufficient to seal its southerly approach. Beneath this wall, to one +side of the city gate, a river flows from the lake that is Kuttarpur's +chiefest beauty. Within, a multitude of dwellings huddles, all +interpenetrated by streets and backways so straitened and sinuous as +scarcely to permit the passage of an elephant from the Maharana's herd; +congested in the bottom of the valley, the houses climb tier upon tier +the flanking hillsides, until their topmost roofs threaten even the +supremacy of that miracle in white marble, the Raj Mahal. + +Northwards the palace of Khandawar's kings stands, exquisite, rare, and +marvellous, unlike any other building in the world. White, all white, +from the lake that washes its lowest walls to the crenellated rim of +its highest roof, it sweeps upward in breath-taking steps and wide +terraces to the crest of the western hill, into which it burrows, from +which it springs; a vast enigma propounded in white marble without a +note of colour save where the foliage of a hidden garden peeps over the +edge of a jealous screen--a hundred imposing mansions merged into one +monstrous and imperial maze. + +Impregnable in the old days, before cannon were brought to India, +Kuttarpur lives to-day remote, unfriendly, inhospitable. Within its +walls there is no room for many visitors; they who come in numbers, +therefore, must perforce camp down before the gates. + +Now figure the city to yourself, seeing it as Sophia was later to see +it in the light of day; then drench it with blue Indian night and stud +it with a myriad eyes of fire--lamps, torches, candles, blue-white +electric arcs, lights running up and down both hillsides and fringing +the very star-sheeted skies, clustering and diverging in vast, +bewildering, inconsequent designs, picking out the walls and main +thoroughfares, shining through coloured globes upon the palace +terraces, glimmering mysteriously from isolate windows and balconies; +and add to these the softly illuminated walls of a hundred silken state +marquees and a thousand meaner canvas tents arrayed south of the +city.... And that is Kuttarpur as it first revealed itself to Amber and +Sophia Farrell. + +But for a moment were they permitted to gaze in wonderment; Ram Nath +had little patience. When he chose to, he applied his whip, and the +ponies stretched out, the tonga plunging on their heels down the steep +hillside, like an ungoverned, ungovernable thing, maddened. Within a +quarter of an hour they were careering through the city of tents on the +parked plain before the southern wall. In five minutes more they drew +up at the main city gate to parley with the Quarter Guard. + +Here they suffered an exasperating delay. It appeared that the gates +were shut at sundown, in deference to custom immemorial. Between that +hour and sunrise none were permitted to pass either in or out without +the express sanction of the State. The commander of the guard +instituted an impudent catechism, in response to which Ram Nath +discovered the several identities and estates of his charges. The +commander received the information with impartial equanimity and +retired within the city to confer with his superiors. After some time a +trooper was sent to advise the travellers that the tonga would be +permitted to enter with the understanding that the unaccredited +Englishman (meaning Amber) would consent to lodge for the night in no +other spot than the State rest-house beyond the northern limits of the +city. + +Amber agreed. The trooper saluted with much deference and withdrew. And +for a long time nothing happened; the gates remained shut, the postern +of the Quarter Guard irresponsive to Ram Nath's repeated summons. His +passengers endured with what patience they could command; they were +aware that it was necessary to obtain from some quarter official +sanction for the opening of the gates, but they had understood that it +had already been obtained. + +Abruptly the peace of the night was shattered, and the hum of the +encampment behind them with the roar of the city before them was +dwarfed, by a dull and thunderous detonation of cannon from a terrace +of the palace. The tonga ponies, reared and plunged, Ram Nath mastering +them with much difficulty. Sophia was startled, and Amber himself +stirred uneasily on his perch. + +"What now?" he grumbled. "You'd think we were visitors of state and had +to be durbarred!" + +Far up on the heights a second red flame stabbed the night, and again +the thunder pealed. Thereafter gun after gun bellowed at imperative, +stately intervals. + +"Fifteen," Amber announced after a time. "Isn't this something +extraordinary, Miss Farrell?" + +"Perhaps," she suggested, "there's a native potentate arriving at the +northern gate. They're very punctilious about their salutes, you know." + +Another crash silenced her. Amber continued to count. "Twenty-one," he +said when it seemed that there was to be no more cannonading. "Isn't +that a royal salute?" + +"Yes," said the girl; "four more guns than the Maharana of Khandawar +himself is entitled to." + +"How do you explain it?" + +"I don't," she replied simply. "Can you?" + +He was dumb. Could it be possible that this imperial greeting was +intended for the man supposed to be the Maharana of Khandawar--Har Dyal +Rutton? He glanced sharply at the girl, but her face was shadowed; and +he believed she suspected nothing. + +A great hush had fallen, replacing the rolling thunder of the State +ordnance. Even the voice of the city seemed moderate, subdued. In +silence the massive gates studded with sharp-toothed elephant-spikes +swung open. + +With a grunt, Ram Nath cracked his whiplash and the tonga sped into the +city. Amber bent forward. + +"What's the name of that gate, Ram Nath--if you happen to know?" + +"That," said the tonga-wallah in a level voice, "is known as the +Gateway of Swords, sahib." He added in his own good time: "But not +_the_ Gateway of Swords." + +Amber failed to educe from him any satisfactory explanation of this +orphic utterance. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE PHOTOGRAPH + + +That same night Amber dined at the Residency, on the invitation of +Raikes, the local representative of Government, seconded by the +insistence of Colonel Farrell. It developed that Sophia's telegram had +somehow been lost in transit, and Farrell's surprise and pleasure at +sight of her were tempered only by his keen appreciation of Amber's +adventitious services, slight though they had been. He was urged to +stay the evening out, before proceeding to his designated quarters, and +the reluctance with which he acceded to this arrangement which worked +so happily with his desires, may be imagined. + +Their arrival coincided with the dinner-hour; the meal was held half an +hour to permit them to dress. Raikes put a room at Amber's disposal, +and the Virginian contrived to bathe and get into his evening clothes +within less time than had been allowed him. Sophia, contrary to the +habit of her sex, was little tardier. At thirty minutes past eight they +sat down to dine, at a table in the garden of the Residency. + +Ease of anxiety was more than food and drink to Amber; his feeling of +relief, to have convoyed Sophia to the company and protection of +Anglo-Saxons like himself, was intense. Yet he swallowed his +preliminary brandy-peg in a distinctly uncomfortable frame of mind, +strangely troubled by the reflection that round that lone white table +was gathered together the known white population of the State; a census +of which accounted for just five souls. + +In the encompassing, exotic gloom of that blue Indian night--the kind +of night that never seems friendly to the Occidental but forever teems +with hints of tragic mystery--the cloth, lighted by shaded candles, +shone as immaculate and lustrous as an island of snow in a sea of +ink--as a good deed in a naughty world. Its punctilious array of +crystal and silver was no more foreign to the setting than were the men +who sat round it, stiff in that black-and-white armour of civilisation, +impregnable against the insidious ease of the East, in which your +expatriate Englishman nightly encases himself wherever he may be, as +loath to forego the ceremony of "dressing for dinner" as he would be to +dispense with letters from Home. + +Raikes presided, a heavy man with the flaming red face of one who +constitutionally is unable to tan; of middle-age, good-natured, mellow, +adroit of manner. On his one hand sat Amber, over across from Sophia. +Next to Amber sat Farrell, tall and lean, sad of eye and slow of +speech, his sun-faded hair and moustache streaked with grey setting off +a dark complexion and thin, fine features. He wore the habit of +authority equally with the irascibility of one who temporizes with his +liver. Opposite him was a young, mild-eyed missionary, too new in the +land to have lost his illusions or have blunted the keen edge of his +enthusiasms; a colourless person with a finical way of handling his +knife and fork, who darted continually shy, sidelong glances at Sophia, +or interpolated eager, undigested comments, nervously into the +conversation. + +The table-talk was inconsequent; Amber took a courteous and easy part +in it without feeling that any strain was being put upon his +intelligence. His attention was centred upon the woman who faced him, +flushed with gaiety and pleasure, not alone because she was once more +with her father, but also because she unexpectedly was looking her +best. If she had been well suited in her tidy pongee travelling +costume, she found her evening gown no less becoming. It was a black +affair, very simple and individual; her shoulders rose from it with +intensified purity of tone, like fair white ivory gleaming with a +suggestion of the sleek sheen of satin; their strong, clean lines +rounded bewitchingly into the fair, slender neck upholding the young +head with its deftly coiffed crown of bronze and gold.... + +Tall, well-trained, silent servants moved like white-robed wraiths +behind the guests; the dishes of the many courses disappeared and were +replaced in a twinkling, as if by slight of hand. They were over +plentiful; Amber was relieved when at length the meal was over, and +Miss Farrell having withdrawn in conformance with inviolable custom, +the cloth was deftly whisked away and cigars, cigarettes, liqueurs, +whiskey and soda were served. + +Amber took unto himself a cigar and utilised an observation of the +Political's as a lever to swing the conversation to a plane more likely +to inform him. Farrell had grumbled about the exactions of his position +as particularly instanced by the necessity of his attending tedious and +tiresome native ceremonies in connection with the _tamasha_. + +"What's, precisely, the nature of this _tamasha_, Colonel Farrell?" + +"Why, my dear young man, I thought you knew. Isn't it what you came to +see?" + +"No," Amber admitted cautiously; "I merely heard a rumour that there +was something uncommon afoot. Is it really anything worth while?" + +"Rather," Raikes interjected drily; "the present ruler's abdicating in +favour of his son, a child of twelve. That puts the business in a class +by itself." + +"There's been one precedent, hasn't there?" said the missionary, +pretending to be at ease with a cigarette. "The Holkar of Indore?" + +"Yes," agreed Farrell; "a similar case, to be sure." + +"But why should a prince hand over the reins of government to a child +of twelve? There must be some reason for it. Isn't it known?" asked +Amber. + +"Who can fathom a Hindu's mind?" grunted Farrell. "I daresay there's +some scandalous native intrigue at the bottom of it. Eh, Raikes?" + +The Resident shook his head. "Don't come to this shop for information +about what goes on in Khandawar. I doubt if there's another Resident in +India who knows as little of the underhand devilment in his State as I +do. His Majesty the Rana loves me as a cheetah loves his trainer. He's +an intractable rascal." + +"They grease the wheels of the independent native States with +intrigue," Farrell explained. "I know from sore experience. And your +Rajput is the deepest of the lot. I don't envy Raikes, here." + +"The man who can guess what a Rajput intends to do next is entitled to +give himself a deal of credit," commented the Resident, with a short +laugh. + +"I've travelled a bit," continued Farrell, "and have seen something of +the courts of Europe, but I've yet to meet a diplomat who's peer to the +Rajput. You hear a great deal about the astuteness of the Russians and +the yellow races, and a Greek or Turk can lie with a fairly straight +face when he sees a profit in deception, but none of them is to be +classed with these people. If we English ever decide to let India rule +herself, her diplomatic corps will be recruited exclusively from the +flower of Rajputana's chivalry." + +"I'll back Salig Singh against the field," said Raikes grimly; "he'll +be dean of the corps, when that time comes. He'd rather conspire than +fight, and the Rajputs--of course you know--are a warrior caste. I've a +notion"--the Resident leaned back and searched the shadows for an +eavesdropper--"I've a notion," he continued, lowering his voice, "that +the Rana has got himself in rather deep in some rascality or other, and +wants to get out before he's put out. There's bazaar gossip.... Hmm! Do +you speak French, Mr. Amber?" + +"A little," said Amber in that tongue. "And I," nodded the missionary. +The talk continued in the language of diplomacy. + +"Bazaar gossip----?" Farrell repeated enquiringly. + +"There have been a number of deaths from cholera in the Palace lately, +the grand vizier's amongst them." + +"White arsenic cholera?" + +"That, and the hemp poison kind." + +"Refractory vizier?" questioned Farrell. "The kind that wants to +retrench and institute reforms--railways and metalled roads and so +forth?" + +"No; he was quite suited to his master. But the bazaar says Naraini +took a dislike to him for one reason or another." + +"Naraini?" queried Amber. + +"The genius of the place." Raikes nodded toward the Raj Mahal, shining +like a pearl through the darkness on the hill-side over against the +Residency. "She's Salig's head queen. At least that's about as near to +her status as one can get. She's not actually his queen, but some sort +of a heritage from the Rutton dynasty--I hardly know what or why. Salig +never married her, but she lives in the Palace, and for several +years--ever since she first began to be talked about--she's ruled from +behind the screen with a high hand and an out-stretched arm. So the +bazaar says." + +"I've heard she was beautiful," Farrell observed. + +"As beautiful as a peri, according to rumour. You never can tell; very +likely she's a withered old hag; nine out of ten native women are, by +the time they're thirty." Raikes jerked the glowing end of his cigar +into the shrubbery and reverted to English. "Shall we join Miss +Farrell?" + +They arose and left the table to the servants, the Resident with Amber +following Farrell and young Clarkson. + +"Old women we are, forever talking scandal," said Raikes, with a +chuckle. "Oh, well! it's shop with us, you know." + +"Of course.... Then I understand that the _tamasha_ is the reason for +the encampment beyond the walls?" + +"Yes; they've been coming in for a week. By to-morrow night, I daresay, +every rajah, prince, thakur, baron, fief, and lord in Rajputana, each +with his 'tail,' horse and foot, will be camped down before the walls +of Kuttarpur. You've chosen an interesting time for your visit. It'll +be a sight worth seeing, when they begin to make a show. My troubles +begin with a State banquet to-morrow that I'd give much to miss; +however, I'll have Farrell for company." + +"I'm glad to be here," said Amber thoughtfully. Could it be possible +that the proposed abdication of Salig Singh in favour of his son were +merely a cloak to a conspiracy to restore to power the house of Rutton? +Or had the _tamasha_ been arranged in order to gather together all the +rulers in Rajputana without exciting suspicion, that they might agree +upon a concerted plan of mutiny against the Sirkar? This state affair +of surpassing importance had been arranged for the last day of grace +allotted the Prince of the house of Rutton. What had it to do with the +Gateway of Swords, the Voice, the Mind, the Eye, the Body, the Bell? + +"By the way, Mr. Raikes," said the Virginian suddenly, "what do they +call the gate by which we entered the city--the southern gate?" + +"The Gateway of Swords, I believe." + +Farrell, on the point of entering the house, overheard and turned. "Is +that so? Why, I thought _that_ gateway was in Kathiapur." + +"I've heard of a Gateway of Swords in Kathiapur," Raikes admitted. +"Never been there, myself." + +"Kathiapur?" + +"A dead city, Mr. Amber, not far away--originally the capital of +Khandawar. It's over there in the hills to the north, somewhere. Old +Rao Rutton, founder of the old dynasty, got tired of the place and +caused it to be depopulated, building Kuttarpur in its stead--I +believe, to commemorate some victory or other. That sort of thing used +to be quite the fashion in India, before we came." Raikes fell back, +giving Amber precedence as they entered the Residency. "By the way, +remind me, if you think of it, Colonel Farrell, to get after the +telegraph-clerk to-morrow. There's a new man in charge--a Bengali +babu--and I presume he's about as worthless as the run of his kind." + +Amber made a careful note of this information; he was curious about +that babu. + +In the drawing-room Raikes and Farrell impressed Clarkson for +three-handed Bridge. Sophia did not care to play and Amber was ignorant +of the game--a defect in his social education which he found no cause +to regret, since it left him in undisputed attendance upon the girl. + +She had seated herself at a warped and discouraged piano, for which +Raikes had already apologised; it was, he said, a legacy from a former +Resident. For years its yellow keys had not known a woman's touch such +as that to which they now responded with thin, cracked voices; the +girl's fine, slender fingers wrung from them a plaintive, pathetic +parody of melody. Amber stood over her with his arms folded on the top +of the instrument, comfortably unconscious that his pose was copied +from any number of sentimental photogravures and "art photographs." His +temper was sentimental enough, for that matter; the woman was very +sweet and beautiful in his eyes as she sat with her white, round arms +flashing over the keyboard, her head bowed and her face a little +averted, the long lashes low upon her cheeks and tremulous with a +fathomless emotion. It was his thought that his time was momentarily +becoming shorter, and that just now, more than ever, she was very +distant from his arms, something inaccessible, too rare and delicate +and fine for the rude possession of him who sighed for his own +unworthiness. + +Abruptly she brought both hands down upon the keys, educing a jangled, +startled crash from the tortured wires, and swinging round, glanced up +at Amber with quaint mirth trembling behind the veil of moisture in her +misty eyes. + +"India!" she cried, with a broken laugh: "India epitomised: a homesick, +exiled woman trying to drag a song of Home from the broken heart of a +crippled piano! That is an Englishwoman's India: it's our life, ever to +strive and struggle and contrive to piece together out of makeshift +odds and ends the atmosphere of Home!... It's suffocating in here. +Come." She rose with a quick shrug of impatience, and led the way back +to the gardens. + +The table had been removed together with the chairs and candles; +nothing remained to remind them of the hour just gone. The walks were +clear of servants. Their only light came from the high arch of stars +smitten to its zenith with pale, quivering waves of light from the moon +invisible behind the hills. Below them the city hummed like a disturbed +beehive. Somewhere afar a gentle hand was sweeping the strings of a +_zitar_, sounding weird, sad chords. The perfumed languor of the night +weighed heavily upon the senses, like the woven witchery of some +age-old enchantment.... + +Pensive, the girl trained her long skirts heedlessly over the +dew-drenched grasses, Amber at her side, himself speechless with an +intangible, ineluctable, unreasoning sense of expectancy. Never, he +told himself, had a lover's hour been more auspiciously timed or +staged; and this was his hour, altogether his!... If only he might find +the words of wooing to which his lips were strange! He dared not delay; +to-morrow it might be too late; in the womb of the morrow a world of +chances stirred--contingencies that might in a breath set them a world +apart. + +They found seats in the shadow of a pepul. + +"You must be tired, Mr. Amber," she said. "Why don't you smoke?" + +"I hadn't thought of it, and hadn't asked permission." + +"Please do. I like it." + +He found his cigarette-case and struck a match, Sophia watching +intently his face in the rosy glow of the little, flickering flame. + +"Are you in the habit of indulging in protracted silences?" she rallied +him gently. "Between friends of old standing they're permissible, I +believe, but----" + +"A day's journey by tonga matures acquaintanceships wonderfully," he +observed abstrusely. + +"Indeed?" She laughed. + +"At least, I hope so." + +He felt that he must be making progress; thus far he had been no less +inane than any average lover of the stage or fiction. And he wondered: +was she laughing at him, softly, there in the shadows? + +"You see," she said, amused at his relapse into reverie, "you're +incurable and ungrateful. I'm trying my best to be attractive and +interesting, and you won't pay me any attention whatever. There must be +something on your mind. Is it this mysterious errand that brings you so +unexpectedly to India--to Kuttarpur, Mr. Amber?" + +"Yes," he answered truthfully. + +"And you won't tell me?" + +"I think I must," he said, bending forward. + +There sounded a stealthy rustling in the shrubbery. The girl drew away +and rose with a startled exclamation. With a bound, a man in native +dress sped from the shadows and paused before them, panting. + +Amber jumped up, overturning his chair, and instinctively feeling for +the pistol that was with his travelling things, upstairs in the +Residency. + +The native reassured him with a swift, obsequious gesture. "Pardon, +sahib, and yours, sahiba, if I have alarmed you, but I am come on an +errand of haste, seeking him who is known as the Sahib David Amber." + +"I am he. What do you want with me?" + +"It is only this, that I have been commissioned to bear to you, sahib." + +The man fumbled hurriedly in the folds of his surtout, darting quick +glances of apprehension round the garden. Amber looked him over as +closely as he could in the dim light, but found him wholly a +stranger--merely a low-caste Hindu, counterpart of a million others to +be encountered daily in the highways and bazaars of India. The +Virginian's rising hope that he might prove to be Labertouche failed +for want of encouragement; the intruder was of a stature the Englishman +could by no means have counterfeited. + +"From whom come you?" he demanded in the vernacular. + +"Nay, a name that is unspoken harms none, sahib." The native produced a +small, thin, flat package and thrust it into Amber's hands. "With +permission, I go, sahib; it were unwise to linger----" + +"There is no answer?" + +"None, sahib." The man salaamed and strode away, seeming to melt +soundlessly into the foliage. + +For a minute Amber remained astare. The girl's voice alone roused him. + +"I think you are a very interesting person, Mr. Amber," she said, +resuming her chair. + +"Well!... _I_ begin to think this a most uncommonly interesting +country." He laughed uncertainly, turning the package over and over. +"Upon my word----! I haven't the least notion what this can be!" + +"Why not bring it to the light, and find out?" + +He assented meekly, having been perfectly candid in his assertion that +he had no suspicion of what the packet might contain, and a moment +later they stood beneath the window of the Residency, from which a +broad shaft of light streamed out like vaporised gold. + +Amber held the packet to the light; it was oblong, thin, stiff, covered +with common paper, guiltless of superscription, and sealed with +mucilage. He tore the covering, withdrew the enclosure, and heard the +girl gasp with surprise. For himself, he was transfixed with +consternation. His look wavered in dismay between the girl and the +photograph in his hand--_her_ photograph, which had been stolen from +him aboard the _Poonah_. + +She extended her hand imperiously. "Give that to me, please, Mr. +Amber," she insisted. He surrendered it without a word. "Mr. Amber!" +she cried in a voice that quivered with wonder and resentment. + +He faced her with a hang-dog air, feeling that now indeed had his case +been made hopeless by this contretemps. "Confound Labertouche!" he +cried in his ungrateful heart. "Confound his meddling mystery-mongering +and hokus-pokus!" + +"Well?" enquired the girl sharply. + +"Yes, Miss Farrell." He could invent nothing else to say. + +"You--you are going to explain, I presume." + +He shook his head in despair. "No-o...." + +"What!" + +"I've no explanation whatever to make--that'd be adequate, I mean." + +He saw that she was shaken by impatience. "I think," said she +evenly--"I think you will find it best to let me judge of that. This is +my photograph. How do you come to have it? What right have you to it?" + +"I ... ah...." He stammered and paused, acutely conscious of the voices +of the Englishmen, Farrell, Raikes, and young Clarkson, drifting out +through the open window of the drawing-room. "If you'll be kind enough +to return to our chairs," he said, "I'll try to make a satisfactory +explanation. I'd rather not be overheard." + +The girl doubted, was strongly inclined to refuse him; then, perhaps +moved to compassion by his abject attitude, she relented and agreed. +"Very well," she said, and retaining the picture moved swiftly before +him into the shadowed garden. He lagged after her, inventing a hundred +impracticable yarns. She found her chair and sat down with a manner of +hauteur moderated by expectancy. He took his place beside her. + +"Who sent you this photograph of me?" she began to cross-examine him. + +"A friend." + +"His name?" + +"I'm sorry I can't tell you just now." + +"Oh!... Why did he send it?" + +"Because...." In his desperation it occurred to him to tell the +truth--as much of it, at least, as his word to Rutton would permit. +"Because it's mine. My friend knew I had lost it." + +"How could it have been yours? It was taken in London a year ago. I +sent copies only to personal friends who, I know, would not give them +away." She thought it over and added: "The Quains had no copy; it's +quite impossible that one should have got to America." + +"None the less," he maintained stubbornly, "it's mine, and I got it in +America." + +"I can hardly be expected to believe that." + +"I'm sorry." + +"You persist in saying that you got it in America?" + +"I must." + +"When?" + +"After you left the Quains." + +"How?" she propounded triumphantly. + +"I can't tell you, except vaguely. If you'll be content with the +substance of the story, lacking details, for the present----" + +"For the present? You mean you'll tell me the whole truth--?" + +"Sometime, yes. But now, I may not.... A dear friend of mine owned the +photograph. He gave it me at my request. I came to India, and on the +steamer lost it; in spite of my offer of a reward, I was obliged to +leave the boat without it, when we got to Calcutta. My friend here knew +how highly I valued it----" + +"Why?" + +"Because I'd told him." + +"I don't mean that. Why do you value it so highly?" + +"Because of its original." He took heart of despair and plunged boldly. + +She looked him over calmly. "Do you mean me to understand that you told +this friend you had followed me to India because you were in love with +me?" + +"Precisely.... Thank you." + +She laughed a little, mockingly. "Are you, Mr. Amber?" + +"In love with you?... Yes." + +"Oh!" She maintained her impartial and judicial attitude admirably. +"But even were I inclined to believe that, your whole story is +discredited by the simple fact that through no combination of +circumstances could this picture have come into your possession in +America." + +"I give you my word of honor, Miss Farrell." + +"I wish you wouldn't. If you are perfectly sincere in asserting that, +you force me to think you----" + +"Mad? I'm not, really," he argued earnestly. "It's quite true." + +"No." She shook her head positively. "You say you obtained it from a +man, which can't be so. There were only a dozen prints made; four I +gave to women friends in England and seven I sent to people out here. +The other one I have." + +"I can only repeat what I have already told you. There are gaps in the +story, I know--incredible gaps; they can't be bridged, just now. I beg +you to believe me." + +"And how soon will you be free to tell me the whole truth?" + +"Only after ... we're married." + +She laughed adorably. "Mr. Amber," she protested, "you are +dangerous--you are delightful! Do you really believe I shall ever marry +you?" + +"I hope so. I came to India to ask you--to use every means in my power +to make you marry me. You see, I love you." + +"And ... and when is this to happen, please--in the name of impudence?" + +"As soon as I can persuade you--to-night, if you will." + +"Oh!" + +He was obliged to laugh with her at the absurdity of the suggestion. +"Or to-morrow morning, at the very latest," he amended seriously. "I +don't think we dare wait longer." + +"Why is that?" + +"Delays are perilous. There might be another chap." + +"How can you be sure there isn't already?" + +He fell sober enough at this. "But there isn't, is there, really?" + +She delayed her reply provokingly. At length, "I don't see why I should +say," she observed, "but I don't mind telling you--no, there +isn't--yet." And as she spoke, Farrell called "Sophia?" from the window +of the drawing-room. She stood up, answering clearly with the assurance +that she was coming, and began deliberately to move toward the house. + +Amber followed, deeply anxious. "I've not offended you?" + +"No," she told him gravely, "but you have both puzzled and mystified +me. I shall have to sleep on this before I can make up my mind whether +or not to be offended." + +"And ... will you marry me?" + +"Oh, dear! How do I know?" she laughed. + +"You won't give me a hint as to the complexion of my chances?" + +She paused, turning. "The chances, Mr. Amber," she said without +affection or coquetry, "are all in your favour ... _if_ you can prove +your case. I do like you very much, and you have been successful in +rousing my interest in you to an astonishing degree.... But I shall +have to think it over; you must allow me at least twelve hours' grace." + +"You'll let me know to-morrow morning?" + +"Yes." + +"Early?" + +"You've already been bidden to breakfast by Mr. Raikes." + +"Meanwhile, may I have my photograph?" + +"Mine, if you please!... I think not; if my decision is favourable, you +shall have it back--after breakfast." + +"Thank you," he said meekly. And as they were entering the Residency he +hung back. "I'm going now," he said; "it's good-night. Will you +remember you've not refused me the privilege of hoping?" + +"I've told you I like you, Mr. Amber." Impulsively she extended her +hand. "Good-night." + +He bowed and put his lips to it; and she did not resist. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +OVER THE WATER + + +Ram Nath, patient and impassive as ever, had the tonga waiting for +Amber before the Residency. Exalted beyond words, the American +permitted himself to be driven off through Kuttarpur's intricate +network of streets and backways, toward a destination of which he knew +as little as he cared. He was a guest of the State, officially +domiciled at the designated house of hospitality; without especial +permission, obtained through the efforts of the Resident, he could +sleep in no other spot in the city or its purlieus. He was indifferent, +absolutely; the matter interested him as scantily--which is to say not +at all--as did the fact that an escort of troopers of the State, very +well accoutred and disciplined, followed the tonga with a great +jangling of steel and tumult of hoofs. + +He was in that condition of semi-daze which is the not extraordinary +portion of a declared lover revelling in the memory of his mistress's +eyes, whose parting look has not been unkind. Upon that glance of +secret understanding, signalled to him from eyes as brown as beautiful, +he was building him a palace of dreams so strange, so sweet, that the +mere contemplation of its unsubstantial loveliness filled him with an +exquisite agony of hope, a poignant ecstasy of despair. It was too much +to hope for, that she should smile upon him in the morning.... Yet he +hoped. + +Unconscious of the passage of time, he was roused only by the pausing +of the tonga and its escort before the Gateway of the Elephants--the +main octroi gate in the northern wall of the city. There ensued a brief +interchange of formalities between the sergeant of his escort and the +captain of the Quarter Guard. Then the tonga was permitted to pass out, +and for five minutes rattled and clattered along the border of the +lake, stopping finally at the rest-house. + +Alighting in the compound, Amber disbursed a few rupees to the +troopers, paid off Ram Nath--who was swift to drive off city-wards, in +mad haste lest the gates be shut upon him for the night--and entered +the bungalow. An aged, talkative, and amiable khansamah met him at the +threshold with expressions of exaggerated respect, no doubt genuine +enough, and followed him, a mumbling shadow, as the Virginian made a +brief round of inspection. + +Standing between the road and the water, the rest-house proved to be +moderately spacious and clean; on the lake-front it opened upon a +marble bund, or landing-stage, its lip lapped by whispering ripples of +the lake. Amber went out upon this to discover, separated from him by +little more than half a mile of black water, the ghostly white walls of +the Raj Mahal climbing in dim majesty to the stars. A single line of +white lights outlined the topmost parapet; at the water's edge a single +marble entrance was aglow; between the two, towers and terraces, +hanging gardens and white scarp-like walls rose in darkened confusion +unimaginable--or, rather, fell like a cascade of architecture, down the +hillside to the lake. A dark hive teeming with the occult life of +unnumbered men and women--Salig Singh the inscrutable and strong, +Naraini the mysterious, whose loveliness lived a fable in the land, and +how many thousand others--living and dying, working and idling, in joy +and sadness, in hatred and love, weaving forever that myriad-stranded +web of intrigue which is the life of native palaces ... + +The Virginian remained long in rapt wondering contemplation of it, +until the wind blowing across the waters had chilled him to the point +of shivering; when he turned indoors to his bed. But he was to have +little rest that night. The khansamah who attended him had hardly +turned low his light when Amber was disturbed by the noise of an angry +altercation in the compound. He arose and in dressing-gown and slippers +went to investigate, and found Ram Nath in violent dispute with the +sergeant of the escort--which, it appeared, had builded a fire and +camped round it in the compound: a circumstance which furnished food +for thought. + +Amber began to suspect that the troops had been furnished as a guard +less of honour than of espionage, less in formal courtesy than in +demonstration of the unsleeping vigilance of the Eye--kindly assisted +by the Maharana of Khandawar. + +A man who, warmed by the ardour of his first love, feels suddenly the +shadow of death falling cold upon him, is apt to neglect nothing. Amber +considered that he had given Ram Nath no commission of any sort, and +bent an attentive ear to the communication which the tonga-wallah +insisted upon making to him. + +Ram Nath had returned, he asserted, solely for the purpose of informing +Amber in accordance with his desires. "The telegraph-office for which +you enquired, sahib, stands just within the Gateway of the Elephants," +he announced. "The telegraph-babu will be on duty very early in the +morning, should you desire still to send the message." + +"Oh, yes," said Amber indifferently. "I'd forgotten. Thanks." + +He returned to his charpoy with spirits considerably higher. Ram Nath +had not winked this time, but the fact was indisputable that Amber had +_not_ expressed any interest whatever in the location of the +telegraph-office. + +Wondering if the telegraph-babu by any chance wore pink satin, he dozed +off on the decision that he would need to send a message the first +thing in the morning. + +Some time later he was a second time awakened by further disputation in +the compound. The troopers were squabbling amongst themselves; he was +able to make this much out in spite of the fact that the sepoys, +recruited exclusively from the native population of Khandawar, spoke a +patois of Hindi so corrupt that even an expert in Oriental languages +would experience difficulty in trying to interpret it. Amber did not +weary himself with the task, but presently lifted up his voice and +demanded silence, desiring to be informed if his sleep was to be +continually broken by the bickerings of sons of mothers without noses. +There followed instantaneous silence, broken by a chuckle and an +applausive "Shabash!" and nothing more. + +Amber snuggled down again upon his pillow and soothed himself with the +feel of the pistol that his fingers grasped beneath the clothes. + +A bar of moonlight slipped through the blinds and fell athwart his +eyes. He cursed it bitterly and got up and moved his charpoy into +shadow. The sibilant lisping of the wavelets against the bund sang him +softly toward oblivion ... and a convention of water-fowl went into +stormy executive session out in the middle of the lake. This had to be +endured, and in time Amber's senses grew numb to the racket and he +dropped off into a fitful doze.... + +Footfalls and hushed voices in the bungalow were responsible for the +next interruption. Amber came to with a start and found himself sitting +up on the edge of the charpoy, with a dreamy impression that two people +had been standing over him and had just left the room, escaping by way +of the khansamah's quarters. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and went +out to remonstrate vigorously with the khansamah. The latter naturally +professed complete ignorance of the visitation and dwelt with such +insistence upon the plausibility of dreams that Amber lost patience and +kicked him grievously, so that he complained with a loud voice and cast +himself at the sahib's feet, declaring that he was but as the dust +beneath them and that Amber was his father and mother and the light of +the Universe besides. In short, he raised such a rumpus that some of +the sepoys came in to investigate and--went out again, hastily, to +testify to their fellows that the hazoor was a man of fluent wrath, +surprisingly versed in the art and practice of abuse. + +Somewhat mollified and reflecting, at the same time, that this was all +but a part of the game, to be expected by those who patronise +rest-houses off the beaten roads of travel, the Virginian returned to +his charpoy and immediately lapsed into a singularly disquieting +dream.... He was strolling by the border of the lake when a coot swam +in and hailed him in English; and when he stopped to look the coot +lifted an A.D.T. messenger-boy's cap and pleaded with him to sign his +name in a little black book, promising that, if he did so, it would be +free to doff its disguise and be Labertouche again. So Amber signed +"Pink Satin" in the book and the coot stood up and said, "I'm not +Labertouche at all, but Ram Nath, and Ram Nath is only another name for +Har Dyal Rutton, and besides you had better come away at once, for the +Eye thou dost wear upon thy finger never sleeps and it's only a paste +Token anyway." Hearing which, Amber caught the coot by the leg and +found that he had grasped the arm of Salig Singh, whose eyes were both +monstrous emeralds without any whites whatever. And Salig Singh tapped +him on the shoulder and began to say over and over again in a whisper... + +But here Amber another time found himself wide awake and sitting up, +his left hand gripping the wrist of a native and his right holding his +pistol steadily levelled at the native's breast. While the voice he +heard was real and no figment of a dream-mused imagination; for the man +was whispering earnestly and repeatedly: + +"_Hasten, hazoor, for the night doth wane and the hour is at hand_." + +"What deviltry's this?" Amber demanded sharply, with a threatening +gesture. + +But the native neither attempted to free himself nor to evade the +pistol's mouth. "Have patience, hazoor," he begged earnestly, "and make +no disturbance. It is late and the sepoys sleep; if you will be +circumspect and are not afraid--" + +"Who are you?" + +"I was to say, '_I come from you know whom_,' hazoor." + +"That all?" + +"In the matter of a certain photograph, hazoor." + +"By thunder!" Labertouche's name was on Amber's lips, but he repressed +it. "Wait a bit." He gulped down the last dregs of sleep. "Let me think +and--see." + +This last was an afterthought. As it came to him he dropped the pistol +by his side and felt for matches in the pocket of his coat, which hung +over the back of a bedside chair. Finding one, he struck it noiselessly +and, as the tiny flame broadened, drew his captive nearer. + +It was a fat, mean, wicked face that stood out against the darkness: an +ochre-tinted face with a wide, loose-lipped mouth and protruding eyes +that blinked nervously into his. But he had never seen it before. + +"Who are you?" He cast away the match as its flame died and snatched up +his weapon. + +"I was to say--" + +"I heard that once. What's your name?" + +"Dulla Dad, hazoor." + +"And who are you from?" + +"Hazoor, I was not to say." + +"I think you'd better," suggested Amber, with grim significance. + +"I am the hazoor's slave. I dare not say." + +"Now look here--" + +"Hazoor, it was charged upon me to say, _'I come from you know whom.'_" + +"The devil it was.... Well, what do you want?" + +"I was to say, '_Hasten, hazoor, for the night--_" + +"I've heard that, too. You mean you're to lead me to somebody, +somewhere--you can't say where?" + +"Aye, hazoor, even so." + +"Get over there, in the corner, while I think this over--and don't move +or I'll make you a present of a nice young bullet, Dulla Dad." + +"That is as Allah wills; only remember, hazoor, the injunction for +haste." + +The man, a small stunted Mohammedan, sidled fearsomely over to the spot +indicated and waited there, cringing and supplicating Amber with +eloquent gestures. The Virginian watched him closely until comforted by +the reflection that, had murder been the object, he had been a dead man +long since. Then he put aside the revolver and began to dress. + +"Only Labertouche would have to communicate with me by such stealth," +he considered. "Besides, that reference to the photograph--" + +He slipped hurriedly into his clothing and ostentatiously dropped the +pistol into his right-hand coat-pocket. "I'm ready," he told the man. +"Lead the way; and remember, if there's any treachery afoot, you'll be +the first to suffer for it, Dulla Dad." + +The Mohammedan bowed submissively. "Be it so, my lord," he said in +Hindi, and, moving noiselessly with unshod feet, glided through the +door which opened upon the bund, Amber close behind him. + +That it was indeed late was shown by the position of the moon; and the +sweet freshness of early morning was strong in the keen air. The wind +had failed and the lake stretched flawless from shore to shore, a sheet +of untarnished silver. Over against them the palace slept, or seemed to +sleep, in its miraculous beauty, glacier-like with its shining surfaces +and deep, purple-shadowed crevasses. There were few lights visible in +the city, and the quiet of it was notable; so likewise with the wards +outside the walls and the lakeside palaces and villas. Only in a +distant temple a drum was throbbing, throbbing. + +In the water at their feet a light boat was gently nosing the marble +bund. Dulla Dad, squatting, drew it broadside to the steps and motioned +Amber to enter. The Virginian boarded it gingerly, seating himself at +the stern. Dulla Dad dropped in forward and pushed off. The boat moved +out upon the bosom of the lake with scarce a sound, and the native, +grasping a double-bladed paddle, dipped it gently and sent the frail +craft flying onward with long, swift, and powerful strokes, guiding it +directly toward the walls of the Raj Mahal. + +Two-thirds of the way across the Virginian surrendered to his mistrust +and drew his pistol. "Dulla Dad," he said gently; and the man ceased +paddling with a shudder--"Dulla Dad, you're taking me to the palace." + +"Yea, hazoor; that is true," the native answered, his voice quavering. + +"Who awaits me there? Answer quickly!" + +"Hazoor, it is not wise to speak a name upon the water, where voices +travel far." + +"Dulla Dad!" + +"Hazoor, I may not say!" + +"I think, Dulla Dad, you'd better. If I lose patience--" + +"Upon my head be your safety, hazoor! See, you can fire, and thereafter +naught can trouble me. But I, with a single sweep of this paddle, can +overturn us. Be content, hazoor, for a little time; then shall you see +that naught of harm is intended. My life be forfeit if I speak not +truth, hazoor!" + +"You have said it," said Amber grimly, "Row on." After all, he +considered, it might still be Labertouche. At first blush it had seemed +hardly credible that the Englishman could have gained a footing in that +vast pile; and yet, it would be like him to seek precisely such a +spot--the very heart of the conspiracy of the Gateway, if they guessed +aright. + +The boat surged swiftly on, while again and again Amber's finger +trembled on the trigger. Though already the white gleaming walls +towered above him, it was not yet too late--not too late; but should he +withdraw, force Dulla Dad to return, he might miss ... what? He did +nothing save resign himself to the issue. As they drew nearer the +moonlit walls he looked in vain for sign of a landing-stage, and +wondered, the lighted bund that he had seen from over the water being +invisible to him round an angle of the building. But Dulla Dad held on +without a pause until the moment when it seemed that he intended to +dash the boat bows first against the stone; then, with a final dextrous +twist of the paddle, he swung at a sharp angle and simultaneously +checked the speed. Under scant momentum they slid from moonlight and +the clean air of night into a close well between two walls, and then +suddenly beneath an arch and into a cavernous chamber filled with the +soft murmuring of water--and with darkness. + +Here the air was sluggish and heavy and dank with the odour of slime. +Breathing it, seeing nothing save the spectral gleam of moonlight +reflected inwards, hearing nothing save the uncanny lapping and purring +of the ripples, it was not easy to forget the tales men told of palace +corruption and crime--of lovers who had stolen thus secretly to meet +their mistresses, and who had met, instead, Death; of assassins who had +skulked by such stealthy ways to earn blood-money; of spies, of a +treacherous legion who had gained entry to the palace by such ways as +this--perhaps had accomplished their intent and returned to tell the +tale, perhaps had been found in the dawn-light, floating out there on +the lake with drawn, wan faces upturned to the pallid skies.... + +"Hazoor!" + +It was Dulla Dad's voice, sleek with fawning. For all the repulsiveness +of the accents, Amber was not sorry to hear them. At least the native +was human and ... this experience wasn't, hardly.... He leaned toward +the man, eyes aching with the futile strain of striving to penetrate +the blackness. He could see nothing more definite than shadows. The +boat was resting motionless on the tide, as if suspended in an abyss of +night, fathomless and empty. + +"Well, what now?" he demanded harshly. "Be careful, Dulla Dad!" + +"Still my lord distrusts me? There is naught to fear, none here to lift +hand against you. Your servant lives but to serve you in all loyalty." + +"Indeed?" + +"My lord may trust me." + +"It seems to me I have--too far." + +"My lord will not forget?" + +"Be sure of that, Dulla Dad.... Well, what are you waiting for?" + +"We are arrived, hazoor," said the native calmly. "If you will be +pleased to step ashore, having care lest you overturn the boat, the +steps are on your left." + +"Where?... Oh!" Amber's tentative hand, groping in obscurity, fell upon +a slab of stone, smooth and slippery, but solid. "You mean here?" + +"Aye, hazoor." + +"And what next?" + +"I am to wait to conduct you back to your place of rest." + +"Um-m. You are, eh?" Amber, doubtful, tried the stone again; it was +substantial enough; only the boat rocked. He struck a match; the +short-lived flame afforded him a feeble, unsatisfactory impression of a +long, narrow, vaulted chamber, whereof the floor was half water, half +stone. There was a landing to the left, a rather narrow ledge, with a +low, heavy door, bossed with iron, in the wall beyond. + +Shaking his head, he lifted himself cautiously out of the boat. "You +stay right there, Dulla Dad," he warned the native, "until I see what +happens. If I catch you trying to get away--the boat'll show up nicely +against the opening, you know--I'll give you cause for repentance." + +"I am here, hazoor. Turn you and knock upon the door thus"--rapping the +gunwale of the boat--"thrice." + +Amber obeyed, wrought up now to so high a pitch of excitement and +suspense that he could hardly have withdrawn had he wished to and been +able to force Dulla Dad to heed him. As he knuckled the third signal, +the door swung slowly inward, disclosing, in a dim glow of light, stone +walls--a bare stone chamber illumined by a single iron lamp hanging in +chains from the ceiling. Across the room a dark entry opened upon a +passageway equally dark. + +By the door a servant stood, his attitude deferential. As the +Virginian's gaze fell upon him he salaamed respectfully. + +Amber entered, his eyes quick, his right hand in his pocket and +grateful for the cold caress of nickelled steel, his body poised +lightly and tensely upon the balls of his feet--in a word, ready. +Prepared against the worst he was hopeful of the best: apprehensive, he +reminded himself that he had first met Labertouche under auspices +hardly more prepossessing than these. + +The clang of the door closing behind him rang hollowly in the +stillness. The warder moved past him to the entrance of the corridor. +Amber held him with a sharp question. + +"Am I to wait here?" + +"For a moment, Heaven-born!" He disappeared. + +Without a sound a door at Amber's elbow that had escaped his cursory +notice, so cunningly was it fitted in the wall, swung open, and a +remembered voice boomed in his ears, not without a certain sardonic +inflection: "Welcome, my lord, welcome to Khandawar!" + +Amber swung upon the speaker with a snarl. "Salig Singh!" + +"Thy steward bids thee welcome to thy kingdom, hazoor!" + +Dominating the scene with his imposing presence--a figure regal in the +regimentals of his native army--the Rajput humbled himself before the +Virginian, dropping to his knee and offering his jewelled sword-hilt in +token of his fealty. + +"Oh, get up!" snapped Amber impatiently. "I'm sick of all this damned +tomfoolery. Get up, d'you hear?--unless you want me to take that pretty +sword of yours and spank you with it!" + +A quiver, as of self-repression, moved the body of the man at his feet; +then, with a jangle of spurs, Salig Singh leaped up and stood at a +distance of two paces, his head high, his black eyes glittering +ominously with well-nigh the sinister brilliance of his vibrating +emerald aigrette. + +"My lord!" he cried angrily. "Are these words to use to one who offers +thee his heart and hand? Is this insolence to be suffered by a Rajput, +a son of Kings?" + +"As for that," returned Amber steadily, giving him look for look, "your +grandfather was a _bunia_ and you know it. Whether or not you're going +to 'suffer' what you call my insolence, I don't know, and I don't much +care. You've made a fool of me twice, now, and I'm tired of it. I give +you my word I don't understand why I don't shoot you down here and now, +for I believe in my heart you're the unholiest scoundrel unhung. Is +that language plain enough for you?" + +For an instant longer they faced one another offensively, Amber cool +enough outwardly and inwardly boiling with rage that he should have +walked into the trap with his eyes open, Salig Singh trembling with +resentment but holding himself in with splendid restraint. + +"As for me," continued Amber, "I suspect I'm the most hopeless ass in +the three Presidencies, if that's any comfort to you, Salig Singh. Now +what d'you want with me?" + +A shadowy smile softened the blackness of the Rajput's wrath. He +shrugged and moved his hands slightly, exposing their palms, subtly +signifying his submission. + +"Thou art my overlord," he said quietly, with a silky deference. "In +time thou wilt see how thou hast wronged me. For the present, I remain +thy servant. I harbour no resentment, I owe thee naught but loyalty. I +await thy commands." + +"The dickens you do!" Amber whistled inaudibly, his eyes narrowing as +he pondered the man. "You protest a lot, Salig Singh. If you're so much +at my service ... why, prove it." + +By way of reply Salig Singh lifted his sword in its scabbard from its +fastenings at his side and, with a magnificent gesture, cast it +clanking to the floor between them. A heavy English army-pattern +revolver followed it. The Rajput spread out his hands. "Thou art armed, +my lord," he said, "I, at thy mercy. If thou dost misjudge my purpose +in causing thee to be brought hither, my life is in thy hands." + +"Oh, yes." Amber nodded. "That's very pretty. But presuming I chose to +take it?" + +"Thou art free as the winds of the morning. See, then." Salig Singh +strode to the outer door and threw it open. "The way of escape is +clear--not even locked." + +The lamplight fell across the stone landing and made visible the +waiting boat with Dulla Dad sitting patiently at the oar. + +"I see," assented Amber. "Well?" + +Salig Singh shut the door gently. "Is there more to say?" he enquired. +"I have shown thee that thou art free." + +"Oh, so far as that goes, you've demonstrated pretty clearly that +you're not afraid of me. Of course I know as well as you do that at the +first shot Dulla Dad would slip out to the lake and leave me here to +die like a rat in a corner." + +"Thou knowest, lord, that no man in Khandawar would do thee any hurt. +Thy person is sacred--" + +"That's all bosh. You don't expect me to believe that you still stick +to that absurd fiction of yours--that I'm Rutton?" + +"Then mine eyes have played me false, hazoor. Shabash!" Salig Singh +bowed resignedly. + +"Well, then, what do you want? Why have you brought me here?" + +"Why didst thou come? There was no force used: thou didst come of thine +own will--thine own will, which is the will of the Body, hazoor!" + +"Oh, damnation! Why d'you insist on beating round the bush forever? You +know well why I came. Now, what do you want?" + +"My lord, I move, it seems, in the ways of error. A little time ago the +words of the Voice were made known to thee in a far land; thou didst +answer, coming to this country. A few days agone I myself did repeat to +you the message of the Bell; thou didst swear thou wouldst not answer, +yet art thou here in Kuttarpur. Am I to be blamed for taking this for a +sign of thy repentance?... Hazoor, the Body is patient, the Will +benignant and long-suffering. Still is the Gateway open." + +"Is that what you wanted to tell me, Salig Singh?" + +"What else? Am I to believe thee a madman, weary of life, that thou +shouldst venture hither with a heart hardened against the Will of the +Body? I seek but to serve thee in thus daring thy displeasure. Why +shouldst thou come to Bharuta [Footnote: India.] at all if thou dost +not intend to undergo the Ordeal of the Gateway? Am I a fool or--I say +it in all respect, my lord--art thou?" + +"From the look of things, I fancy the epithet fits us both, Salig +Singh. You refuse to take my word for it that I know nothing of your +infamous Gateway and have no intention of ever approaching it, that I +have not a drop of Indian blood in me and am in no way related to or +connected with Har Dyal Rutton, who is dead--" + +"I may not believe what I know to be untrue." + +"You'll have to learn to recognise the truth, I'm afraid. For the final +time I tell you that I am David Amber, a citizen of the United States +of America, travelling in India on purely personal business." + +The Rajput inclined his head submissively. "Then is my duty all but +done, hazoor. Thrice hath the warning been given thee. There be still +four-and-twenty hours in which, it may be, thou shalt learn to see +clearly. My lord, I ask of thee a single favour. Wilt thou follow me?" +He motioned toward the arched entrance to the passageway. + +"Follow thee?" Amber at length dropped into Urdu, unconsciously +adopting the easier form of communication now that, he felt, the issue +between them was plain, that the Rajput laboured under no further +misunderstanding as to the reason of his presence in Khandawar. +"Whither?" + +"There is that which I must show thee." + +"What?" + +"My life be forfeit if thou dost not return unharmed to the rest-house +ere sunrise. Wilt thou come?" + +"To what end, Salig Singh?" + +"Furthermore," the Rajput persisted stubbornly, his head lifted in +pride and his nostrils dilated a little with scorn--"furthermore I +offer thee the word of a Rajput. Thou are my guest, since thou wilt +have it so. No harm shall come to thee, upon my honour." + +Curiosity triumphed. Amber knew that he had exacted the most honoured +pledge known in Rajputana. His apprehensions were at rest; nothing +could touch him now--_until_ he had returned to the bungalow. Then, he +divined, it was to be open war--himself and Labertouche pitted against +the strength of the greatest conspiracy known in India since the days +of '57. But for the present, no pledge of any sort had been exacted of +him. + +"So be it," he assented on impulse. "I follow." + +With no other word Salig Singh turned and strode down the corridor. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +FROM A HIGH PLACE + + +The passageway was long and dark and given to sudden curves and angles, +penetrating, it seemed, the very bowels of the Raj Mahal. It ended +unexpectedly in a low arch through which the two men passed into an +open courtyard, apparently given over entirely to stables. Despite the +lateness of the hour it was tenanted by several wideawake syces, +dancing attendance upon a pair of blooded stallions of the stud royal, +who, saddled, bridled and hooded, pawed and champed impatiently in the +centre of the yard, making it echo with the ringing of iron on stone +and the jingling of their silver curb-chains. + +Salig Singh paused, with a wave of his hand calling Amber's attention +to the superb brutes. + +"Thou canst see, hazoor, that all is prepared!" + +"For what?" + +But Salig Singh merely smiled enigmatically, and shaking a patient +head, passed on. + +A second arch gave upon a corridor which led upwards and presently +changed into a steep flight of steps, of ancient stone worn smooth and +grooved with the traffic of generations of naked feet. At the top they +turned aside and passed through a deserted hanging garden, and then, +through a heavy door which Salig Singh unlocked with a private key, +into a vast, vacant room, with a lofty ceiling supported by huge, +unwieldy pillars of stone, sculptured with all the loves and wars of +Hindu mythology. At one end the fitful, eerie flare of a great bronze +brazier revealed the huge proportions of an ivory throne, gorgeous with +gems and cloth of gold, standing upon a dais and flanked by two +motionless figures which at first sight Amber took to be pieces of +statuary. But they quickened, saluting with a single movement and a +flash of steel, as the Maharana drew nearer, and so proved themselves +troopers of the State, standing guard with naked swords. + +"There is no need, perhaps, to tell thee, hazoor," Salig Singh +muttered, bending to Amber's ear, "that sitting upon this throne, in +this Hall of Audience, for generations thy forefathers ruled this land, +making and administering its laws, meting out justice, honoured of all +men--and served, my lord, for generations by my forebears, the faithful +stewards of thy House; even as I would prove faithful...." + +"Interesting," Amber interrupted brusquely, "if true. Is this what you +wanted to show me?" + +"Nay, hazoor, not this alone. Come." + +The Rajput led him out of the hall by way of a small doorway behind the +throne, and after a little turning and twisting through tortuous +passages they began to ascend again, and so went on up, ever upwards, +the flights of steps broken by other corridors, other apartments, other +galleries and gardens, until at length they emerged into a garden laid +out in the very topmost court of all--the loftiest spot in all +Kuttarpur. + +It was a very wonderful garden, a jungle of exotic plants and shrubs +threaded by narrow walks that led to secluded nooks and unsuspected +pleasaunces, and lighted by low-swung festoons of dim lamps, +many-coloured. A banian grew curiously in its midst, and there also +they found a great tank of crystal water with a bed of brilliant +pebbles over which small golden gleaming fish flashed and loitered. +Here, where the walls of acacia, orange, thuia and pepal shut out every +breath of wind, the air was dense with the cloying sweetness of +jasmine, musk and marigold.... + +"My lord," said the Maharana, pausing, "if thou wilt wait here for a +little, permitting me to excuse myself--?" + +"All right," Amber told him tolerantly. "Run along." + +Salig Singh quietly effaced himself, and the American watched him go +with an inward chuckle. "I presume I'll have to pay for my impudence in +the end," he thought; "but it's costing Salig Singh a good deal to hold +himself in." He was for the time being not ill-pleased with this phase +of his adventure; he had a notion that this must be a sort of very +private pleasure-ground of the rulers of Khandawar, and that very few, +if any, white people had ever been permitted to inspect it. What the +Maharana's next move would be he had not the least suspicion; but since +he must be content and abide the developments as they came, he was +minded to amuse himself. He moved away from the cistern, idling down a +path in a direction opposite that taken by Salig Singh. + +An abrupt turn brought him to the outer wall, and he stopped to gaze, +leaning upon the low marble balustrade. + +From his feet the wall fell away sheer, precipitous, a hundred feet or +more, to another hanging garden like that which lay behind him. From +this there was another stupendous drop. On all sides the marble walls +spread over the hillsides, descending it in great strides broken by +terraces, gardens, paved courts, all white and silver and deep violet +shadow, with here and there a window glowing softly yellow or a web of +saffron rays peeping through the intricacies of a carved stone lattice. +Far below, on the one hand, the lake lay like a sheet of steel; on the +other the city stretched, a huddle of flat roofs not unlike an armful +of child's building blocks. At that great height the effect was that of +peering over the upper lip of an avalanche of masonry on the point of +tumbling headlong down a mountainside to crush all beneath it. + +In the hush there rose to Amber a muted confusion of sounds--the +blended voices of the multitude that inhabited the hidden chambers of +the palace: the pawing and shrill neighing of the stallions in the +lower courtyard, a shivering clash of steel against steel, somewhere +the tinkle of a stringed instrument and a soft voice singing, a man's +accents weighty with authority, the ripple of a woman's laugh--all +relieved against an undertone like a profound sigh, waning and waxing: +the breathing of the Raj Mahal ... + +Amber turned away to rejoin Salig Singh by the cistern. But the Rajput +was not there; and, presently, another path tempting him to unlawful +exploration, he yielded and sauntered aimlessly away. A sudden corner +cloaked with foliage brought him to a little open space, a patch of +lawn over which a canopy had been raised. Beneath this, a woman sat +alone. He halted, thunderstruck. + +Simultaneously, with a soft swish of draperies, a clash of jewelled +bracelets, dull and musical, and a flash of coruscating colour, the +woman stood before him, young, slender, graceful, garbed in +indescribable splendour--and veiled. + +For the space of three long breaths the Virginian hesitated, +unspeakably amazed. Though she were veiled, it were deep dishonour for +a woman of a Rajput's household to be seen by a stranger. It seemed +inexplicable that Salig Singh should have wittingly left him in any +place where he might encounter an inmate of the zenana. Yet the +Maharana must have known.... Amber made an irresolute movement, as if +to go. But it was too late. + +With a murmur, inaudible, and a swift, infinitely alluring gesture, the +woman swept the veil away from her face, and looked him squarely in the +eyes. She moved toward him slowly, swaying, as graceful as a fawn, more +beautiful than any woman he had ever known. His breath caught in his +throat, for sheer wonder at this incomparable loveliness. + +Her face was oval without a flaw, and pale as newly-minted gold, with a +flush of red where the blood ran warm beneath the skin. Her hair was +black as ebony and finer than the finest silk, rich and lustrous; her +jet-black eyebrows formed a perfect arch. Her mouth was like a +passion-flower, but small and sweet, with lips full and firm and +scarlet. Her eyes were twin pools of darkness lighted with ardent inner +fire. They held him speechless and motionless with the beauty of their +unuttered desire, and before he could collect his wits she had made him +captive--had without warning cast herself upon her knees before him and +imprisoned both his hands, burying her face in their palms. He felt her +lips hot upon his flesh, and then--wonder of wonders!--tears from those +divine eyes streaming through his fingers. + +The shock of it brought him to his senses. Pitiful, dumfounded, +horrified, he glared wildly about him, seeking some avenue of escape. +There was no one watching: he thanked Heaven for that, while the cold +sweat started out upon his forehead. But still at his feet the woman +rocked, softly sobbing, her fair shoulders gently agitated, and still +she defied his gentle efforts to free his hands, holding them in a +grasp he might not break without hurting her. He found his tongue +eventually. + +"Don't!" he pleaded desperately. "My dear, you mustn't. For pity's sake +don't sob like that! What under the sun's the trouble? Don't, +please!... Good Lord! what am I to do with this lovely lunatic?" Then +he remembered that he had spoken in English and thoughtfully translated +the gist of his remonstrances, with as little effect as if he had +spoken to the empty air. + +Though in time the fiercest paroxysm of her passion passed and her sobs +diminished in violence, she clung heavily to him and made no resistance +when he lifted her in his arms. The error was fatal; he had designed to +get her on her feet and then stand away. But no sooner had he raised +her and succeeded in disengaging his hands, than soft round arms were +clasped tightly about his neck and her face--if possible, more +ravishing in tears than when first he had seen it--pillowed on his +breast. And for the first time she spoke coherently. + +"_Aie_!" she wailed tremulously. "_Aie_! Now is the cup of my happiness +full to brimming, now that thou hast returned to me at last, O my lord! +Well-nigh had I ceased to hope for thee, O Beloved; well-nigh had this +heart of mine grown cold within my bosom, that had no nourishment save +hope, save hope! Day and night I have watched for thy coming for many +years, praying that thou shouldst return to me ere this frail +prettiness of mine, that made thee love me long ago, should wane and +fade, so that thy heart should turn to other women, O my husband!" + +"Husband! Great--Heavens! Look here, my dear, hadn't you better come to +your senses and let me go before--" + +"Let thee go, _Lalji_, ere what? Ere any come to disturb us? Nay, but +who should come between husband and wife in the first hour of their +reunion after many years of separation? Is it not known--does not all +Khandawar know how I have waited for thee, almost thy widow ere thy +wife, all this weary time?... Or is it that thy heart hath forgotten +thy child-bride? Am I scorned, O my Lord--I, Naraini? Is there no love +in thy bosom to leap in response to the love of thee that is my life?" + +She released him and whirled a pace or two away, draperies swirling, +jewels scintillating cold fire in hopeless emulation of the radiance of +her tear-gemmed eyes. + +"Naraini?" stammered Amber, recalling what he had heard of the woman. +"Naraini!" + +"Aye, my lord, Naraini, thy wedded wife!" The rounded little chin went +up a trifle and her eyes gleamed angrily. "Am I no longer thy Naraini, +then? Or wouldst thou deny that thou art Har Dyal, my king and my +beloved? Hast thou indeed forgotten the child that was given thee for +wife when thy father reigned in Khandawar and thou wert but a boy--a +boy of ten, the Maharaj Har Dyal? Hast thou forgotten the little maid +they brought thee from the north, _Lalji_--the maiden who had grown to +womanhood ere thy return from thy travels to take up thy father's +crown?... _Aie_! Thou canst never forget, Beloved; though years and the +multitude of faces have come between us as a veil, thou dost +remember--even as thou didst remember when the message of the Bell came +to thee across the great black waters, and thou didst learn that the +days of thy exile were numbered, that the hour approached when again +thou shouldst sit in the place of thy fathers and rule the world as +once they ruled it." + +A denial stuck in Amber's throat. The words would not come, nor would +they, he believed, have served his purpose could he have commanded +them. If he had found no argument wherewith to persuade Salig Singh, he +found none wherewith to refute the claim of this golden-faced woman who +recognised him for her husband. He was wholly dismayed and aghast. But +while he lingered in indecision, staring in the woman's face, her look +of petulance was replaced by one of divine forgiveness and compassion. +And she gave him no time to think or to avoid her; in a twinkling she +had thrown herself upon him again, was in his arms and crushing her +lips upon his. + +"Nay," she murmured, "but I did wrong thee, Beloved! Perchance," she +told him archly, "thou didst not think to see me so soon, or in this +garden? Perchance surprise hath robbed thee of thy wits--and thy tongue +as well, O wordless one? Or thou art overcome with joy, as I am +overcome, and smitten dumb by it, as I am not? _Aho, Lalji!_ was ever a +woman at loss for words to voice her happiness?" And nestling to him +she laughed quietly, with a note as tender and sweet as the cooing of a +wood-dove to its mate. + +"Nay, but there is a mistake." He recovered the power of speech +tardily, and would have put her from him; but she held tight to him. "I +am not thy husband, nor yet a Rajput. I come from America, the far land +where thy husband died.... Nay, it doth pain me to hurt thee so, Ranee, +but the mistake is not of my making, and it hath been carried too far. +Thy husband died in my presence--" + +"It is so, then!" she cut him short. And his arms were suddenly empty, +to his huge relief. "Indeed they had warned me that thou wouldst tell +this story and deny me--why, I know not, unless it be that thou art +unworthy of thy lineage, a coward and a weakling!" Her small foot +stamped angrily and on every limb of her round body bracelets and +anklets clashed and shimmered. "And so thou hast returned only to +forswear me and thy kingdom, O thou of little spirit!" The scarlet lips +curled and the eyes grew cold and hard with contempt. "If that be so, +tell me, why hast thou returned at all? To die? For that thou must +surely come to, if it be in thy mind to defy the behests of the Voice, +thou king without a kingdom!... Why, then, art thou here, rather than +running to hide in some far place, thinking to escape with thy +worthless life--worthless even to thee, who art too craven to make a +man's use of it--from the Vengeance of the Body?... Dost think I am to +be tricked and hoodwinked--I, in whose heart thine image hath been +enshrined these many weary years?" + +"I neither think, nor know, nor greatly care, Ranee," Amber interposed +wearily. "Doubtless I deserve thine anger and thy scorn, since I am not +he who thou wouldst have me be. If death must be my portion for this +offence, for that I resemble Har Dyal Rutton ... then it is written +that I am to die. My business here in Khandawar hath concern neither +with thee, nor with the State, not yet with the Gateway of Swords--of +the very name of which I am weary.... Now," and his mouth settled in +lines of unmistakable resolve, "I will go; nor do I think that there be +any here to stop me." + +He wheeled about, prepared to fight his way out of the palace, if need +be. Indeed, it was in his mind that a death there were as easy as one +an hour after sunrise; for he had little doubt but that he was to die +if he remained obdurate, and the hospitality of the Rajput would cease +to protect him the moment he set foot upon the marble bund of his +bungalow. + +But the woman sprang after him and caught his arm. "Of thy pity," she +begged breathlessly, "hold for a space until I have taken thought.... +Thou knowest that if what thou hast told me be the truth, then am I +widow before my time--widowed and doomed!" + +"Doomed?" + +"Aye!" And there was real terror in her eyes and voice. "Doomed to +_sati_. For, since I am a widow--since thou dost maintain thou art not +my husband--then my face hath been looked upon by a man not of mine own +people, and I am dishonoured. Fire alone can cleanse me of that +defilement--the pyre and the death by flame!" + +"Good God! you don't mean that! Surely that custom has perished!" + +"Thou shouldst know that it dieth not. What to us women in whose bodies +runs the blood of royalty, is an edict of your English Government? +What, the Sirkar itself to us in Khandawar?" She laughed bitterly. "I +am a Rohilla, a daughter of kings: my dishonour may be purged only by +flame. _Arre_! that I should live to meet with such fate--I, Naraini, +to perish in the flower of my beauty.... For I am beautiful, am I not?" +She dropped the veil which instinctively she had caught across her +face, and met his gaze with childish coquetry, torn though she seemed +to be by fear and disappointment. + +"Thou art assuredly most beautiful, Ranee," Amber told her, with a +break in his voice, very compassionate. And he spoke simple truth. "Of +thy kind there is none more lovely in the world ..." + +"There was tenderness then in your tone, my lord!" she caught him up +quickly. "Is there no mercy in thy heart for me?... Who is this woman +across the seas who hath won thy love?... Aye, even that I know--that +thou dost love this fair daughter of the English. Didst thou not lose +the picture of her that was taken with the magic-box of the sahibs?... +Is it for her sake that thou dost deny me, O my husband? Is she more +fair than I, are her lips more sweet?" + +"I am not thy husband," he declared vehemently, appalled by her +reversion to that delusion. "Till this hour I have never seen thee; nor +is the sahiba of any concern to thee. Let me go, please." + +But she had him fast and he could not have shaken her off but with +violence. He had been a strong man indeed who had not been melted to +tenderness by her beauty and her distress. She lifted her glorious face +to him, pleading, insistent, and played upon him with her voice of +gold. "Yet a moment gone thou didst tell me I was greatly gifted with +beauty. Have I changed in thine eyes, O my king? Canst thou look upon +this poor beauty and hear me tell thee of my love--and indeed I am +altogether thine, _Lalji_!--and harden thy heart against me?... What +though it be as thou hast said? What though thou art of a truth not of +the house of Rutton, nor yet a Rajput? Let us say that this is so, +however hard it be to credit: even so, am _I_ not reward enough for thy +renunciation?" + +"I know not thy meaning, Ranee, I--" + +"Come, then, and I will show thee, my king. Come thou with me.... Nay, +why shouldst thou falter? There is naught for thee to fear--save me." +She tugged at his hand and laughed low, in a voice that sang like +smitten glasses. "Come, Beloved!" + +Unwillingly, he humoured her. This could not last long.... The woman +half led, half dragged him to the northern boundary of the garden, +where they entered a little turret builded out from the walls over an +abyss fully three-hundred feet in depth. And here, standing upon the +verge of the parapet, with naught but a foot high coping between her +and the frightful fall, utterly fearless and unutterably lovely, +Naraini flung out a bare, jewelled arm in an eloquent gesture. + +"See, my king!" she cried, her voice vibrant, her eyes kindling as they +met his. "Look down upon thy kingdom. North, south, east, west--look!" +she commanded. "Wherever thine eyes may turn, and farther than they can +see upon the clearest day, this land is all thine ... for the taking. +Look and tell me thou hast strength to renounce it ... and me, +Beloved!" + +A little giddy with the consciousness of their perilous height, his +breath coming harshly, he looked--first down to the lake that shone +like a silver dollar set in velvet, then up the misty distances of the +widening valley through which ran the stream that fed the lake, and out +to the hills that closed it in, miles away, and then farther yet over +the silvered summits of the great, rough hills that rolled away +endlessly, like a sea frozen in its fury. + +"There lies thy kingdom, O my king!" The bewitching voice cooed +seduction at his shoulder. "There and ... here." She sought his hand +and placed it firmly upon her bosom, holding it there with gentle +pressure until he felt the thumping of her heart and the warm flesh +that heaved beneath a shred of half-transparent lace. + +Reddening and a little shaken, he snatched his hand away. And she +laughed chidingly. + +"From the railway in the north to the railway in the south, all the +land is Khandawar, Beloved: thine inheritance--thine for the taking ... +even as I am thine, if thou wilt take me.... Look upon it, thy father's +kingdom, then upon me, thy queen.... Yea!" she cried, throwing back her +head and meeting his gaze with eye languorous beneath their heavy +silken lashes. "Yea, I am altogether thine, my king! Wilt thou cast me +aside, then, who am faint with love for thee?... Never hast thou +dreamed of love such as the love that I bear for thee. How could it be +otherwise, when thou hast passed thy days in the chill exile of the +North? O my husband, turn not from me--" + +He pulled himself together and stood away. "Madam," he said with an +absurdly formal bow, "I am not your husband." + +She opened her arms with infinite allure. "It is so little that is +asked of thee--only to ascend thy father's throne and be honoured of +all Bharuta, only to wield the sceptre that is thine by right, only to +reign an undisputed king in two kingdoms--Khandawar and thy Naraini's +heart!" + +"I am very sorry," he returned with the same preciseness. "It is quite +impossible. Besides, it seems that you leave the Sirkar altogether out +of your calculations. It may not have occurred to you that the Supreme +Government of India may have something to say about the contemplated +change." + +He saw her bite her lips with chagrin, and the look she flashed to his +face was anything but kind and tender. "_Arre!_" she laughed +derisively. "And of what account is this frail, tottering Sirkar's will +besides the Will of the Body? Of what avail its dicta against the +rulings of the Bell? Thou knowest--" + +"Pardon, I know nothing. I have told thee, Ranee, that I am not Har +Dyal Rutton." + +She was mistress of a thousand artifices. Brought to a standstill on +the one line of attack, she diverged to another without the quiver of +an eyelash to betray her discomfiture. + +"Yea, thou hast told me," she purred. "But I, Naraini, _I_ know what I +know. Thou dost deny thyself even as thou dost deny me, but ... art +thou willing to be put to the proof, my king?" + +"If you've any means of proving my identity, I would thank you for +making use of it, Ranee." + +"There is the test of the Token, _Lalji_." + +"I am not aware of it." + +"The test of the Token--the ring that was brought to thee, the signet +of thy House. Surely thou hast it with thee?" + +Since that night in Calcutta Amber had resumed his habit of carrying +the Token in the chamois bag. Now, on the reflection that it had been +given him for a special purpose, which had been frustrated by the death +of Dhola Baksh, so that he had no further use for it, he decided +against the counsels of prudence. "What's the odds," he asked himself, +"if I do lose it? I don't want the damn' thing--it's brought me nothing +but trouble, thus far." And he thrust a hand within his shirt and +brought forth the emerald. "Here it is," he told the woman cheerfully. +"Now this test?" "Place it upon thy finger--so, even upon thy little +finger, as was thy father's wont with it. Now lift up thine arm, so, +and turn the stone to the west, toward Kathiapur." + +Without comprehension he yielded to this whim, folding up his right arm +and turning the emerald to the quarter indicated by Naraini. + +The hour had drawn close upon dawn. A cold air breathed down the valley +and was chill to them in that lofty eyrie. The moon, dipping towards +the rim of the world, was poised, a globe of dull silver, upon the +ridge of a far, dark hill. As they watched it dropped out of sight and +everything was suddenly very bleak and black. + +And a curious thing happened. + +Naraini cried out sharply--"_Aho_!"--as if unable to contain her +excitement. + +Somewhere in the palace behind them a great gong boomed like thunder. + +A pause ensued, disturbed only by the fluttering of the woman's breath: +for the space of thirty pulse-beats nothing happened. Then Naraini's +fingers closed like bands of steel about Amber's left wrist. + +"See!" she cried in a voice of awe, while the bracelets shivered and +clashed upon her outstretched arm, "The Eye, my king, the Eye!" + +Amber shut his teeth upon an exclamation of amaze. For just above the +far, dark mountain ridge, uncannily brilliant in the void of the pale, +moonlit firmament, a light had blazed out; a vivid emerald light, +winking and stabbing the darkness with shafts of seemingly supernatural +radiance. + +"And thy ring, lord--look! The Token!" + +The great emerald seemed to have caught and to be answering the light +Naraini called the Eye; in the stone's depths an infernal fire leaped +and died and leaped again, now luridly blazing, now fitfully a-quiver +as though about to vanish, again strong and steady: even as the light +of the strange emerald star above the mountains ebbed and flowed +through the night. + +Naraini shuddered and cried out guardedly for very fear. "By Indur, it +is even as the Voice foretold! Nay, Heaven-born"--she caught his sleeve +and forcibly pulled down his hand--"tempt not the Unseen further. And +put away this Token, lest a more terrible thing befall us. There be +mysteries that even we of the initiate may not comprehend, my lord. It +is not well to meddle with the unknown." + +The ring was off his finger now and the woman was cramming it into his +coat-pocket with tremulous hands. And where the Eye had shone, the sky +was blank. They stood in darkness, Amber mute with perplexity, Naraini +clinging to his arm and shaking like a reed in the wind. + +"Now am I frightened, lord of my heart! Lead me back to the garden, for +I am but a woman and afraid. Who am I, Naraini, to see the Eye? What am +I, a weak woman, to trespass upon the Mysteries? I am very much afraid. +Do thou take me hence and comfort me, my king!" She drew his arm about +her waist, firm, round, and slender, and held it so, her body yielding +subtly to his, her head drooping wearily upon his shoulder. + +They moved slowly from the turret and back along the lighted walks of +the garden, the woman apparently content, Amber preoccupied--to tell +the truth, more troubled than he would have been willing to confess. As +for the intimacy of their attitude, he was temporarily careless of it; +it meant less to him than the woman guessed. It seems likely that she +inferred a conquest from his indifference, for when they had come back +to the tank of the gold-fish beneath the banian she slipped from his +embrace and confronted him with a face afire with elation. + +"See now how thou art altogether controverted, _Lalji!_" she cried +joyfully. "No longer canst thou persist that thou art other than thy +true self, the lord of Naraini's heart, the king returned to his +kingdom.... For who would dare give the lie to the Eye?... Indeed," she +continued with a low, sighing laugh, "I myself had begun to doubt, my +faith borne down and overcome by thy repeated denials; but now I know +thee. Did not the Bell foretell that the Eye should be seen of men only +when Har Dyal Rutton had returned to his kingdom, and then only when he +wore the Token? Even as it was said, so has it been.... And now art +thou prepared to go?" + +"Whither?" + +"To Kathiawar--even to the threshold of the Gateway?... There is yet +time, before the dawn, and it were wise to go quickly, my king; but for +one night more is the Gateway open to receive thee. Thou didst see the +saddled stallions in the courtyard? They wait there for thee, to bear +thee to Kathiawar.... Nay, it were better that thou shouldst wait, +mayhap, for the hours be few before the rising of the sun. Go then to +thy rest, heart of my heart, since thou must leave me; and this night +we shall ride, thou and I, together to the Gateway." + +"So be it," he assented, with a grave inclination of his head. +Convinced of the thanklessness of any further attempt to convince the +woman against her will, he gave it up, and was grateful for the respite +promised him. In twelve or eighteen hours he might accomplish +much--with the aid of Labertouche. At worst he would find some means to +communicate with the Farrells and then seek safety for himself in +flight or hiding until what he had come to term "that damned +Gateway-thing" should be closed and he be free to resume his strange +wooing. Some way, somehow, he could contrive to extricate himself and +his beloved. + +Therefore he told the woman: "Be it so, O Queen! Now, I go." + +"And leave me," she pouted prettily, "with no word but that, my king? +Am I not worth a caress--not even when I beg for it?" + +He smiled down at her, tolerant and amused, and impulsively caught her +to him. "The point's well taken," he said. "Decidedly you're worth it, +Naraini. And if you were not, the show was!" + +And he kissed and left her, all in a breath. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +SUNRISE FOR TWO + + +I + +Amber found his way out of the garden without difficulty; at the +doorway an eunuch waited. The Maharana himself, perhaps in deference to +the dictates of discretion, did not reappear, and Amber had no desire +to see him again. He was eager only to get away, to find a place and +time to think, and to get into communication with Labertouche. + +The eunuch bowed submissively to his demand to be shown out, and +silently led him down through the echoing marble corridors and +galleries of the many-tiered palace. They took a different way from +that by which Amber had ascended; had his life depended on it, he could +not have found his way back to the garden of Naraini, but by accident. + +As they passed through the lower court of stables he remarked the fact +that the stallions were being led away to their stalls. The +circumstances confirmed Naraini's statement; the hour of their +usefulness was ended for the day--or, rather, for the night. + +The Virginian wondered dully if ever he would find himself astride one +of the superb animals. After what he had witnessed and been a part of +there was for him no longer any circumscribing horizon to the world of +possibility. For him the improbable no longer existed. He had met the +incredible face to face and found it real. + +In the cavern-like chamber at the water-level Dulla Dad had the boat in +readiness. Amber embarked, not without a sigh of relief, and the +Mohammedan with his double-bladed paddle drove the boat out of the +secret entrance, in an impassive silence. In the stern Amber watched +the indefinite grey light of dawn wavering over the face of the waters +and wondered ... + +The boat swung in gently to the marble steps of the bund. Amber rose +and stepped ashore, very tired and very much inclined to believe he +would presently wake up to a sane and normal world. + +"Hazoor," the voice of Dulla Dad hailed him. He turned. "Hazoor, I was +to say that at the third hour after sunset to-night this boat will be +in waiting here. You are to call me by name, and I will put in for you, +hazoor." + +"What's that? I don't understand.... Oh, very well." + +"And I was to say further, my lord, these words: 'You shall find but +one way to Kathiapur.'" + +Amber shook his head, smiling. "If you don't mind getting yourself +disliked on my account, Dulla Dad, you may take back to the author of +that epigram this answer: 'You shall find but one way to Jehannum, and +that right speedily.' Good-morning, Dulla Dad." + +"The peace of God abide always with the Heaven-born!" + +With a single, strong stroke the creature of the palace sent the boat +skimming far out from the bund, and, turning, headed for the palace. + +Amber entered the bungalow, to find the khansamah already awake and +moving about. At the Virginian's request he shuffled off to prepare +coffee--much coffee, very strong and black and hot, Amber stipulated. +He needed the stimulant badly. He was sleepy and his head was in a +whirl. + +He sat lost in thought until the khansamah brought the decoction, then +roused and drank it as it came from the pot, without sugar, gulping +down huge bitter mouthfuls of the scalding black fluid. But the effect +that he expected and desired was strangely long in making itself felt. +He marvelled at his drowsiness, nodding and blinking over his empty +cup. Out of doors the skies were hot and blue--white with forerunners +of the sun, and the world of men was stirring and making preparation +against the business of the day; but Amber, who had a work so serious +and so instant to his hand, sat on in dreamy lethargy, musing.... + +The faces of two women stood out vividly against the misty formless +void before his eyes: the face of Naraini and that of Sophia Farrell. +He looked from one to the other, stupidly contrasting them, trying to +determine which was the lovelier, until their features blurred and ran +together and the two became as one and ... + +The khansamah tiptoed cautiously into the room and found the Virginian +sleeping like a log, his head upon the table. His face was deeply +coloured with crimson, as if a fever burned him, and his breathing was +loud and stertorous. + +Pausing, the native beckoned to one who skulked without, and the latter +entering, the two laid hold of the unconscious man and bore him to the +charpoy. The second native slipped silver money into the khansamah's +palm. + +"He will sleep till evening," he said. "If any come asking for him, say +that he has gone abroad, leaving no word. More than this you do not +know. The sepoys have an order to prevent all from entrance." + +The khansamah touched his forehead respectfully. "It is an order. +Shabash!" he muttered. + +A shaft of sunlight struck in through the window and lay stark upon the +sleeper's face. He did not move. The khansamah drew close the shades, +and with the other left the room in semi-dusk. + + +II + +Beneath the spreading banian, by the cistern of the goldfish, Naraini +with smouldering eyes watched Amber disappear in the wilderness of +shrubbery. He walked as a man with a set purpose, never glancing back. +She laughed uneasily but waited motionless where he had left her, until +the echo of his boot-heels on the marble slabs had ceased to ring in +the neighbouring corridor. Then, lifting a flower-like hand to her +mouth, she touched her lips gently and with an air of curiosity. The +resentment in her eyes gave place to an emotion less superficial. "By +Indur and by Har!" she swore softly. "In one thing at least he is like +a Rajput: he kisses as a man kisses." + +She moved indolently along the walk to the rug beneath the canopy where +he had found her, her lithe, languid, round body in its gorgeous +draperies no whit less insolent than the flaming bougainvillea whose +glowing magenta blossoms she touched with idle fingers as she passed. + +The east was grey with dusk of dawn--a light that grew apace, making +garish the illumination of the flickering, smoking, many-coloured lamps +in the garden. Naraini clapped her hands. Soft footsteps sounded in the +gallery and one of her handmaidens threaded the shrubbery to her side. + +"The lamps, Unda," said the queen; "their light, I think, little +becomes me. Put them out." And when this was done, she composedly +ordered her pipe and threw herself lazily at length upon a pile of +kincob cushions, her posture the more careless since she knew herself +secure from observation; the garden being private to her use. + +When the tire-woman had departed, leaving at Naraini's side a small +silver _huqa_ loaded with fine-cut Lucknow weed, a live ember of +charcoal in the middle of the bowl, she sat up and began to smoke, her +face of surpassing loveliness quaintly thoughtful as she sucked at the +little mouthpiece of chased silver and exhaled faint clouds of aromatic +vapour. From time to time she smiled pensively and put aside the tube +while she played with the rings upon her slender, petal-like fingers; +five rings there were to each hand, from the heavy thumb circlet that +might possibly fit a man's little finger to the tiny band that was on +her own, all linked together by light strands of gold radiating from +the big, gem-encrusted boss of ruddy gold midway between her slim round +waist and dimpled knuckles.... + +The tread of boots with jingling spurs sounded in the gallery, warning +her. She sighed, smiled dangerously to herself, and carelessly adjusted +her veil, leaving rather more than half her face bare. Salig Singh +entered the garden and found his way to her, towering over her beneath +the canopy, brave in his green and tinsel uniform. She looked up with a +listless hauteur that expressed her attitude toward the man. + +"_Achcha_!" she said sharply. "Thou art tardy, Heaven-born. Yet have I +waited for thee this half-hour gone, heavy with sleep though I +be--waited to know the pleasure of my lord." + +There was a mockery but faintly disguised in her tone. The Maharana +seemed to find it not unpleasant, for he smiled grimly beneath his +moustache. + +"There was work to be done," he said briefly--"for the Cause. And +thou--how hast thou wrought, O Breaker of Hearts?" + +The woman cast the silver mouthpiece from her and clasped her hands +behind her head. "Am I not Naraini?" + +"The man is ours?" + +"Mine," she corrected amiably. His face darkened with a scowl of +jealousy and she laughed in open derision. "Were I Naraini could I not +divine the heart of a man?" + +"By what means?" + +"What is that to thee, O Heaven-born?" She snuggled her body +complacently into the luxurious pile of cushions. "If I have +accomplished the task thou didst set for me, what concern hast thou +with the means I did employ? Thou art only Salig Singh, Maharana of +Khandawar, but I am Naraini, a free woman." + +"Thou--!" Rage choked the Rajput. "Thou," he sputtered--"thou art--" + +"Softly, Heaven-born, softly--lest I loose a thunderbolt for thy +destruction. Is it wise to forget that Naraini holds thy fate in the +hollow of her hands?" She sat forward, speaking swiftly and with +malice. "Thou art pledged to produce Har Dyal Rutton in the Hall of the +Bell before another sunrise, and none but Naraini knows to what a +perilous resort thou art driven to redeem thy word." + +"I was lied to," he argued sullenly. "A false tale was brought me--by +one who hath repented of his error! If I was told that Har Dyal Rutton +would be in India upon such-and-such a day, am I to blame that I did +promise to bring him to the Gateway?" + +"And seeing that the man is dead, art thou to blame for bringing in his +place a substitute, even so poor a changeling as this man Amber? Nay, +be not angry; do I blame thee? Have I done aught but serve thee to the +end thou dost desire?... Thou shouldst be grateful to me, rather than +menace me with thine anger.... And," she added sweetly, "it were well +for thee that thou shouldst bear always in mind my intimacy with thy +secret. If thou art king, then am I more than queen, in Khandawar." + +"I am not angry, Naraini," he told her humbly, "but mad with love for +thee--" + +"And lust, my lord, for--power," she interpolated. + +"But if what thou hast said be true--" + +"'Who lies to the King, is already a dead man.' Why should I trouble to +deceive thee, Heaven-born? I tell thee, the man is won. The day shall +declare it: this night will he ride with me to Kathiapur. Why didst +thou not tarry to eavesdrop? Indeed thou hast lost an opportunity that +may never a second time be thine--to learn of the wiles of woman." + +"There was work to be done," he repeated. "I went to take measures +against thy failure." + +"O thou of little faith!" + +"Nay, why should I neglect proper precautions? Whether thy confidence +be justified or no, this night will Har Dyal Rutton--or one like +him--endure the Ordeal of the Gateway." + +"So I have told thee," she assented equably. "He will come, because +Naraini bids him." + +"It may be so. If not, another lure shall draw him." + +She started with annoyance. "The Englishwoman of the picture?" + +"Have I named her?" He lifted his heavy brows in affected surprise. + +"Nay, but--" + +"Secret for secret," he offered: "mine for thine. Is it a bargain, O +Pearl of Khandawar?" + +"Keep thy silly secret, then, as I will keep mine own counsel," she +said, with assumed disdain. It was no part of wisdom, in her +understanding, to tell him of her interview with Amber. A man's +jealousy is a potent weapon in a woman's hands, but must be wielded +with discretion. + +He was persistent: "I will back my plan against thine, Ranee." + +"So be it," she said shortly. "Whichever wins, the stake is won for +both. What doth it matter?" + +She rose and moved impatiently down the walk and back again, bangles +tinkling, jewels radiant on wrist and brow, ankle and bosom. The man +watched her with sulky eyes until she turned, then bent his head and +stood glowering at the earth and twisting his moustache. She paused +before him, hands on hips, and raised her eyes in silent inquiry. He +pretended not to notice her. She sighed with a pretence of humility +thinly disguised. "Thy trouble, my lord?" she rallied him. + +"I have wondered," he said heavily: "will he pass?" + +"If not, it were well for thee to die this night, O Heaven-born." + +"That was my thought." + +"Thou hast little need to worry, lord." Woman-like she shifted to suit +his humour. "He is a man: I answer for that, though ... he is no fool. +Still, when the hour strikes, what he must, that will he endure for the +sake of that which Naraini hath promised him." + +"Or for another," Salig Singh growled into his beard. + +"I did not hear." + +"I said naught. I am distraught." + +"Be of good heart," she comforted him still further. "If he doth fail +to survive the Ordeal--Har Dyal Rutton hath died. If he doth survive--" + +"Har Dyal Rutton shall die within the hour," Salig Singh concluded +grimly. "But ... I am troubled. I cannot but ask myself continually: +Were it not wiser to confess failure and abide the outcome?" + +"How long wouldst thou abide the outcome, my king, after thou hadst +informed the Council of this deception to which thou hast been too +willing and ready a party?... He who misled you died a dog's death. But +thou--art thou in love with death?" + +"Unless thy other name be Death, Naraini ..." + +"Or if the Council should spare thee--as is unlikely? The patience of +the Body is as the patience of Kings--scant; and its mercy is like unto +its patience.... But say thou art spared: what then? How long art thou +prepared to wait until the Members of the Body shall again be in such +complete accord as now? When again shall all Hindustan be ripe for +revolt?... _Aho!_ Thou wouldst have sweet patience in the waiting, +Salig Singh!... Let matters rest as they be, my lord"--this a trace +imperiously. "Leave the man to me: I stand sponsor for him until the +Gateway shall have received him and--and perhaps for a little +afterwards." + +"Thou art right as ever." He lifted his gaze to meet hers and his eyes +flamed. "I leave my life on your knees, Naraini. I love thee and ... by +all the gods, thou art altogether a woman!" + +"And thou ... a man, your Highness?" she countered provokingly. "Nay!" +she continued, evading him with a supple squirm, "be content until this +affair be consummated. Wait until the time when an empress shall reign +over all Bharuta and thou, my lord, shall be her Minister of State." + +The man's voice shook. "That hour is not far off, my queen. Thou wilt +not keep me waiting longer?" + +She gave him the quick promise of her eyes. "Thou shouldst know--thou +of all men, my lord.... But see!" It was necessary to distract him and +she seized hastily upon the first pretext. "The last day of the old +order dawns ... and the dawn is crimson, my lord, as with blood!" Her +soft scarlet lips curled thirstily and showed her teeth, small, sharp +and white as pearls. "I think," she added with somber conviction, "this +omen is propitious!" + +She swept away from him, toward the parapet. He took a single step in +pursuit and halted, following her with a glance that was at once a +caress and a threat. + +She paused only when she could go no further, and stood in silent +waiting. + +Deep down in the valley the city was stirring from its sleep; the dull +and peaceful humming of its hived hordes rose to her, pulsating in the +still air. Above the eastern ridge the sky was hot and angry, banded +with magenta, scarlet, and cadmium, and shot with expanding shafts of +fierce radiance, like ribs of a fan of fire. In a long and breathless +instant of suspense the hilltops blushed with the glare and threw down +the light to the night mists swimming in the valley, rendering them +opalescent, as with a heart of flame. + +With eyes half-veiled by long languorous lashes the woman threw back +her head until her swelling throat was tense. She raised her arms and +stretched them wide. The sun, soaring suddenly, a crimson disk above +the ridge, seemed to strike fire from her strange, savage beauty as +from a jewel. Bathed in its ruddy glare she seemed to embody in her +frail, slight form all that was singular to that cruel, passionate land +of fire and steel. Her face became suffused, her blood leaping in +response to the ardour of the sun. + +Her parted lips moved, but the man, who had drawn near enough to hear, +caught two words only. + +"_Naraini!... Empress!_" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE WAY TO KATHIAPUR + + +Gall and wormwood in his mouth, more bitter than remorse, Amber became +conscious. Or perhaps it were more true to say that he struggled out of +unconsciousness, dragging his ego back by main will-power from the deep +oblivion of drugged slumber. One by one his faculties fought their way +past the barrier, until he was fully sentient, save that his memory +drowsed. His head was hot and heavy, his eyes burned in their sockets +like balls of live charcoal, a dulled buzzing sounded in his ears, his +very heart felt sore and numb; he was as one who wakes from evil dreams +to the blackness of foreknown despair. + +He lay for a time without moving. Because it was dark and his memory +not working properly, time had ceased to be for him, and to-day was as +yesterday and to-morrow. The ceiling-cloth above him was blood-red with +light from the sepoys' fire in the compound, and all was as it had been +when he had first lain down the night before. And yet.... + +Suddenly he raised himself upon the charpoy and called huskily for the +khansamah. Promptly the squat white figure that he remembered appeared +in the doorway. "Bring lights," Amber ordered, peremptory. + +"Bring lights quickly--and water." And when the man had returned with a +lamp, which he put on the table, Amber seized the red earthenware +water-jug and drained it greedily. Returning it, empty, to the brown +hands, he motioned to the man to wait, while he consulted his watch. It +had run down. He thrust it back into his pocket and enquired: "What's +o'clock?" + +"Eight of the evening, sahib." + +Amber gasped and stared. "Eight of the ... Let me think. Go and bring +me food and a brandy-peg--or, hold on! Bring a bottle of soda-water and +a glass only." + +The khansamah withdrew. Amber fell back with his shoulders to the wall +and stared unwinking at the lamp. He distinctly remembered undressing +before going to bed; he now found himself fully clothed. He felt of his +pocket, and found the emerald ring there, instead of in its chamois +case. Then it had not been a nightmare! + +He had a bottle of brandy which had never been uncorked, in his +travelling-kit. Rising, he found it and inspected the cork narrowly to +make sure it had not been tampered with; then he drew it. + +The khansamah returned with the glass and an unopened bottle of +Schweppe's, and prepared the drink under eyes that watched him +narrowly. While Amber drank he laid a place for him at the table. When +he left the room a second time the Virginian produced his automatic +pistol and satisfied himself that it remained loaded and in good +working order. + +In the course of a few minutes the native reappeared with a tray of +food and pot of coffee. These arranged, he stood by the chair, ready to +serve the guest. Then he found himself looking into the muzzle of +Amber's weapon, and became apparently rigid with terror. + +"Sahib--!" + +"Make no outcry, dog, and tell me no lies, if you value your +contemptible life. Why did you drug me--at whose instance?" + +"Sahib!..." + +"Answer me quickly, son of vipers!" + +"By Dhola Baksh, hazoor, I am innocent! Another has done these +things--he who served you last night, belike, and whose place I have +taken." + +Now the oaths of India are many and various, so that a new specimen +need not be held wonderful. But Amber sat bolt upright, his eyes +widening and his jaw dropping. "Dhola--!" he said, and brought his +teeth together with an audible click, staring at the khansamah as if he +were a recrudescence of a prehistoric mammal. He caught a motion of the +head and a wave of the hand toward the window, warning him that there +might be an eavesdropper lurking without, and rose admirably to the +emergency. + +"That is a lie, misbegotten son of an one-eyed woman of shame! By the +Gateway at Kathiapur, that is a lie! Speak, brother of jackals and +father of swine, lest my temper overcome me and I make carrion of you!" + +"My lord, hear me!" protested the man in an extremity of fright. "These +be the words of truth. If otherwise, let my head be forfeit.... Early +in the morning you returned from the lake, heavy with sleep, and so +soundly have you slept since that hour that no effort of mine could +rouse you, though many came to the door, making inquiry. I am Ram Lal, +a true man, and no trafficker in drugs and potions." + +"Even so!" said Amber, ironic. "But if, on taking thought, I find +you've lied to me ... Go now and hold yourself fortunate in this, that +I am not a man of hasty judgment." + +"Hazoor!" Like a shadow harried by a wind of night, the khansamah +scurried from the room. But on the threshold he paused long enough to +lay a significant finger upon his lips and nod toward the table. + +Amber put away his pistol, sighed from the bottom of his soul, and, +seating himself, without the least misgiving, broke his long fast with +ravenous appetite, clearing every dish and emptying the coffee pot of +all save dregs. Then, with a long yawn of satisfaction, repletion, and +relief, he lighted a cigarette and stretched himself, happily conscious +of returning strength and sanity. + +From the khansamah's quarters came an occasional clash of crockery and +pattering of naked feet. Outside, in the compound, the sepoys were +chattering volubly; their words were indistinguishable, but from their +constantly increasing animation Amber inferred that they were keenly +relishing the topic of discussion. He became sure of this when, at +length, his curiosity roused, he went to the window and peered out +between the wooden slats of the blind. The little company was squatting +in a circle round the fire, and a bottle was passing from hand to hand. + +He turned back, puzzled, to find the khansamah calmly seated at the +table and enjoying one of Amber's choicest cigarettes. + +"Thank God," he said, with profound emotion, "for a civilised smoke!" + +"Labertouche!" cried Amber. + +The pseudo-khansamah rose, bowed formally, and shook hands with +considerable cordiality. "It's good to see you whole and sound," he +said. "I had to wait until Ram Nath's work began to show results. He's +out there, you know, keeping the bottle moving. I don't believe those +damned sepoys will bother us much, now, but we've got no time at all to +spare. Now tell me what you have to tell, omitting nothing of the +slightest consequence." + +Amber dropped into a chair, and the Englishman sat near to him. "I say, +thank God for you, Labertouche! You don't know how I've needed you." + +"I can fancy. I've had a ripping time of it myself. Sorry I couldn't +communicate with you safely before you left Calcutta. But we've not a +minute to waste. Get into your yarn, please; explanations later, if we +can afford 'em." + +Inhaling with deep enjoyment, he narrowed his dark eyes, listening +intently to Amber's concise narrative of his experiences since their +parting before the stall of Dhola Baksh in the Machua Bazaar. Not once +was he interrupted by word or sign from Labertouche; and even when the +tale was told the latter said nothing, but dropped his gaze +abstractedly to the smouldering stump of his cigarette. + +"And you?" demanded the Virginian. "Have pity, Labertouche! Can't you +see I'm being eaten alive by curiosity?" + +Labertouche eyed him blankly for an instant. "Oh!" he said, with an +effort freeing his mind from an intense concentration of thought. "I? +What's there to tell? I've been at work. That's all.... I was jostled +off to one side when the row started in the bazaar, and so lost you. +There was then nothing to do but strike back to the hotel and wait for +a clue. You can figure my relief when you dropped out of that +ticca-ghari! I gave you the word to go on to Darjeeling, intending to +join you _en route_. But you know why that jaunt never came off. I +found out my mistake before morning, wired you, and left Calcutta +before you, by the same train that conveyed his Majesty the Maharana of +Khandawar. Fortunately enough we had Ram Nath already on the ground, +working up another case--I'll tell you about it some time. He's one of +our best men--a native, but loyal to the core, and wrapped up in his +work. He'd contrived to get a billet as tonga-wallah to the Kuttarpur +_bunia_ who has the dak-service contract. I myself had arranged to have +the telegraph-babu here transferred, and myself appointed in his place. +So I was able to attach myself to the 'tail' of the Maharana without +exciting comment. Miss Farrell came by the same train, but Salig Singh +was in too great a hurry to get home to pay any attention to her, and +I, knowing you'd be along, arranged that tonga accident with Ram Nath. +He bribed his brother tonga-wallah to bring it about." + +"Thank you," said Amber from his heart. + +Labertouche impatiently waved the interruption aside. "I looked for you +at the telegraph office this morning, but of course when you didn't +appear I knew something was up. So I concocted a message to you for an +excuse, came down, engaged the khansamah in conversation (I think he +had some idea I was an agent of the other side) and ... he is an old +man, not very strong. Once indoors, I had little trouble with him. He's +now enjoying perfect peace, with a gag to insure it, beneath his own +charpoy. Ram Nath happened along opportunely and created a diversion +with his gin-bottle. That seems to be all, and I'm afraid we mayn't +talk much longer. I must be going--and so must you." + +He glanced anxiously at his watch--a cheap and showy thing, such as +natives delight in. Both men rose. + +"You return to the telegraph station, I presume?" said Amber. + +"Not at all. It wouldn't be worth my while." + +"How's that?" + +"The wires haven't been working since ten this morning," said +Labertouche quietly. Amber steadied himself with the back of his chair. +"You mean they've been cut?" + +"Something of the sort." + +"And that means--" + +"That this infernal conspiracy is scheduled to come to a head +to-night--as you must have inferred, my dear fellow: this is the last +night of your probation. The cutting off of Khandawar from all British +India is a bold move and shows Salig Singh's confidence. It means +simply: 'Governmental interference not desired. Hands off.' He knows +well that we've spies here, that enough has leaked out, unavoidably, to +bring an army corps down on his back within twenty-four hours, if he +permitted even the most innocent-seeming message to get out of the +city." + +Amber whistled with dismay. "And you--" + +"I'm going to find out for myself what's towards in Kathiapur." + +"You're going there--alone?" + +"Not exactly; I shall have company. A gentleman of the Mohammedan +persuasion is going to change places with me for the night. No; he +doesn't know it yet, but I have reason to believe that he got an +R.S.V.P. for the festive occasion and intends to put in a midnight +appearance. So I purpose saving him the trouble. It's only a two-hour +ride." + +"But the risk!" + +Labertouche chuckled grimly. "It's the day's work, my boy. I'm not sure +I shan't enjoy it. Besides, I mayn't hang back where my subordinates +have not feared to go. We've had a man in Kathiapur since day before +yesterday." + +"And I? What am I to do?" + +"Your place is at Miss Farrell's side. No; you'd be only a hindrance to +me. Get that out of your thoughts. Three years ago I found time to make +a pretty thorough exploration of Kathiapur, and, being blessed with an +excellent memory, I shall be quite at home." + +Amber made a gesture of surrender. "Of course you're right," he said. +"You're always right, confound you!" + +"Exactly," agreed Labertouche, smiling. "I'm only here to help you +escape to the Residency. Raikes and Colonel Farrell have already been +advised to make preparations for a siege or for instant flight, if I +give the word. They need you far more than I shall. It would be simple +madness for you to venture to Kathiapur to-night. The case is clear +enough for you to see the folly of doing anything of the sort." + +"It may be clear to you...." + +"See here," said Labertouche, with pardonable impatience; "I'm +presuming that you know enough of Indian history to be aware that the +Rutton dynasty in Khandawar is the proudest and noblest in India; it +has descended in right line from the Sun. There's not a living Hindu +but will acknowledge its supremacy, be he however ambitious. That makes +it plain, or ought to, why Har Dyal Rutton, the last male of his line, +was--and is--considered the natural, the inevitable, leader of the +Second Mutiny. It devolved upon Salig Singh to produce him; Salig Singh +promised and--is on the point of failure. I can't say precisely what +penalty he'll be called upon to pay, but it's safe to assume that it'll +be something everlastingly unpleasant. So he's desperate. I can't +believe he has deceived himself into taking you for Rutton, but whether +or no he intends by hook or crook to get you through this Gateway +affair to-night. He's got to. Now you are--or Rutton is--known to be +disloyal to the scheme. Inevitably, then, the man who passes through +that Gateway in his name is to be quietly eliminated before he can +betray anything--in other words, as soon as he has been put through the +'Ordeal,' as they call it, for the sake of appearances and the moral +effect upon the Hindu race at large. Now I think you understand." + +"I think I do, thanks," Amber returned drily. "You're quite right, as I +said before. So I'm off to the Residency. But how to get through that +guard out there?" + +He received no response. In as little time as it took him to step +backwards from Amber, Labertouche had resumed his temporarily discarded +masquerade. Instantaneously it was the khansamah who confronted the +Virginian--the native with head and shoulders submissively bended, as +one who awaits an order. + +Amber, surprised, stared, started to speak, received a sign, and was +silent, the excuse for Labertouche's sudden change of attitude being +sufficiently apparent in an uproar which had been raised without the +least warning in the compound. The advent of a running horse seemed to +have been responsible for it, for the clatter of hoofs as the animal +was checked abruptly in mid-stride was followed by a clamour of drunken +cries, shrieks of alarm, and protests on the part of the sepoys +disturbed in the midst of their carouse. Over all this there rang the +voice of an Englishman swearing good, round, honest British oaths. + +"Stand aside, you hounds!" + +Amber turned pale. "That's Farrell's voice!" he cried, guessing at the +truth. + +Labertouche made no answer, but edged toward the khansamah's quarters. + +The din subsided as Farrell gained the veranda. His feet rang heavily +on the boards, and a second later he thrust the door violently open and +slammed breathlessly into the room, booted, spurred, his keen old face +livid, a riding-whip dangling from one wrist, a revolver in the other +hand. + +He wheeled on the threshold and lifted his weapon, then, with a gasp of +amazement, dropped it. "By Heaven, sir!" he cried, "that's odd! Those +damned sepoys tried to prevent my seeing you and now they've cleared +out, every mother's son of them!" + +Amber stepped to his side; to his own bewilderment, the compound was +deserted; there was not a sepoy in sight. + +"So much the better," he said quickly, the first to recover. "What's +wrong, sir?" + +"Wrong!" Farrell stumbled over to the table and into a chair, panting. +"Everything's wrong! What's gone wrong with you, that we haven't been +able to find you all day?" + +"I've been lying there," Amber told him, nodding to the charpoy, +"drugged. What's happened? Is Miss Farrell--?" + +"Sophia!" The Political lifted his hand to his eyes and let it fall, +with an effect of confusion. "In the name of charity tell me you know +where she is!" + +"You don't mean--" + +"She's gone, Amber--gone! She's disappeared, vanished, been spirited +away! Don't you understand me? She's been kidnapped!" + +In dumb torment, Amber heard a swift, sharp hiss of breath as pregnant +with meaning as a spoken word, and turned to meet Labertouche's eyes, +and to see that the same thought was in both their minds. Salig Singh +had found the way to lure Amber to Kathiapur. + +No spoken word was needed; their understanding was implicit on the +instant. Indeed the secret-agent dared not speak, lest he be overheard +by an eavesdropper and so be the cause of his own betrayal. With a +flutter of white garments he slipped noiselessly from the room, and +Amber knew instinctively that if they were to meet again that night it +would be upon the farther side of the Gateway of Swords. For himself, +his path of duty lay clear to the Virginian's vision; like +Labertouche's, it was the road to Kathiapur. He had no more doubt that +Sophia had been conveyed thither than he had of Farrell's presence +before him. And in his heart he cursed, not Naraini, not Salig Singh, +but himself for his inept folly in bringing to India the photograph +which had been stolen from him and so had discovered to the +conspirators his interest in the girl. + +He thought swiftly of Dulla Dad's parting admonition: "_You shall find +but one way to Kathiapur_." + +"Well, sir? Well?" Exasperated by his silence the Political sprang to +his feet and brought the riding-crop against his leg with a smack like +a gun-shot. "Have you nothing to say? Don't you realise what it means +when a white woman disappears in this land of devils? Good God! you +stand there, doing nothing, saying nothing, like a man with a heart of +stone!" + +"Speak French," Amber interposed quietly. He continued in that tongue, +his tone so steady and imperative that it brought the half-frantic +Englishman to his senses. "Speak French. You must know that we're spied +upon every instant; every word we speak is overheard, probably. Tell me +what happened--how it happened--and keep cool!" + +"You're right; I beg your pardon." Farrell collected himself. "There's +little enough to go on.... You disappointed us this morning. During the +day we got word from a secret but trustworthy source to look out for +trouble from the native side. Nevertheless, Raikes and I were obliged, +by reason of our position, representing Government, to attend the +banquet in honor of the coronation to-morrow. We called in young +Clarkson--the missionary, you know--to stay in the house during our +absence. When we returned the Residency was deserted--only we found +Clarkson bound, gagged, and nearly dead of suffocation in a closet. He +could tell us nothing--had been set upon from behind. Not a servant +remained.... But, by the way, your man Doggott came in by the evening +dak-tonga." + +"Where's Raikes?" + +"Gone to the palace to threaten Salig Singh with an army corps." + +"You know the telegraph wires are cut?" + +"Yes, but how--" + +"Never mind how I know--the story's too long. The thing to do is to get +troops here without a day's delay." + +"But how?" + +"Take Raikes, Clarkson, and Doggott and ride like hell to Badshah +Junction. Telegraph from there. The four of you ought to be able to +fight your way through." + +"But, man, my daughter!" + +"I know where to find her--or think I do. No matter which, I'll find +her and bring her back to you safely, or die trying. You spoke just now +of a secret but trustworthy source of information: I work with it this +night. I can't mention names--you know why; but that source was in this +room ten minutes ago. He's gone after your daughter now. I follow. +No--I go alone. It's the only way. I know how you feel about it, but +believe me, the thing for you to do is to find some way to summon +British troops. Now the quicker you go, the quicker I'm off. I +can't--daren't move while you're here." + +Farrell eyed him strangely. "I'll go," he said after a pause. "But ... +why can't I--" + +"There are just two white men living, Colonel Farrell, who can go where +I am going to look for your daughter to-night. I'm one of them. The +other is--you know who." + +"One of us is mad," said Farrell with conviction. "I think you are." + +"Or else I know what I'm talking about. In either event you only hinder +me now. Please go." + +His manner impressed the man; for a moment Farrell lingered, doubting, +then impetuously offered his hand. "I'm hanged if I understand why," he +said, "but somehow I believe you know what you're about. Good-night +and--and God be with you, Amber." + +The Virginian followed him to the doorway. Farrell's horse, a docile, +well-trained animal, had come to the edge of the veranda to wait for +his master. Otherwise the compound was as empty as the night was quiet. +Mounting, the Political waved a silent farewell and spurred off toward +the city. Amber passed back through the bungalow to the bund. + +It was a wonderful blue night of clear moonlight, quickened by a rowdy +wind that rioted down the valley from the north. The roughened surface +of the lake was dark save where the moon had blazed its trail of +shimmering golden scales. There was no boat visible, and for the first +time Amber's heart misgave him and he doubted whether it were not best +to seek a mount from the stables of the Residency and try to reach +Kathiapur on his own initiative. But his ignorance of the neighbouring +topography was too great a handicap to be overcome; and now that +Labertouche had gone, he was without a friendly, guiding hand. He could +but deliver himself into the hands of the enemy and do what he might +thereafter. + +He lifted his voice and called: "_Ohe_, Dulla Dad!" + +There came a soft shuffle of feet on the stones behind him, and the +stunted, white-clad figure of Dulla Dad stood at his side, making +respectful obeisance. "Hazoor!" + +"You damned spying scoundrel!" Amber cried, enraged. "You've been +waiting there by the window, listening!" + +"Hazoor," the native quavered in fright, "it was cold upon the water +and you kept me waiting over-long. I landed, seeking shelter from the +wind. If your talk was not for mine ears, remember that you used a +tongue I did not know." + +"So you were listening!" Amber calmed himself. "Never mind. Where's +your boat?" + +"I thought to hide it in the rushes. If the hazoor will be patient for +a little moment ..." The native dropped down from the bund and +disappeared into the reedy tangle of the lake shore. A minute or so +later Amber saw the boat shoot out from the shore and swing in a long, +graceful curve to the steps of the bund. + +"Make haste," he ordered, as he jumped in and took his place. "If I +have kept you waiting, as you say, then I am late." + +"Nay, there is time to spare." Dulla Dad spun the boat round and away. +"I did but think to anticipate your impatience, knowing that you would +assuredly come." + +"Ah, you knew that, Dulla Dad? How did you know?" + +The man giggled softly, plying a busy paddle. "Am I not of the palace, +hazoor? What are secrets in the house of kings? Gossip of herders and +bazaar-women!" + +"And how much more do you know, Dulla Dad?" Amber's tone was ominous. + +"I, hazoor? Who am I to know aught?... Nay, this have I heard"--he +paused cunningly: "'_You shall find but one way to Kathiapur_.'" + +Amber, realising that he had invited this insolence, was fair enough +not to resent it, and held his peace until he could no longer be blind +to the fact that the native was shaping a course almost exactly away +from the Raj Mahal. "What treachery is this, dog?" he demanded. "This +is not the way--" + +"Be not mistrustful of your slave, hazoor," whined the native. "I do +the bidding of those before whose will I am as a leaf in the wind. It +is an order that I land you on the bund of the royal summer pavilion, +by the northern shore of the lake. There will you find one waiting for +you, my lord." + +Amber contented himself with a fresh examination of his pistol; it was +all one to him, whatever the route by which he was to reach Kathiapur, +so long as the change involved no delay. But this way across the water +was so much longer than that which he had anticipated that he had time +to work himself into a state of fuming impatience before the boat +finally ranged alongside a pretentious marble bund backed by ragged +plantations of palms and bananas. To the left the white-columned facade +of the Maharana's stately pleasure-house glimmered spectral in the +moonlight. It showed no lights, and Amber very naturally concluded that +it was unoccupied. + +He landed on the steps of the bund and waited for Dulla Dad to join +him; but when, hearing a splash of the paddle, he looked round, it was +to find that the native had already put a considerable distance between +himself and the shore. Amber called after him angrily, and Dulla Dad +rested upon his paddle. + +"Nay, Heaven-born!" he replied. "Here doth my responsibility end. +Another will presently appear to be your guide. Go you up to the jungly +path leading from the bund." + +The Virginian lifted his shoulders indifferently, and ascended to +discover a wide footpath running inland between dark walls of +shrubbery, but quite deserted. He stopped with a whistle of vexation, +peering to right and left. "What the deuce!" he said aloud. "Is this +another of their confounded tricks?" + +A low and marvellously sweet laugh sounded at his elbow, and he turned +with a start and a flutter of his pulses. "Naraini!" he cried. + +It had been impossible to mistake the gracious lines of that slight, +round figure, cloaked though it was in many thicknesses of white +veiling. She had stolen upon him without a sound, and seemed pleased +with the completeness of his surprise, for she laughed again before he +spoke. + +"Tell me not thou art disappointed, O my king!" she said, placing a +soft hand firmly upon his arm. "Didst thou hope to meet another here?" + +"Nay, how should I expect thee?" His voice was gentle though he steeled +his heart against her fascinations; for now he had a use for her. "Had +Dulla Dad conveyed me to the palace, then I should have remembered thy +promise to ride with me to Kathiapur. But, being brought to this place..." + +"Then thou didst wish to ride with me?" She nodded approval and +satisfaction. "That is altogether as I would have it be, Lord of my +Heart. By this have I proven thee, for thou hast consented to approach +the Gateway, not altogether because the Voice hath summoned thee, but +likewise, I think, because thine own heart urged thee. Nay, but tell +me, King of my Soul, did it not leap a little at the thought of meeting +me?" + +With a quick gesture she threw her veil aside and lifted her +incomparably fair face to his, and he was conscious that he trembled a +little, and that his voice shook as he answered evasively: "Thou +shouldst know, Ranee." + +"_Ahi!_ Then am I a happy woman, to think that, though thou wert in +open mutiny against the Voice, when I called, thou didst yield.... And +thou art ready?" + +"Am I not here?" + +"Now of a verity do I know that thou art a man, my king!--a Rajput, a +son of kings, and ... my husband!" Pitched to a minor, thrilling key, +her accents were as musical as the singing of a 'cello. "For thou dost +know what thou must dare this night of nights, and he is a brave man +who can dare so much, unfaltering. Tell me thou art not afraid, my +king?" + +"Why should I be?" + +"Thou wilt not draw back in the end?" Her arms clipped him softly about +the neck and drew his head down so that her breath was fragrant in his +face, her lips a sweet peril beneath his own. "Thou wilt brave whatever +may be prepared for thy testing, for the sake of Naraini, who awaits +thee beyond the Gateway; O my Beloved?" + +"I shall not be found wanting." + +Lithe as a snake, she slipped from his arms. "Nay, I trust thee not!" +she laughed, a quiver of tenderness in her merriment. "Let my lips be +mine alone until thou hast proven thyself worthy of them." She raised +her voice, calling: "_Ohe_, Runjit Singh!" + +The cry rang bell-clear in the stillness, and its silver echo had not +died before it was answered by one who stepped out from the black +shadow of a spreading banian, some distance away, and came toward them, +leading three horses. As the moonlight fell upon him, Amber recognised +the uniform the man wore as that of the Imperial Household Guard of +Khandawar, while the horses seemed to be the stallions he had seen in +the palace yard, with another but little their inferior in mettle or +beauty. + +"Now," announced the woman in tones of deep contentment, "we will +ride!" + +She turned to Amber, who took her up in his arms and set her in the +saddle of one of the stallions; who, his bridle being released by the +trooper, promptly leaped away and danced a spirited saraband with his +shadow, until Naraini, with a strength that seemed incredible when one +recalled the slightness of her wrists, curbed him in and taught him +sobriety. + +"By Har!" she panted, "but I think he must know that he carries +to-night the destinies of empire! Mount, mount, my lord, and bear me +company if this son of Eblis tries to run away with me!" + +The sowar surrendered to Amber the reins of the other stallion, and +stepped hastily aside. The Virginian took the saddle with a flying +leap, and a thought later was digging his knees into the brute's sleek +flanks and sawing on the bits, while the path flowed beneath him, +dappled with moonlight and shadow, like a ribbon of grey-green silk, +and trees and shrubbery streaked back on either hand in a rush of +melting blacks and greys. + +Swerving acutely, the path ran into the dusty high-road. Amber heard a +rush of hoofs behind him, and then slowly the gauze-wrapped figure of +the queen drew alongside. + +"_Maro!_ Let him run, my king! The way is not far for such as he. Have +no fear lest he tire!" + +But Amber set his teeth and wrought with the reins until his mount +comprehended the fact that he had met a master, and, moderating his +first furious burst of speed, settled down into a league-devouring +stride, crest low, limbs gathering and stretching with the elegant +precision of clockwork. His rider, regaining his poise, found time to +look about him and began to enjoy, for all his cares, this wild race +through the blue-white night. + +Behind them, carbine on saddle-bow, the sowar thundered in pursuit, at +an interval of about a hundred yards--often greater, when the stallions +would have it so and spent their temper in brief, brisk contests for +the leadership. On Amber's left the woman rode as one to the saddle +born, her face turned eagerly to the open road, smiling a little with +excitement beneath the tissue of thin veiling which the speed-bred +breeze moulded cunningly to the contour of her flawless features. The +fire in her blood shone lambent in the eyes that now and again met +Amber's. More than once he heard her laugh low, with a lilt of +happiness. + +For himself he was drunk with the spirit of adventure. Bred of the +moonlit sky and the far shy stars, of the flooding moonlight breaking +crisply against impenetrable shadows like surf against black rocks, of +the tune of hoofs, of the singing wind and sighing waters, a wild and +reckless humor possessed him, ran molten in his veins, swam in his +brain like fumes of wine. + +As the tale of miles increased, the valley opened out, and presently +they swung to the west from the northerly track, branching off into a +rougher way through a wilder countryside. Rugged hilltops marched +beside them, looming stark black against the silvered purple of the +sky. They met no one, their road winding through a land whose grandeur +was enhanced by its positive desolation--a land tenanted only by a +million devils of loneliness with naught to do save to fling back +mocking echoes of the road-song of the flying hoofs.... + +Toward the close of the second hour the valleys began to widen, the +hills to be less lofty and precipitous. The horses swung up gentler +ascents, down slopes less sharp. The road ran for a time along the bank +of a broad and placid river, then crossed it by a massive arch of +masonry as old as history. They circled finally a great, round, +grassless hillside, and pulled rein in the notch of a gigantic V formed +by two long, prow-like spurs running out upon a plain whose sole, vague +boundary was the vast arc of the horizon. + +Before them loomed dead Kathiapur, an island of stone girdled by the +shallow silver river. Like the rugged pedestal of some mammoth column, +its cliffs rose sheer threescore feet from the water's edge to the foot +of the outermost of its triple walls. From the notch in the hills a +great stone causeway climbed with a long and easy grade to the level of +the first great gate, spanning the chasm over the river by means of a +crazy wooden bridge. + +Above the broken rim of the three-fold walls the moon's unearthly +splendor made visible a vast confusion of crumbling cornices, blank +walls, turrets, domes, and towers, the gnarled limbs of dead trees, the +luxuriant dark foliage of banian and pepal, palm and acacia. But +nothing moved and there was not a light to be seen. These things with +the silence told the tale of death. With the cessation of the ringing +hoofbeats the stillness had closed down upon the riders like a spell to +break the which were to invite the wrath of the undying gods +themselves. Other than the silken breathing of the horses, an +occasional muffled thud or the jingle of a bridle-chain as one pawed +the earth or tossed his head, they heard no sound. The unending hum of +a living city was not there. Sister of Babylon, Nineveh and Tyre, kin +to Chitor and that proud city of the plains that Jai Singh abandoned +when he built him his City of Victory, Kathiapur is as Tadmor--dead. +The shell remains; the soul has flown. + +A gasp from the woman and an oath from the sowar startled Amber out of +somber apprehensions into which he had been plunged by contemplation of +this impregnable fortress of desolation. Gone was his lust for peril, +gone his high, heedless joy of adventure, gone the intoxication which +had been his who had drunk deep of the cup of Romance; there remained +only the knowledge that he, alone and single-handed, was to pit his +wits against the invisible and mighty forces that lurked in hiding +within those walls, to seem to submit to their designs and so find his +way to the woman of his love, tear her from the grasp of the unseen, +and with her escape... + +Naraini had, indeed, no need to cry aloud or clutch his hand in order +to apprise him that the Eye was vigilant. He himself had seen it break +forth, a lurid star of emerald light suspended high above the dark +heart of the city--high in the air where the moment gone there had been +nothing; so powerful that it shaded with sickly pallor the face of the +woman, who clung shuddering to Amber; so unpresaged its appearance and +so malign its augury that it shook even the skepticism of him whose +reason had been nourished by the materialism of the Occident. + +Slowly, while they watched, the star descended, foot by foot dropping +until the topmost pinnacle of a hidden temple seemed to support it; and +there it rested, throbbing with light, now bright, now dull. + +Amber shook himself impatiently. "Silly charlatanry!" he muttered, +irritated by his own susceptibility to its sinister suggestion.... "I'd +like to know how they manage it, though; the light itself's +comprehensible enough, but their control of it.... If there were enough +wind, I'd suspect a kite...." + +"Thou art not dismayed, my king?" + +He laughed, not quite as successfully as he could have wished, and, +"Not I, Naraini," he returned in English: a tongue which seemed somehow +better suited for service in combating the esoteric influences at work +upon his mind. "What's the next turn on the programme?" + +"I like not that tone, nor yet that tongue." The woman shivered. "Even +as the Eye seeth, my lord, so doth the Ear hear. Is it meet and wise to +speak with levity of that in whose power thou shalt shortly be?" + +"Perhaps not," he admitted, thoughtful. "'In whose power I shall +shortly be.' ... Well, of course!" + +"And thou wilt go on? Thou art not minded to withdraw thy hand?" + +"Not so that you'd notice it, Naraini." + +"For the sake of the reward Naraini offers thee?" she persisted +dangerously. + +"I don't mind telling you that you'd turn 'most any man's head, my +dear," he said cheerfully, and let her interpret the words as she +pleased. + +She was not pleased, for her acquaintance with English was more +intimate than she had chosen to admit; but if she felt any chagrin she +dissimulated with her never-failing art. "Then bid me farewell, O my +soul, and go!" + +"Up there?" he enquired, lifting his brows. + +"Aye, up the causeway and over the bridge, into the city of death." + +"Alone?" + +"Aye, alone and afoot, my king." + +"Pleasant prospect, thanks." Amber whistled, a trifle dashed. "And +then, when I get up there--?" + +"One will meet thee. Go with him, fearing naught." + +"And what will you do, meanwhile?" + +"When thou shalt have passed the Gateway, my lord, Naraini will be +waiting for thee." + +"Very well." Amber threw a leg over the crupper, handed the stallion's +reins to the sowar, who had dismounted and drawn near, and dropped upon +his feet. + +Naraini nodded to the sowar, who led the animal away. When he was out +of earshot the woman leaned from the saddle, her glorious eyes to +Amber's. "My king!" she breathed intensely. + +But the thought of Sophia Farrell and what she might be suffering at +that very moment was uppermost--obtruded itself like a wall between +himself and the woman. He had no further inclination for make-believe, +and he saw Naraini with eyes that nothing illuded. Quite as casually as +though she had been no more to him than a chance acquaintance, he +reached up, took her hand, and gave it a perfunctory shake. + +"Good-night, my dear," he said amiably; and, turning, made off toward +the foot of the causeway. + +When he had gained it, he looked back to see her riding off at a wide +angle from the causeway, heading out into the plain. When he looked +again, some two or three minutes later, Naraini, the sowar, and the +horses had vanished as completely as if the earth had opened to receive +them. He rubbed his eyes, stared, and gave it up. + +So he was alone!... With a shrug, he plodded on. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE HOODED DEATH + + +The causeway down which the horsemen of forgotten kings of Khandawar +had clattered forth to war, in its age-old desuetude had come to decay. +Between its great paving blocks grass sprouted, and here and there +creepers and even trees had taken root and in the slow immutable +process of their growth had displaced considerable masses of stone; so +that there were pitfalls to be avoided. Otherwise a litter of rubble +made the walking anything but good. Amber picked his way with caution, +grumbling. + +The grade was rather more steep than it had seemed to be from the +plain. Now and then he stopped to regain his breath and scrub a +handkerchief over his forehead, on which sweat had started despite the +cold. At such times his gaze would seek inevitably and involuntarily, +the lotus-pointed pinnacle whereon the Eye was poised, blazing. Its +baleful emerald glare coloured his mood unpleasantly. He had a fancy +that the thing was actually watching him. The sensation was creepy. + +For that matter, nothing that met his eye was calculated to instil +cheer into his heart. Desolation worked with silence sensibly upon his +thoughts, so that he presently made the alarming discovery that the +bottom had dropped completely out of his stock of scepticism, leaving +him seriously in danger of becoming afraid of the dark. Scowling over +this, he stumbled on, telling himself that he was a fool: a conclusion +so patent that neither then nor thereafter at any time did he find +reason to dispute it. + +After some three-quarters of an hour of hard climbing he came to the +wooden bridge, and halted, surveying it with mistrust. Doubtless in the +olden time a substantial but movable structure, strong enough to +sustain a troop of warriors but light enough to be easily drawn up, had +extended across the chasm, rendering the city impregnable from capture +by assault. If so, it had long since been replaced by an airy and +well-ventilated latticework of boards and timbers, none of which seemed +to the wary eye any too sound. Amber selected the most solid-looking of +the lot and gingerly advanced a pace or two along it. With a soft +crackling a portion of the timber crumbled to dust beneath his feet. He +retreated hastily to the causeway, and swore, and noticed that the Eye +was watching him with malevolent interest, and swore some more. +Entirely on impulse he heaved a bit of rock, possibly twenty pounds in +weight, to the middle of the structure. There followed a splintering +crash and the contraption dissolved like a magic-lantern effect, +leaving a solitary beam about a foot in width and six or eight inches +thick, spanning a flight of twenty and a drop of sixty feet. The river +received the rubbish with several successive splashes, distinctly +disconcerting, and Amber sat down on a boulder to think it over. + +"Clever invention," he mused; "one'd think that, after taking all this +trouble to get me here, they'd changed their minds about wanting me. +I've a notion to change mine." He looked up at the cusped and +battlemented gateway opposite him, shifted his regard to the Eye, and +shook his fist vindictively at the latter. "If ever I get hold of the +chap that invented you...!" An ingenious imagination failing to suggest +any form of torture commensurate with the crime, he relapsed into +gloomy meditation. + +There seemed to be no possibility of turning back at that stage, +however. Kuttarpur was rather far away, and, moreover, he doubted if he +would be permitted to return. Having come thus far, he must go on. +Moreover, Sophia Farrell was on the other side of that Swordwide +Bridge, and such being the case, cross it he would though he were to +find the next world at its end. Finally he considered that he was +presently to undergo an Ordeal of some unknown nature, probably +extremely unpleasant, and that this matter of the vanishing bridge must +have been arranged in order to put him in a properly subdued and +tractable frame of mind. + +He got up and tested the remaining girder with circumspection and +incredulity; but it seemed firm enough, solidly embedded in the +stonework of the causeway and immovable at the city end. So he +straddled it and, averting his eyes from the scenery beneath him, +hitched ingloriously across, collecting splinters and a very distinct +impression that, as a vocation, knight-errantry was not without its +drawbacks. + +When again he stood on his feet he was in the shadow of the outer +gateway, the curtain of the second wall confronting him. The stillness +remained unbroken but the moonlight illuminated with startling +distinctness the frescoes, half obliterated by time, and they were +monstrous, revolting and obscene, from a Western point of view. A +bastion of the third wall hid the Eye, however; he was grateful for +that. + +Casting about, he discovered the second gateway at some distance to the +left, and started toward it, forcing a way through a tangle of scrubby +undergrowth, weeds, and thorny acacia, but had taken few steps ere a +heavy splash in the river below brought him up standing, with a +thumping heart. After an irresolute moment he turned back to see for +himself, and found his apprehension only too well grounded; the +Swordwide Bridge was gone, displaced by an agency which had been prompt +to seek cover--though he confessed himself unable to suggest where that +cover had been found. There was no one visible on the causeway, and +nobody skulked in the shadows of the bastions of the main gate. +Furthermore it seemed hardly possible that in so scant a space of time +human hands could have worked that heavy beam out of its sockets. And +if the hands had been human (of course any other hypothesis were +ridiculous) what had become of their owners? + +He gave it up, considering that it were futile to badger his wits for +the how and the wherefore. The important fact remained that he was a +prisoner in dead Kathiapur, his retreat cut off, and--Here he made a +second discovery, infinitely more shocking: his pistol was gone. + +Amber remembered distinctly examining the weapon in Dulla Dad's boat, +since when he had found no occasion to think of it. Now either it had +jolted out of his pocket in that wild ride from Kuttarpur, or else +Naraini had managed deftly to abstract it while in his arms by the +summer palace, or when, later, she had shrunk against him in real or +affected terror of the Eye. Of the two explanations his reason favoured +the second. But he made no audible comment, though his thoughts were as +black as his brow and as grimly fashioned as the set of his jaw. + +Turning back at length he made his way to the second gateway and from +it to the third, under the lewdly sculptured arch of which he stopped +and gasped, forgetting himself as for the first time Kathiapur the +Fallen was revealed to him in all the awful beauty of its naked +desolation. + +A wide and stately avenue stretched away from the portals, between rows +of dwellings, palaces of marble and stone, tombs and mausoleums, with +meaner houses of sun-dried brick and rubble, roofless all and +disintegrating in the slow, terrible process of the years. Here a wall +had caved in, there an arch had fallen out. The thoroughfare was strewn +with fallen lintels, broken marble screens, blocks of red sandstone, +bricks, and in between them the fig and pipal nourished with the +bebel-thorn, the ak, the mimosa, the insidious convolvulus twining +everywhere. At the far end of the street a yawning black arch rose in +the white, beautiful facade of a marble temple on whose uppermost +pinnacle the Eye hovered, staring horridly. + +As Amber moved forward small, alert ghosts rose from the undergrowth +and scurried silently thence: a circumstance which made him very +unhappy. Even a brilliant chorus of sharp barks from an adjacent street +failed to convince him that he had merely disturbed a pack of jackals, +after all, and not the disconsolate brooding wraiths of those who had +died and been buried in the imposing ruined tombs, what time Kathiapur +boasted ten thousand swords and elephants by the herd. + +The way was difficult and Amber tired. After a while, having seen +nothing but the jackals, an owl or two, several thousand bats and a +crawling thing which had lurched along in the shadow of a wall some +distance away, giving an admirable imitation of a badly wounded man +pulling himself over the ground, and making strange gutteral +noises--Amber concluded to wait for the guide Naraini had promised him. +He turned aside and seated himself upon the edge of a broken sandstone +tomb. The silence was appalling and for relief he took refuge in cheap +irreverence. "Home," he observed aloud, "never was like this." + +A heart-rending sigh from the tomb behind him was followed by a rattle +of dislodged rubbish. Amber found himself unexpectedly in the middle of +the street and, without stopping to debate the method of his getting +there with such unprecedented rapidity, looked back hopefully to the +tomb. At the same moment a black-shrouded figure swept out of it and +moved a few paces down the street, then paused and beckoned him with a +gaunt arm. "I wish," said Amber earnestly, "I had that gun." + +The figure was apparently that of a native swathed in black from his +head to his heels and seemed the more strikingly peculiar in view of +the fact that, as far as Amber could determine, he had neither eyes nor +features although his head was without any sort of covering. He gulped +over the proposition for an instant, then stepped forward. + +"Evidently my appointed cicerone," he considered. "Unquestionably this +ghost-dance is excellently stage-managed.... Though, of course, I _had_ +to pick out that particular tomb." + +He followed in the wake of the figure, which sped on with a singular +motion, something between a walk and a glide, conscious that his +equanimity had been restored rather than shaken by the incident. "You +wouldn't think," he reflected, "that a man like Salig Singh would lend +himself to anything so childish. Still, I'm not through with it yet." +He conceived a scheme to steal up behind his guide and strip him of his +masquerade, but though he mended his pace he got no nearer, and +eventually abandoned it on the consideration that it was probably most +inadvisable. After all, he had to remember that he was there for a +purpose, and a very serious one, and that properly to further that +purpose he must comport himself with dignity, submissively, accepting, +at least with a show of ease, each new development of the affair along +its prearranged lines. And so he held on in pursuit of the black +shadow, passing forsaken temples and lordly pleasure-houses, all marble +tracery and fretwork, standing apart in what had once been noble +gardens, sunken tanks all weed-grown and rank with slime, humbler +dooryards and cots on whose hearthstones the fires for centuries had +been cold--his destination evidently the temple of the unspeakable Eye. + +As they drew nearer the leading shadow forsook the shade of the walls +which he had seemed to favour, sweeping hastily across a plaza white +with moonglare and without pause on into the black, gaping hole beyond +the marble arch. + +Here for the first time Amber hung back, stopping a score of feet from +the door, his nerves a-jangle. He did not falter in his purpose; he was +going to enter the inky portal, but ... would he ever leave it? And the +world was still sweet to him. His quick, darting gaze registered a +dozen impressions in as many seconds: of the silver splendour spilled +so lavishly upon the soulless corpse of the city, of the high, bright +sky, of dead black shadows sharp-edged against the radiance, of the +fleet flitting spectre that was really a flying-fox.... + +Afar a hyena laughed with a sardonic intonation wholly uncalled-for--it +was blood-curdling, besides. And down the street a melancholy air +breathed gently, sighing like a soul astray. + +"This won't do," he told himself; "it can't be worse inside than out +here." + +He took firm hold of his reason and went on across the dark threshold, +took three uncertain strides into the limitless unknown, and pulled up +short, hearing nothing, unable to see a yard before him. Then with a +terrific crash like a thunder-clap the great doors swung to behind him. +He whirled about with a stifled cry, conscious of a mad desire to find +the doors again, took a step or two toward them, paused to wonder if he +were moving in the right direction, moved a little to the left, half +turned, and was lost. Reverberating, the echoes of the crash rolled far +away and back again, diminishing in volume, dying until they were no +more than as a whisper adrift in the silence, until that was gone.... + +Profound night enveloped him, vast, breathless, without dimensions. One +can endure the blackness that abides within four well-kenned walls; but +night unrelieved by the least gleam of light, night without bounds or +measurements, enfolding one like a stifling blanket and instilling into +the brain the fear of nameless things, quickening the respiration and +oppressing the heart--that is another thing entirely, and that is what +Amber found in the Temple of the Bell. Darkness swam visibly before his +eyes, like a fluid. The sound of his constrained breathing seemed most +loud and unnatural. He could hear his heart rumbling like a distant +drum. + +Digging his nails into his palms, he waited; and in the suspense of +dread began to count the seconds. + +One minute ... two ... three ... four.... + +He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.... + +Seven ... + +He passed a hand across his face and brought it away wet with +perspiration.... + +Nine ... + +In some remote spot a bell began to toll; at first slowly--_clang_!... +_clang_!... _clang_!--then more quickly, until the roar of its +sonorous, gong-like tones seemed to fill all the world and to set it +a-tremble. Then, insensibly, the tempo became more sedate, the fierce +clamour of it moderated, and Amber abruptly was alive to the fact that +the bell was _speaking_--that its voice, deep, clear, sound, metallic, +was rolling forth again and again a question couched in purest +Sanskrit: + +"_Who is there_?... _Who is there_?... _Who is there_?..." + +The hair lifted on his scalp and he swallowed hard in the effort to +answer; but the lie stuck in his throat: he was not Rutton and ... and +it is very hard to lie effectively when you stand in stark darkness +with a mouth dry as dust and your hair stirring at the roots because of +the intensely impersonal and aloof accents of an inhuman Bell-voice, +tolling away out of Nowhere. + +"_Who is there_?" + +Again he failed to answer. Somewhere near him he heard a slight noise +as of a man moving impatiently; and then a whisper: "Respond, thou +fool!" + +"Art thou come, O Chosen of the Gateway?" the Bell-voice rang. + +"I ... I am come," Amber managed to reply. And so still and small +sounded his own voice in the huge spaces of the place that he was +surprised to find he had been heard. + +"Hear ye!" rang the Bell. "Hear ye, O Lords and Rulers in Medhyama! O +Children of my Gateway, hear ye well! He is come! He stands upon the +threshold of the Gateway!" + +Resonant, the echoes of those awe-inspiring tones died upon the +stillness, and in response a faint sighing rose and, momentarily +growing in volume, became as the roaring of a mighty wind; and suddenly +it was abrupted, leaving only a ringing in the ears. + +A great drum roared like the crack of Doom; and Amber's jaw dropped. +For in the high roof of the temple a six-foot slab had been noiselessly +withdrawn, and through it a cold shaft of moonlight fell, cutting the +gloom like a gigantic rapier, and smote with its immaculate radiance +the true Gateway of Swords. + +Not six paces from him it leaped out of the darkness in an iridescent +sheen: an arch a scant ten feet in height, and in span double the width +of a big man's shoulders, woven across like a weaver's frame with +ribbons of pale fire. But the ribbons were of steel--steel blades, +sharp, bright, gleaming: a countless array of curved tulwars and +crescent scimetars, broad jataghans, short and ugly kukurees, long +kutars with straight ends, slender deadly patas, snake-like bichwas; +swords with jewelled hilts and engraved and damascened blades; sabres +with channels cut from point to guard wherein small pearls ran singing; +khands built for service and for parade; swords of every style and +period in all the history of India. With their pommels cunningly +affixed so that their points touched and interlaced, yet swung free, +they lined the piers of the arch from base to span and all the graceful +sweep of the intrados, a curtain of shimmering, trembling steel, +barring the way to the Mystery beyond. Which was--darkness. + +"O ye Swords!" belled the Voice.... "O ye Swords that have known no +dishonour! O ye Swords that have sung in the grasp of my greatest! +Swords of Jehangar, Akbar, Alamgir! Swords of Alludin, Humayun, Shah +Jehan! Swords of Timur-Leng, Arungzeb, Rao Rutton!..." + +The invocation seemed interminable. Amber recognised almost every name +noted in the annals and legends of Hindustan.... + +"Hearken, O my Swords! He, thy Chosen, prayeth for entry! What is thy +welcome?" + +One by one the blades began to shiver, clashing their neighbours, until +the curtain of steel glimmered and glistened like phosphorescence in a +summer sea, and the place was filled with the music of their contact; +and through their clamour boomed the Bell: + +"O my Chosen!" Amber started and held himself firmly in hand. "Look +well, look well! Here is thy portal to kingship and glory!" + +He frowned and took a step forward as if he would throw himself through +the archway; for he had suddenly remembered with compelling vividness +that Sophia Farrell was to be won only by that passage. But as he moved +the swords clattered afresh and swung outwards, presenting a bristle of +points. And he stopped, while the Voice, indifferent and remote as +always, continued to harangue him. + +"If thy heart, O my Chosen, be clean, unsullied with fear and guile; if +thy faith be the faith of thy fathers and thy honour rooted in love of +thy land; if thou hast faith in the strength of thy hands to hold the +reins of Empire ... enter, having no fear." + +"Trick-work," he told himself. He set his teeth with determination. +"Hope they don't see fit to cut me to pieces on suspicion. Here goes." +He moved forward with a firm step until his bosom all but touched the +points. + +Instantaneously, with another clash as of cymbals, the blades were +deflected and returned to their first position, closing the way. He +hesitated. Then, "That shan't stop me!" he said through his teeth, and +pushed forward, heart in mouth. He breasted the curtain and felt it +give; the blades yielded jealously, closing round his body like cold +caressing arms; he felt their chill kisses on his cheeks and hands, +even through his clothing he was conscious of their clinging, deadly +touch. Abruptly they swung entirely away, leaving the entrance clear, +and he was drawing a free breath when the moon glare showed him the +swords returned to position with the speed of light. He jumped for his +life and escaped being slashed to pieces by the barest inch. They swung +to behind him; and again the drum roared, while afar there arose a +furious, eldritch wailing of conches. Overhead the opening disappeared +and the light was shut out. In darkness as of the Hall of Eblis the +conches were stilled and the echoes ebbed into a silence that held sway +for many minutes ere again the Bell spoke. + +"Stretch forth thy hand." + +Somewhat shaken, Amber held out an open palm before him. A second time +the gusty sighing arose and breathed through the night, increasing +until the very earth beneath him seemed to rock with the magnitude of +the sound, until, at its highest, it ceased and was as if it had not +been; not even an echo sang its passing. Then out of nothingness +something plopped into Amber's hand and his fingers closed convulsively +about it. It was a hand, very small, small as a child's, gnarled and +hard as steel and cold as ice. + +Amber sunk his teeth into his lower lip and subdued an almost +uncontrollable impulse to scream and fling the thing away; for his +sense of touch told him that the hand was dead. And yet he became +sensible that it was tugging at his own, and he yielded to its +persuasion, permitting himself to be led on for so long a journey that +his fingers clasping the little hand grew numb with cold ere it was +over. He could by no means say whither he was being conducted, but was +conscious of a long, gradual descent. Many times he swept his free arm +out round him, but touched nothing. + +Abruptly the guiding hand was twisted away. He stopped incontinently, +and possessed himself with what patience he could muster throughout +another long wait tempered by strange sibilant whisperings and +rustlings in the void all about him. + +Without any forewarning two heavy hands gripped him, one on either +shoulder, and he was forced to his knees. At the same instant, with a +snapping crackle a spurt of blue flame shot down from the zenith, and +where it fell with a thunderclap a dazzling glare of emerald light shot +up breasthigh. + +To his half-blinded eyes it seemed, for a time, to dance suspended in +the air before him. A vapour swirled up from it, a thin cloud, +luminous. By degrees he made out its source, a small, brazen bowl on a +tripod. + +A confusion of hushed voices swelled as had the sound of that mighty, +rushing, impalpable wind, and died more slowly. + +Conscious that his features were in strong light, he strove to exhibit +an impassiveness that belied his temper; then glancing round beneath +lowered eyelids he sought to determine something of the nature of his +surroundings, but could see little. The hands had left his shoulders +the minute his knees touched the floor; he knelt utterly alone in the +middle of what seemed to be a vast hall, or cavern, of which the size +was but faintly suggested. As his eyes became accustomed to the +chiaroscuro he became aware of monstrous images of stone that appeared +to advance from and retreat to the far walls on either hand as the +green light flared and fell, and of a great silent and motionless +concourse of people grouped about the massive pedestals--a crowd as +contained and impassive as the gods that towered above its heads, +blending into the gloom that shrouded the high roof of the place. + +In front of him he could see nothing beyond the noiselessly wavering +flame. But presently a hand appeared, as if by magic, above the bowl--a +hand, bony, brown, and long of finger, that seemed attached to +nothing--and cast something like a powder into the fire. There followed +a fizz and puff of vapour, and a strong and heady gust of incense was +wafted into Amber's face. Again and again the hand appeared, sprinkling +powder in the brazier, until the smoke clouded the atmosphere with its +fluent, eddying coils. + +The gooseflesh that had pricked out on Amber's skin subsided, and his +qualms went with it. "Greek fire burning in a bowl," he explained the +phenomenon; "and a native with his arm wrapped to the wrist in black is +feeding it. Not a bad effect, though." + +It was, perhaps, as well that he had not been deceived, for there was a +horror to come that required all his strength to face. He became +conscious that something was moving between him and the +brazier--something which he had incuriously assumed to be a piece of +dirty cloth left there carelessly. But now he saw it stir, squirm, and +upend, unfolding itself and lifting its head to the leaping flame: an +immense cobra, sleek and white as ivory, its swelling hood as large as +a man's two hands, with a binocular mark on it as yellow as topaz, and +with vicious eyes glowing like twin rubies in its vile little head. + +Amber's breath clicked in his throat and he shrank back, rising; but +this instinctive move had been provided against and before his knees +were fairly off the rocky floor he was forced down again by the hands +on his shoulders. He was unable to take his eyes from the monster, and +though terror such as man is heir to lay cold upon his heart, he did +not again attempt to stir. + +There was now no sound. Alone and undisturbed the bleached viper warmed +to its dance with the pulsing flame, turning and twisting, weaving and +writhing in its infernal glare.... + +"Hear ye, O my peoples!" + +Amber jumped. The Voice had seemed to ring out from a point directly +overhead. + +He looked up and discovered above him, vague in the obscurity, the +outlines of a gigantic bell, hanging motionless. The green glare, +shining on its rim and partly illumining its empty hollow (he saw no +clapper) revealed the sheen of the bronze of which it was fashioned. + +Out of its immense bowl, the Voice rolled like thunder: + +"Hear ye, O my peoples!" + +A responsive murmur ascended from the company round the walls: + +"We hear! We hear, O Medhyama!" + +"Mark well this man, O Children of my Gateway! Mark well! Out of ye all +have I chosen him to lead thee in the work of healing; for I thy +Mother, I Medhyama, I Bharuta, I the Body from which ye are sprung, +call me by whatever name ye know me--I am laid low with a great +sickness.... Yea, I am stricken and laid low with a sickness." + +A great and bitter wailing arose from the multitude. + +"Yea, I am overcome with a faintness, and my strength is gone out from +me, and my limbs are as water; I am sick with a fever and languish; in +my veins runs the Evil like fire and like poison; and I burn and am +stricken; I toss in my torment and murmur, and the sound of my Voice +has come to thine ears. Ye have heard me and answered. The tale of my +sufferings is known to ye. Say, shall I perish?" + +In the brazier the flame leaped high and subsided, and with it the +cobra leaped and sank low upon its coils. From the people a mighty +shout of negation went up, so that the walls rang with it, and the +echoes were bandied back and forth, insensibly decreasing through many +minutes. When all was still the Voice began to chant again, and the +flames blazed higher and brighter, while the cobra resumed its mystic +dance. + +Amber knelt on in a semi-stupor, staring glassily at the light and the +serpent. + +"I, thine old Mother, have called ye together to help in my healing. +From my feet to my head I am eaten with pestilence; yea, I am devoured +and possessed by the Evil. Even of old was it thus with thy Mother; +long since she complained of the Plague that is Scarlet--moaned and +cried out and turned in her misery.... But ye failed me. Then my +peoples were weaklings and their hearts all were craven; the Scarlet +Evil dismayed them; they fled from its power and left it to batten on +me in my sickness." + +A deep groan welled in uncounted throats and resounded through the +cavern. + +"Will ye fail me again, O my Children?" + +"Nay, nay, O our Mother!" + +"Too long have I suffered and been patient in silence. Now must I be +cleansed and made whole as of old time; yea, I must be purged +altogether and the Evil cast out from me. It is time.... Ye have heard, +ye have answered; make ready, for the day of the cleansing approacheth. +Whet thy swords for the days of the healing, for my cleansing can be +but by steel. Yea, thy swords shall do away with the Evil, and the land +shall run red with the blood of Bharuta, the blood of thy Mother; it +shall run to the sea as a river, bearing with it the Red Evil. So and +no otherwise shall I, thine old Mother, be healed and made whole +again." + +"Aye, aye, O our Mother!" + +The flames, dying, rose once more, and the Voice continued, but with a +change of temper. It was now a clarion call, stirring the blood like +martial music. + +"Ye shall show me your swords for a token.... Swords of the North, are +ye ready?" + +"We are ready, old Mother!" + +With a singing shiver of steel, all around the walls, in knots and +clusters, naked blades leaped up, flashing. + +"Swords of the East, are ye loyal?" + +"Aye, old Mother!" + +And the tally of swords was doubled. + +"Swords of the South, are ye thirsty?" + +A third time the crashing response shattered the echoes. + +"Swords of the West, do ye love me?" + +With the fourth ringing shout and showing of steel, a silence fell. The +walls were veritably hedged with quivering blades, all a-gleam in the +ghastly glare of green. Over the sculptured faces of the great idols +flickering shadows played, so that they seemed to move and grimace, as +if with approbation. + +Amber was watching the serpent--dazed and weary as if with a great need +of sleep. Even the salvos of shouts came to him as from a great +distance. To the clangour of the Bell alone he had become abnormally +sensitive; every fibre of his being shuddered, responsive to its weird +nuances. + +It returned to its solemn and stately intoning. + +"Out of ye all have I chosen and fixed upon one who shall lead ye. +Through him shall my strength be made manifest, my Will be made known +to my peoples. Him must ye serve and obey; to him must ye bow down and +be humble. Say, are ye pleased? Will ye have him, my Children?" + +Without an instant's delay a cry of ratification rang to the roof. +"Yea, O our Mother! Him we will serve and obey, to him bow down and be +humble." + +The Voice addressed itself directly to the kneeling man. He stiffened +and roused. + +"Thou hast heard of the honour we confer upon thee--I Medhyama, thy +Mother, and these my children, thy brothers. Ye shall lead and shall +rule in Bharuta. Are ye ready?" + +Half hypnotised, Amber opened his mouth, but no words came. His chin +dropped to his breast. + +"Thy strength must be known to my peoples; they must see thee put to +the proof of thy courage, that they may know thee to be the man for +their leader.... Ye are ready?" + +He was unable to move a finger. + +"Stretch out thine arms!" + +He shuddered and tried to obey. The Voice rang imperative. + +"Stretch forth thine arms for the testing!" + +Somehow, mechanically, he succeeded in raising his arms and holding +them rigid before him. Alarmed by the movement, the cobra turned with a +hiss, waving his poisonous head. But the Virginian made no offer to +withdraw his hands. His eyes were wide and staring and his face livid. + +A subdued murmur came from the men clustered round the idols, in +semi-darkness. + +The Bell boomed forth like an organ. + +"O hooded Death.... O Death, who art trained to my service! Thou before +whom all men stand affrighted! Thou who canst look into their hearts +and read them as a scroll that is unrolled ... Look deep into the heart +of my Chosen! Judge if he be worthy or wanting, judge if he be false or +true ... Judge him, O Death!" + +Before Amber the great serpent was oscillating like a pendulum, its +little tongue playing like forked red lightning, its loathsome red eyes +holding his own. Terror gripped his heart, and his soul curdled. He +would have cried out, but that his tongue clave to the roof of his +mouth. He could not have moved had he willed to. + +"Look well, O Death, and judge him!" + +The dance of the Hooded Death changed in character, grew more frenzied; +the white writhing coils melted into one another in dizzying confusion; +figure merged into figure like smoke.... The suspense grew intolerable. + +"Hast thou judged him, O Death?" + +Instantly the white cobra reared up to its utmost and remained poised +over Amber, barely moving save for the almost imperceptible throbbing +of the hood and the incessant darting of the forked tongue. + +"If he be loyal, then spare him ..." + +The hood did not move. Amber's flesh crawled with unspeakable dread. + +"If he be faithless, then ... _strike!_" + +For another moment the cobra maintained the tensity. Then slowly, cruel +head waving, hood shrinking, eyes losing their deathly lustre, coil by +coil it sank. + +A thick murmur ran the round of the walls, swelling into an +inarticulate cry, which beat upon Amber's ears like the raving of a +far-off surf. From his lips a strangled sob broke, and, every muscle +relaxing, he lurched forward. + +Alarmed, in a trice the cobra was up again, hood distended to the +bursting point, head swinging so swiftly that the eye could not follow +it. In another breath would come the final thrust.... + +A firearm exploded behind Amber, singeing his cheek with its flame. He +fell over sideways, barely escaping the head of the cobra, which, with +its hood blown to tatters, writhed in convulsions, its malignant tongue +straining forth as if in one last attempt to reach his hand. + +A second shot followed the first and then a brisk, confused fusillade. +Amber heard a man scream out in mortal agony, and the dull sound of a +heavy body falling near him; but, coincident with the second report, +the brazier had been overturned and its light extinguished as if sucked +up into the air. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +RUTTON'S DAUGHTER + + +In darkness the blacker for the sudden disappearance of the light, +somebody stumbled over Amber--stumbled and swore in good English. The +Virginian sat up, crying out as weakly as a child: "Labertouche!" A +voice said: "Thank God!" He felt strong hands lift him to his feet. He +clung to him who had helped him, swaying like a drunkard, wits a-swirl +in the brain thus roughly awakened from semi-hypnosis. + +"Here," said Labertouche's voice, "take my hand and follow. We're in +for it now!" + +He caught Amber's hand and dragged him, yielding and unquestioning, +rapidly through a chaotic rush of unseen bodies. + +The firing had electrified the tense-strung audience. With a +pandemonium of shrieks, oaths, shouts, orders unheard and commands +unheeded, a concerted rush was made from every quarter to the spot +where the doomed man had been kneeling. Men running blundered into +running men and cannoned off at direct angles to their original +courses, without realising it. Disorder reigned rampant, and the cavern +rang with a thousand echoes, while the Bell awoke and roared a raging +tocsin, redoubling the din. No man could have said where he stood or +whither he ran--save one, perhaps. That one was at Amber's side and had +laid his course beforehand and knew that both their lives depended upon +his sticking to it without deviation. To him a rush of a hundred feet +in a direct line meant salvation, the least deviation from it, death. +He plunged through the scurrying masses without regard for any hurt +that might come either to him or to his charge. + +A red glare of torches was breaking out over the heads of the mob +before they gained their destination. Amber saw that they were making +for a corner formed by the junction of one of the pedestals with a +rocky wall. He was now recovering rapidly and able to appreciate that +they stood a good chance of winning away; for the natives were all +converging toward the centre of the cavern, and apparently none heeded +them. Nevertheless Labertouche, releasing him, put a revolver in his +hand. + +"Don't hesitate to shoot if any one comes this way!" he said. "I've got +to get this door open and..." + +He broke off with an ejaculation of gratitude; for while he had been +speaking, his fingers busily groping in the convolutions of the +sculptured pedestal had encountered what he sought, and now he pulled +out an iron bar two feet or so in length and as thick as a woman's +wrist. Inserting this in a socket, as one familiar with the trick, he +put his weight upon it; a carved sandstone slab slid back silently, +disclosing a black cavernous opening. + +"In with you," panted Labertouche, removing the lever. "Don't +delay...." + +Amber did not. He took with him a hazy impression of a vast, vaulted +hall filled with a ruddy glare of torchlight, a raving rabble of +gorgeously attired natives in its centre. Then the opening received him +and he found himself in a black hole of an underground gallery--a place +that reeked with the dank odours of the tomb. + +Labertouche followed and with the aid of a small electric pocket-lamp +discovered another socket for the lever. A moment later the slab moved +back into place, and the Englishman dropped the metal bar. "If there +were only some way of locking that opening," he gasped, "we'd be fairly +safe. As it is, we'll have to look nippy. That was a near call--as near +a one as ever you'll know, my boy; and we're not out yet. What are you +doing?" he added, as Amber stopped to pick up the lever. + +"It isn't a bad weapon," said the Virginian, "at a pinch. You'll want +your gun, and that she-devil, Naraini, got mine." + +"Keep the one I gave you and don't be afraid to use it. I've another +and a couple of knives for good measure. That Mohammedan prince whom I +persuaded to change places with me was a walking arsenal." Labertouche +chuckled. "Come along," he said, and drew ahead at a dog-trot. + +They sped down a passage which delved at a sharp grade through solid +rock. Now and again it turned and struck away in another direction. +Once they descended--or rather fell down--a short, steep flight of +steps. At the bottom Amber stopped. + +"Hold on!" he cried. + +Labertouche pulled up impatiently. "What's the matter?" + +"Sophia--!" + +"Trust me, dear boy, and come along." + +Persuaded, Amber gave in, blundering on after Labertouche, who loped +along easily, with the confidence of one who threads known ways, the +spot-light from his lamp dancing along the floor several feet before +him. Otherwise they moved between walls of Stygian darkness. + +It was some time later that Labertouche extinguished his lamp and threw +a low word of warning over his shoulder. Synchronously Amber discerned, +far ahead, a faint glow of yellow light. As they bore down upon it with +unmoderated speed, he could see that it emanated from a rough-hewn +doorway, opening off the passage. Before it a man stood guard with a +naked sword. + +"_Johar!_" he greeted them in the Mahar form: "O, warrior!" + +"_Johar!_" returned Labertouche, panting heavily. He closed upon the +native confidently, but was brought up short by a peremptory sweep of +the sword, coupled with an equally imperative demand for an explanation +of their haste. The Englishman replied with apparent difficulty, as if +half-winded. "It is an order, _Johar_. The woman is to be brought to +the Hall of the Bell." + +"You have the word?" The Mahar lowered his sword. "It hath been said to +me that--" + +Labertouche stumbled over his feet, and caught the speaker for support. +The native gurgled in a sodden fashion, dropped his sword, stared +stupidly at Labertouche, and put an uncertain hand to his throat. Then +he lurched heavily and collapsed upon himself. + +The secret-agent stepped back, dropping the knife he had used. "Poor +devil!" he said in a compassionate undertone. "That was cold-blooded +murder, Mr. Amber." + +"Necessary?" gasped Amber, regarding with horror the bloodstained heap +of rags and flesh at his feet. + +"Judge for yourself," said Labertouche coolly, stepping over the body. +"Here," he added, pausing by the doorway, "you go first; she knows +you." + +He pushed Amber on ahead. Stooping, the Virginian entered a small, rude +chamber hollowed out of the rock of Kathiapur. A crude lamp in a +bracket furnished all its illumination, filling it with a reek of hot +oil. Amber was vaguely aware of the figures of two women--one standing +in a corner, the other seated dejectedly upon a charpoy, her head +against the wall. As he lifted his head after passing under the low +lintel, the woman in the corner fired at him point-blank. + +The Virginian saw the jet of flame spurt from her hand and felt the +bullet's impact upon the wall behind his head. He flung himself upon +her instantly. There was a moment of furious struggle, while the cell +echoed with the reverberations of the shot and the screaming of the +woman on the charpoy. The pistol exploded again as he grappled with the +would-be murderess; the bullet, passing up his sleeve, creased his left +arm as with a white-hot iron, and tore out through the cloth on his +shoulder. He twisted brutally the wrist that held the weapon, and the +woman dropped it with a cry of pain. + +"You would!" he cried, and threw her from him, putting a foot upon the +pistol. + +She reeled back against the wall and crouched there, trembling, her +cheeks on fire, her eyes aflame with rage. "You dog!" she shrilled in +Hindi--and spat at him like a maddened cat. Then he recognised her. + +"Naraini!" He stepped back in his surprise, his right hand seeking +instinctively the wrist of his left, which was numb with pain. + +His change of position left the pistol unguarded, and the woman swooped +down upon it like a bird of prey; but before she could get her fingers +on its grip, Labertouche stepped between them, fended her off, and +quietly possessed himself of the weapon. + +"Your pardon, madam," he said gravely. + +Naraini retreated, shaking with fury, and Amber employed the respite to +recognise Sophia Farrell in the woman on the charpoy. She was still +seated, prevented from rising by bonds about her wrists and ankles, and +though unnaturally pale, her anguish of fear and despair had set its +marks upon her face without one whit detracting from the appeal of her +beauty. He went to her immediately, and as their eyes met, hers flamed +with joy, relief and--he dared believe--a stronger emotion. + +"You--you're not hurt, Mr. Amber?" + +"Not at all. The bullet went out through my sleeve. And you?" He +dropped on his knees, with his pocket-knife severing the ends of rope +that bound her. + +"I'm all right." She took his hands, helping herself to rise. "Thank +you," she said, her eyes shining, a flush of colour suffusing her face +with glory. + +"Did you cut those ropes, Amber?" Labertouche interposed curtly. + +"Yes. Why?" + +The Englishman explained without turning from his sombre and morose +regard of Naraini. "Too bad--we'll have to tie this woman up, somehow. +She's a complication I hadn't foreseen.... Here; you'd better leave me +to attend to her--you and Miss Farrell. Go on down the gallery--to the +left, I'll catch up with you." + +The pistol which he still held lent to his demand a sinister +significance of which he was, perhaps, thoughtless. But Sophia Farrell +heard, saw, and surmised. + +"No!" she cried, going swiftly to the secret-agent. "No!" She put a +hand upon his arm, but he shook it off. + +"Did you hear me, Amber?" said Labertouche, still watching the queen. + +"What do you mean to do?" insisted Sophia. "You can't--you mustn't--" + +"This is no time for half-measures, Miss Farrell," Labertouche told her +brusquely. "Our lives hang in the balance--Mr. Amber's, yours, mine. +Please go." + +"You promise not to harm her?" + +"Amber!" cried the Englishman impatiently. "Will you--" + +"Please, Miss Farrell!" begged Amber, trying to take the girl's hand +and draw her away. + +"I won't!" she declared. "I'll not move a step until he promises. You +don't understand. No matter what the danger she's--" + +"She's a fiend incarnate," Labertouche broke in. "Amber, get that +girl--" + +"She's my sister!" cried Sophia. "_Now_ will you understand?" + +"What!" The two men exclaimed as one. + +"She's my sister," the girl repeated, holding up her head defiantly, +her cheeks burning--"my sister by adoption. We were brought up +together. She was the daughter of an old friend of my father's--an +Indian prince. A few years ago she ran away--" + +"Thank God!" said Amber from the bottom of his soul; and, "Ah, you +would!" cried Labertouche tensely, as Naraini seized the opportunity, +when his attention was momentarily diverted, to break for freedom. + +Amber saw the flash of a steel blade in the woman's hand as she struck +at the secret-agent, and the latter, stepping back, deflected the blow +with a guarding forearm. Then, with the quickness of a snake, Naraini +stooped, glided beneath his arms, and slipped from the cell. + +With a smothered oath Labertouche leaped to the doorway, lifting his +pistol; but he was no quicker than Sophia, who caught his arm and held +him back. "No," she panted; "not even for our lives--not at that +price!" + +He yielded unexpectedly. "Of course you are perfectly right, Miss +Farrell," said he, with a little bow. "I'm sorry that circumstances ... +But come! She'll have this hornet's nest about our ears in a brace of +seconds. Hark to that!" + +A long, shrill shriek echoed down the gallery. Labertouche shrugged and +turned to the left. "Come along," he said. "Amber, take Miss Farrel's +hand and keep close to me." He led the way from the cell at a brisk +pace--one, indeed, that taxed Sophia's powers of endurance to maintain. +Amber aided her as much as he might, but that was little; the walls of +the passageway were too close together to permit him to be by her side +much of the time. For the most part he had to lead the way, himself +guided by the swiftly moving patch of light cast by Labertouche's +bull's-eye. But through it all he was buoyed up and exhilarated out of +all reason by the consciousness of the hand that lay trustfully in his +own; a hand soft and small and warm and (though he could not see it) +white, all white! More, it was the hand of his wife to be; he felt this +now with an unquestioning assurance. He wondered if she shared the +subject of his thoughts ... + +The gallery sloped at varying grades, more or less steep--mostly +more--and minute by minute the air became more dank and cold. At an +unseen turning, where another passage branched away, a biting wind +swept out of the black nowhere, chilling them to the marrow. Deeper and +still deeper, into the very bowels of the earth, it seemed, the +secret-agent led them, finding his way with an unfaltering confidence +that exalted Amber's admiration of him to the pitch of hero-worship. + +At length the gallery dipped and ran level, and now, while still cold, +the wind that blew in their faces was cleaner, burdened with less of +the clammy effluvium of death and decay; and then, abruptly, the walls +narrowed suddenly, so that Amber was forced to surrender possession of +the girl's hand and to fall behind her. She went forward without +question, following the dancing spotlight. + +Amber paused to listen for sounds of pursuit, but hearing nothing save +the subdued sigh of the draught between the straitened walls of rock, +followed until the walls fell away and his hands, outstretched, failed +to touch them, and he was aware that the stone beneath his feet had +given way to gravel. He halted, calling guardedly to Labertouche. + +The secret-agent's voice came from some distance. "It's all right, my +boy. Miss Farrell is with me. Come along." + +There was an _elan_ in his tone that bespoke a spirit of gratulation +and relief and led Amber to suspect that they were very close upon the +end of their flight, near to escape from the subterranean ways of +Kathiapur the dead. He proceeded at discretion in the direction of +Labertouche's voice--the light being invisible--and brought up flat +against a dead wall. Coincidently he heard Sophia exclaim with surprise +and delight, somewhere off on his left, and, turning, he saw her head +and shoulders move across a patch of starlit sky. In half a dozen +strides he overtook her. + +They stood on a low, pebbly ledge, just outside the black maw of the +passage--an entrance hidden in a curtain-like fold in the face of the +cliff that towered above them, casting an ink-black shadow. But beyond +it the emblazoned firmament glowed irradiant, and at their feet the +encircling waters ran, a broad ribbon of black silk purling between the +cliff and the opposing shores, where a thicket of tamarisks rose, a +black and ragged wall. + +Labertouche strode off into the water. "Straight ahead," he announced; +"don't worry--'tisn't more than knee-deep at the worst. I've horses +waiting on the other side--" + +"Horses!" Amber interrupted. "Great heavens, man, you're--you're +omniscient!" + +"No--lucky," Labertouche retorted briskly. "Where'd I've been without +Ram Nath? He's taking care of the animals.... Come along. What're you +waiting for? Don't you know--" He turned to see the girl hesitant, +though with lifted skirts. "Oh," he said in an accent of understanding, +and came back. "If you'll help me, Amber, I daresay we can get Miss +Farrell across without a wetting." + +He offered to clasp hands with the Virginian and so make a seat; but +Amber had a happier thought. + +"I think I can manage by myself, thank you--if Miss Farrell will trust +me." + +His eyes met the girl's, and in hers he read trust and faith unending: +he was conscious of a curious fluttering in his bosom. + +"Trust _you!_" she said, with a little, broken laugh, and gave herself +freely to his arms. + +Labertouche grunted and turned his back, wading out into the stream +with a great splashing. + +Amber straightened up, holding her very close to him, and that with +ease. Had she been thrice as heavy he could have borne her with as +little care as he did his own immeasurably lightened heart in that hour +of fulfilment. And she lay snug and confident, her arms round his neck, +the shadowed loveliness of her face very near to him. The faint and +elusive fragrance of her hair was sweet and heady in the air he +breathed; he could read her eyes, and their allure and surrender was +like a draught of wine to him. He felt the strength of ten men +invigorate him, and his soul was sober with a great happiness. But a +little while and she would be in safety; already her salvation seemed +assured.... The further bank neared all too quickly. He would willingly +have lingered to prolong the stolen sweetness of that moment, forgetful +altogether of the danger that lay behind them. + +Ahead, he saw Labertouche step out upon a shelving shore and, shaking +his legs with an effect irresistibly suggestive of a dog leaving the +water, peer inland through the tamarisks. His low, whistled signal +sounded as Amber joined him and put down the girl--reluctantly. Her +whispered thanks were interrupted by an exclamation from Labertouche. + +"Hang it all! he can't've mistaken the spot. I told him to wait right +here, and now ... We daren't delay." He cast an apprehensive glance +across the stream. "Look lively, please." + +He shouldered away through the thicket, and for several moments they +struggled on through the hindering undergrowth, their passage betrayed +by much noisy rustling. Then, as they won through to open ground, +Labertouche paused and whistled a second time, staring eagerly from +right to left. + +"I'm blessed!" he declared, with a vehemence that argued his desire for +stronger language. "This is bad--bad--bad! He never failed me before! +I--" + +A mocking chuckle seemed to break from the ground at their feet, and in +the flicker of an eyelash a shadow lifted up out of the +scrub-encumbered level. Sophia cried aloud with alarm; Labertouche +swore outright, heedless; and Amber put himself before her, drawing his +revolver, heartsick with the conviction that they were trapped, that +their labour had gone all for naught, that all futilely had they +schemed and dared.... + +But while his finger was yet seeking the trigger the first shadow was +joined by a score of fellows--shades that materialised with like +swiftness and silence from the surface of the earth--and before he +could level the weapon Labertouche seized his wrist. For an instant he +resisted, raging with disappointment; but the Englishman was cool, +strong, determined; inevitably in the outcome the weapon was pointed to +the sky. + +"Steady, you ass!" breathed the secret-agent in his ear. "Can't you +see--" + +And Amber gave over, in amazement unbounded, seeing the starlight +glinting down a dozen levelled rifle-barrels, glowing pale on the +spiked, rounded crowns of pith helmets, and striking soft fire from +burnished accoutrements; while a voice, thick with a brogue that was +never bred out of hearing of Bow Bells, was hectoring them to +surrender. + +"'Ands up, ye bloomin' black beggars! 'Ands up, I s'y!" + +"Tommies!" cried Amber; and incontinently he dropped the revolver as +though it had turned hot in his hand. + +"Steady, my man!" Labertouche interrupted what threatened to develop +into a string of intolerable abuse. "Hold your tongue! Can't you see +we've a lady with us?" + +"Ul-_lo!_" The soldier lowered his rifle and stepped closer, his voice +vibrating with astonishment. "Blimme, 'ere's a go!... beggar of a +nigger givin' me wot-for 's if 'e was a gent! 'Oo in 'ell d'ye think +y'are, yer 'ighness?' + +"That'll do. Put down those guns, and call your commanding officer. +I'll explain to him. Where is he? What troops are you? When did you +arrive?" + +Such queries and commands discharged quickly in crisp English from the +mouth of one who wore the color and costume of a Mohammedan of high +degree, temporarily dazed his captors. In a body they pressed round the +three, peering curiously into their faces--the two white and the one +dark; and their murmurings rose and swelled discordant. "Blimme if 'e +_ain't_ a gent!" "T'other un is!" "An this un a leddy!"...But to his +interrogations Labertouche got no direct reply. While as for Amber, he +could have laughed aloud from a heart that brimmed with thanksgiving +for the honest sound of their rich rough voices; besides which, Sophia +stood very close to him, and her fingers were tight about his.... + +"What's this?" A sharp voice cut the comments of the Tommies, and they +were smitten silent by it. An officer, with jingling spurs and sword in +hand, elbowed through the heart of the press. "Stop that row instantly. +What's this? Who are you, sir?" + +"I sent the message from Kathiapur, and I'm uncommonly happy to meet +you, whoever you may be, sir. Tell your men to fall back, please, and +I'll introduce myself properly." + +Two words secured the secret-agent the privacy he desired; the officer +offered him an ungloved hand as the troopers withdrew out of hearing. + +"Happy, indeed!" he said cheerfully. "I'm Rowan, Captain, Fourteenth +Pioneers." + +"I'm Labertouche, I.S.S. This is Miss Farrell, daughter of Colonel +Farrell, and this Mr. Amber, of New York. We're just escaped from that +rock over there and--if you'll pardon--I'd suggest you set a strong +guard over the ford behind those tamarisks." + +"One moment, please." The officer strode off to issue instructions in +accordance with Labertouche's advice. "We got here only a quarter of an +hour ago," he apologised, swinging back as the men deployed into the +thicket, "and haven't had time to nose out the lay of the land +thoroughly." + +"I infer you got my man with the horses--native calling himself Ram +Nath?" + +"He's with the Colonel-commanding now, Mr. Labertouche. As I was +saying, we've hardly had time to do more than throw a line of pickets +round the rock. It's been quick work for us--marching orders at +midnight yesterday, down by train to Sar, and forced march across the +desert ever since daybreak." + +"I'd hardly hoped the thing could be done so quickly. If I had been +able to get the information an instant earlier, my mind would've been +easier, captain, but--Hello!" + +From the ford an abrupt clamour of voices interrupted. The officer +hooked up his scabbard. "Sounds as if my men had gathered in somebody +else," he said hastily. "If you'll excuse me, I'll have a look." He +trotted off into the shade of the tamarisks. + +As he disappeared the disturbance abated somewhat. "False alarm," Amber +guessed. + +"I fancy not," said Labertouche. "If I'm not mistaken our friend +Naraini left for the special purpose of raising the hue and cry. This +should be the vanguard of the pursuit." + +Amber looked upward. Overhead the soulless city slumbered in a +stillness apparently unbroken, yet he who saw its profile rugged +against the stars, could fancy what consternation was then, or +presently would be, running riot through its haunted ways. + +"How many of 'em are there, do you reckon?" he asked. + +"Three or four hundred," replied the secret-agent absently; "the pick +and flower of Indian unrest. My word, but this will kick up a row! +Think of it, man! three hundred and fifty-odd lords and princes bagged +all at once in the act of plotting the Second Mutiny! What a change it +will work on the political face of the land! ... And the best of it is, +they simply can't get away." + +"Is this the only exit, then--the way we escaped?" + +"Not by three--all on the other side of the rocky where they rode up +and left their horses. And that's where the most of 'em will come out, +by twos and threes, like the animals out of the Ark, you know. What a +catch!" + +"And we've you to thank!" + +"I? Oh, dear boy, thank the Tommies!" + +"But what would we have done, or the Tommies either, without you?" + +"What indeed!" Sophia echoed warmly. "I've had no chance, as yet--" + +"Not another word, my dear Miss Farrell!" Labertouche protested, +acutely uncomfortable. "To've been able to help you out of the scrape +is enough." + +"But I must--" she began, and stopped with a little cry as a shot rang +out from the heart of the thicket, to be followed by another and then +by a shriek of agony and a great confusion of sounds--shouts and oaths +and noisy crashings in the tamarisks as of many men blundering hither +and yon. + +Silenced, with a slight shudder of apprehension, the girl drew to +Amber's side, as if instinctively. He took her hand and drew it through +his arm. + +"Run to earth at last!" cried Labertouche. "I wonder--" + +"If my hope's good for anything," Amber laughed, less because he felt +like laughing than for the purpose of reassuring Sophia, "this will be +the gentleman who trained the Hooded Death to dance, or else he who--" + +He was thinking with vindictive relish of what fate he would mete out +to the manipulator of the Bell, were it left to him to pass sentence. +But he broke off as a body of soldiery burst from the tamarisks, and, +headed by young Rowan, hurried toward the three, bringing with them a +silent and unresisting prisoner. + +"I say," the officer called excitedly in advance, "here's something +uncommon' rum. It's a woman, you know." + +"Aha!" said Labertouche, and "Ah!" said Amber, "with a click of his +teeth, while the woman on his arm clung to him the closer. + +"I thought we'd better bring her to you, for she said ..." Rowan +paused, embarrassed, and took a fresh start. "My men got to the ford +just as she was coming ashore with three other men, and the whole pack +took to cover on this side. Two of the men are still missing, but we +routed out the other just now with this--ah--lady. He showed fight and +got bayonetted. But the woman--excuse me, Mr. Amber--she protests--by +George, it's too ridiculous!--" + +"I have claimed naught that is not true!" an unforgettably sweet voice +interrupted from the centre of the group. It opened out, disclosing +Naraini between two guards, in that moment of passion and fear perhaps +more incomparably beautiful than any woman they had ever looked upon, +save her who held to Amber's arm, a-quiver with womanly sympathy and +compassion. + +During her flight and her resistance Naraini's veil had been rent away; +in the clear starlight her countenance, framed in hair of lustrous jet +and working with uncontrollable rage and despair, shone like that of +some strange tempestuous Aphrodite fashioned of palest gold. Beneath +its folds of tightly drawn, bespangled gauze her bosom swelled and fell +convulsively, and on her perfect arms, more softly beautiful than any +Phidias ever dreamed to chisel, the golden bracelets and bangles +clashed and tinkled as she writhed and fought to free herself of the +defiling hands. Half-mad with disappointment, she raged amid the +scattered shreds of her dream of power like a woman hopelessly +deranged. + +"Aye, I have claimed!" she stormed. "I have claimed justice and the +rights of wifehood, the protection of him whose wife I am; or, if he +deny me, I claim that he must suffer with me--he who hath played the +traitor's part to-night, betraying his Cause and his wife alike to +their downfall!... I claim," she insisted, lifting, in spite of the +soldiers' restraining hands, one small quivering arm to single Amber +out and point him to scorn, "that this is the man who, wedded to me by +solemn right and the custom of the land, hath deserted and abandoned +me, hath denied me even as he denies his birthright, when it doth +please him, and forswears the faith of his fathers! I claim to be +Naraini, Queen, wife to Har Dyal Rutton, rightful ruler of +Khandawar--coward, traitor, renegade--who stands there!" + +"For the love of Heaven, Rowan, shut her up!" cried Labertouche. "It's +all a pack of lies; the woman's raving. Rutton's dead, in the first +place; in the second, he's her father. She can't be his wife very well, +whether he's alive or dead. It's simply a dodge of hers to gain time. +Shut her up and take her away--she's as dangerous as a wildcat!" + +"Nay, I will not be gagged nor taken hence till I have said my say!" +With a sudden furious wrench Naraini wrested her arms from the grasp of +the guards and sprang away, eluding with lithe and snake-like movements +their attempts to recapture her. "Not," she cried, "until I have +wrought my will upon the two of them. Thou hast stood in my light too +long, O my sister!" + +A hand blazing with jewels tore at the covering of her bosom and +suddenly came away clutching a dagger, thin, long, and keen; and +snarling she sprang toward the girl, to whose influence, however +unwitting, she rightly ascribed the downfall of her scheme of empire. +Rowan and Labertouche leaped forward and fell short, so lightning swift +she moved; only Amber stood between her and her vengeance. Choking with +horror, he put the girl behind him with a resistless hand, and took +Naraini to his arms. + +"Ah, hast thou changed thy mind, Beloved?" The woman caught him +fiercely to her with an arm about his waist, and her voice rose shrill +with mocking triumph, "Are my lips become so sweet to thee again? Then +see how I kiss, thou fool!" + +She thrust with wicked cunning, twice and again, before the men tore +her away and disarmed her. For an instant wrestling like a demon with +them, still animated by her murderous frenzy, still wishful to fill her +cup of vengeance to the brim with the blood of the girl, she of a +sudden ceased to resist and fell passive in their hands, a dying +flicker of satisfaction in the eyes that watched the culmination of her +crime.... + +To Amber it was as if his body had been penetrated thrice by a needle +of fire. The anguish of it was exquisite, stupefying. He was aware of a +darkening, reeling world, wherein men's faces swam like moons, pallid, +staring, and of a mighty and invincible lethargy that pounced upon him, +body, brain and soul, like a black panther springing from the ambush of +the night. Yet there were still words that must be spoken, lest they +live in his subconsciousness to torment him through all the long, black +night that was to receive him. He tried to steady himself, and lifted +an arm that vibrated like the sprung limb of a sapling, signing to the +secret-agent. + +"_Labertouche_," he said thickly ... "_Sophia ... out of India ... at +once ... life_ ..." + +The girl's arms received him as he fell. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +A LATER DAY + + +A man awoke from a long dream of night and fear, of passion, pain, and +death, and opened eyes whose vision seemed curiously clear, to realise +a new world, very unlike that in which the incoherent action of his +dream had moved--a world of light and lively air, as sweet and +wholesome as glistening white paint, sunshine, and an abundance of +pure, cool air could render it. + +Because he had known these things in a former existence, he understood +that he lay in the lower berth of a first-cabin stateroom, aboard an +ocean steamship; a spacious, bright box of a room, through whose open +ports swayed brilliant shafts of temperate sunlight, together with +great gusts of the salt sweet breath of the open sea. Through them, +too, he could see patches of unclouded blue, athwart which now and +again gulls would sweep on flashing, motionless pinions. + +The man lay still and at peace, watching, wondering idly, soothed by +the sense of being swung through space, only vaguely conscious of the +plunging pulsations of the ship's engines, hammering away indomitably +far in the hold beneath him. His thoughts busied themselves lightly +with a number of important questions, to whose answers the man realised +that he was singularly indifferent. Who was he? What had happened to +bring him back to life (for he was sure that he had died, a long time +ago)? How had he come to that stateroom? What could the name of the +vessel be? Where ... Deep thoughts were these and long; the man drowsed +over them, but presently was aroused by the sensation of being no +longer alone, of being watched. + +His eyeballs seemed to move reluctantly in their sockets, and his head +felt very light and empty, although so heavy that he could not lift it +from the pillow. But he managed to shift his gaze from the window until +it rested upon a man's face--a gaunt, impassive brown face illuminated +by steady and thoughtful eyes, filled with that mystic, unshakable +spirit of fatalism that is the real Genius of the eastern peoples. The +head itself stood out with almost startling distinctness against the +background of pure white. It was swathed with an immaculate white +turban. The thin, stringy brown neck ran into a loose surtout of snowy +white. + +The sick man felt that he recognised this countenance--had known it, +rather, in some vague, half-remembered life before his latest death. +The name...? He felt his lips move and that they were thin and glazed. +Moistening them with his tongue he made another attempt to articulate. +A thin whisper passed them in two breaths: "Ram ... Nath ..." + +Hearing this, the dark man started out of his abstraction, cast a +swift, pitiful glance at the sick man's face, and came to hold a +tumbler to his lips. The liquid, colourless, acrid, and pungent, +slipped into his mouth, and he had to swallow whether he would or no. +When the final drop disappeared, Ram Nath put down the glass, smiled, +laid a finger on his lips, and went on tiptoe from the stateroom. + +After awhile the man without an identity fell asleep, calmly, +restfully, in absolute peace. When again he awakened it was with the +knowledge that he was David Amber, and that a woman sat beside him. + +Her face was turned from him, and her brown eyes, clouded with dreams, +were staring steadfastly out through the open port; the flowing banners +of sunshine now and again touched her hair with quick fire--her +wonderfully spun hair, itself scarcely less radiant than the light that +illumined it. Against the blue-white background her gracious profile +showed womanly and sweet. There was rich colour in cheeks fresh from +the caress of the sea wind. She smiled in her musing, scarlet lips +apart. + +"Sophia..." + +His voice sounded in his own hearing very thin and brittle. The girl +turned her gaze upon him swiftly, the soft smile deepening, the +dream-light in her eyes burning brighter and more steady. She bent +forward, placing over his wasted hand a hand firm and warm, strong yet +gentle, its whiteness enhanced by the suggested tracery of blue veins +beneath the silken skin, and by the rosy tips of her slender, subtle +fingers. + +"David!" she said. + +He sighed and remembered. His brows knitted, then smoothed themselves +out; for with memory came the realisation that, since he was there and +she by his side, God was surely in his Heaven, all well with the world! + +"How long...Sophia?" + +"Five days, David." + +"Where...?" + +"At sea, David, on a _Messageries_ boat for Marseilles. Dear ..." + +He closed his eyes in beatific content: "David ... Dear ...!" + +"Can you listen?" + +"Yes ... sweetheart." + +Her voice faltered; she flushed adorably. "You mustn't talk. But I'll +tell you.... They refused to let us go back to Kuttarpur; an escort +took us across the desert to Nok, you in a litter, I on horseback. +There we took train to Haidarabad and Karachi. Ram Nath came with us, +as bearer, it being necessary that he too should leave India. My father +and your man Doggott joined us at Karachi, where this steamer touched +the second day." + +"You understand, now--?" + +"Everything, dearest." + +"Labertouche--?" + +"He told me nothing. I haven't seen him since that morning, when, just +after you were wounded, we started for Nok. He posted off to Kuttarpur +to find my father.... No; it was you who told me--everything--in your +delirium." + +"And ... you forgive--?" + +"Forgive!" + +He smiled faintly. "That photograph?" + +"I had it ready to return to you that morning, David." + +"Knowing what it meant to me?" + +"Knowing what it meant to _me_--what it meant to both of us, David." + +"So you weren't offended, that night?" + +"I loved you even then, David. I think I must have loved you from that +first day at Nokomis. Do you remember...?" + +His eyes widened, perplexed, staring into her grave, dear eyes. "Then +why did you pretend--?" + +With the low, caressing laugh of a happy child, the girl knelt by the +side of his berth, and laid her cheek against his own. "Oh, David, my +David! When do you expect to understand the heart of a woman, dear +heart of mine?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE FINAL INCARNATION + + +About five o'clock of an evening in April the Cunarder _Caronia_, four +hours out from Queenstown and buckling down to a night's hard work +against the northwesterly gale, shipped a sea. It was not much of a +sea--merely a playful slap of a wave that broke against the staunch +black side and glanced upward in a shower of spray, spattering +liberally a solitary passenger who had been showing enough interest in +the weather to remain on deck until that particular moment. Apparently +undisconcerted by the misadventure, he shook himself and laughed a +sober, contented laugh, found a handkerchief and mopped his face with +it, then, with a final approving survey of the lowering and belligerent +canopy of wind-cloud that overhung the tortured ocean, permitted +himself to be blown aft to the door of the first-cabin smoking-room. +Opening this by main strength, he entered. The gale saved him the +bother of closing it. + +Removing his rain-coat and cap and depositing them on a convenient +chair, he glanced round the room and discovered that he shared it with +a single passenger, who was placidly exhausting the virtues of an +excellent cigarette. Upon this gentleman the newcomer bent a regard +steadfast and questioning, but after returning it casually the smoker +paid him no further attention. Dissatisfied, the other moved toward +him, and the deck slanted suddenly and obligingly the better to +accelerate his progress, so that he brought up with a lurch in the seat +next the smoker. The latter raised the eyebrows of surprise and hoped +that the gentleman had not hurt himself. + +"I didn't, thank you, Mr. David Amber." + +Mr. David Amber looked the gentleman over with heightened interest. He +saw a man of medium height, with a sturdy figure that bore without +apparent fatigue the years that go with slightly greyish hair. He was +quietly dressed and had intelligent eyes, but was altogether +unimpressive of manner, save for a certain vague air of reserve that +assorted quaintly with his present attitude. + +"You've the advantage of me, sir," Amber summed up the result of his +scrutiny. + +"It's not the first time," asserted the other, with an argumentative +shake of his head. "No-o?" Light leaped in Amber's eyes. "Labertouche!" + +"Surprised you, eh?" The Englishman grinned with pleasure, pumping +Amber's arm cordially. "I don't mind owning that I meant to." + +"Well, considering that this is positively your first appearance as +yourself on the stage of my life, you don't deserve any credit for +being able to deceive me. When one gets accustomed to remembering you +only as a native--generally as a babu in dirty pink satin--...Do you +know, I made all sorts of enquiries after you, but they told me, in +response to my wires to Calcutta, that you'd dropped out of the world +entirely. I had begun to fear that those damned natives must have got +you, after all, and that I'd never see you again." + +"I'd almost given up hope of ever seeing myself again," said +Labertouche drily. + +"But why didn't you--?" + +"Business, dear boy, business.... I was needed for several days in the +neighbourhood of Kathiapur." + +"It seems as though I'd waited several years for news of Kathiapur. The +papers--" + +"There are a good many things that happen in India that fail to get +into the newspapers, Amber. It wasn't thought necessary to advise the +world, including Russia, that half the native potentates in Hindustan +had been caught in the act of letting the Second Mutiny loose upon +India." A network of fine wrinkles appeared about his eyes as he smiled +enjoyment of what he seemed to consider a memorable joke. + +"Go on," pleaded Amber. + +"Kathiapur was a sort of mousetrap; the brutes came out by twos and +three, just as I said they would, for the better part of three days. It +was either surrender or starve with them, and after five-sixths of them +had elected not to starve we turned a couple of companies of Tommies +into the place, and I don't believe they left unturned a stone big +enough to hide a rabbit. One by one they routed 'em out and booted 'em +down to us. Meanwhile we had rushed enough troops to Kuttarpur to keep +their tails quiet." + +"And Salig Singh--and Naraini?" + +"Salig Singh, it turned out, was the chap that got bayoneted in the +tamarisks. Naraini managed somehow to steal away the next night, under +the noses of any number of sentries; beauty such as hers would bribe +her way out of hell, I think. What became of her I don't know, but I +can prophesy that she won't live long. She was rather too advanced in +her views, for India--some centuries ahead of her race. She and Salig +Singh had it all planned, you know; his was the master-mind, hers the +motive-power. They were to crown you, instead of Salig's son, the next +day--in the name of Har Dyal Rutton; and then you were to die suddenly +by virtue of hemp poison or some other contagious disease, and Salig +was to step into your shoes as Emperor of Hindustan, with Naraini as +his Empress.... She should have stayed home and been a suffragette." + +"Better for her," said Amber. "Of course I've found out about her, from +Farrell. It seems that she was brought up in England, with Sophia, and +always given to believe she was his own daughter, but she was a wild +thing and hard to handle. One day she found out about her +parentage--how, it's not known, but Farrell suspects that the men who +were hounding Rutton got into communication with her. At all events, +she brooded over the thing, and when, five years or so ago, Mrs. +Farrell died and the Colonel sent for Sophia to join him in India, +Naraini--well, she rebelled. He refused to let her leave England, and +she finally took the bit in her teeth and ran away--vanished and was +never heard of again until Sophia recognised her in Kathiapur." + +"I myself can fill in the gap," Labertouche volunteered. "She joined +some of Salig's underlings in Paris and went thence direct to +Khandawar, assuming the name of one of the old queens who had elected +opportunely to die.... Queer case--singular instance of reversion to +type." + +"A mighty distressing one to the old colonel; you know Rutton kept +religiously to his promise not to see the child after he'd given her +into Farrell's care. Farrell lost all track of him and was unable to +communicate with him, of course, when Naraini chose to strike out for +herself.... One thing has always puzzled me; the girl called me by her +father's name, pretending to recognise me as her husband; you can't +reconcile such conduct." + +"You can, easily enough--beg pardon, my dear fellow. Neither she nor +Salig Singh was for an instant deceived. But Salig _had_ to deliver up +_a_ Har Dyal Rutton to the Council, so Naraini was set to seduce you. +Their plans only required that you should be madly infatuated with her +for a couple of days; after that ..." Labertouche turned down his thumb +significantly. "I fancy there must have been a family secret or +tradition, handed down from father to son in the Rutton line, that some +day one of the family would be called upon to raise the standard of the +Second Mutiny. That will explain why Har Dyal Rutton, a gentleman of +parts and cultivation, dared not live in India, and why--because he was +sworn to keep the secret--he laid stress on the condition that you were +not to mention his name." + +"Still, he gave me permission to talk to Dhola Baksh." + +"True; but it seems that Dhola Baksh had been his confidential +body-servant in Kuttarpur, during his too-brief reign. Rutton thought +he would be able to help you, and knew that he would be loyal to his +master's memory." + +"Finally, what about that photograph?" + +"You've Salig Singh to thank for its return, I fancy. I had nothing to +do with it. But they were bent on luring you to Naraini's bower, and +they figured that after receiving it you'd go anywhere to meet the man +who returned it. By the way, where's Ram Nath?" + +"He's staying in England as body-servant to Colonel Farrell." + +"He's well off, so; his sphere of usefulness in India was at an end. +So, in fact, was mine. That's why I'm here--on indefinite leave of +absence. One or two things grew out of the affair of the Gateway to +make me a person of interest to the natives, and when that happens in +India it's just as well for the interesting person to pack up and get +thence with all possible expedition. It's too bad; I was really doing +some good work there. Well...! When the East gets into a fellow's +blood, he's a hopeless, incurable case; I shall go back, I presume, +some day. If the big trouble comes in my lifetime--and I think it will; +come it will unquestionably, soon or late--I shan't be able to keep +away, you know." He glanced at his watch and rose. "Time to dress for +dinner," said he; and as they were moving to the door, he added: "What +ever became of that emerald ring, Amber?" + +"The Eye?" Amber laughed. "Well--it was silly enough; but women are +superstitious, you know--Sophia dropped it overboard one day as we were +coming through the Mediterranean. She said she was afraid of it ... and +I don't know but I sympathise with her." + +"I'm certain I do. And yet, in your case, it was the means of +introducing you, wasn't it?... But there! It's been on the tip of my +tongue a dozen times to ask, but other things got in the way.... How +_is_ Mrs. Amber?" + +"You shall see for yourself," said Amber, "when we meet for dinner." + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bronze Bell, by Louis Joseph Vance + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BRONZE BELL *** + +***** This file should be named 9927.txt or 9927.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/9/9/2/9927/ + +Produced by Suzanne Shell, Janice Piette, Sheila Vogtmann, +Elaine Walker, and Project Gutenberg Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Bronze Bell + +Author: Louis Joseph Vance + +Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9927] +[This file was first posted on October 31, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE BRONZE BELL *** + + + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Janice Piette, Sheila Vogtmann, Elaine +Walker, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + +THE BRONZE BELL + +By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE + +1909 + + + + + + + +To + +F. E. Z. + +Chatelaine of Juniper Lodge + +This story is dedicated by one to whom her hospitality, transplanted +from its Kentucky home, will ever remain a charming memory. + + + +[Illustration: "NOT ONCE DID HE LOOK BACK WHILE AMBER WATCHED--HIMSELF +DIVIDED BETWEEN AMUSEMENT, ANNOYANCE, AND ASTONISHMENT" (PAGE 14)] + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + I DESTINY AND THE BABU + + II THE GIRL AND THE TOKEN + + III MAROONED + + IV THE MAN PERDU + + V THE GOBLIN NIGHT + + VI RED DAWN + + VII MASKS AND FACES + + VIII FIRST STEPS + + IX PINK SATIN + + X MAHARANA OF KHANDAWAR + + XI THE TONGA + + XII THE LONG DAY + + XIII THE PHOTOGRAPH + + XIV OVER THE WATER + + XV FROM A HIGH PLACE + + XVI SUNRISE FOR TWO + + XVII THE WAY TO KATHIAPUR + +XVIII THE HOODED DEATH + + XIX RUTTON'S DAUGHTER + + XX A LATER DAY + + XXI THE FINAL INCARNATION + + + + +CHAPTER I + +DESTINY AND THE BABU + + +Breaking suddenly upon the steady drumming of the trucks, the prolonged +and husky roar of a locomotive whistle saluted an immediate +grade-crossing. + +Roused by this sound from his solitary musings in the parlour-car of +which he happened temporarily to be the sole occupant, Mr. David Amber +put aside the magazine over which he had been dreaming, and looked out +of the window, catching a glimpse of woodland road shining white +between sombre walls of stunted pine. Lazily he consulted his watch. + +"It's not for nothing," he observed pensively, "that this railroad +wears its reputation: we are consistently late." + +His gaze, again diverted to the flying countryside, noted that it had +changed character, pine yielding to scrub-oak and second-growth--the +ragged vestments of an area some years since denuded by fire. This, +too, presently swung away, giving place to cleared land--arable acres +golden with the stubble of garnered harvests or sentinelled with +unkempt shocks of corn. + +In the south a shimmer of laughing gold and blue edged the faded +horizon. + +Eagerly the young man leaned forward, dark eyes the functions of +waiting-room and ticket and telegraph offices. From its eaves depended +a weather-worn board bearing the legend: "Nokomis." + +The train, pausing only long enough to disgorge from the baggage-car a +trunk or two and from the day-coaches a thin trickle of passengers, +flung on into the wilderness, cracked bell clanking somewhat +disdainfully. + +By degrees the platform cleared, the erstwhile patrons of the road and +the station loafers--for the most part hall-marked natives of the +region--straggling off upon their several ways, some afoot, a majority +in dilapidated surreys and buckboards. Amber watched them go with +unassumed indifference; their type interested him little. But in their +company he presently discovered one, a figure so thoroughly foreign and +aloof in attitude, that it caught his eye, and, having caught, held it +clouded with perplexity. + +Abruptly he abandoned his belongings and gave chase, overtaking the +object of his attention at the far end of the station. + +"Doggott!" he cried. "I say, Doggott!" + +His hand, falling lightly upon the man's shoulder, brought him squarely +about, his expression transiently startled, if not a shade truculent. + +Short and broad yet compact of body, he was something round-shouldered, +with the stoop of those who serve. In a mask of immobility, +full-colored and closely shaven, his lips were thin and tight, his eyes +steady, grey and shallow: a countenance neither dishonest nor +repellent, but one inscrutable. Standing solidly, once halted, there +remained a suggestion of alertness in the fellow's pose. + +"Doggott, what the deuce brings you here? And Mr. Rutton?" + +Amber's cordiality educed no response. The grey eyes, meeting eyes +dark, kindly, and penetrating, flickered and fell; so much emotion they +betrayed, no more, and that as disingenuous as you could wish. + +"Doggott!" insisted Amber, disconcerted. "Surely you haven't forgotten +me--Mr. Amber?" + +The man shook his head. "Beg pardon, sir," he said; "you've got my nyme +'andy enough, but I don't know _you_, and--" + +"But Mr. Rutton?" + +"Is a party I've never 'eard of, if you'll excuse my sayin' so, no +more'n I 'ave of yourself, sir." + +"Well!" began Amber; but paused, his face hardening as he looked the +man up and down, nodding slowly. + +"Per'aps," continued Mr. Doggott, unabashed, "you mistyke me for my +brother, 'Enery Doggott. 'E was 'ome, in England, larst I 'eard of 'im. +We look a deal alike, I've been told." + +"You would be," admitted Amber drily; and, shutting his teeth upon his +inherent contempt for a liar, he swung away, acknowledging with a curt +nod the civil "Good-arfternoon, sir," that followed him. + +The man had disappeared by the time Amber regained his kit-bag and +gun-case; standing over which he surveyed his surroundings with some +annoyance, discovering that he now shared the station with none but the +ticket-agent. A shambling and disconsolate youth, clad in a three-days' +growth of beard, a checked jumper and khaki trousers, this person +lounged negligently in the doorway of the waiting-room and, caressing +his rusty chin with nicotine-dyed fingers, regarded the stranger in +Nokomis with an air of subtle yet vaguely melancholy superiority. + +"If ye're lookin' for th' hotel," he volunteered unexpectedly, "there +aint none;" and effected a masterly retreat into the ticket-booth. + +Amused, the despised outlander picked up his luggage and followed +amiably. "I'm not looking for the hotel that aint," he said, planting +himself in front of the grating; "but I expected to be met by someone +from Tanglewood--" + +"Thet's the Quain place, daown by th' ba-ay," interpolated the youth +from unplumbed depths of mournful abstraction. + +"It is. I wired yesterday--" + +"Yeour name's Amber, aint it?" + +"Yes, I--" + +"Well, Quain didn't get yeour message till this mornin'. I sent a kid +daown with it 'baout ten o'clock." + +"But why the--but I wired yesterday afternoon!" + +"I knaow ye did," assented the youth wearily. "It come through raound +closin' time and they wa'n't nobody baound that way, so I held it +over." + +"This craze for being characteristic," observed Mr. Amber obscurely, +"is the only thing that really stands in the way of Nokomis becoming a +thriving metropolis. Do you agree with me? No matter." He smiled +engagingly: a seasoned traveller this, who could recognise the futility +of bickering over the irreparable. Moreover, he had to remind himself +in all fairness, the blame was, in part at least, his own; for he had +thoughtlessly worded his telegram, "Will be with you to-morrow +afternoon"; and it was wholly like Quain that he should have accepted +the statement at its face value, regardless of the date line. + +"I _can_ leave my things here for a little while, I presume?" Amber +suggested after a pause. + +The ticket-agent stared stubbornly into the infinite, making no sign +till a coin rang on the window-ledge; when he started, eyed the +offering with fugitive mistrust, and gloomily possessed himself of it. +"I'll look after them," he said. "Be ye thinkin' of walkin'?" + +"Yes," said Amber over his shoulder. He was already moving toward the +door. + +"Knaow yeour wa-ay?" + +"I've been here before, thank you." + +"Fer another quarter," drawled the agent with elaborate apathy, "I'd +leave the office long enough to find somebody who'd fetch ye daown in a +rig for fifty cents." + +But Amber was already out of ear-shot. + +Crossing the tracks, he addressed himself to the southward-stretching +highway. Walking briskly at first, he soon left behind the +railway-station with its few parasitic cottages; a dip in the land hid +them, and he had hereafter for all company his thoughts, the desultory +road, a vast and looming sky, and bare fields hedged with impoverished +forest. + +A deep languor brooded over the land: the still, warm enchantment of an +Indian Summer which, protracted though it were unseasonably into the +Ides of November, had yet lost nothing of its witchery. There was no +wind, but now and again the air stirred softly, and when it stirred was +cool; as if the earth sighed in sheer lassitude. Out of a cloudless +sky, translucent sapphire at its zenith fading into hazy topaz-yellow +at the horizon, golden sunlight slanted, casting shadows heavy and +colourful; on the edge of the woodlands they clung like thin purple +smoke, but motionless, and against them, here and there, a clump of +sumach blazed like a bed of embers, or some tree loath to shed its +autumnal livery flamed scarlet, russet, and mauve. The peace of the +hour was intense, and only emphasised by a dull, throbbing +undertone--the muted murmur of the distant sea. + +Amber had professed acquaintance with his way; it seemed rather to be +intimacy, for when he chose to forsake the main-travelled road he did +so boldly, striking off upon a wagon-track which, leading across the +fields, delved presently into the heart of the forest. Here it ran +snakily and, carved by broad-tired wheels and beaten out by slowly +plodding hoofs in a soil more than half sand, glimmered white as +rock-salt where the drifting leaves had left it naked. + +Once in this semi-dusk made luminous by sunlight which touched and +quivered upon dead leaf and withered bush and bare brown bough like +splashes of molten gold, the young man moved more sedately. The hush of +the forest world bore heavily upon his senses; the slight and stealthy +rustlings in the brush, the clear dense ringing of some remote axe, an +attenuated clamour of cawing from some far crows' congress, but served +to accentuate its influence. On that windless day the vital breath of +the sea might not moderate the bitter-sweet aroma of decay that swam +beneath the unmoving branches; and this mournful fragrance of dying +Autumn wrought upon Amber's mood as might a whiff of some exquisite +rare perfume revive a poignant memory in the bosom of a bereaved lover. +His glance grew aimless, his temper as purposeless, lively anticipation +giving way to a retrospection tinged with indefinable sadness. + +Then into the silence crept a sound to rouse him from his formless +reverie: at first a mere pulsing in the stillness, barely to be +distinguished from the song of the surf; but presently a pounding, ever +louder and more insistent. He paused, attentive; and while he waited +the drumming, minute by minute gaining in volume, swept swiftly toward +him--the rhythmic hoofbeats of a single horse madly ridden. When it was +close upon him he stepped back into the tangled undergrowth, making +room; for the track was anything but wide. + +Simultaneously there burst into view, at the end of a brief aisle of +trees, the horse--a vigorous black brute with white socks and +muzzle--running freely, apparently under constraint neither of whip nor +of spur. In the saddle a girl leaned low over the horn--a girl with +eyes rapturous, face brilliant, lips parted in the least of smiles. A +fold of her black habit-skirt, whipping out, almost snapped in Amber's +face, so close to him she rode; yet she seemed not to see him, and very +likely did not. A splendid sketch in black-and-white, of youthful +spirit and joy of motion: so she passed and was gone.... + +Hardly, however, had the forest closed upon the picture, ere a cry, a +heavy crashing as of a horse threshing about in the underbrush, and a +woman's scream of terror, sent Amber, in one movement, out into the +road again and running at a pace which, had he been conscious of it, +would have surprised him. + +A short fifty yards separated him from the bend in the way round which +the horse and its rider had vanished. He had no more than gained this +point than he was obliged to pull up sharply to avoid running into the +girl herself. + +Although dismounted, she was on her feet, and apparently uninjured. She +stood with one hand against the trunk of a tree, on the edge of a small +clearing wherein the axes of the local lumbermen had but lately been +busy. Her horse had disappeared; the rumble of his hoofs, diminuendo, +told the way he had gone. + +So much Amber comprehended in a single glance; with a second he sought +the cause of the accident, and identified it with a figure so _outre_ +and bizarre that he momentarily and excusably questioned the testimony +of his senses. + +At a little distance from the girl, in the act of addressing her, stood +a man, obese, gross, abnormally distended with luxurious and sluggish +living, as little common to the scene as a statue of Phoebus Apollo had +been: a babu of Bengal, every inch of him, from his dirty red-and-white +turban to his well-worn and cracked patent-leather shoes. His body was +enveloped in a complete suit of emerald silk, much soiled and faded, +and girt with a sash of many colours, crimson predominating. His hands, +fat, brown, and not overclean, alternately fluttered apologetically and +rubbed one another with a suggestion of extreme urbanity; his lips, +thick, sensual, and cruel, mouthed a broken stream of babu-English; +while his eyes, nearly as small and quite as black as shoe-buttons +--eyes furtive, crafty, and cold--suddenly distended and became +fixed, as with amazement, at the instant of Amber's appearance. + +Instinctively, as soon as he had mastered his initial stupefaction, +Amber stepped forward and past the girl, placing himself between her +and this preposterous apparition, as if to shield her. He was neither +overly imaginative nor of a romantic turn of mind; but, the +circumstances reviewed, it's nothing to his discredit that he +entertained a passing suspicion of some curious conspiracy against the +girl, thought of an ambuscade, and with quick eyes raked the +surroundings for signs of a confederate of the Bengali. + +He found, however, nothing alarming, no indication that the man were +not alone; nor, for that matter, could he reasonably detect in the +fellow's bearing anything but a spirit of conciliation almost servile. +None the less he held himself wary and alert, and was instant to halt +the babu when he, with the air of a dog cringing to his master's feet +for punishment, would have drawn nearer. + +"Stop right there!" Amber told him crisply; and got for response +obedience, a low salaam, and the Hindu salutation accorded only to +persons of high rank: "Hazoor!" But before the babu could say more the +American addressed the girl. "What did he do?" he inquired, without +looking at her. "Frighten your horse?" + +"Just that." The girl's tone was edged with temper. "He jumped out from +behind that woodpile; the horse shied and threw me." + +"You're not hurt, I trust?" + +"No--thank you; but"--with a nervous laugh--"I'm furiously angry." + +"That's reasonable enough." Amber returned undivided attention to the +Bengali. "Now then," he demanded sternly, "what've you got to say for +yourself? What do you mean by frightening this lady's horse? What are +you doing here, anyway?" + +Almost grovelling, the babu answered him in Urdu: "Hazoor, I am your +slave--" + +Without thinking Amber couched his retort in the same tongue: "Count +yourself lucky you are not, dog!" + +"Nay, hazoor, but I meant no harm. I was resting, being fatigued, in +the shelter of the wood, when the noise of hoofs disturbed me and I +stepped out to see. When the woman was thrown I sought to assist her, +but she threatened me with her whip." + +"That is quite true," the girl cut in over Amber's shoulder. "I don't +think he intended to harm me, but it's purely an accident that he +didn't." + +Inasmuch as the babu's explanation had been made in fluent, vernacular +Urdu, Amber's surprise at the girl's evident familiarity with that +tongue was hardly to be concealed. "You understand Urdu?" he stammered. + +"Aye," she told him in that tongue, "and speak it, too." + +"You know this man, then?" + +"No. Do you?" + +"Not in the least. How should I?" + +"You yourself speak Urdu." + +"Well but--" The situation hardly lent itself to such a discussion; he +had the babu first to dispose of. Amber resumed his cross-examination. +"Who are you?" he demanded. "And what is your business in this place?" + +The fat yellowish-brown face was distorted by a fugitive grimace of +deprecation. "Hazoor, I am Behari Lal Chatterji, solicitor, of the +Inner Temple." + +"Well? And your business here?" + +"Hazoor, that is for your secret ear." The babu drew himself up, +assuming a certain dignity. "It is not meet that the message of the +Bell should be uttered in the hearing of an Englishwoman, hazoor." + +"What are you drivelling about?" In his blank wonder, Amber returned to +English as to a tongue more suited to his urgent need of forcible +expression. "And, look here, you stop calling me 'Hazoor.' I'm no more +a hazoor than you are--idiot!" + +"Nay," contended the babu reproachfully; "is it right that you should +seek to hoodwink me? Have I not eyes with which to see you, ears that +can hear you speak our tongue, hazoor? I am no child, to be played +with--I, the appointed Mouthpiece of the Voice!" + +"I know naught of your 'Voice' or its mouthpiece; but certainly you are +no child. You are either mad, or insolent--or a fool to be kicked." And +in exasperation Amber took a step toward the man as if to carry into +effect his implied threat. + +Alarmed, the babu cringed and retreated a pace; then, suddenly, raising +an arm, indicated the girl. "Hazoor!" he cried. "Be quick--the woman +faints!" And as Amber hastily turned, with astonishing agility the babu +sprang toward him. + +Warned by his moving shadow as much as by the girl's cry, Amber leapt +aside and lifted a hand to strike; but before it could deliver a blow +it was caught and a small metallic object thrust into it. Upon this his +fingers closed instinctively, and the babu sprang back, panting and +quaking. + +"The Token, hazoor, the Token!" he quavered. "It is naught but +that--the Token!" + +"Token, you fool!" cried Amber, staring stupidly at the man. "What in +thunder----!" + +"Nay, hazoor; how should I tell you now, when another sees and hears? +At another time, hazoor, in a week, or a day, or an hour, mayhap, I +come again--for your answer. Till then and forever I am your slave, +hazoor: the dust beneath your feet. Now, I go." + +And with a haste that robbed the courtesy of its grace, the Bengali +salaamed, then wheeled square about and, hitching his clothing round +him, made off with a celerity surprising in one of his tremendous bulk, +striking directly into the heart of the woods. + +For as much as a minute he was easily to be followed, his head and +shoulders rising above the brush through which he forged purposefully, +with something of the heedless haste of a man bent on keeping a +pressing engagement--or a sinner fleeing the wrath to come. Not once +did he look back while Amber watched--himself divided between +amusement, annoyance, and astonishment. Presently the trees blotted out +the red-and-white turban; the noise of the babu's elephantine retreat +diminished; and Amber was left to knit his brows over the object which +had been forced upon him so unexpectedly. + +It proved to be a small, cubical box, something more than an inch +square, fashioned of bronze and elaborately decorated with minute +relief work in the best manner of ancient Indian craftsmanship. + +"May I see, please?" The voice of the girl at his side recalled to +Amber her existence. "May I see, too, please, Mr. Amber?" she repeated. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE GIRL AND THE TOKEN + + +In his astonishment he looked round quickly to meet the gaze of +mischievous eyes that strove vainly to seem simple and sincere. His +own, in which amusement was blended with wonder, noted that they were +very handsome eyes and rather curiously colourful, the delicate sepia +shade of the pupils being lightened by a faint sheen of gold in the +irides; they were, furthermore, large and set well apart. On the whole +he decided that they were even beautiful, for all the dancing glimmer +of perverse humour in their depths; he could fancy that they might well +seem very sweet and womanly when their owner chose to be serious. + +Aware that he faced an uncommonly pretty woman, who chose to study him +with a straightforward interest he was nothing loath to imitate, he +took time to see that she was very fair of skin, with that creamy, +silken whiteness that goes with hair of the shade commonly and unjustly +termed red. This girl's hair was really brown, a rich sepia interwoven +with strands of raw, ruddy gold, admirably harmonious with her eyes. +Her nose he thought a trace too severely perfect in its modelling, but +redeemed by a broad and thoughtful brow, a strong yet absolutely +feminine chin, and a mouth.... Well, as to her mouth, the young man +selected a rosebud to liken it to; which was really quite a poor +simile, for her lips were nothing at all like rose-leaves save in +colour; but they were well-shapen and wide enough to suggest +generosity, without being in the least too wide. + +Having catalogued these several features, together with the piquant +oval of her face, and remarked that her poise was good and gracious in +the uncompromising lines of her riding-habit, he had a mental portrait +of her he was not likely soon to forget. For it's not every day that +one encounters so pretty a girl in the woods of Long Island's southern +shore--or anywhere else, for that matter. He felt sure of this. + +But he was equally certain that he was as much a stranger to her as she +to him. + +She, on her part, had been busy satisfying herself that he was a very +presentable young man, in spite of the somewhat formidable reputation +he wore as a person of learned attainments. There could be no better +way to show him to you than through her eyes, so you must know that she +saw a man of less than thirty years, with a figure slight and not +over-tall but well-proportioned, and with a complexion as dark as hers +was light. His eyes, indeed, were a very dark grey, and his hair was +black, and his face and hands had been coloured by the sun and wind +until the tan had become indelible, almost, so that his prolonged +periods of studious indoor seclusion worked little toward lightening +it. If his looks attracted, it was not because he was handsome, for +that he wasn't, but because of certain signs of strength to be +discerned in his face, as well as an engaging manner which he owned by +right of ancestry, his ascendants for several generations having been +notable representatives of one of the First Families of Virginia. Amber +was not inordinately proud of this fact, at least not more so than nine +out of any ten Virginians; but his friends--who were many but mostly +male--claimed that he wrote "F.F.V." before the "F.R.S." which he was +entitled to inscribe after his name. + +The pause which fell upon the girl's use of his name, and during which +they looked one another over, was sufficiently prolonged to excuse the +reference to it which Amber chose to make. + +"I'm sure," he said with his slow smile, "that we're satisfied we've +never met before. Aren't we?" + +"Quite," assented the girl. + +"That only makes it the more mysterious, of course." + +"Yes," said she provokingly; "doesn't it?" + +"You know, you're hardly fair to me," he asserted. "I'm rapidly +beginning to entertain doubts of my senses. When I left the train at +Nokomis station I met a man I know as well as I know myself--pretty +nearly; and he denied me to my face. Then, a little later, I encounter +a strange, mad Bengali, who apparently takes me for somebody he has +business with. And finally, you call me by name." + +"It isn't so very remarkable, when you come to consider it," she +returned soberly. "Mr. David Amber is rather well known, even in his +own country. I might very well have seen your photograph published in +connection with some review of--let me see.... Your latest book was +entitled 'The Peoples of the Hindu Kush,' wasn't it? You see, I haven't +read it." + +"That's sensible of you, I'm sure. Why should you?... But your theory +doesn't hold water, because I won't permit my publishers to print my +picture, and, besides, reviews of such stupid books generally appear in +profound monthlies which abhor illustrations." + +"Oh!" She received this with a note of disappointment. "Then my +explanation won't do?" + +"I'm sorry," he laughed, "but you'll have to be more ingenious--and +practical." + +"And you won't show me the present the babu made you?" + +He closed his fingers jealously over the bronze box. "Not until...." + +"You insist on reciprocity?" + +"Absolutely." + +"That's very unkind of you." + +"How?" he demanded blankly. + +"You will have it that I must surrender my only advantage--my +incognito. If I tell you how I happen to know who you are, I must tell +you who I am. Immediately you will lose interest in me, because I'm +really not at all advanced; I doubt if I should understand your book if +I had to read it." + +"Which Heaven forfend! But why," he insisted mercilessly, "do you wish +me to be interested in you?" + +She flushed becomingly at this and acknowledged the touch with a +rueful, smiling glance. But, "Because I'm interested in you," she +admitted openly. + +"And ... why?" + +"Are you hardened to such adventures?" She nodded in the direction the +babu had taken. "Are you accustomed to being treated with extraordinary +respect by stray Bengalis and accepting tokens from them? Is romance +commonplace to you?" + +"Oh," he said, disappointed, "if it's only the adventure--! Of course, +that's easily enough explained. This half-witted mammoth--don't ask me +how he came to be here--thought he recognised in me some one he had +known in India. Let's have a look at this token-thing." + +He disclosed the bronze box and let her take it in her pretty fingers. + +"It must have a secret spring," she concluded, after a careful +inspection. + +"I think so, but...." + +She shook it, holding it by her ear. "There's something inside--it +rattles ever so slightly. I wonder!" + +"No more than I." + +"And what are you going to do with it?" She returned it reluctantly. + +"Why, there's nothing to do but keep it till the owner turns up, that I +can see." + +"You won't break it open?" + +"Not until curiosity overpowers me and I've exhausted every artifice, +trying to find the catch." + +"Are you a patient person, Mr. Amber?" + +"Not extraordinarily so, Miss Farrell." + +"Oh, how did you guess?" + +"By remembering not to be stupid. You are Miss Sophia Farrell, daughter +of Colonel Farrell of the British Diplomatic Service in India." He +chuckled cheerfully over this triumph of deductive reasoning. "You are +visiting the Quains for a few days, while _en route_ for India with +some friends whose name I've forgotten--" + +"The Rolands," she prompted involuntarily. + +"Thank you.... The Rolands, who are stopping in New York. You've lived +several years with your father in India, went back to London to 'come +out' and are returning, having been presented at the Court of St. +James. Your mother was an American girl, a schoolmate of Mrs. Quain's. +I'm afraid that's the whole sum of my knowledge of you." + +"You've turned the tables fairly, Mr. Amber," she admitted. "And Mr. +Quain wrote you all that?" + +"I'm afraid he told me almost as much about you as he told you about +me; we're old friends, you know. And now I come to think of it, Quain +has one of the few photographs of me extant. So my chain of reasoning's +complete. And I think we'd better hurry on to Tanglewood." + +"Indeed, yes. Mrs. Quain will be wild with worry if that animal finds +his way back to the stable without me; I've been very thoughtless." She +caught up her riding-skirt and started down the path with Amber +trudging contently beside her. "However," she considered demurely, "I'm +not at all sorry, really; it's quite an experience to have a notability +at a disadvantage, even if only for a few minutes." + +"I wish you wouldn't," he begged in boyish embarrassment. "I'm not a +notability, really; Quain's been talking too much. I'll get even with +him, though." + +"That sounds so modest that I almost believe I've made a mistake about +your identity. But I've no doubt you're right; Mr. Quain does +exaggerate in praise of his friends. Very likely it is as you insist, +and you're only an ordinary person, after all. At least, you would be +if stray babus didn't make you mysterious presents." + +"So long as there is that to hold your interest in me, I'm content," he +told her, diverted. "How much longer shall you stay at Tanglewood, Miss +Farrell?" + +"Unhappily," she sighed, "I must leave on the early train to-morrow, to +join the Rolands in New York." + +"You don't want to go?" + +"I'm half an American, Mr. Amber. I've learned to love the country +already. Besides, we start immediately for San Francisco, and it'll be +such a little while before I'll be in India." + +"You don't care for India?" + +"I've known it for less than six years, but already I've come to hate +it as thoroughly as any exiled Englishwoman there. It sits there like a +great, insatiable monster, devouring English lives. Indirectly it was +responsible for my mother's death; she never recovered from the illness +she contracted when my father was stationed in the Deccan. In the +course of time it will kill my father, just as it did his father and +his elder brother. It's a cruel, hateful, ungrateful land--not worth +the price we pay for it." + +"I know how you feel," he said with sympathy. "It's been a good many +years since I visited India, and of course I then saw and heard little +of the darker side. Your people are brave enough, out there." + +"They are. I don't know about Government; but its servants are loyal +and devoted and unselfish and cheerful. And I don't at all understand," +she added in confusion, "why I should have decided to inflict upon you +my emotional hatred of the country. Your question gave me the opening, +and I forgot myself." + +"I assure you I was thoroughly shocked, Miss Farrell." + +"You should have been--surprised, at least. Why should I pour out my +woes to you--a man I've known not fifteen minutes?" + +"Why not, if you felt like it? After all, you know, we're both of us +merely making talk to--ah--to cover our interest in one another." + +She paused momentarily to laugh at his candour. "You are outspoken, Mr. +Amber! It's very pretty of you to assert an interest in me; but why +should you assume that I--" + +"You said so, didn't you?" + +"Wel-l ... yes, so I did." + +"You can change your mind, of course." + +"I shan't, honestly, until you turn stupid. And you can't do that until +you stop having strange adventures. Will you tell me something?" + +"If I can." + +"About the man who wouldn't acknowledge knowing you? You remember +saying three people had been mistaken about your identity this +afternoon." + +"No, only one--the babu. You're not mistaken--" + +"I knew you must be David Amber the moment I heard you speaking Urdu." + +"And the man at the station wasn't mistaken--unless I am. He knew me +perfectly, I believe, but for reasons of his own refused to recognise +me." + +"Yes--?" + +"He was an English servant named Doggott, who is--or once was--a valet +in the service of an old friend, a man named Rutton." + +She repeated the name: "Rutton? It seems to me I've heard of him." + +"You have?" + +"I don't remember," she confessed, knitting her level brows. "The name +has a familiar ring, somehow. But about the valet?" + +"Well, I was very intimate with his employer for a long time, though we +haven't met for several years. Rutton was a strange creature, a man of +extraordinary genius, who lived a friendless, solitary life--at least, +so far as I knew; I once lived with him in a little place he had in +Paris, for three months, and in all that time he never received a +letter or a caller. He was reticent about himself, and I never asked +any questions, of course, but in spite of the fact that he spoke +English like an Englishman and was a public school man, apparently, I +always believed he had a strain of Hungarian blood in him--or else +Italian or Spanish. I know that sounds pretty broad, but he was +enigmatic--a riddle I never managed to make much of. Aside from that he +was wonderful: a linguist, speaking a dozen European languages and more +Eastern tongues and dialects, I believe, than any other living man. We +met by accident in Berlin and were drawn together by our common +interest in Orientalism. Later, hearing I was in Paris, he hunted me up +and insisted that I stay with him there while finishing my big +book--the one whose title you know. His assistance to me then was +invaluable. After that I lost track of him." + +"And the valet?" + +"Oh, I'd forgotten Doggott. He was a Cockney, as silent and +self-contained as Rutton.... To get back to Nokomis: I met Doggott at +the station, called him by name, and he refused to admit knowing +me--said I must have mistaken him for his twin brother. I could tell by +his eyes that he lied, and it made me wonder. It's quite impossible +that Rutton should be in this neck of the woods; he was a man who +preferred to live a hermit in centres of civilisation.... Curious!" + +"I don't wonder you think so. Perhaps the man had been up to some +mischief.... But," said the girl with a note of regret, "we're almost +home!" + +They had come to the seaward verge of the woodland, where the trees and +scrub rose like a wild hedgerow on one side of a broad, well-metalled +highway. Before them stretched the eighth of a mile of neglected land +knee-deep with crisp, dry, brown stalks of weedy growths, beyond which +the bay smiled, a still lake of colour mirroring the intense +lapis-lazuli of the calm eastern skies of evening. Over across its +waters the sand dunes of a long island glowed like a bar of new red +gold, tinted by the transient scarlet and yellow glory of the +smouldering Autumnal sunset. Through the woods the level, brilliant, +warmthless rays ran like wild-fire, turning each dead, brilliant leaf +to a wisp of incandescent flame, and tingeing the air with an +evanescent ruby radiance against which the slim young boles stood black +and stark. + +To the right, on the other side of the road, a rustic fence enclosed +the trim, well-groomed plantations of Tanglewood Lodge; through the +dead limbs a window of the house winked in the sunset glow like an eye +of garnet. And as the two appeared a man came running up the road, +shouting. + +"That's Quain!" cried Amber; and sent a long cry of greeting toward +him. + +"Wait!" said the girl impulsively, putting out a detaining hand. "Let's +keep our secret," she begged, her eyes dancing--"just for the fun of +it!" + +"Our secret!" + +"About the babu and the Token; it's a bit of mystery and romance to +me--and we don't often find that in our lives, do we? Let us keep it +personal for a while--between ourselves; and you will promise to let me +know if anything unusual ever comes of it, after I've gone. We can say +that I was riding carelessly, which is quite true, and that the horse +shied and threw me, which again is true; but the rest for ourselves +only.... Please.... What do you say?" + +He was infected by her spirit of irresponsible mischief. "Why, yes--I +say yes," he replied; and then, more gravely: "I think it'll be very +pleasant to share a secret with you, Miss Farrell. I shant say a word +to any one, until I have to." + + * * * * * + +As events turned he had no need to mention the incident until the +morning of the seventh day following the girl's departure. In the +interim nothing happened, and he was able to enjoy some excellent +shooting with Quain, his thoughts undisturbed by any further appearance +of the babu. + +But on that seventh morning it became evident that a burglary had been +visited upon the home of his hosts. A window had been forced in the +rear of the house and a trail of burnt matches and candle-grease +between that entrance and the door of Amber's room, together with the +somewhat curious circumstance that nothing whatever was missing from +the personal effects of the Quains, forced him to make an explanation. +For his own belongings had been rifled and the bronze box alone +abstracted--still preserving its secret. + +In its place Amber found a soiled slip of note-paper inscribed with the +round, unformed handwriting of the babu: "Pardon, sahib. A mistake has +been made. I seek but to regain that which is not yours to possess. +There will be naught else taken. A thousand excuses from your hmbl. +obt. svt., Behari Lal Chatterji." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +MAROONED + + +A cry in the windy dusk; a sudden, hollow booming overhead; a vision of +countless wings in panic, sketched in black upon a background of dulled +silver; two heavy detonations and, with the least of intervals, a +third; three vivid flashes of crimson and gold stabbing the purple +twilight; and then the acrid reek of smokeless drifting into Amber's +face, while from the sky, where the V-shaped flock had been, two +stricken bundles of blood-stained feathers fell slowly, fluttering.... + +Honking madly, the unscathed brethren of the slain wheeled abruptly +and, lashed by the easterly gale, fled out over the open sea, +triangular formation dwindling rapidly in the clouded distances. + +Shot-gun poised abreast, his keen eyes marking down the fall of his +prey, Amber stood without moving, exultation battling with a vague +remorse in his bosom--as always when he killed. Quain, who had dropped +back a pace after firing but one shot and scoring an unqualified miss +at close range, now stood plucking clumsily, with half frozen fingers, +at an obstinate breech-lock. This latter resisting his every wile, his +temper presently slipped its leash; as violently as briefly he swore: +"Damn!" + +"Gladly," agreed Amber, without turning. "But what?" + +"This gun!" + +"Your gun?" + +"Of course." There were elaborations which would not lend themselves to +decorative effect upon a printed page. + +"Then damn it yourself, Quain; I'm sure you can do it ever so much more +thoroughly than I. But what's the matter?" + +"Rim-jammed cartridge," explained Quain between his teeth. The lock +just then yielding to his awkward manipulation, stock and barrel came +apart in his hands. "Just my beastly luck!" he added gratuitously. "It +wouldn't've been me if--! How many'd you pot, Davy?" + +"Only two," said Amber, lowering his weapon, extracting the spent +shells, and reloading. + +"Only _two!_" The information roused in Quain a demon of sarcasm. +Fumbling in his various pockets for a shell-extractor, he grunted his +disgust. "Here, lend us your thingumbob; I've lost mine. Thanky.... +Only two! How many'd you expect to drop, on a snapshot like that?" + +"Two," returned Amber so patiently that Quain requested him, +explosively, to go to the devil. "If you don't mind," he said, "I'll go +after my ducks instead. You'll follow? They're over there, on our way." +And accepting Quain's snort for an affirmative he strolled off in the +direction indicated, hugging his gun in the crook of his arm. + +Fifty yards or so away he found the ducks, side by side in a little +hollow. "Fine fat birds," he adjudged them sagely, weighing each in his +hand ere dropping it into his lean game-bag. "This makes up for a lot +of cold and waiting." + +Satisfaction glimmering in his grave dark eyes, he lingered in the +hollow, while the frosty air, whipping madly through the sand-hills, +stung his face till it glowed beneath the brown. But presently, like +the ghost of a forgotten kiss, something moist and chill touched gently +his cheek, and was gone. Startled, he glanced skywards, then extended +an arm, watching it curiously while the rough fabric of his sleeve was +salted generously with fine white flakes. Though to some extent +apprehended (they had been blind indeed to have ignored the menace of +the dour day just then dying) snow had figured in their calculations as +little as the scarcity of game. Amber wondered dimly if it would work a +change in their plans, prove an obstacle to their safe return across +the bay. + +The flurry thickening in the air, a shade of anxiety colored his mood. +"This'll never do!" he declared, and set himself to ascend a nearby +dune. For a moment he slipped and slid vainly, the dry sand treacherous +to his feet, the brittle grasses he clutched snapping off or coming +away altogether with their roots; but in time he found himself upon the +rounded summit, and stood erect, straining the bitter air into panting +lungs as he cast about for bearings. + +Behind him a meagre strip of sand held back a grim and angry sea; +before him lay an eighth of a mile of sand-locked desolation, and then +the weltering bay--a wide two miles of leaping, shouting waves, +slate-coloured but white of crests. Beyond, seen dimly as a wall +through driving sheets of snow, were the darkly wooded rises of the +mainland. In the west, to his left, the blank, impersonal eye of the +light-house, its pillar invisible, winked red, went out, and flashed up +white. Over all, beneath a low and lustreless sky as flat as a plate, +violet evening shadows were closing in like spectral skirts of the +imminent night. But, in the gloom, their little cat-boat lay occult to +his searching gaze. + +Quain's voice recalling him, he turned to discover his host stumbling +through a neighbouring vale, and obeying a peremptory wave of the elder +man's hand, descended, accompanied by an avalanche in miniature. + +"Better hurry," shouted Amber, as soon as he could make himself heard +above the screaming of the gale. "Wind's freshening; it looks like mean +weather." + +"Really?" Quain fell into step at his side. "You 'stonish me. But the +good Lord knows I'm willin'. Whereabout's the boat?" + +"Blessed if I know: over yonder somewhere," Amber told him, waving +toward the bay-shore an arm as vaguely helpful as his information. + +"Thank you so much. Guess I can find her all right. Hump yo'self, +Davy." + +They plodded on heavily, making fair progress in spite of the hindering +sand. Nevertheless it had grown sensibly darker ere they debouched upon +the frozen flats that bordered the bay; and now the wind bore down upon +them in full-winged fury, shrieking in their ears, searing their eyes, +tearing greedily at the very breath of their nostrils, and searching +out with impish ingenuity the more penetrable portions of their +clothing. + +For a moment Quain paused, irresolute, peering right and left, then +began to trudge eastwards, heavy boots crunching the thin sedge-ice. A +little later they came to the water's edge and proceeded steadily along +it, Quain leading confidently. Eventually he tripped over some +obstacle, stumbled and lurched forward and recovered his balance with +an effort, then remained with bowed head, staring down at his feet. + +"Hurt yourself, old man?" + +"No!" snapped Quain rudely. + +"Then what in--" + +"Eh?" Quain roused, but an instant longer looked him blankly in the +eye. "Oh," he added brightly--"oh, she's gone." + +"The boat----?" + +"The boat," affirmed Quain, too discouraged for the obvious retort +ungracious. He stooped and caught up a frayed end of rope, exhibiting +it in witness to his statement. "Ain't it hell?" he inquired +plaintively. + +Amber's gaze followed the rope, the further end of which was rove +through the ring of a small grapnel anchor half buried in the spongy +earth. "Gone!" he echoed dismally. + +"Gone away from here," said Quain deliberately, nodding at the rope's +end. "The tide floated her off, of course; but how this happened is +beyond me. I could kill Antone." He named the Portuguese labourer +charged with the care of the boats at Tanglewood. "It's his job to see +that these cables are replaced when they show signs of wear." He cast +the rope from him in disdain and wheeled to stare baywards. "There!" he +cried, levelling an arm to indicate a dark and fleeting shadow upon the +storm-whipped waters. "There she goes--not three hundred feet off. It +can't be five minutes since she worked loose. I don't see why...! If it +hadn't been for that damned cartridge...! It's the devil's own luck!" + +A blur of snow swept between boat and shore; when it had passed the +former was all but indistinguishable. From a full heart Quain +blasphemed fluently.... "But if she holds as she stands," he amended +quickly, his indomitable spirit fostering the forlorn hope, "she'll go +aground in another five minutes--and I know just where. I'll go after +her." + +"The deuce you will! How?" + +"There's an old skimmy up the shore a ways." Already Quain was moving +off in search of it. "Noticed her this morning. Daresay she leaks like +a sieve, but at worst the water's pretty shoal inshore, hereabouts." + +"Cold comfort in that." + +"Better than none, you amiable--" + +"Can you swim?" Amber demanded pointedly. + +"Like a fish. And you?" + +"Not like a fish." + +"Damn!" Quain brought up short with a shin barked against a thwart of +the rowboat he had been seeking, and in recognition of the mishap +liberally insulted his luck. + +Amber, knowing that his hurt was as inconsiderable as his ill-temper, +which was more than half-feigned to mask his anxiety, laughed quietly, +meanwhile inspecting their find with a critical eye. + +"You don't seriously mean to put off in this crazy hen-coop, do you?" +he asked. + +"Just precisely that. It's the only way." + +"It simple madness. I won't--" + +"You don't want to stay here all night, do you?" + +"No, but--" + +"Well, then, lend us a hand and don't stand there grumbling. Be +thankful for what you've got, which is me and my enterprise." + +"Oh, all right." + +Together they put their shoulders to the bows of the old, flat-bottomed +rowboat, with incredible exertions uprooting it from its ancient bed, +and at length had it afloat. + +Panting, Quain mopped his forehead with a handkerchief much the worse +for a day's association with gun-grease, and peered beneath his hand +into the murk that veiled the bay. + +"There she is," he declared confidently: "aground." He pointed. "I'll +fetch up with her in no time." + +But Amber could see nothing in the least resembling the catboat, and +said so with decision. + +"She's there, all right," insisted Quain. "'Tain't my fault if you're +blind. Here, hold this, will you, while I find me a pole of some sort." +He thrust into Amber's hand an end of rotten painter at which the +rowboat strained, and wandered off into the night, in the course of +time returning with an old eel-pot stake, flotsam of some summer storm. +"Pure, bull-headed luck!" he crowed, jubilant, brandishing his trophy; +and jumped into the boat. "Now sit tight till I come back?... +Huh--what?" + +"I'm coming, too," Amber repeated quietly. + +"The hell you are! D'you want to sink us? What do you think this is, +anyway--an excursion steamer? You stay where you are and--I say--take +care of this till I come back, like a good fellow." + +He thrust the butt of his shot-gun into Amber's face, and the latter, +seizing it, was rewarded by a vigorous push that sent him back half a +dozen feet. At the same time the painter slipped from his grasp and +Quain, lodging an end of the eel-pot stake on the hard sand bottom, put +his weight upon it. Before Amber could recover, the boat had slid off +and was melting swiftly into the shadows. + +After a bit Quain's voice came back: "Don't fret, Davy. I'm all right." + +Amber cupped hands to mouth and sent a cheerful hail ringing in +response. Simultaneously the last, least, indefinite blur that stood +for the boat in the darkness, vanished in a swirl of snow; and he was +alone with the storm and his misgivings. Upon these he put a +check--would not dwell upon them; but their influence none the less +proved strong enough to breed in him a resistless restlessness and keep +him tramping up and down a five-yard stretch of comparatively solid +earth: to and fro, stamping his feet to keep his blood circulating, +lugging both guns, one beneath either arm, hunching his shoulders up +about his ears in thankless attempt to prevent wet flakes from sifting +in between his neck and collar--thus, interminably it seemed, to and +fro, to and fro.... + +In the course of time this occupation defeated its purpose; the very +monotony of it sent his thoughts winging back to Quain; he worried more +than ever for his friend, reproaching himself unmercifully for that he +had suffered him to go alone--or at all. Quain had a wife and children; +that thought proved insupportable.... Had he missed the catboat +altogether? Or had he gained it only to find the motor disabled or the +propeller fouled with the wiry eel-grass that choked the shoals? In +either instance he would be at the mercy of the wind, for even with the +sail close-reefed he would have no choice other than to fly before the +fury. Or had the boat possibly gone aground so hard and fast that Quain +had found himself unable to push her off and doomed to lie in her, +helpless, against the fulling of the tide? Or (last and most grudged +guess of all) had the "skimmy" proved as unseaworthy as its dilapidated +appearance had proclaimed it? + +Twenty minutes wore wearily away. Falling ever more densely, the snow +drew an impenetrable wan curtain between Amber and the world of life +and light and warmth; while with each discordant blast the strength of +the gale seemed to wax, its high hysteric clamour at times drowning +even the incessant deep bellow of the ocean surf. Once Amber paused in +his patrol, having heard, or fancying he had heard, the staccato +_plut-plut-plut_ of a marine motor. On impulse, with a swelling heart, +he swung his gun skywards and pulled both triggers. The double report +rang in his ears loud as a thunderclap. + +In the moments that followed, while he stood listening, with every +fibre of his being keyed to attention, the sense of his utter isolation +chilled his heart as with cold steel. + +A little frantically he loaded and fired again; but what at first might +have been thought the faint far echo of a hail he in the end set down +reluctantly to a trick of the hag-ridden wind; to whose savage voice he +durst not listen long; in such a storm, on such a night, a man had but +to hearken with a credulous ear to hear strange and terrible voices +whispering, shrieking, gibbering, howling untold horrors.... + +An hour passed, punctuated at frequent intervals by gunshots. Though +they evoked no answer of any sort, hope for Quain died hard in Amber's +heart. With all his might he laboured to convince himself that his +friend must have overtaken the drifting boat, and, forced to relinquish +his efforts to regain the beach, have scudded across the bay to the +mainland and safety; but this seemed a surmise at best so far-fetched, +and one as well not overlong to be dwelt upon, lest by that very +insistence its tenuity be emphasised, that Amber resolutely turned from +it to a consideration of his own plight and problematic way of escape. + +His understanding of his situation was painfully accurate: he was +marooned upon what a flood tide made a desert island but which at the +ebb was a peninsula--a long and narrow strip of sand, bounded on the +west by the broad, shallow channel to the ocean, on the east connected +with the mainland by a sandbar which half the day lay submerged. + +He had, then, these alternatives: he might either compose himself to +hug the leeward side of a dune till daybreak (or till relief should +come) or else undertake a five-mile tramp on the desperate hope of +finding at the end of it the tide out and the sandbar a safe footway +from shore to shore. Between the two he vacillated not at all; anything +were preferable to a night in the dunes, beaten by the implacable +storm, haunted by the thought of Quain; and even though he were to find +the eastern causeway under water, at least the exercise would have +served to keep him from freezing. + +Ten minutes after his last cartridge had been fruitlessly discharged, +he set out for the ocean beach, pausing at the first dune he came upon +to scrape a shallow trench in the sand and cache therein both guns and +his game-bag. Marking the spot with a bit of driftwood stuck upright, +he pressed on, eventually pausing on the overhanging lip of a +twenty-foot bluff. To its foot the beach below was aswirl knee-deep +with the wash of breakers, broad patches of water black and glossy as +polished ebony alternating with vast expanses of foam and clotted +spume, all aglow with pale winter phosporescence. Momentarily, as he +watched, at once fascinated and appalled, mountainous ridges of +blackness heaved up out of the storm's grey heart, offshore, and, +curling crests edged with luminous white, swung in to crash and shatter +thunderously upon the sands. + +Awed and disappointed, Amber drew back. The beach was impassable; here +was no wide and easy road to the east, such as he had thought to find; +to gain the sandbar he had now to thread a tortuous and uncertain way +through the bewildering dunes. And the prospect was not a little +disconcerting; afraid neither of wind nor of cold, he was wretchedly +afraid of going astray in that uncertain, shifting labyrinth. To lose +oneself in that trackless wilderness...! + +A demon of anxiety prodded him on: he must learn Quain's fate, or go +mad. Once on the mainland it were a matter of facility to find his way +to the village of Shampton, telephone Tanglewood and charter a "team" +to convey him thither. He shut his teeth on his determination and set +his face to the east. + +Beset and roughly buffeted by the gale; the snow settling in rippling +drifts in the folds of his clothing and upon his shoulders clinging +like a cloth; his face cut by clouds of sand flung horizontally with +well-nigh the force of birdshot from a gun: he bowed to the blast and +plodded steadily on. + +Imperceptibly fatigue benumbed his senses, blunted the keen edge of his +emotions; even the care for Quain became a mere dull ache in the back +of his perceptions; of physical suffering he was unconscious. He fell a +prey to freakish fancies--could stand aside and watch himself, an atom +whirling in the mad dance of the tempest, as the snow-flakes whirled, +as little potent. He saw himself pitting his puny strength of mind and +body against the infinite force of the elements: saw himself fall and +rise and battle on, gaining nothing: an atom, sport of high gods! To +the flight of time he grew quite oblivious, his thoughts wandering in +the past, oddly afar to half-remembered scenes, to experiences more +than half-forgotten, both wholly irrelevant; picturesque and painful +memories cast up from the deeps of the subconsciousness by some +inexplicable convulsion of the imagination. For a long time he moved on +in stupid, wondering contemplation of a shining crescent of sand backed +by a green, steaming wall of jungle; there was a dense blue sky above, +and below, on the beach, dense blue waters curled lazily up the feet of +a little, naked, brown child that played contentedly with a shell of +rainbow hues. Again he saw a throng upon a pier-head, and in its +forefront an unknown woman, plainly dressed, with deep brown eyes +wherein Despair dwelt, tearless but white to the lips as she watched a +steamer draw away. And yet again, he seemed to stand with others upon +the threshold of the cardroom of a Hong-Kong club: in a glare of garish +light a man in evening dress lay prone across a table on whose +absorbent, green cloth a dark and ugly stain was widening slowly.... +But for the most part he fancied himself walking through scented, +autumnal woods, beside a woman whose eyes were kind and dear, whose +lips were sweet and tempting: a girl he had known not an hour but whom +already he loved, though he himself did not dream it nor discover it +till too late.... And with these many other visions formed and +dissolved in dream-like phantasmagoria; but of them all the strongest +and most recurrent was that of the girl in the black riding-habit, +walking by his side down the aisle of trees. So that presently the +tired and overwrought man believed himself talking with her, reasoning, +arguing, pleading desperately for his heart's desire;... and wakened +with a start, to hear the echo of her voice as though she had spoken +but the instant gone, to find his own lips framing the syllables of her +name--"Sophia!" + +Thus strangely he came to know that beyond question he loved. And he +stopped short and stood blinking blindly at nothing, a little +frightened by the depth and strength of this passion which had come to +him with such scant presage, realising for the first time that his need +for her was an insatiable hunger of the soul.... And she was lost to +him; half a world lay between them--or soon would. All his days he had +awaited, a little curiously, a little sceptical, the coming of the +thing men call Love; and when it had come to him he had not known it +nor guessed it until its cause had slipped away from him.... Beyond +recall? + +Abruptly he regained consciousness of his plight, and with an effort +shook his senses back into his head. It was not precisely a time when +he could afford to let his wits go wool-gathering. And he realised that +he had been, in a way, more than half-asleep as he walked; even now he +was drowsy, his eyes were heavy, his feet leaden--and numb with cold +besides. He had no least notion of what distance he might have +travelled or whether he had walked in a straight line or a circle; but +when he thought to glance over his shoulder--there was at the moment +perhaps more wind with less snow than there had been for some time--he +found the lighthouse watching him as it had from the first: as if he +had not won a step away from it for all his struggle and his pains. The +white, staring eye winked sardonically through a mist of flakes, was +blotted out and turned up a baleful red. It seemed to mock him, but +Amber nodded at it with no unfriendly feeling. It still might serve his +purpose very well, if his strength held, since he had merely to keep +his back to the light and the ocean beach upon his right to win to the +Shampton sandbar, whether soon or late. + +Inflexible of purpose in the face of all his weariness and +discouragement, he was on the point of resuming his march when he was +struck by the circumstance that the whitened shoulder of a dune, quite +near at hand, should seem as if frosted with light--coldly luminous. + +Staring, speculative, he hung in the wind--inquisitive as a cat but +loath to waste time in footless inquiry. The snow-fall, setting in with +augmented violence, decided him. Where light was, there should be man, +and where man, shelter. + +His third eager stride opened up a wide basin in the dunes, filled with +eddying veils of snow, and set, at some distance, with two brilliant +squares of light--windows in an invisible dwelling. In the space +between them, doubtless, there would be a door. But a second time he +paused, remembering that the island was said to be uninhabited. Only +yesterday he had asked and been so informed.... Odd! + +So passing strange he held it, indeed, that he was conscious of a +singular reluctance to question the phenomenon. That superstitious +dread of the unknown which lies dormant in us all, in Amber stirred and +awoke and held him back like a strong hand. Or, if there be such a +thing as a premonition of misfortune, he may be said to have +experienced it in that hour; certainly a presentiment of evil crawled +in his brain, and he hesitated at a time when he desired naught in the +world so much as that which the windows promised--light, heat and human +companionship. He had positively to force himself on to seek the door, +and even when he had stumbled against its step he twice lifted his hand +and let it fall without knocking. + +There was not a sound within that he could hear above the clamour of +the goblin night. + +In the end, however, he knocked stoutly enough. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE MAN PERDU + + +A shadow swept swiftly across one of the windows, and the stranger at +the door was aware of a slight jarring as though some more than +ordinarily brutal gust of wind had shaken the house upon its +foundation, or an inner door had been slammed violently. But otherwise +he had so little evidence that his summons had fallen on aught but +empty walls or deaf ears that he had begun to debate his right to enter +without permission, when a chain rattled, a bolt grated, and the door +swung wide. A flood of radiance together with a gust of heated air +struck him in the face. Dazzled, he reeled across the threshold. + +The door banged, and again the house in the dunes shuddered as the +storm fell upon it with momentarily trebled ferocity; as if, cheated of +its foreordained prey, it would rend apart his frail refuge to regain +him. + +Three paces within the room Amber paused, waiting for his eyes to +adjust themselves to the light. Vaguely conscious of a presence behind +him, he faced another--the slight, spare silhouette of a man's figure +between him and the lamp; and at the same time felt that he was being +subjected to a close scrutiny--both searching and, at its outset, the +reverse of hospitable. But he had no more than become sensitive to this +than the man before him stepped quickly forward and with two strong +hands clasped his shoulders. + +"David Amber!" he heard his name pronounced in a voice singularly +resonant and pleasant. "So you've run me to earth at last!" + +Amber's face was blank with incredulity as he recognised the speaker. +"Rutton!" he stammered. "Rutton--why--by all that's strange!" + +"Guilty," said the other with a quiet laugh. "But sit down." He swung +Amber about, gently guiding him to a chair. "You look pretty well done +up. How long have you been out in this infernal night? But never mind +answering; I can wait. Doggott!" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Take Mr. Amber's coat and boots and bring him my dressing-gown and +slippers." + +"Yes, sir." + +"And a hot toddy and something to eat--and be quick about it." + +"Very good, sir." + +Rutton's body-servant moved noiselessly to Amber's side, deftly helping +him remove his shooting-jacket, whereon snow had caked in thin and +brittle sheets. His eyes, grey and shallow, flickered recognition and +softened, but he did not speak in anticipation of Amber's kindly +"Good-evening, Doggott." To which he responded quietly: "Good-evening, +Mr. Amber. It's a pleasure to see you again. I trust you are well." + +"Quite, thank you. And you?" + +"I'm very fit, thank you sir." + +"And"--Amber sat down again, Doggott kneeling at his feet to unlace and +remove his heavy pigskin hunting-boots--"and your brother?" + +For a moment the man did not answer. His head was lowered so that his +features were invisible, but a dull, warm flush overspread his cheeks. + +"And your brother, Doggott?" + +"I'm sorry, sir, about that; but it was Mr. Rutton's order," muttered +the man. + +"You're talking of the day you met Doggott at Nokomis station?" +interposed his employer from the stand he had taken at one side of the +fireplace, his back to the broad hearth whereon blazed a grateful +driftwood fire. + +Amber looked up inquiringly, nodding an unspoken affirmative. + +"It was my fault that he--er--prevaricated, I'm afraid; as he says, it +was by my order." + +Rutton's expression was masked by the shadows; Amber could make nothing +of his curious reticence, and remained silent, waiting a further +explanation. It came, presently, with an effect of embarrassment. + +"I had--have peculiar reasons for not wishing my refuge here to be +discovered. I told Doggott to be careful, should he meet any one we +knew. Although, of course, neither of us anticipated...." + +"I don't think Doggott was any more dumfounded than I," said Amber. "I +couldn't believe he'd left you, yet it seemed impossible that you +should be here--of all places--in the neighbourhood of Nokomis, I mean. +As for that--" Amber shook his head expressively, glancing round the +mean room in which he had found this man of such extraordinary +qualities. "It's altogether inconceivable," he summed up his +bewilderment. + +"It does seem so--even to me, at times." + +"Then why--in Heaven's name--" + +By now Doggott had invested Amber in his master's dressing-gown and +slippers; rising he left them, passing out through an inner door which +led, evidently, to the only other room in the cottage. Rutton delayed +his reply until the man had shut the door behind him, then suddenly, +with the manner of one yielding to the inevitable, drew a chair up to +face Amber's and dropped into it. + +"I see I must tell you something--a little; as little as I can help--of +the truth." + +"I'm afraid you must; though I'm damned if I can detect a glimmer of +either rhyme or reason in this preposterous situation." + +Rutton laughed quietly, lounging in his armchair and lacing before him +the fingers of hands singularly small and delicate in view of their +very considerable strength--to which Amber's shoulder still bore aching +testimony. + +"In three words," he said deliberately: "I am hiding." + +"Hiding!" + +"Obviously." + +Amber bent forward, studying the elder man's face intently. Thin and +dark--not tanned like Amber's, but with a native darkness of skin like +that of the Spanish--it was strongly marked, its features at once +prominent and finely modelled. The hair intensely black, the eyes as +dark and of peculiar fire, the lips broad, full, and sympathetic, the +cheekbones high, the forehead high and something narrow: these combined +to form a strangely striking ensemble, and none the less striking for +its weird resemblance to Amber's own cast of countenance. + +Indeed, their likeness one to the other was nothing less than weird in +that it could be so superficially strong, yet so elusive. No two men +were ever more unalike than these save in this superficial accident of +facial contours and complexion. No one knowing Amber (let us say) could +ever have mistaken him for Rutton; and yet any one, strange to both, +armed with a description of Rutton, might pardonably have believed +Amber to be his man. Yet manifestly they were products of alien races, +even of different climes--their individualities as dissimilar as the +poles. Where in Rutton's bearing burned an inextinguishable, almost an +insolent pride, beneath an ice-like surface of self-constraint, in +Amber's one detected merely quiet consciousness of strength and +breeding--his inalienable heritage from many generations of Anglo-Saxon +forebears; and while Rutton continually betrayed, by look or tone or +gesture, a birthright of fierce passions savagely tamed, from Amber one +seldom obtained a hint of aught but the broad and humourous tolerance +of an American gentleman. + +But to-night the Virginian had undergone enough to have lost much of +his habitual poise. "Hiding!" he reiterated in a tone scarcely louder +than a whisper. + +"And you have found me out, my friend." + +"But--but I don't--" + +Rutton lifted a hand in deprecation; and as he did so the door in the +rear of the room opened and Doggott entered. Cat-like, passing behind +Amber, he placed upon the table a small tray, and from a steaming +pitcher poured him a glass of hot spiced wine. At a look from his +employer he filled a second. + +"There's sandwiches, sir," he said; "the best I could manage at short +notice, Mr. Amber. If you'll wait a bit I can fix you up something +'ot." + +"Thank you, Doggott, that won't be necessary; the sandwiches look +mighty good to me." + +"Thank you, sir. Will there be anything else, Mr. Rutton?" + +"If there is, I'll call you." + +"Yes, sir. Good-night, sir. Good-night, Mr. Amber." + +As Doggott shut himself out of the room, Amber lifted his fragrant +glass. "You're joining me, Rutton?" + +"With all my heart!" The man came forward to his glass. "For old sake's +sake, David. Shall we drink a toast?" He hesitated, with a marked air +of embarrassment, then impulsively swung his glass aloft. "Drink +standing!" he cried, he voice oddly vibrant. And Amber rose. "To the +King--the King, God bless him!" + +"To the King!" It was more an exclamation of surprise than an echo to +the toast; nevertheless Amber drained his drink to the final drop. As +he resumed his seat, the room rang with the crash of splintering glass; +Rutton had dashed his tumbler to atoms on the hearthstone. + +"Well!" commented Amber, lifting his brows questioningly. "You _are_ +sincere, Rutton. But who in blazes would ever have suspected you of +being a British subject?" + +"Why not?" + +"But it seems to me I should have known--" + +"What have you ever really known about me, David, save that I am +myself?" + +"Well--when you put it that way--little enough--nothing." Amber laughed +nervously, disconcerted. + +"And I? Who and what am I?" No answer was expected--so much was plain +from Rutton's tone; he was talking to himself more than addressing his +guest. His long brown fingers strayed to the box and conveyed a +cigarette to his lips; staring dreamily into the fire, he smoked a +little ere continuing. "What does it mean, this eternal 'I' round which +the world revolves?" His voice trailed off into silence. + +Amber snapped the tension with a chuckle. "You can search me," he said +irreverently. And his host returned his smile. "Now, will you please +pay attention to me, my friend? Or do you wish me to turn and rend +myself with curiosity--after I've attended to these excellent +sandwiches?... Seriously, I want to know several things. What have you +been doing with yourself these past three years?" + +Rutton shook his head gravely. "I can't say." + +"You mean you won't?" + +"If you will have it that way." + +"Well ... I give you up." + +"That's the most profitable thing you could do, David." + +"But, seriously now, this foolish talk about hiding is all a joke, +isn't it?" + +"No," said Rutton soberly; "no, it's no joke." He sighed profoundly. +"As for my recent whereabouts, I have been--ah--travelling +considerably; moving about from pillar to post." To this the man added +a single word, the more significant in that it embodied the nearest +approach to a confidence that Amber had ever known him to make: +"Hunted." + +"Hunted by whom?" + +"I beg your pardon." Rutton bent forward and pushed the cigarettes to +Amber's elbow. "I am--ah--so preoccupied with my own mean troubles, +David, that I had forgotten that you had nothing to smoke. Forgive me." + +"That's no matter, I--" + +Amber cut short his impatient catechism in deference to the other's +mute plea. And Rutton thanked him with a glance--one of those looks +which, between friends, are more eloquent than words. Sighing, he shook +his head, his eyes once more seeking the flames. And silently studying +his face--the play of light from lamp and hearth throwing its features +into salient relief--for the first time Amber, his wits warmed back to +activity from the stupor the bitter cold had put upon them, noticed how +time and care had worn upon the man since they had last parted. He had +never suspected Rutton to be his senior by more years than ten, at the +most; to-night, however, he might well be taken for fifty were his age +to be reckoned by its accepted signs--the hollowing of cheek and +temple, the sinking of eyes into their sockets, the deepening of the +maze of lines about the mouth and on the forehead. + +Impulsively the younger man sat up and put a hand upon the arm of +Rutton's chair. "What can I do?" he asked simply. + +Rutton roused, returning his regard with a smile slow, charming, +infinitely sad. "Nothing," he replied; "absolutely nothing." + +"But surely----!" + +"No man can do for me what I cannot do for myself. When the time +comes"--he lifted his shoulders lightly--"I will do what I can. Till +then...." He diverged at a tangent. "After all, the world is quite as +tiny as the worn-out aphorism has it. To think that you should find me +here! It's less than a week since Doggott and I hit upon this place and +settled down, quite convinced we had, at last, lost ourselves ... and +might have peace, for a little space at least!" + +Amber glanced curiously round the room; sparely furnished, bare, +unlovely, it seemed a most cheerless sort of spot to be considered a +haven of peace. + +"And now," concluded Rutton, "we have to move on." + +"Because I've found you here?" + +"Because you have found me." + +"I don't understand." + +"My dear boy, I never meant you should." + +"But if you're in any danger--" + +"I am not." + +"You're not! But you just said--" + +"I'm in no danger whatever; humanity is, if I'm found." + +"I don't follow you at all." + +Again Rutton smiled wearily. "I didn't expect you to, David. But this +misadventure makes it necessary that I should tell you something; you +must be made to believe in me. I beg you to; I'm neither mad nor making +game of you." There was no questioning the sane sincerity of the man. +He continued slowly. "It's a simple fact, incredible but absolute, +that, were my whereabouts to be made public, a great, a staggering blow +would be struck against the peace and security of the world.... Don't +laugh, David; I mean it." + +"I'm not laughing, Rutton; but you must know that's a pretty large +order. Most men would--" + +"Call me mad. Yes, I know," Rutton took up his words as Amber paused, +confused. "I can't expect you to understand me: you couldn't unless I +were to tell you what I may not. But you know me--better, perhaps, than +any living man save Doggott ... and one other. You know whether or not +I would seek to delude you, David. And, knowing that I could not, you +know why it seems to me imperative that, this hole being discovered, +Doggott and I must betake ourselves elsewhere. Surely there must be +solitudes----!" He rose with a gesture of impatience and began +restlessly to move to and fro. + +Amber started suddenly, flushing. "If you mean--" + +Rutton's kindly hand forced him back into his chair. "Sit down, David. +I never meant that--never for an instant dreamed you'd intentionally +betray my secret. It's enough that you should know it, should +occasionally think of me as being here, to bring misfortune down upon +me, to work an incalculable disaster to the progress of this +civilisation of ours." + +"You mean," Amber asked uncertainly, "thought transference?" + +"Something of the sort--yes." The man came to a pause beside Amber, +looking down almost pitifully into his face. "I daresay all this sounds +hopelessly melodramatic and neurotic and tommyrotic, David, but ... I +can tell you nothing more. I'm sorry." + +"But only let me help you--any way in my power, Rutton. There's nothing +I'd not do...." + +"I know, David, I know it. But my case is beyond human aid, since I am +powerless to apply a remedy myself." + +"And you _are_ powerless?" + +Rutton was silent a long moment. Then, "Time will tell," he said +quietly. "There is one way...." He resumed his monotonous round of the +room. + +Mechanically Amber began to smoke, trying hard to think, to penetrate +by reasoning or intuition the wall of mystery which, it seemed, Rutton +chose to set between himself and the world. The intense earnestness of +the man's hopeless confession had carried conviction. Amber believed +him, believed in the reality of his trouble; and, divining it dimly, a +monstrous, menacing shape in the vagueness of the unknown, was himself +dismayed and a little fearful. He owed much to this man, was bound to +him by ties not only of gratitude but of affection, yet, finding him +distressed, found himself simultaneously powerless to render aid. +Inwardly mutinous, he had to school himself to quiescence; lacking the +confidence which Rutton so steadfastly refused him, he was impotent. + +Presently he grew conscious that Rutton was standing as if listening, +his eyes averted to the windows. But when Amber looked they showed, +beneath their half-drawn muslin shades, naught save the grey horizontal +rush of snow beyond the panes. And he heard nothing save the endless +raving of the maniac wind. + +"What is it?" he inquired at length, unable longer to endure the +tensity of the pause. + +"Nothing. I beg your pardon, David." Rutton returned to his chair, +making a visible effort to shake off his preoccupation. "It's an ugly +night, out there. Lucky you blundered on this place. Tell me how it +happened. What became of the other man--your friend?" + +The thought of Quain stabbed Amber's consciousness with a mental pang +as keen as acute physical anguish. He jumped up in torment. "God!" he +cried chokingly. "I'd forgotten! He's out there on the bay, poor +devil!--freezing to death if not drowned. Our boat went adrift somehow; +Quain would insist on going after her in a leaky old skiff we found on +the shore ... and didn't come back. I waited till it was hopeless, then +concluded I'd make a try to cross to Shampton by way of the tidal bar. +And I must!" + +"It's impossible," Rutton told him with grave sympathy. + +"But I must; think of his wife and children, Rutton! There's a chance +yet--a bare chance; he may have reached the boat. If he did, every +minute I waste here is killing him by inches; he'll die of exposure! +But from Shampton we could send a boat--" + +"The tide fulls about midnight to-night," interrupted Rutton, +consulting his watch. "It's after nine,--and there's a heavy surf +breaking over the bar now. By ten it'll be impassable, and you couldn't +reach it before eleven. Be content, David; you're powerless." + +"You're right--I know that," groaned Amber, his head in his hands. "I +was afraid it was hopeless, but--but--" + +"I know, dear boy, I know!" + +With a gesture of despair Amber resumed his seat. For some time he +remained deep sunk in dejection. At length, mastering his emotion, he +looked up. "How did you know about Quain--that we were together?" he +asked. + +"Doggott saw you land this morning, and I've been watching you all day +with my field-glasses, prepared to take cover the minute you turned my +way. Don't be angry with me, David; it wasn't that I didn't yearn to +see you face to face again, but that ... I didn't dare." + +"Oh, that!" exclaimed Amber with an exasperated fling of his hand. +"Between the two of you--you and Quain--you'll drive me mad with +worry." + +"I'm sorry, David. I only wish I might say more. It hurts a bit to have +you doubt me." + +"I don't doubt," Amber declared in desperation; "at least, I mean I +won't if you'll be sensible and let me stand by and see you through +this trouble--whatever it is." + +Rutton turned to the fire, his head drooping despondently. "That may +not be," he said heavily. "The greatest service you can do me is to +forget my existence, now and henceforth, erase our friendship from the +tablets of your memory, pass me as a stranger should our ways ever +cross again." He flicked the stub of a cigarette into the flames. +"Kismet!... I mean that, David, from my heart. Won't you do this for +me--one last favour, old friend?" + +"I'll try; I'll even promise, on condition that you send me word if +ever you have need of me." + +"That will be never." + +"But if--" + +"I'll send for you if ever I may, David; I promise faithfully. And in +return I have your word?" + +Amber nodded. + +"Then...." Rutton attempted to divert the subject. "I think you said +Quain? Any relation to Quain's 'Aryan Invasion of India?" + +"The same man. He asked me down for the shooting--owns a country place +across the bay: Tanglewood." + +"A very able man; I wish I might have met him.... What of yourself? +What have you been doing these three years? Have you married?" + +"I've been too busy to think of that.... I mean, till lately." + +"Ah?" + +Amber flushed boyishly. "There was a girl at Quain's--a guest.... But +she left before I dared speak. Perhaps it was as well." + +"Why?" + +"Because she was too fine and sweet and good for me, Rutton." + +"Like every man's first love." + +The elder man's glance was keen--too keen for Amber to dissimulate +successfully under it. "You're right," he admitted ruefully. "It's the +first sure-enough trouble of the sort I ever experienced. And, of +course, it had to be hopeless." + +"Why?" persisted Rutton. + +"Because--I've half a notion there's a chap waiting for her at home." + +"At home?" + +"In England." The need for a confidant was suddenly imperative upon the +younger man. "She's an English girl--half English, that is; her mother +was an American, a schoolmate of Quain's wife; her father, an +Englishman in the Indian service." + +"Her name?" + +"Sophia Farrell." A peculiar quality, a certain tensity, in Rutton's +manner, forced itself upon Amber's attention. "Why?" he asked. "Do you +know the Farrells? What's the matter?" + +Rutton's eyes met his stonily; out of the ashen mask of his face, that +suddenly had whitened beneath the brown, they glared, afire but +unseeing. His hands writhed, the fingers twisting together with cruel +force, the knuckles grey. Abruptly, as if abandoning the attempt to +reassert his self-control, he jumped up and went quickly to a window, +there to stand, his back to Amber, staring fixedly out into the +storm-racked night. "I knew her father," he said at length, his tone +constrained and odd, "long ago, in India." + +"He's out there now--a Political, I believe they call him, or something +of the sort." + +"Yes." + +"She's going out to rejoin him." + +"What!" Rutton came swiftly back to Amber, his voice shaking. "What did +you say?" + +"Why, yes. She travels with friends by the western route to join +Colonel Farrell at Darjeeling, where he's stationed just now. Shortly +after I came down she left; Mrs. Quain had a wire a day or so ago, +saying she was on the point of sailing from San Francisco.... Good +Lord, Rutton! are you ill?" + +Something in the man's face had brought Amber to his feet, a prey to +inexpressible concern; it was as if a mask had dropped and he were +looking upon the soul of a man in mortal torture. + +"No," gasped Rutton, "I'm all right. Besides," he added beneath his +breath, so that Amber barely caught the syllables, "it's too late." + +As rapidly as he had lost he seemed to regain mastery of his +inexplicable emotion. His face became again composed, almost immobile, +and stepping to the table he selected a cigarette and rolled it gently +between his slim brown fingers. "I'm sorry to have alarmed you," he +said, his tone a bit too even not to breed a doubt in the mind of his +hearer. "It's nothing serious--a little trouble of the heart, of long +standing, incurable--I hope." + +Perplexed, yet hesitating to press him further, Amber watched him +furtively, instinctively assured that between this man and the Farrells +there existed some extraordinary bond; wondering how that could be, +convinced in his soul that somehow the entanglement involved the woman +he loved, he still feared to put his suspicions to the question, lest +he should learn that which he had no right to know ... and while he +watched was startled by the change that came over Rutton. At ease, one +moment, outwardly composed if absorbed in thought, the next he was +rigid, every muscle taut, every nerve tense as a steel spring, his +keen, thoughtful face hardening with a look of brutal hatred, his eyes +narrowing until no more than a glint of fire was visible between the +lashes, lips straining apart until they showed thin and bloodless, with +a gleam of white, set teeth between. His head jerked back suddenly, his +gaze fixing itself first upon the window, then shifting to the door. +And his fingers, contracting, tore the cigarette in half. + +"Rutton, what the deuce is the matter?" + +Rutton seemed not to hear; Amber got his answer from the door, which +was swung wide and slammed shut. A blast of frosty air and a flurry of +snow swept across the room. And against the door there leaned a man +puffing for breath and coughing spasmodically--a gross and monstrous +bulk of flesh, unclean and unwholesome to the eye, attired in an +extravagant array of coloured garments, tawdry silks and satins +clinging, sodden, to his ponderous and unwieldy limbs. + +"The babu!" cried Amber unconsciously; and was rewarded by a flash of +recognition from the coal-black, beady, evil eyes of the man. + +But for that involuntary exclamation the tableau held unbroken for a +space; Rutton standing transfixed, the torn halves of the cigarette +between his fingers, his head well up and back, his stare level, +direct, uncompromising, a steady challenge to the intruder; the babu +resting with one shoulder against the door, panting stertorously and +trembling with the cold and exposure he had undergone, yet with his +attention unflinchingly concentrated upon Rutton; and, finally, Amber, +a little out of the picture and quite unconsidered of the others, not +without a certain effect as of a supernumerary standing in the wings +and watching the development of the drama. + +Then, demanding Amber's silence with an imperative movement of his +hand, Rutton spoke. "Well, babu?" he said quietly, the shadow of a +bitter and weary smile curving his thin, hard lips. + +The Bengali moved a pace or two from the door, and plucked nervously at +the throat of his surtout, finally managing to insert one hand in the +folds of silk across his bosom. + +"I seek," he said distinctly in Urdu, and not without a definite note +of menace in his manner, "the man calling himself Rutton Sahib?" + +Very deliberately Rutton inclined his head. "I am he." + +"Hazoor!" The babu laboriously doubled up his enormous body in profound +obeisance. Having recovered, he nodded to Amber with the easy +familiarity of an old acquaintance. "To you, likewise, greeting, Amber +Sahib." + +"What!" Rutton swung sharply to Amber with an exclamation of amazement. +"You know this fellow, David?" + +The babu cut in hastily, stimulated by a pressing anxiety to clear +himself. "Hazoor, I did but err, being misled by his knowledge of our +tongue as well as by that pale look of you he wears. And, indeed, is it +strange that I should take him for you, who was told to seek you in +this wild land?" + +"Be silent!" Rutton told him angrily. + +"My lord's will is his slave's." Resignedly the babu folded his fat +arms. + +"Tell me about this," Rutton demanded of Amber. + +"The ass ran across me in the woods south of the station, the day I +came down," explained Amber, summarising the episode as succinctly as +he could. "He didn't call me by your name, but I've no doubt he's +telling the truth about mistaking me for you. At all events he +hazoor-ed me a number of times, talked a lot of rot about some silly +'Voice,' and finally made me a free gift of a nice little bronze box +that wouldn't open. After which he took to his heels, saying he'd call +later for my answer--whatever he meant by that. He did call by night +and stole the box. That's about all I know of him, thus far. But I'd +watch out for him, if I were you; if he isn't a raving lunatic, I miss +my guess." + +"Indeed, my lord, it is all quite as the sahib says," the babu admitted +graciously, his eyes gleaming with sardonic amusement. "Circumstances +conspired to mislead me; but that I was swift to discover. Nor did I +lose time in remedying the error, as you have heard. Moreover--" + +He shut up suddenly at a sign from Rutton, with a ludicrous shrug of +his huge shoulders disclaiming any ill-intent or wrong-doing; and while +Rutton remained deep in thought by the table, the babu held silence, +his gaze flickering suspiciously round the room, searching the shadows, +questioning the closed door behind which Doggott lay asleep (evidence +of which fact was not wanting in his snores), resting fleetingly on +Amber's face, returning to Rutton. His features were composed; his +face, indeed, might have been taken as a model for some weird mask of +unctuous depravity, but for his eyes, which betrayed a score of +differing phases of emotion. He was by turns apparently possessed by +fear, malice, distrust, a subtle sense of triumph, contempt for Amber, +deference to Rutton, and a feeling that he was master not alone of the +situation but of the man whom he professed to honor so extravagantly. + +At length Rutton looked up, suppressing a sigh. "Your errand, babu?" + +"Is it, then, your will that I should speak before this man?" The +Bengali nodded impudently at Amber. + +"It is my will." + +"Shabash! I bear a message, hazoor, from the Bell." + +"You are the Mouthpiece of the Voice?" + +"That honor is mine, hazoor. For the rest I am--" + +"Behari Lal Chatterji," interrupted Rutton impatiently; "solicitor of +the Inner Temple--disbarred; anointed thief, liar, jackal, lickspittle, +and perjurer--I know you." + +"My lord," said the man insolently, "omits from his catalogue of my +accomplishments my chiefest honour; he forgets that, with him, I am an +accepted Member of the Body." + +"The Body wears strange members that employs you, babu," commented +Rutton bitterly. "It has fallen upon evil days when such as you are +charged with a message of the Bell." + +"My lord is harsh to one who would be his slave in all things. +Fortunate indeed am I to own the protection of the Token." A slow leer +widened greasily upon his moon-like face. + +"Ah, the Token!" Rutton repeated tensely, beneath his breath. "It is +true that you have the Token?" "Aye; it is even here, my lord." The +heavy brown hand returned to the spot it had sought soon after the +babu's entrance, within the folds of silk across his bosom, and groped +therein for an instant. "Even here," he iterated with a maddening +manner of supreme self-complacency, producing the bronze box and +waddling over to drop it into Rutton's hand. "My lord is satisfied?" he +gurgled maliciously. + +Without answering Rutton turned the box over in his palm, his slender +fingers playing about the bosses of the relief work; there followed a +click and one side of it swung open. The Bengali fell back a pace with +a whisper of awe--real or affected: "The Token, hazoor!" Amber himself +gasped slightly. + +Unheeded, the box dropped to the floor. Between Rutton's thumb and +forefinger there blazed a great emerald set in a ring of red old gold. +He turned it this way and that, inspecting it critically; and the +lamplight, catching on the facets, struck from it blinding shafts of +intensely green radiance. Rutton nodded as if in recognition of the +stone and, turning, with an effect of carelessness, tossed it to Amber. + +"Keep that for me, David, please," he said. And Amber, catching it, +dropped the ring into his pocket. + +"My lord is satisfied with my credentials, then?" the babu persisted. + +"It is the Token," Rutton assented wearily. "Now, your message. Be +brief." + +"The utterances of the Voice be infrequent, hazoor, its words few--but +charged with meaning: as you know of old." The Bengali drew himself up, +holding up his head and rolling forth his phrases in a voice of great +resonance and depth. "These be the words of the Voice, hazoor: + +"'_To all my peoples: + +"'Even now the Gateway of Swords yawns wide, that he who is without +fear may pass within; to the end that the Body be purged of the Scarlet +Evil. + +"'The Elect are bidden to the Ordeal with no exception._'" + +The sonorous accents subsided, and a tense wait ensued, none speaking. +Rutton stood in stony apathy, his eyes lifted to a dim corner of the +ceiling, his gaze--like his thoughts--perhaps ranging far beyond the +dreary confines of the cabin in the dunes. Minute after minute passed, +he making no sign, the babu poised before him in inscrutable triumph, +watching him keenly with his black and evil eyes of a beast. Amber hung +breathless upon the issue, sensing a conflict of terrible forces in +Rutton's mind, but comprehending nothing of their natures. In the hush +within-doors he became acutely conscious of the war of elements +without: the mad elfin yammering of the gale tearing at the cabin as +though trying to seize it up bodily and whirl it off into the witches' +dance of the storm; the deep and awful booming of the breakers, whose +incessant impact upon the beach seemed to rock the very island on its +base. Somehow he divined a similitude between the struggle within and +the struggle without, seemed to see the contending elements personified +before his eyes--the spirit of evil incarnate in the Bengali, vast, +loathsome, terrible in his inflexibility of malign purpose; the force +of right symbolized in Rutton, frail of stature, fine of mould, strong +in his unbending loyalty to his conception of honour and duty. The +Virginian could have predicted the outcome confidently, believing as he +did in his friend. It came eventually on the heels of a movement of the +babu's; unable longer to hold his pose, he shifted slightly. And Rutton +awoke as from a sleep. + +"The Voice has spoken, babu," he said, not ungently, "and I have +heard." + +"And your answer, lord?" + +"There is no answer." + +"Hazoor!" + +"I have said," Rutton confirmed evenly, "there is no answer." + +"You will obey?" + +"That is between me and my God. Go back to the Hall of the Bell, Behari +Lal Chatterji, and deliver your report; say that you have seen me, that +I have listened to the words of the Voice, and that I sent no answer." + +"Hazoor, I may not. I am charged to return only with you." + +"Make your peace with the Bell in what manner you will, babu; it is no +concern of mine. Go, now, while yet time is granted you to avoid a +longer journey this night." + +"Hazoor!" + +"Go." Rutton pointed to the door, his voice imperative. + +Upon this the babu abandoned argument, realising that further +resistance were futile. And in a twinkling his dignity, his Urdu and +his cloak of mystery, were discarded, and he was merely an +over-educated and over-fed Bengali, jabbering babu-English. + +"Oah, as for thatt," he affirmed easily, with an oleaginous smirk, "I +daresay I shall be able to make adequate explanation. It shall be as +you say, sar. I confess to fright, however, because of storm." He +included Amber affably in his confidences. "By Gad, sar, thees climate +iss most trying to person of my habits. The journey hither _via_ +causeway from mainland was veree fearful. Thee sea is most agitated. +You observe my wetness from association with spray. I am of opinion if +I am not damn-careful I jolly well catch-my-death on return. But +_thatt_ is all in day's work." + +He rolled sluggishly toward the door, dragging his inadequate overcoat +across his barrel-like chest; and paused to cough affectingly, with one +hand on the knob. Rutton eyed him contemptuously. + +"If you care to run the risk," he said suddenly, "you may have a chair +by the fire till the storm breaks, babu." + +"Beg pardon?" The babu's eyes widened. "Oah, yess; I see. 'If I care to +run risk.' Veree considerate of you, I'm sure. But as we say in Bengal, +'thee favour of kings iss ass a sword of two edges.' Noah, thanks; the +servants of thee Bell do not linger by wayside, soa to speak. Besides, +I am in great hurree. Mister Amber, good night. Rutton Sahib"--with a +flash of his sinister humour--"_au revoir_; I mean to say, till we meet +in thee Hall of thee Bell. Good night." + +He nodded insolently to the man whom a little time since he had hailed +as "my lord," shrugged his coat collar up round his fat, dirty neck, +shivered in anticipation, jerked the door open and plunged ponderously +out. + +A second later Amber saw the confused mass of his turban glide past the +window. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE GOBLIN NIGHT + + +Amber whistled low. "Impossible!" he said thoughtfully. + +Rutton had crossed to and was bending over a small leather trunk that +stood in one corner of the room. In the act of opening it, he glanced +over his shoulder. "What?" he demanded sharply. + +"I was only thinking; there's something I can't see through in that +babu's willingness to go." + +"He was afraid to stay." + +"Why?" + +Rutton, rummaging in the trunk, made no reply. After a moment Amber +resumed. + +"You know what Bengalis are; that fellow'd do anything, brave any +ordinary danger, rather than try to cross that sandbar again--if he +really came that way; which I am inclined to doubt. On the other hand, +he's intelligent enough to know that a night like this in the dunes +would kill him. Well, what then?" + +Rutton was not listening. As Amber concluded he seemed to find what he +had been seeking, thrust it hurriedly into the breast-pocket of his +coat, and with a muttered word, unintelligible, dashed to the door and +flung it open and himself out. + +With a shriek of demoniac glee the wind entered into and took +possession of the room. A cloud of snow swept across the floor like a +veil. The door battered against the wall as if trying to break it down. +A pile of newspapers was swept from the table and scattered to the four +corners of the room. The rug lifted beneath the table and flapped +against it like a broken wing. The cheap tin kerosene lamp jumped as +though caught up by a hand; its flame leapt high and blue above the +chimney--and was not. In darkness but for the fitful flare of the fire +that had been dying in embers on the hearth, Amber, seeking the +doorway, fell over a chair, blundered flat into the wall, and stumbled +unexpectedly out of the house. + +His concern was all for Rutton; he had no other thought. He ran a +little way down the hollow, heartsick with horror and cold with dread. +Then he paused, bewildered. Other than the wan glimmer of the snow-clad +earth he had no light to guide him; with this poor aid he could see no +more than that the vale was deserted. Whither in that white whirling +world Rutton might have wandered, it was impossible to surmise. In +despair the Virginian turned back. + +When he had found his way to the door of the cabin, it was closed; as +he entered and shut it behind him, a match flared and expired in the +middle of the room, and a man cursed brokenly. + +"Rutton?" cried Amber in a flush of hope. + +"Is that you, Mr. Amber? Thank Gawd! Wyte a minute." + +A second match spluttered, its flame waxing in the pink cup of +Doggott's hands. The servant's head and shoulders stood out in dim +relief against the darkness. + +"I've burnt me 'and somethin' 'orrid on this damn' 'ot chimney," he +complained nervously. + +He succeeded in setting fire to the wick. The light showed him barefoot +and shivering in shirt and trousers. He lifted a bemused red face to +Amber, blinking and nursing his scorched hand. "For pity's syke, sir, +w'at's 'appened?" + +"It's hard to say," replied Amber vaguely, preoccupied. He went +immediately to a window and stood there, looking out. + +"But w'ere's Mr. Rutton, sir?" + +"Gone--out there--I don't know just where." Amber moved back to the +table. "You see, he had a caller." + +"A caller, sir--on a night like this?" + +"The man he came here to hide from," said Amber. + +"I knew 'e was tryin' to dodge somethin', sir; but 'e never told me +aught about it. What kind of a person was 'e, sir, and what made Mr. +Rutton go aw'y with 'im?" + +"He didn't; he went after him to...." Amber caught his tongue on the +verge of an indiscretion; no matter what his fears, they were not yet +become a suitable subject for discussion with Rutton's servant. "I +think," he amended lamely, "he had forgotten something." + +"And 'e's out there now! My Gawd, what a night!" He hung in hesitation +for a little. "Did 'e wear 'is topcoat and 'at, sir?" + +"No; he went suddenly. I don't think he intended to be gone long." + +"I'd better go after 'im, then. 'E'll 'ave pneumonia ... I'll just jump +into me clothes and--" He slipped into the back room, to reappear with +surprisingly little delay, fully dressed and buttoning a long ulster +round his throat. "You didn't 'appen to notice which w'y 'e went, sir?" + +"As well as I could judge, to the east." + +Doggott took down a second ulster and a cap from pegs in the wall. +"I'll do my best to find 'im; 'e might lose 'imself, you know, with no +light nor nothin'." + +"And you?" + +"I'll be all right; I'll follow 'is footprints in the snow. I've a +'andy little electric bull's-eye to 'elp me, in my pocket." + +"Are you armed, Doggott?" + +"By Mr. Rutton's orders, sir, I've carried a revolver for years. You +aren't thinkin' it's come to that, sir?" + +"I don't know.... If I was sure I wouldn't let you go alone," said +Amber, frowning. "It's only that Mr. Rutton may not want me about ... I +wish I knew!" + +"It'll be better, sir, for you to stay and keep the fire up--if you +don't mind my makin' so free as to advise--in case 'e's 'arf-froze when +'e gets back, as is likely. But I'd better 'urry, 'specially if...." +Doggott's color faded a little and his mouth tightened. "But I 'ope +you're mistyken, sir. Good-night." + +The door slammed behind him. + +Alone, and a prey to misgivings he scarce dared name to himself, Amber +from the window watched the blot of light from Doggott's handlamp fade +and vanish in the storm; then, becoming sensible to the cold, went to +the fireplace, kicked the embers together until they blazed, and piled +on more fuel. + +A cosy, crackling sound began to be audible in the room; sibilant jets +of flame, scarlet, yellow, violet, and green, spurted up from the +driftwood. Under the hypnotic influence of the comforting warmth, +weariness descended upon Amber like a burden; he was afraid to close +his eyes or to sit down, lest sleep should overcome him for all his +intense excitement and anxiety. He forced himself to move steadily +round the room, struggling against a feeling that all that he had +witnessed must have been untrue, an evil dream, akin to the waking +visions that had beset him between the loss of Quain and the finding of +Rutton. The very mediocrity of the surroundings seemed to discredit the +testimony of his wits. + +Unmistakably a camp erected for its owners' convenience during the +hunting season, alike in design and furnishing the cabin was almost +painfully crude and homely. The walls were of rough-hewn logs from +which the bark had not been removed; the interstices were stopped only +with coarse plaster; the partition dividing it into two rooms was of +pine, unpainted. In one corner near Rutton's trunk, a bed-hammock swung +from a beam. The few chairs were plain and rude. There were two deal +tables, a plate-rack nailed to the partition, and a wall-seat in the +chimney-corner. On the centre table, aside from the lamp, were a couple +of books, some out-of-date magazines, and a common tin alarm-clock +ticking stolidly. + +In a setting so hopelessly commonplace and everyday, one act of a drama +of blood and fire had been played; into these mean premises the breath +of the storm, as the babu entered, had blown Romance.... Incredible! + +And yet Amber's hand, dropping idly in his coat-pocket, encountered a +priceless witness to the reality of what had passed. Frowning, +troubled, he drew forth the ring and slipped it upon his finger; rays +of blinding emerald light coruscated from it, dazzling him. With a low +cry of wonder he took it to the lamplight. Never had he looked upon so +fine a stone, so strangely cut. + +It was set in ruddy soft gold, worked and graven with exquisite art in +the semblance of a two-headed cobra; inside the band was an inscription +so worn and faint that Amber experienced some difficulty in deciphering +the word RAO (king) in Devanagari, flanked by swastikas. Aside from the +stone entirely, he speculated, the value of the ring as an antique +would have proven inestimable. As for the emerald itself, in its +original state, before cutting, it must have been worth the ransom of +an emperor; much had certainly been sacrificed to fashion it in its +present form. The cunning of a jewel-cutter whose art was lost before +Tyre and Nineveh upreared their heads must have been taxed by the task. +Its innumerable facets reproduced with wonderful fidelity a human +eyeball, unwinking, sleepless. In the enigmatic heart of its +impenetrable iris cold fire lived, cold passionless flames leaped and +died and leaped again like the sorcerous fire of a pythoness. + +To gaze into its depths was like questioning the inscrutable green +heart of the sea. Fascinated, Amber felt his consciousness slip from +him as a mantle might slip from his shoulders; awake, staring wide-eyed +into the emerald eye, he forgot self, forgot the world, and dreamed, +dreamed curiously.... + +The crash of the door closing behind him brought him to the right-about +in a panic flutter. He glared stupidly for a time before comprehending +that Rutton and Doggott had returned. How long they had been absent he +had no means of reckoning; the interval might have been five minutes or +an hour in duration. The time since he had stooped to examine the ring +was as indefinite; but his back was aching and his thoughts were drowsy +and confused. He had a sensation as of being violently recalled to a +dull and colourless world from some far realm of barbaric enchantment. +His brain reeled and his vision was blurred as if by the flash and +glamour of many vivid colours. + +With an effort he managed to force himself to understand that Rutton +was back. After that he felt more normal. His thoughts slid back into +their accustomed grooves. + +If there were anything peculiar in his manner, Rutton did not remark +it. Indeed, he seemed unconscious, for a time, of the presence either +of Amber or of Doggott. The servant relieved him of his overcoat and +hat, and he strode directly to the fire, bending over to chafe and warm +his frost-nipped hands. Unquestionably he laboured under the influence +of an extraordinary agitation. His limbs twitched and jerked nervously; +his eyebrows were tensely elevated, his eyes blazing, his nostrils +dilated; his face was ashen grey. + +From across the room Doggott signalled silence to Amber, with a +forefinger to his lips; and with a discretion bred of long knowledge of +his master's temper, tiptoed through into the back room and shut the +door. + +Amber respected the admonition throughout a wait that seemed endless. + +The tin clock hammered off five minutes or more. Suddenly Rutton +started and wheeled round, every trace of excitement smoothed away. +Meeting Amber's gaze he nodded as if casually, and said, "Oh, Amber," +quietly, with an effect of faint surprise. Then he dropped heavily into +a chair by the table. + +"Well," he said slowly, "that is over." + +Amber, without speaking, went to his side and touched his shoulder with +that pitifully inadequate gesture of sympathy which men so frequently +employ. + +"I killed him," said Rutton dully. + +"Yes," replied Amber. He was not surprised; he had apprehended the +tragedy from the moment that Rutton had fled him, speechless; the +feeling of horror that he had at first experienced had ebbed, merged +into a sort of apathetic acknowledgment of the inevitable. + +After a bit Rutton turned to the table and drew an automatic pistol +from his pocket, opening the magazine. Five cartridges remained in the +clip, showing that two had been exploded. "I was not sure," he said +thoughtfully, "how many times I had fired." His curiosity satisfied, he +reloaded the weapon and returned it to his pocket. "He died like a +dog," he said, "whimpering and blaspheming in the face of eternity ... +out there in the cold and the night.... It was sickening--the sound of +the bullets tearing through his flesh...." + +He shuddered. + +"Didn't he resist?" Amber asked involuntarily. + +"He tried to. I let him pop away with his revolver until it was empty. +Then...." + +"What made you wait?" + +"I didn't care; it didn't matter. One of us had to die to-night; he +should have known that when I refused to accompany him back to ... I +was hungry for his bullet more than for his life; I gave him every +chance. But it had to be as it was. That was Fate. Now...." He paused +and after a little went on in a more controlled voice. "Quaintly +enough, if there's anything in the theory of heredity, David, my hands +have been stained with no man's blood before to-night. Yet my forebears +were a murderous lot.... Until this hour I never realised how swift and +uncontrollable could be the impulse to slay...." + +His voice trailed off into silence and he sat staring into the +flickering flames that played about the driftwood. Now and again his +lips moved noiselessly. + +With a wrench Amber pulled himself together. He had been mentally a +witness to the murder--had seen the Bengali, obese, monstrous, flabby, +his unclean carcass a gross casing for a dark spirit of iniquity and +treachery, writhing and whining in the throes of death.... "Rutton," he +demanded suddenly, without premeditation, "what are you going to do?" + +"Do?" Rutton looked up, his eyes perplexed. + +"Why, what is there to do? Get away as best I can, I presume--seek +another hole to hide in." + +"But how about the law?" + +"The law? Why need it ever be known--what has happened to-night? I can +count on your silence--I have no need to ask. Doggott would die rather +than betray me. He and I can dispose of--it. No one comes here at this +time of the year save hunting parties; and their eyes are not upon the +ground. You will go your way in the morning. We'll clear out +immediately after." + +"You'd better take no chances." + +Suddenly Rutton smote the table with his fist. "By Indur!" he swore +strangely, his voice quavering with joy; "I had not thought of that!" +He jumped up and began to move excitedly to and fro. "I am free! None +but you and I know of the passing of the Token and the delivery of the +message--none can possibly know for days, perhaps weeks. For so much +time at least I am in no danger of--" + +He shut his mouth like a trap on words that might have enlightened +Amber. + +"Of what?" + +"Let me see: there are still waste places in the world where a man may +lose himself. There's Canada--the Hudson Bay region, Labrador...." + +A discreet knock sounded on the door in the partition, and it was +opened gently. Doggott appeared on the threshold, pale and careworn. +Rutton paused, facing him. + +"Well?" + +"Any orders, sir?" + +"Yes; begin packing up. We leave to-morrow." + +"Very good, sir." + +"That is all to-night." + +"Yes, sir. Good-night. Good-night, Mr. Amber." The man retired and at +intervals thereafter Amber could hear him moving about, apparently +obeying orders. + +Rutton replenished the fire and stood with his back to it, smiling +almost happily. All evidence of remorse had disappeared. He seemed +momentarily almost light-hearted, certainly in better spirits than he +had been at any time that night. "Free!" he cried softly. "And by the +simplest of solutions. Strange that I should never have thought before +to-night of--" He glanced carelessly toward the window; and it was as +if his lips had been wiped clean of speech. + +Amber turned, thrilling, his flesh creeping with the horror that he had +divined in Rutton's transfixed gaze. + +Outside the glass, that was lightly silvered with frost, something +moved--the spectral shadow of a turbaned head--moved and was stationary +for the space of twenty heartbeats. Beneath the turban Amber seemed to +see two eyes, wide staring and terribly alight. + +"God!" cried Rutton thickly, jerking forth his pistol. + +The shadow vanished. + +With a single thought Amber sprang upon Rutton, snatched the weapon +from his nerveless fingers, and, leaping to the door, let himself out. + +The snow had ceased; only the wind raved with untempered force. +Overhead it was blowing clear; through rifts and rents in the +fast-moving cloud-rack pale turquoise patches of moonlit sky showed, +here and there inlaid with a far shining star. The dunes were coldly +a-glimmer with the meagre light that penetrated to the earth and was +cast back by its white and spotless shroud. + +But Amber, at pause a few paces beyond the doorstep, his forefinger +ready upon the trigger of the automatic pistol, was alone in the +hollow. + +Cautiously, and, to be frank, a bit dismayed, he made a reconnaissance, +circling the building, but discovered nothing to reward his pains. The +snow lay unbroken except in front of the cabin, where the traces of +feet existed in profuse confusion; Amber himself, Rutton, Doggott, the +babu, and perhaps another, had passed and repassed there; the trail +they had beaten streamed out of the vale, to the eastwards. Only, +before the window, through which he had seen the peering turbaned head, +he found the impressions of two feet, rather deep and definite, toes +pointing toward the house, as though some one had lingered there, +looking in. The sight of them reassured him ridiculously. + +"At least," he reflected, "disembodied spirits leave no footprints!" + +He found Rutton precisely as he had left him, his very attitude an +unuttered question. + +"No," Amber told him, "he'd made a quick getaway. The marks of his feet +were plain enough, outside the window, but he was gone, and ... somehow +I wasn't over-keen to follow him up." + +"Right," said the elder man dejectedly. "I might have known Chatterji +would not have come alone. So my crime was futile." He spoke without +spirit, as if completely fagged, and moved slowly to the door. "I don't +want another interruption to-night," he continued, shooting the bolts. +He turned to the windows, "Nor peeping Toms," he added, drawing the +shade of one down to the sill. + +Amber started for him in a panic. "Get away from that window, Rutton! +For the love of heaven don't be foolhardy!" + +Rutton drew the second shade deliberately. "Dear boy!" he said with his +slow, tired smile, "I'm in no danger personally. Not a hair of my head +will be touched until...." Again he left his thought half-expressed. + +"But if that fellow out there was Chatterji's companion----!" + +"He undoubtedly was. But you don't understand; my life is not +threatened--yet." + +"Chatterji fired at you," Amber argued stubbornly. + +"Only when he found it was his life or mine. I tell you, David, if our +enemy in the outer darkness were the babu's brother, he would not touch +a hair of my head unless in self-defense." + +"I don't understand. It's all so impossible!" Amber threw out his hands +helplessly, "Unbelievable! For God's sake wake me up and tell me I've +had a nightmare!" + +"I would that were so, David. But the end is not yet." + +"What do you mean by that?" demanded Amber, startled. + +"Simply, that we have more to endure, you and I. Consider the +limitations of the human understanding, David; a little while ago I +promised to ask your aid if ever the time should come when I might be +free to do so; I said, 'That hour will never strike.' Yet already it is +here; I need you. Will you help me?" + +"You know that." + +"I know.... One moment's patience, David." Rutton glanced at the clock. +"Time for my medicine," he said; "that heart trouble I mentioned...." + +He drew from a waistcoat pocket a small silver tube, or phial, and +uncorking this, measured out a certain number of drops into a silver +spoon. As he swallowed the dose the phial slipped from his fingers and +rang upon the hearthstone, spilling its contents in the ashes. A +pungent and heady odour flavoured the air. + +"No matter," said Rutton indifferently. "I shan't need it again for +some time." He picked up and restored the phial to his pocket. "Now let +me think a bit." He took a quick turn up the room and down again. Amber +remarked that the medicine was having its effect; though the brilliance +of Rutton's eyes seemed somewhat dimmed a dull flush had crept into his +dark cheeks, and when he spoke it was in stronger accents--with a +manner more assured, composed. + +"A mad dance," he observed thoughtfully: "this thing we call life. We +meet and whirl asunder--motes in a sunbeam. To-night Destiny chose to +throw us together for a little space; to-morrow we shall be irrevocably +parted, for all time." + +"Don't say that, Rutton." + +"It is so written, David." The man's smile was strangely placid. "After +this night, we'll never meet. In the morning Doggott will ferry you +over--" + +"Shan't we go together?" + +"No," said Rutton serenely; "I must leave before you." + +"Without Doggott?" + +"Without Doggott; I wish him to go with you." + +"Where?" + +"On the errand I am going to ask you to do for me. You are free to +leave this country for several months?" + +"Quite. I corrected the final galleys of my 'Analysis of Sanskrit +Literature' just before I came down. Now I've nothing on my mind--or +hands. Go on." + +"Wait." Rutton went a second time to the leather trunk, lifted the lid, +and came back with two small parcels. The one, which appeared to +contain documents of some sort, he cast negligently on the fire, with +the air of one who destroys that which is no longer of value to him. It +caught immediately and began to flame and smoke and smoulder. The other +was several inches square and flat, wrapped in plain paper, without a +superscription, and sealed with several heavy blobs of red wax. + +Rutton drew a chair close to Amber and sat down, breaking the seals +methodically. + +"You shall go a long journey, David," he said slowly--"a long journey, +to a far land, where you shall brave perils that I may not warn you +against. It will put your friendship to the test." + +"I'm ready." + +The elder man ripped the cover from the packet, exposing the back of +what seemed to be a photograph. Holding this to the light, its face +invisible to Amber, he studied it for several minutes, in silence, a +tender light kindling in his eyes to soften the almost ascetic +austerity of his expression. "In the end, if you live, you shall win a +rich reward," he said at length. He placed the photograph face down +upon the table. + +"How--a reward?" + +"The love of a woman worthy of you, David." + +"But----!" In consternation Amber rose, almost knocking over his chair. +"But--Great Scott, man!" + +"Bear with me, David, for yet a little while," Rutton begged. "Sit +down." + +"All right, but----!" Amber resumed his seat, staring. + +"You and Doggott are to seek her out, wherever she may be, and rescue +her from what may be worse than death. And it shall come to pass that +you shall love one another and marry and live happily ever after--just +as though you were a prince and she an enchanted princess in a fairy +tale, David." + +"I must say you seem pretty damn' sure about it!" + +"It must be so, David; it shall be so! I am an old man--older than you +think, perhaps--and with age there sometimes comes something strangely +akin to the gift of second-sight. So I know it will be so, though you +think me a madman." + +"I don't, indeed, but you.... Well! I give it up." Amber laughed +uneasily. "Go on. Where's this maiden in distress?" + +"In India--I'm not sure just where. You'll find her, however." + +"And then----?" + +"Then you are to bring her home with you, without delay." + +"But suppose--" + +"You must win her first; then she will come gladly." + +"But I've just told you I loved another woman, Rutton, and besides--" + +"You mean the Miss Farrell you mentioned?" + +"Yes. I--" + +"That will be no obstacle." + +"What! How in thunder d'you know it won't?" Amber expostulated. A faint +suspicion of the truth quickened his wits. "Who is this woman you want +me to marry?" + +"My daughter." + +"Your daughter!" + +"My only child, David." + +"Then why won't my--my love for Sophia Farrell interfere?" + +"Because," said Rutton slowly, "my daughter and Sophia Farrell are the +same.... No; listen to me; I'm not raving. Here is my proof--her latest +photograph." He put it into Amber's hands. + +Dazed, the younger man stared blankly at the likeness of the woman he +loved; it was unquestionably she. Fair, sweet, and imperious, her face +looked up to his from the bit of cardboard in his hands; the direct and +fearless eyes met his--eyes frank, virginal, and serene, beautiful with +the beauty of a soul as unsullied and untroubled as the soul of a +child. + +He gasped, trembling, astounded. "Sophia...!" he said thickly, +colouring hotly. He was conscious of a tightening of his throat +muscles, making speech a matter of difficulty. "But--but--" he +stammered. + +"Her mother," said Rutton softly, looking away, "was a Russian +noblewoman. Sophia is Farrell's daughter by adoption only. Farrell was +once my closest friend. When my wife died...." He covered his eyes with +his hand and remained silent for a few seconds. "When Sophia was left +motherless, an infant in arms, Farrell offered to adopt her. Because I +became, about that time, aware of this horror that has poisoned my +life--this thing of which you have seen something to-night--I accepted +on condition that the truth be never revealed to her. It cost me the +friendship of Farrell; he was then but lately married and--and I +thought it dangerous to be seen with him too much. I left England, +having settled upon my daughter the best part of my fortune, retaining +only enough for my needs. From that day I never saw her or heard from +Farrell. Yet I knew I could trust him. Last summer, when my daughter +was presented at Court, I was in London; I discovered the name of her +photographer and bribed him to sell me this." He indicated the +photograph. + +"And she doesn't know!" + +"She must never know." Rutton leaned forward and caught Amber's hand in +a compelling grasp. "Remember that. Whatever you do, my name must never +pass your lips--with reference to herself, at least. No one must even +suspect that you know me--Farrell least of all." + +"Sophia knows that now," said Amber. "Quain and I spoke of you one +night, but the name made no impression on her. I'm sure of that." + +"That is good; Farrell has been true. Now ... you will go to India?" + +"I will go," Amber promised. + +"You will be kind to her, and true, David? You'll love her faithfully +and make her love you?" + +"I'll do my best," said the young man humbly. + +"It must be so--she must be taught to love you. It is essential, +imperative, that she marry you and leave India with you without a day's +delay." + +Amber sat back in his chair, breathing quickly, his mouth tense. "I'll +do my best. But, Rutton, why? Won't you tell me? Shouldn't I know--I, +who am to be her husband, her protector?" + +"Not from me. I am bound by an oath, David. Some day it may be that you +will know. Perhaps not. You may guess what you will--you have much to +go on. But from me, nothing. Now, let us settle the details. I've very +little time." He glanced again at the shoddy tin clock, with a slight +but noticeable shiver. + +"How's that? It's hours till morning." + +"I shall never see the dawn, David," said Rutton quietly. + +"What--" + +"I have but ten minutes more of life.... If you must know--in a word: +poison.... That I be saved a blacker sin, David!" + +"You mean that medicine--the silver phial?" Amber stammered, sick with +horror. + +"Yes. Don't be alarmed; it's slow but sure and painless, dear boy. It +works infallibly within half an hour. There'll be no agony--merely the +drawing of the curtain. Best of all, it leaves no traces; a +diagnostician would call it heart-failure.... And thus I escape that." +He nodded coolly toward the door. + +"But this must not be, Rutton!" Amber rose suddenly, pushing back his +chair. "Something must be done. Doggott--" + +"Not so loud, please--you might alarm him. After it's all over, call +him. But now--it's useless; the thing is done; there's no known +antidote. Be kind to me, David, in this hour of mine extremity. There's +much still to be said between us ... and in seven minutes more...." + +Rutton retained his clutch upon Amber's hand; and his eyes, their +lustre dimmed, held Amber's, pitiful, passionate, inexorable in their +entreaty. Amber sat down, his soul shaken with the pity of it. + +"Ah-h!" sighed Rutton. Relieved, the tension relaxed; he released +Amber's hand; his body sank a little in the chair. Becoming conscious +of this, he pulled himself together.... "Enter India by way of +Calcutta," he said in a dull and heavy voice. "There, in the Machua +Bazaar, you will find a goldsmith and money-lender called Dhola Baksh. +Go to him secretly, show him the ring--the Token. He will understand +and do all in his power to aid you, should there be any trouble about +your leaving with Sophia. To no one else in India are you to mention my +name. Deny me, if taxed with knowing me. Do you understand?" + +"No. Why?" + +"Never mind--but remember these two things: you do not know me and you +must under no circumstances have anything to do with the police. They +could do nothing to help you; on the other hand, to be seen with them, +to have it known that you communicate with them, would be the +equivalent of a seal upon your death warrant. You remember the +money-lender's name?" + +"Dhola Baksh of the Machua Bazaar." + +"Trust him--and trust Doggott.... Four minutes more!" + +"Rutton!" cried Amber in a broken voice. Cold sweat broke out upon his +forehead. + +The man smiled fearlessly. "Believe me, this is the better way--the +only way.... Some day you may meet a little chap named Labertouche--a +queer fish I once knew in Calcutta. But I daresay he's dead by now. But +if you should meet him, tell him that you've seen his B-Formula work +flawlessly in one instance at least. You see, he dabbled in chemistry +and entomology and a lot of uncommon pursuits--a solicitor by +profession, he never seemed to have any practice to speak of--and he +invented this stuff and named it the B-Formula." Rutton tapped the +silver phial in his waistcoat pocket, smiling faintly. "He was a good +little man.... Two minutes. Strange how little one cares, when it's +inevitable...." + +He ceased to speak and closed his eyes. A great stillness made itself +felt within the room. In the other, Doggott was silent--probably +asleep. Amber noted the fact subconsciously, even as he was aware that +the high fury of the wind was moderating. But consciously he was bowed +down with sorrow, inexpressibly racked. + +In the hush the metallic hammering of the mean tin clock rang loud and +harsh; Amber's heart seemed to beat in funeral time to its steady, +unhurried, immutable ticking. + +It was close upon two in the morning. + +"Amber," said Rutton suddenly and very clearly, "you'll find a will in +my despatch box. Doggott is to have all I possess. The emerald +ring--the Token--I give to you." + +"Yes, I--I--" + +"Your hand.... Mine is cold? No? I fancied it was," said the man +drowsily. And later: "Sophia. You will be kind to her, David?" + +"On my faith!" + +Rutton's fingers tightened cruelly upon his, then relaxed suddenly. He +began to nod, his chin drooping toward his breast. + +"The Gateway ... the Bell...." + +The words were no more than whispers dying on lips that stilled as they +spoke. For a long time Amber sat unmoving, his fingers imprisoned in +that quiet, cooling grasp, his thoughts astray in a black mist of +mourning and bewilderment. + +Through the hush of death the tin clock ticked on, placidly, +monotonously, complacently. In the fireplace a charred log broke with a +crash and a shower of live cinders. + +Out of doors something made a circuit of the cabin, like a beast of the +night, stealthy footsteps muffled by the snow: _pad--pad--pad_.... + +In the emerald ring on Amber's finger the deathless fire leaped and +pulsed. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +RED DAWN + + +Presently Amber rose and quietly exchanged dressing-gown and slippers +for his own shooting-jacket and boots--which by now were dry, thanks to +Doggott's thoughtfulness in placing them near the fire. + +The shabby tin clock had droned through thirty minutes since Rutton had +spoken his last word. In that interval, sitting face to face, and for a +little time hand in hand, with the man to whom he had pledged his +honour, Amber had thought deeply, carefully weighing ways and means; +nor did he move until he believed his plans mature and definite. + +But before he could take one step toward redeeming his word to Rutton, +he had many cares to dispose of. In the hut, Rutton lay dead of poison; +somewhere amongst the dunes the babu lay in his blood, shot to +death--foully murdered, the world would say. Should these things become +known, he would be detained indefinitely in Nokomis as a witness--if, +indeed, he escaped a graver charge. + +It was, then, with a mind burdened with black anxiety that he went to +arouse Doggott. + +The rear room proved to be as cheerless as the other. Of approximately +the same dimensions, it too had been furnished with little regard for +anything but the barest conveniences of camp-life. It contained a small +sheet-iron stove for cooking, a table, a rack of shelves, two chairs, +and a rickety cot-bed in addition to another trunk. On the table a tin +kerosene-lamp had burned low, poisoning the air with its bitter reek. +On the cot Doggott sprawled in his clothing, his strained +position--half reclining, feet upon the floor--suggesting an +uncontemplated surrender to fatigue. His face was flushed and he was +breathing heavily. + +The Virginian stood over him for several minutes before he could bring +himself to the point of awakening the man to the news of Rutton's +death. Aware of that steadfast loyalty which Doggott had borne his +master through many years of service, he shrank with conceivable +reluctance from the duty. But necessity drove him with a taut rein; and +finally he bent over and shook the sleeper by the shoulder. + +With a jerk the man sat up and recognised Amber. + +"Beg pardon, sir," he muttered, lifting himself sluggishly; "I didn't +mean to fall asleep--I'd only sat down for a moment's rest. Has--has +anything gone bad, sir?" he added hastily, remarking with troubled eyes +the sympathy and concern in Amber's expression. + +Amber looked away. "Mr. Rutton is dead, Doggott," he managed to say +with some difficulty. + +Doggott exclaimed beneath his breath. "Dead!" he cried in a tone of +daze. In two strides he had left Amber and was kneeling by Rutton's +side. The most cursory examination, however, sufficed to resolve his +every doubt: the hanging head and arms, the livid face with its staring +yet sightless eyes, the shrunken figure seeming so pitifully slight and +unsubstantial in comparison with its accustomed strong and virile +poise, hopelessly confirmed Amber's statement. + +"Dead!" whispered the servant. He rose and stood swaying, his lips +a-tremble, his eyes blinking through a mist, his head bowed. "'E always +was uncommon' good to me, Mr. Amber," he said brokenly. "It's a bit +'ard, comin' this w'y. 'Ow--'ow did it--" He broke down completely for +a time, and staggered away to the wall, there to stand with his head +pillowed on his crossed forearms. + +When he had himself in more control Amber told him as briefly as +possible of the head at the window and of its sequel--Rutton's +despairing suicide. + +Doggott listened in silence, nodding his comprehension. "I've always +looked for it, sir," he commented. "'E'd warned me never to touch that +silver tube; 'e never said poison, but I suspected it, 'e being blue +and melancholy-like, by fits and turns--'e never told me why." + +Then, reverently, they took up the body and laid it out upon the +hammock-bed, Doggott arranging the limbs and closing the eyes before +spreading a sheet over the rigid form. + +"And now, what, Mr. Amber?" he asked. + +Amber had returned to the table. He pondered his problems for some time +before answering; a distasteful duty devolved upon him of questioning +the servant about his master's secrets, of delving into the mystery +which Rutton had chosen always to preserve about himself--which, +indeed, he had chosen to die without disclosing to the man whom he had +termed his sole intimate. Yet this task, too, must be gone through +with. + +"Mr. Rutton spoke of a despatch-box, Doggott. You know where to find +it?" + +"Yes, sir." + +The servant brought from Rutton's leather trunk a battered +black-japanned tin box, which, upon exploration, proved to contain +little that might not have been anticipated. A bankbook issued by the +house of Rothschild Freres, Paris, showed a balance to the credit of +H.D. Rutton of something slightly under a million francs. There was +American money, chiefly in gold certificates of large denominations, to +the value of, roundly, twenty thousand dollars, together with a handful +of French, German and English bank-notes which might have brought in +exchange about two hundred and fifty dollars. In addition to these +there was merely a single envelope, superscribed: "To be opened in +event of my death only. H.D.R." + +Amber broke the seal and read the enclosures once to himself and a +second time aloud to Doggott. The date was barely a year old. + +"For reasons personal to myself and sufficient," Rutton had written, "I +choose not to make a formal will. I shall die, probably in the near +future, by my own hand, of poison. I wish to emphasise this statement +in event the circumstances surrounding my demise should appear to +attach suspicion of murder upon any person or persons whatever. I am a +widower and childless. What relations may survive me are distant and +will never appear to claim what estate I may leave--this I know. I +therefore desire that my body-servant, Henry Doggott, an English +citizen, shall inherit and appropriate to his own use all my property +and effects, providing he be in my service at the time of my death. To +facilitate his entering into possession of my means, whatever they may +be, without the necessity of legal procedure of any kind, I enclose a +cheque to his order upon my bankers, signed by myself and bearing the +date of this memorandum. He is to fill it in with the amount remaining +to my credit upon my bank-book. Should he have died or left me, +however, the disposition of my effects is a matter about which I am +wholly careless." + +The signature was unmistakably genuine--the formal "H.D. Rutton" with +which Amber was familiar. It was unwitnessed. + +The Virginian put aside the paper and offered Doggott the blank cheque +on Rothschilds'. "This," he said, "makes you pretty nearly +independently rich, Doggott." + +"Yes, sir." Doggott took the slip of paper in a hand that trembled even +as his voice, and eyed it incredulously. "I've never 'ad anything like +this before, sir; I 'ardly know what it means." + +"It means," explained Amber, "that, when you've filled in that blank +and had the money collected from the Rothschilds, you'll be worth--with +what cash is here--in the neighbourhood of forty five thousand pounds +sterling." + +Doggott gasped, temporarily inarticulate. "Forty-five thousand +pounds!... Mr. Amber," he declared earnestly, "I never looked for +nothin' like this I--I never--I--" Quite without warning he was quiet +and composed again. "Might I ask it of you as a favour, sir, to look +after this"--he offered to return the cheque--"for a while, till I can +myke up my mind what to do with it." + +"Certainly." Amber took the paper, folded it and placed it in his +card-case. "I'd suggest that you deposit it as soon as possible in a +New York bank for collection. In the meantime, these bills are yours; +you'd better take care of them yourself until you open the banking +account. I'll keep Mr. Rutton's bank-book with the cheque." He placed +the book in his pocket with the singular document Rutton had called his +"will," and motioned Doggott to possess himself of the money in the +despatch-box. + +"It'll keep as well in 'ere as anywheres," Doggott considered, +relocking the box. "I 'aven't 'ardly any use for money, except, of +course, to tide me over till I find another position." + +"What!" exclaimed Amber in amaze. + +"Yes, sir," affirmed Doggott respectfully. "I'm a bit too old to chynge +my w'ys; a valet I've been all my life and a valet I'll die, sir. It's +too lyte to think of anything else." + +"But with this money, Doggott--" + +"Beg pardon, sir, but I know; I could live easy like a gentleman if I +liked--but I wouldn't be a gentleman, so what's the use of that? I +could go 'ome and buy me a public-'ouse; but that wouldn't do neither. +I'd not be 'appy; if you'll pardon my s'ying so, I've associated too +long with gentlemen and gentlemen's gentlemen to feel at ease, so to +speak, with the kind that 'angs round publics. So the w'y I look at it, +there's naught for me but go on valeting until I'm too old; after that +the money'll be a comfort, I dares'y.... Don't you think so, sir?" "I +believe you're right, Doggott; only, your common-sense surprises me. +But it makes it easier in a way...." Amber fell thoughtful again. + +"'Ow's that, sir--if I m'y ask?" + +"This way," said Amber: "Before he died, Mr. Rutton asked me to do him +a service. I agreed. He suggested that I take you with me." + +"I'm ready, sir," interrupted Doggott eagerly. "There's no gentleman +I'd like to valet for better than yourself." + +"But there will be dangers, Doggott--I don't know precisely what. +That's the rub: we'll have to travel half-way round the world and face +unknown perils. If Mr. Rutton were right about it, we'll be lucky to +get away with our lives." + +"I'll go, sir; it was 'is wish. I'll go with you to India, Mr. Amber." + +"Very well...." Amber spoke abstractedly, reviewing his plans. "But," +he enquired suddenly, "I didn't mention India. How did you know----?" + +"Why--I suppose I must 'ave guessed it, sir. It seemed so likely, +knowing what I do about Mr. Rutton." + +Amber sat silent, unable to bring himself to put a single question in +regard to the dead man's antecedents. But after a pause the servant +continued voluntarily. + +"He always 'ad a deal to do with persons who came from +India--niggers--I mean, natives. It didn't much matter where we'd +be--London or Paris or Berlin or Rome--they'd 'unt 'im up; some 'e'd +give money to and they'd go aw'y; others 'e'd be locked up with in 'is +study for hours, talking, talking. They'd 'ardly ever come the same one +twice. 'E 'ated 'em all, Mr. Rutton did. And yet, sir, I always 'ad a +suspicion--" + +Doggott hesitated, lowering his voice, his gaze shifting uneasily to +the still, shrouded figure in the corner. + +"What?" demanded Amber tensely. + +"I alw'ys thought per'aps 'e was what we call in England a man of +colour, 'imself, sir." + +"Doggott!" + +"I don't mean no 'arm, sir; it was just their 'ounding him, like, and +'is being a dark-complected man the syme as them, and speakin' their +language so ready, that made me think it. At least 'e might 'ave 'ad a +little of their blood in 'im, sir. Things 'd seem unaccountable +otherwise," concluded Doggott vaguely. + +"It's impossible!" cried Amber. + +"Yes, sir; at least, I mean I 'ope so, sir. Not that it'd myke any +difference to me, the w'y I felt towards 'im. 'E was a gentleman, white +or black. I'd've died for 'im any d'y." + +"Doggott!" The Virginian had risen and was pacing excitedly to and fro. +"Doggott! don't ever repeat one word of this to man or woman--while +you're faithful to the memory of Mr. Rutton." + +The servant stared, visibly impressed. "Very good, Mr. Amber. I'll +remember, sir. I don't ordinarily gossip, sir; but you and him being so +thick, and everything 'appening to-night so 'orrible, I forgot myself. +I 'ope you'll excuse me, sir." + +"God in Heaven!" cried the young man hoarsely. "It can't be true!" He +flung himself into his chair, burying his face in his hands. "It +can't!" + +Yet irresistibly the conviction was being forced upon him that Doggott +had surmised aright. Circumstance backed up circumstance within his +knowledge of or his experience with the man, all seeming to prove +incontestably the truth of what at the first blush had seemed so +incredible. What did he, Amber, know of Rutton's parentage or history +that would refute the calm belief of the body-servant of the dead man? +Rutton himself had consistently kept sealed lips upon the subject of +his antecedents; in Amber's intercourse with him the understanding that +what had passed was a closed book had been implicit. But it had never +occurred to Amber to question the man's title to the blood of the +Caucasian peoples. Not that the mystery with which Rutton had ever +shrouded his identity had not inevitably of itself been a provocation +to Amber's imagination; he had hazarded many an idle, secret guess at +the riddle that was Rutton. Who or what the man was or might have been +was ever a field of fascinating speculation to the American, but his +wildest conjecture had never travelled east of Italy or Hungary. He had +always fancied that one, at least, of Rutton's parents had been a +native of the European Continent. He had even, at a certain time when +his imagination had been stimulated by the witchery of "Lavengro" and +"The Romany Rye," gone so far as to wonder if, perchance, Rutton were +not descended from Gipsy stock--a fancy which he was quick to dismiss +as absurd. Yet now it seemed as if he had not been far wrong; if +Doggott were right--and Amber had come to believe that the valet was +right--it was no far cry from the Hindu to the Romany, both offshoots +of the Aryan root. + +And then Amber's intelligence was smitten by a thought as by a club; +and he began to tremble violently, uncontrollably, being weakened by +fatigue and the strain of that endless, terrible night. A strangled cry +escaped him without his knowledge: "Sophia!" + +Sophia Farrell, the woman he had promised to wed, nay even the woman he +loved with all his being--a half-breed, a mulatto! His mind sickened +with the horror of that thought. All the inbred contempt of the +Southerner for the servile races surged up to overwhelm his passion, to +make it seem more than impossible, revolting, that the mistress of his +dreams should be a creature tainted by the blood of a brown-skinned +people. Though her mother had been of noble Russian family, as her +father had declared; though her secret were contained in his knowledge +and Farrell's alone, and though it were to be preserved by them ever +inviolate--could he, David Amber, ever forget it? Could he make her his +bride and take her home to his mother and his sisters in +Virginia--offer them as daughter and sister a woman who, though she +were fairer than the dawn, was in part a product of intermarriage +between white and black? + +His very soul seemed to shudder and his reason cried out that the thing +could never be.... Yet in his heart of hearts still he loved her, still +desired her with all his strength and will; in his heart there was no +wavering. Whatever Rutton had been, whatever his daughter might be, he +loved her. And more, the honour of the Ambers was in pledge, holding +him steadfast to his purpose to seek her out in India or wherever she +might be and to bear her away from the unnamed danger that threatened +her--even to marry her, if she would have him. He had promised; his +word had passed; there could now be no withdrawal.... + +An hour elapsed, its passing raucously emphasised by the tin clock. +Amber remained at the table, his head upon it, his face hidden by his +arms, so still that Doggott would have thought him sleeping but for his +uneven breathing. + +On tiptoe the man-servant moved in and out of the room, making ready +for the day, mechanically carrying out his dead master's last +instructions, to pack up against an early departing. His face was grave +and sorrowful and now and again he paused in the midst of his +preparations to watch for an instant the sheeted form upon the +hammock-bed, his head bowed, his eyes filling; or to cast a sympathetic +glance at the back and shoulders of the living, his new employer. In +his day Doggott had known trouble; he was ignorant of the cause, but +now intuitively he divined that Amber was suffering mental torment +indescribable and beyond his power to assuage. + +At length the young man called him and Doggott found him sitting up, +with a haggard and careworn face but with the sane light of a mind +composed in his eyes. + +"Doggott," he asked in an even, toneless voice, "have you ever +mentioned to anybody your suspicion about Mr. Rutton's race?" + +"Only to you, sir." + +"That's good. And you won't?" + +"No, sir." + +"Have you," continued Amber, looking away and speaking slowly, "ever +heard him mention his marriage?" + +"Never, sir. 'E says in that paper 'e was a widower; I fancy the lady +must have died before I entered 'is service. 'E was always a lonely +man, all the fifteen year I've been with 'im, keepin' very much to +'imself, sir." + +"He never spoke of a--daughter?" + +"No, sir. Didn't 'e say 'e was childless?" + +"Yes. I merely wondered.... Tell me, now, do you know of any letters or +papers of his that we should destroy? If there are any, he would wish +us to." + +"'E never 'ad many, sir. What letters 'e got 'e answered right away and +destroyed 'em. There was a little packet in 'is trunk, but I see that's +gone." + +"He burned it himself this evening. There's nothing else?" + +"Nothing whatever, sir." + +"That's all right, then. We have nothing to do but ... see that he's +decently buried and get away as soon as we can. There's no time to +lose. It's after four, now, and as soon as it's daylight----You must +have a boat somewhere about?" + +"Yes, sir. Mr. Rutton 'ad me 'ire a little power launch before 'e came +down. It's down by the bayside, 'alf a mile aw'y." + +"Very well. The wind is dying down and by sunrise the bay will be safe +to cross--if it isn't now. These shallow waters smoothe out very +quickly. We'll--" + +He cut his words short and got up abruptly with a sharp exclamation: +"What's that?" + +Doggott, too, had heard and been startled. "It sounded like a gun-shot, +sir, and a man shouting," he said, moving toward the door. + +But Amber anticipated him there. + +As he stepped out into the bitter-cold air of early morning, he +received an impression that a shadow in the hollow had been alarmed by +his sudden appearance and had flitted silently and swiftly out upon the +beaten eastward path. But of this he could not be sure. + +He stood shivering and staring, waiting with attentive senses for a +repetition of the sound. The wind had indeed fallen, and the world was +very still--a hush that overspread and lay unbroken upon the deep, +ceaseless growling of the sea, like oil on water. The moon had set and +the darkness was but faintly tempered by the starlight on the snow--or +was it the first wan promise of the dawn that seemed to quiver in the +formless void between earth and sky? + +In the doorway Doggott grew impatient. "You don't 'ear anything, sir?" + +"Not a sound." + +"It's cruel cold, Mr. Amber. 'Adn't you better come inside, sir?" + +"I suppose so." He abandoned hope disconsolately and returned to the +hut, his teeth inclined to chatter and his stomach assailed by +qualms--premonitions of exhaustion in a body insufficiently nourished. + +Doggott, himself similarly affected, perhaps, was quick to recognise +the symptoms. "I'll get a bite of breakfast, sir," he suggested; "you +'aven't 'ad enough to eat, and 'unger's tyking 'old of you. If you'll +pardon my saying so, you look a bit sickly; but a cup of hot coffee'll +set that right in a jiffy." + +"Thank you, Doggott; I believe you're right. Though disappointment has +a good deal to do with the way I look. I'd hoped it might be Mr. Quain +come to look for me." + +Doggott disappeared to prepare the meal, but within five minutes a +second gun-shot sounded startlingly near at hand. The Virginian's +appearance at the door was coincident with a clear hail of "Aho-oy, +Amber!"--unmistakably Quain's voice, raised at a distance of not over +two hundred yards. + +Amber's answering cry quavered with joy. And with a bear-like rush +Quain topped the nearest dune, dropped down into the hollow, and was +upon him. + +"By the Lord Harry!" he cried, almost embracing Amber in his excitement +and relief; "I'd almost given you up for good and all!" + +"And I you," said Amber, watching curiously and somewhat distrustfully +a second man follow Quain into the vale. "Who's that?" he demanded. + +"Only Antone. We've him to thank. He remembered this old camp here--I'd +completely forgotten it--and was sure you'd taken refuge in it. Come +inside." He dragged Amber in, the Portuguese following. "Let's have a +look at you by the light. Lord! you seem to be pretty comfortable--and +I've been worrying myself sick for fear you--" He swept the room with +an approving glance which passed over Doggott and became transfixed as +it rested upon the hammock-bed with its burden; and his jaw fell. +"What's this? What's this?" He swung upon Amber, appraising with +relentless eyes the havoc his night's experience had wrought upon the +man. "You look like hell!" he exploded. "What's up here? Eh?" + +Amber turned to Doggott. "Take Antone out there with you and keep him +until I call, please. This is Mr. Quain; I want to talk with him +undisturbed.... But you can bring us coffee when it's ready." + +Quain motioned to Antone; the Portuguese disappeared into the back room +with Doggott, who closed the communicating door. + +"You first," said Amber. "If you've fretted about me, I've been crazy +about you--what time I've had to think." + +Quain deferred to his insistence. "It was simple enough--and damned +hard," he explained. "I caught the _Echo_ by the skin of my teeth, the +skimmy almost sinking under me. She was hard and fast aground, but I +managed to get the motor going and backed her off. As soon as that was +all right we got a wave aboard that soused the motor--like a fool I'd +left the hatch off--and short-circuited the coil. After that there was +hell to pay. I worked for half an hour reefing, and meanwhile we went +aground again. The oar broke and I had to go overboard and get wet to +my waist before I got her off. By that time it was blowing great guns +and dead from the beach. I had to stand off and make for the +mainland--nothing else to do. We beached about a mile below the +lighthouse and I had the four-mile tramp home. Then after I'd thawed +out and had a drink and a change of clothes, we had to wait two hours +for the sea to go down enough to make a crossing in the launch +practicable. That's all for mine. Now you? What's that there?" + +"A suicide; a friend of mine--the man Rutton whom we were discussing +the night I came down. And that's not half. There's a man out there +somewhere, shot to death by Rutton--a Bengali babu.... Quain, I've +lived in Purgatory ever since we parted and now ... I'm about done." + +He was; the coming of Quain with the ease of mind it brought had +snapped the high nervous tension which had sustained Amber. He was now +on the edge of collapse and showed it plainly. But two circumstances +aided him to recover his grip upon himself: Quain's compassionate +consideration in forbearing to press his story from him, and Doggott's +opportune appearance with a pot of coffee, steaming and black. Two cups +of this restored Amber to a condition somewhat approaching the normal. +He lit a cigarette and began to talk. + +For all his affection for and confidence in his friend, there were +things he might not tell Quain; wherefore he couched his narrative in +the fewest possible words and was miserly of detail. Of the coming of +the babu and his going Amber was fairly free to speak; he suppressed +little if any of that episode. Moreover he had forgotten to remove the +Token from his finger, and Quain instantly remarked it and demanded an +explanation. But of the nature of the errand on which he was to go, +Amber said nothing; it was, he averred, Rutton's private business. Nor +did he touch upon the question of Rutton's nationality. Sophia Farrell +he never mentioned. + +Nevertheless, he said enough to render Quain thoughtful.... "You're set +on this thing, I suppose?" he asked some time after Amber had +concluded. + +"Set upon it, dear man? I've no choice. I must go--I promised." + +"Of course. That's you, all over. Personally, I think it'll turn out a +fool's errand. But there's something you haven't told me--I'm not ass +enough to have missed that and no doubt that influences you." + +"I've told you everything that, in honor, I could." + +"Hmm--yes; I dare say...." Quain scowled over the problem for some +time. "It's plain enough," he asserted forcibly: "that man was involved +in some infernal secret society. Just how and why's the question. Think +I'll have a look at him." + +Amber would have protested, but thought better of it and held his peace +while Quain went to the hammock-bed, turned back the sheet, and for +several minutes lingered there, scrutinising the stony, upturned face. + +"So!" he said, coming back. "Here's news that'll help you some. You +were blind not to see it yourself. That man's--was, I should say--a +Rajput." He waited for the comment which did not come. "You knew it?" + +"I ... suspected, to-night." + +"It's as plain as print; the mark of his caste is all over him. But +perhaps he was able to disguise it a little with his manner--alive; +undoubtedly, I'd say. He was a genius of his kind--a prodigy; a mental +giant. That translation of the 'Tantras'----! Wonderful!... Well, he's +gone his own way: God be with him.... When do you want to start?" + +"As soon as possible--sooner. I've not a day to lose--not an hour." + +"Urgent as that, eh?" Quain peered keenly into his face. "I wish I knew +what you know. I wish to Heaven I might go with you. But I'm married +now--and respectable. If I ''ear the East a-callin'' and daren't +answer, it's my own fault for ever being fool enough to have heard it. +Well...." He proceeded to take charge of the situation with his +masterful habit. "The morning train leaves Nokomis at seven-thirty. You +can make that, if you must. But you need sleep--rest." + +"I'll get that on the train." + +"'Knew you'd say that. Very well. This is Tuesday. The _Mauretania_--or +the _Lusitania_, I don't know which--sails to-morrow. You can catch +that, too. It's the quickest route, eastwards--" + +"But I've decided to go west." + +"That means a week more, and you said you were in a hurry." + +"I am; but by going westwards it's barely possible I may be able to +transact or wind up the business on the way." + +As a matter of fact Amber was hoping the Rolands, with Sophia Farrell, +might linger somewhere _en route_, remembering that the girl had +discussed a tentative project to stop over between steamers at +Yokohama. + +"Very well," Quain gave in; "you're the doctor. Now as for things here, +make your mind easy. I'll take charge and keep the affair quiet. +There's no reason I can see for its ever getting out. I can answer for +myself and Antone; and the two of us can wind things up. That man +Rutton is at peace now--'chances are he'd prefer a quiet grave here on +the island. Then that devilish babu--he doesn't count; Antone and I'll +get him under the ground in a jiffy. No one ever gets over here but me, +now; come summer and there'll be a few wanderers, but by that time.... +The dunes'll hold their secrets fast: be sure of that. Finally, if any +one round here knows about this place being occupied, your departure'll +be public enough to make them think it's being abandoned again. Keep +your hat-brim down and your coat-collar up at the station; and they'll +never know you aren't Rutton himself; and you'll have Doggott to back +up the deception. So there'll be no questions asked.... Get ready now +to trot along, and I'll take care of everything." + +"There's no way of thanking you." + +"That's a comfort. Call Doggott now and tell him to get ready. You +haven't much time to lose. I'd land at the lighthouse dock, if I were +you, and take the short-cut up to the station by the wood road. If you +land at Tanglewood, Madge'll hold you up for a hot breakfast and make +you miss your train. I'll cook up some yarn to account for your +defection; and when you get back with your blooming bride you can tell +her the whole story, by way of amends." + +Amber wheeled upon him, colouring to the brows. "My bride! What do you +mean by that? I said nothing--" + +Quain rubbed his big hands, chuckling. "Of course you didn't. But I'm +wise enough to know there's bound to be a woman in this case. Besides, +it's Romance--and what's a romance without a woman?" + +"Oh, go to thunder," said Amber good-naturedly, and went to give +Doggott his orders. + +While they waited for the servant to pack his handbag--it being obvious +that to take the trunks with them was not feasible; while Quain was to +care for Amber's things at Tanglewood until his return from +India--Quain was possessed by an idea which he was pleased to christen +an inspiration. + +"It's this," he explained: "what do you know about Calcutta?" + +"Little or nothing. I've been there--that's about all." + +"Precisely. Now _I_ know the place, and I know you'll never find this +goldsmith in the Machua Bazaar without a guide. The ordinary, +common-or-garden guide is out of the question, of course. But I happen +to know an Englishman there who knows more about the dark side of India +than any other ten men in the world. He'll be invaluable to you, and +you can trust him as you would Doggott. Go to him in my name--you'll +need no other introduction--and tell him what you've told me." + +"That's impossible. Rutton expressly prohibited my mentioning his name +to any one in India." + +"Oh, very well. You haven't, have you? And you won't have to. I'll take +care of that, when I write and tell Labertouche you're coming." + +"What name?" + +"Labertouche. Why? You don't know him." + +"No; but Rutton did. Rutton got that poison from him." + +Quain whistled, his eyes round. "Did, eh? So much the better; he'll +probably know all about Rutton and'll take a keener interest." + +"But you forget--" + +"Hang your promise. I'm not bound by it and this is business--blacker +business than you seem to realise, Davy. You're bent on jumping +blindfold and with your hands tied into the seething pool of infamy and +intrigue that is India. And I won't stand for it. Don't think for an +instant that I'm going to let you go without doing everything I can to +make things as pleasant as possible for you.... No; Labertouche is your +man." + +And to this Quain held inflexibly; so that, in the end, Amber, unable +to move him, was obliged to leave the matter in his hands. + +A sullen and portentous dawn hung in the sky when the little party left +the cabin. In the east the entire firmament was ensanguined with +sinister crimson and barred with long reefs of purple-black clouds in +motionless suspense. Upon the earth the red glare fell ominously; the +eastern faces of the snow-clad dunes shone like rubies; westward the +shadows streamed long and dense and violet. The stillness was intense. + +A little awed, it may be, and certainly more than a little depressed, +they left the hollow by the beaten way, the Portuguese Antone leading +with a pick and spade, Amber and Quain following side by side, Doggott +with his valise bringing up the rear. Beyond the hollow the tracks +diverged toward the bay shore; and presently they came to the scene of +the tragedy. + +Between two sandhills the Bengali lay supine, a huddled heap of garish +colour--scarlet, yellow, tan--against the cold bluish-grey of snow. A +veil of unmelted flakes blurred his heavy, contorted features and his +small, black eyes--eyes as evil now, staring glassily up to the zenith, +as when quickened by his malign intelligence. About him were many +footprints, some recently made--presumably by his companion. The +latter, however, kept himself discreetly invisible. + +At a word from Quain the Portuguese paused and began to dig. Quain, +Amber, and Doggott went on a little distance, then, by mutual consent, +halted within sight of Antone. + +"I wouldn't leave him if I were you," Amber told Quain, nodding back at +the Portuguese. "It mightn't be safe, with that other devil skulking +round--Heaven knows where." + +"Right-O!" agreed Quain. His hand sought Amber's. "Good-bye, and God be +with you," he said huskily. + +Amber tightened his clasp upon the man's fingers. "I can't improve on +that, Tony," said he with a feeble smile. "Good-bye, and God be with +you." He dropped his hand and turned away. "Come along, Doggott." + +The servant led the way baywards. Behind them the angry morning blazed +brighter in the sky. + +In the sedge of the shore they found a rowboat and, launching it, +embarked for the power-boat, which swung at her mooring in deeper +water. When they were aboard the latter, Doggott took charge of the +motor, leaving to Amber the wheel, and with little delay they were in +motion. + +As their distance from the shore increased Amber glanced back. The +island rested low against the flaming sky, a shape of empurpled +shadows, scarcely more substantial to the vision than the rack of cloud +above. In the dark sedges the pools, here and there, caught the light +from above and shone blood-red. And suddenly the attention of the +Virginian was arrested by the discovery of a human figure--a man +standing upon a dune-top some distance inland, and staring steadfastly +after the boat. He seemed of extraordinary height and very thin; upon +his head there was a turban; his arms were folded. While Amber watched +he held his pose, a living menace--like some fantastic statue bulking +black against the grim red dawn. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MASKS AND FACES + + +Like many a wiser and a better man, Amber was able upon occasion to +change his mind without entertaining serious misgivings as to his +stability of purpose. Therefore, on second thought, he elected to +journey India-wards _via_ the Suez Canal rather than by the western +route. As he understood the situation, he had no time to waste; the +quicker way to his destination was the eastern way; and, viewed +soberly, the chance upon which he had speculated, that of overtaking +the girl's party somewhere _en route_, appeared a long one--a gambler's +risk, and far too risky if he did not exaggerate the urgency of his +errand. Rutton's instructions had, moreover, been explicit upon one +point: Amber was to enter India only by the port of Calcutta. In +deferring to this the Virginian lost several days waiting in London for +the fortnightly P. & O. boat for Calcutta: a delay which might have +been obviated by taking the overland route to Brindisi, connecting +there with the weekly P. & O. boat for Bombay, from which latter point +Calcutta could have been quickly reached by rail across the Indian +Peninsula. + +Now Quain's letter to Labertouche went by this quicker route and so +anticipated Amber's arrival at the capital of India by about a week; +during all of which time it languished unread. + +A nice young English boy in Mr. Labertouche's employ received and +stamped it with the date of delivery and put it away with the rest of +the incoming correspondence in a substantial-looking safe. After which +he returned to his desk in the ante-room and resumed his study of the +law; which he pursued comfortably enough with a cigarette in his mouth, +his chair tilted back, and his feet gently but firmly implanted upon +the fair printed pages of an open volume of Blackstone. His official +duties, otherwise, seemed to consist solely in imparting to all and +sundry the information that Mr. Labertouche was "somewhere up in the +Mofussil, hunting bugs--I don't know exactly where." + +This was, broadly speaking, perfectly true, within the limitations of +the youth's personal knowledge. He was a pleasant-mannered boy of +twenty or thereabouts, with an engaging air of candour which +successfully masked a close-mouthed reticence, even as his ostensibly +heedless, happy-go-lucky ways disguised a habit of extreme caution and +keen and particular observation: qualities which caused him to be +considered an invaluable office-assistant to a solicitor without any +clientele worth mentioning, and who chose to spend most of his time +somewhere up in the Mofussil hunting bugs. + +The Mofussil, by the way, is an extremely elastic term, standing as it +does in the vocabulary of the resident Calcutta-man, for the Empire of +India outside the seat of its Government. + +Precisely why Mr. Labertouche maintained his office was a matter for +casual conjecture to his wide circle of acquaintances; although it's +not unlikely that, were he the subject of discussion, the bulk of the +wonder expressed would be inspired by his unreasonable preference for +Calcutta as a place of residence. The Anglo-Indian imagination is +incapable of comprehending the frame of mind which holds existence in +Calcutta tolerable when one has the rest of India--including +Simla--open to one. And Labertouche was unmarried, unconnected with the +Government, and independent of his profession; certainly it would seem +that the slender stream of clients which trickled in and out of the +little offices on Dhurrumtollah Street, near the Maidan, could hardly +have provided him with a practice lucrative enough to be a +consideration. On the other hand it had to be admitted that the man +kept up his establishment in Calcutta rather than lived there; for he +was given to unexpected and extended absences from home, and was +frequently reported as having been seen poking sedulously over this +plain or through that jungle, with a butterfly net, a bottle of +chloroform, and an air of abstraction. In view of all of which he was +set down as an original and wholly irresponsible. The first of which he +was and the second of which he emphatically was not. + +Henry Charles Beresford Labertouche was, in person, a quiet and +unassuming body, with nothing particularly remarkable about him save +his preference for boot-heels nearly three inches high and a habit of +dying his hair--naturally greyish--a jet-black. Inasmuch as he was +quite brazen about these matters and would cheerfully discuss with +comparative strangers the contrasted merits of this hair-dye and that +and the obvious advantages of being five feet nine and one-half inches +in height instead of five feet seven, his idiosyncrasies were not held +against him. Otherwise he was a man strikingly inconspicuous; his eyes +were a very dark brown, which is nothing remarkable, and his features +were almost exasperatingly indefinite. You would have found him hard to +recall to memory, visually, aside from the boot-heels, which might +easily have been overlooked, and the black hair, which was, when all's +said, rather becoming than otherwise. Living with two native servants +in a modest bungalow somewhere between Chitpur and Barrackpur, he went +to and from his office, or didn't, at his whim, with entire lack of +ostentation. Soft-spoken and gifted with a distinct sense of the +humorous, he would converse agreeably and intelligently upon any +impersonal topic for hours at a time, when the spirit so moved him. As +an entomologist his attainments were said to be remarkable; he was +admittedly an interested student of ethnology; and he filled in his +spare time compounding unholy smells in a little laboratory connected +with his suburban home. This latter proceeding earned him the wholesome +fear and respect of the native population, who firmly believed him an +intimate of many devils. + +Such, at least, was the superficial man. + +Now upon the morning of the day that found the steamship _Poonah_ +nuzzling up the Hooghly's dirty yellow flood, Mr. Labertouche's clerk +arrived at the Dhurrumtollah Street office at the usual hour; which, in +the absence of his employer, was generally between eleven o'clock and +noon. Having assorted and disposed of the morning's mail, he donned his +office-coat, sat down, thumbed through Blackstone until he found two +perfectly clean pages, opened the volume at that place, tipped back his +chair, and with every indication of an untroubled conscience imposed +his feet upon the book and began the day's labours with a cigarette. + +The window at his right was open, affording an excellent view, from an +elevation of one storey, of the tide of traffic ebbing and flowing in +Dhurrumtollah Street. The clerk watched it sleepily, between +half-closed eyelids. Presently he became aware that an especially dirty +and travel-worn Attit mendicant had squatted down across the way, in +the full glare of sunlight, and was composing himself for one of those +apparently purposeless and interminable vigils peculiar to his +vocation. Beneath their drooping lashes the eyes of the clerk +brightened. But he did not move. Neither did the Attit mendicant. + +In the course of the next half-hour the clerk consumed two cigarettes +and entertained a visitor in the person of a dapper little Greek +curio-dealer from the Lal Bazaar, who left behind him an invitation to +Mr. Labertouche to call and inspect some scarabs in which he had +professed an interest. It was quite a fresh importation, averred the +Greek; the clerk was to be careful to remember that. + +When he had gone the clerk made a note of it. Then, glancing out the +window, he became aware that the Attit mendicant, for some reason +dissatisfied, was preparing to move on. Yawning, the clerk resumed his +street coat, and went out to lunch, carelessly leaving the door +unlocked, and the memorandum of the Greek's invitation exposed upon his +blotter. When he returned at three o'clock, the door of Mr. +Labertouche's private office was ajar and that gentleman was at his +desk. The memorandum was, however, gone. + +Mr. Labertouche was in the process of opening and reading a ten-days' +accumulation of correspondence, an occupation which he suspended +temporarily to call his clerk in and receive his report. This proved to +be a tolerably lengthy session, for the clerk, whose name appeared to +be Frank, demonstrated his command of a surprising memory. Without +notes he enumerated the callers at the office day by day from the time +when Labertouche had left for the Mofussil with his specimen-box and +the rest of his bug-hunting paraphernalia; naming those known to his +employer, minutely describing all others, even repeating their words +with almost phonographic fidelity. + +Labertouche listened intently, without interrupting, abstractedly +tapping his desk with a paper-cutter. At the end he said "Thank you," +with a dry, preoccupied air; and resumed consideration of his letters. +These seemed to interest him little; one after the other he gave to his +clerk, saying "File that," or "Answer that so-and-thusly." Two he set +aside for his personal disposition, and these he took up again after +the clerk had been dismissed. The first he read and reconsidered for a +long time; then crumpled it up and, drawing to him a small tray of +hammered brass, dropped the wadded paper upon it and touched a match to +it, thoughtfully poking the blazing sheets with his paper-cutter until +they were altogether reduced to ashes. + +Quain's was the second letter. Having merely glanced at the heading and +signature, Labertouche had reserved the rather formidable document--for +Quain had written fully--as probably of scant importance, to be dealt +with at his absolute leisure. But as he read his expression grew more +and more serious and perturbed. Finishing the last page he turned back +to the first and went over it a second time with much deliberation and +frequent pauses, apparently memorising portions of its contents. +Finally he said, "Hum-m!" inscrutably and rang for Frank. + +"He left New York by the _Lusitania_, eh?" said Mr. Labertouche aloud. +The clerk entering interrupted his soliloquy. "Bring me, please," he +said, "Bradshaw, the _News_--and the latest P. & O. schedule." And when +Frank had returned with these articles, he desired him to go at once +and enquire at Government House the whereabouts of Colonel Dominick +James Farrell, and further to search the hotels of Calcutta for a Miss +Farrell, or for information concerning her. "Have this for me +to-night--come to the bungalow at seven," he said. "And ... I shall +probably not be at the office again for several days." + +"Insects?" enquired the clerk. + +"Insects," affirmed Mr. Labertouche gravely. + +"In the Mofussil?" + +"There or thereabouts, Frank." + +"Yes, sir. I presume you don't feel the need of a capable assistant +yet?" + +"Not yet, Frank," said Labertouche kindly. "Be patient. Your time will +come; you're doing famously now." + +"Thank you." + +"Good-afternoon. Lock the door as you leave." + +Immediately that he found himself alone, Labertouche made of Quain's +letter a second burnt offering to prejudice upon the tray of hammered +brass. He was possessed of an incurable aversion to waste-paper baskets +and other receptacles from which the curious might fish out torn bits +of paper and, with patience, piece together and reconstruct documents +of whose import he preferred the world at large to remain unadvised. +Hence the tray of brass--a fixture among the furnishings of his desk. + +This matter attended to, he lost himself in Bradshaw and the Peninsular +& Oriental Steamship Company's list of sailings; from which he derived +enlightenment. "He was to come direct," mused Labertouche. "In that +case he'll have waited over in London for the _Poonah_." He turned to +the copy of the _Indian Daily News_ which lay at his elbow, somewhat +anxiously consulting its shipping news. Under the heading of "Due this +Day" he discovered the words: "_Poonah_, London--Calcutta--Straits +Settlements." And his face lengthened with concern. + +"That's short notice," he said. "Lucky I got back to-day--uncommon +lucky!... Still I may be mistaken." But the surmise failed to comfort +him. + +He drew a sheet of paper on which there was no letter-head to him and +began to write, composing deliberately and with great care. + +The building in which his offices were located stood upon a corner; at +either end of the long corridor on the upper floor, upon which the +various offices opened, were stairways, one descending to Dhurrumtollah +Street, the other to a side street little better than an alley. It may +be considered significant that, whereas Labertouche himself was not +seen either to enter or to leave the building at any time that day, an +Attit mendicant did enter from Dhurrumtollah Street shortly after Frank +had gone to lunch--and disappeared forthwith; while, in the dusk of +evening, a slim Eurasian boy with a clerkly air left by the stairs to +the alley. I say a boy, but he may have been thirty; he was carefully +attired in clothing of the mode affected by the Anglo-Indian, but wore +shoes that were almost heelless. His height may have been five-feet +seven inches, but he carried himself with a slight, studious rounding +of the shoulders that assorted well with the effect of his large +gold-rimmed spectacles. + +He stumbled out of the alley into Free School Street and set his face +to the Maidan, shuffling along slowly with a peering air, his +spectacles catching the light from the shop-windows and glaring +glassily through the shadows. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +FIRST STEPS + + +Forward on the promenade deck of the _Poonah,_ in the shadow of the +bridge, Amber stood with both elbows on the rail, dividing his somewhat +perturbed attention between a noisy lot of lascar stewards, deckhands, +and native third-class passengers in the bows below, and the long lines +of Saugor Island, just then slipping past on the starboard beam. + +On either hand, ahead, the low, livid green banks of the Hooghly were +closing in, imperceptibly constricting the narrow channel through which +the tawny tide swirled down to the sea at the full force of its ebb. +Struggling under this handicap, the _Poonah_ trembled from stem to +stern with the heavy labouring of the screw, straining forward like a +thoroughbred, its strength almost spent, with the end of the race in +sight. Across the white gleaming decks, as the bows swung from port to +starboard and back again, following the channel, purple-black shadows +slipped like oil. A languid land-wind blew fitfully down the estuary, +in warm puffs dense with sickly-sweet jungle reek. The day was hot and +sticky with humidity; a haze like a wall of dust coloured the skies +almost to the zenith. + +It was ten o'clock in the morning; Calcutta lay a hundred miles up the +river, approximately. By evenfall Amber expected to be in the city, +whether he stuck by the steamer until she docked in the port, or left +her at Diamond Harbour, sixty miles upstream, and finished his journey +by rail. At the present moment he hardly knew which to do; in the +ordinary course of events he would have gone ashore at Diamond Harbour, +thereby gaining an hour or two in the city. But within the last +eighteen hours events had been diverted from their normal course; and +Amber was deeply troubled with misgivings. + +Up to the day that the Poonah had sailed from Tilbury Dock, London, +from the time he had left Quain among the sand-dunes of Long Island, he +had not been conscious of any sort of espionage upon his movements. +That gaunt and threatening figure which he had seen silhouetted against +the angry dawn had not again appeared to disturb or trouble him. His +journey across the Atlantic had been uneventful; he had personally +investigated the saloon passenger lists, the second and third cabins +and the steerage of the _Lusitania,_ not forgetting the crew, only to +be reassured by the absence of anybody aboard who even remotely +suggested an Indian spy. But from the hour that the _Poonah_ with its +miscellaneous ship's company, white, yellow, brown, and black, had +warped out into the Thames, he had felt he was being watched--had +realised it instinctively, having nothing definite whereon to base his +feeling. He was neither timorous nor given to conjuring up shapes of +terror from the depths of a nervous imagination; the sensation of being +under the surveillance of unseen, prying eyes is unmistakable. Yet he +had tried to reason himself out of the belief--after taking all +sensible precautions, such as never letting the photograph of Sophia +Farrell out of his possession and keeping the Token next his skin, in a +chamois bag that nestled beneath his arm, swinging from a leather cord +round his neck. And as day blended into eventless day, he had lulled +himself into an uneasy indifference. What if he were watched? What +could it profit any one to know what he did or how he did it, day by +day? And with increasing infrequency he had come to question himself as +to the reason for the spying on his movements. + +Possibly the fruitlessness of any such speculation had much to do with +his gradual cessation of interest in the enigma. He was not credulous +of the power of divination popularly ascribed to the Oriental; he was +little inclined to believe that the nature of his errand to India had +been guessed, or that any native intelligence in India knew or +suspected the secret of Sophia Farrell's parentage--Rutton's solicitude +to the contrary notwithstanding. The theory that he most favoured in +explanation of the interest in him was that it had somehow become known +that he bore with him the emerald. It was quite conceivable that that +jewel, intrinsically invaluable, was badly wanted by its former +possessors, whether for the simple worth of it or because it played an +important part in the intrigue, or whatever it was, that had resulted +in Rutton's suicide. For his own part, Amber cared nothing for it; he +had christened it, mentally, the Evil Eye--with a smile to himself; +nonetheless he half-seriously suspected it of malign properties. He was +imaginative enough for that--or superstitious, if you prefer. + +He would, however, gladly have surrendered the jewel to those who +coveted it, in exchange for a promise of immunity from assassination, +had he known whom to approach with the offer and been free to make it. +But he must first show it to Dhola Baksh of the Machua Bazaar. After +that, when its usefulness had been discharged, he would be glad of the +chance to strike such a bargain.... + +Such, in short, had been his frame of mind up to eight o'clock of the +previous evening. At that hour he had made a discovery which had +diverted the entire trend of his thoughts. + +Doggott, ever a poor sailor, had been feeling ill and Amber had excused +him early in the afternoon. About six o'clock he had gone to his +stateroom and dressed for dinner, unattended. Absorbed in anticipations +of the morrow, when first he should set foot in Calcutta and take the +first step in pursuit of Sophia Farrell, he had absent-mindedly +neglected to empty the pockets of his discarded clothing. At seven he +had gone to dinner, leaving his stateroom door open, as was his +habit--a not unusual one with first-cabin passengers on long +voyages--and his flannels swinging from hooks in the wall. About eight, +discovering his oversight through the absence of his cigarette-case, he +had hurried back to the stateroom to discover that he had been +curiously robbed. + +His watch, his keys, his small change and his sovereign purse, his +silver cigarette-case--all the articles, in fact, that he was +accustomed to stuff into his pockets--with one exception, were where he +had left them. But the leather envelope containing the portrait of +Sophia Farrell was missing from the breast-pocket of his coat. + +From the hour in which he had obtained it he had never but this once +let it out of his personal possession. The envelope he had caused to be +constructed for its safe-keeping during his enforced inaction in +London. He had never once looked at it save in strict privacy, secure +even from the eyes of Doggott; and the latter did not know what the +leather case contained. + +Thus his preconceived and self-constructed theory as to the extent of +The Enemy's knowledge, was in an instant overthrown. "They" had seized +the very first relaxation of his vigilance to rob him of that which he +valued most. And in his heart he feared and believed that the incident +indicated "their" intimacy not alone with his secret but with that +which he shared with Colonel Farrell. + +Since then his every move toward regaining the photograph had been +fruitless. His stateroom steward, a sleek, soft Bengali boy who had +attended him all through the voyage with every indication of eagerness +to oblige him, professed entire ignorance of the theft. That was only +to be expected. But when Amber went to the purser and the latter +cross-examined the steward in his presence, the Bengali stuck to his +protestations of innocence without the tremor of an eyelash. In fact, +he established an alibi by the testimony of his fellow-stewards. +Further, when Amber publicly offered a reward of five guineas "and no +questions asked" and in private tempted the Bengali with much larger +amounts, he accomplished nothing. + +In the end, and in despair, Amber posted a notice on the ship's +bulletin-board, offering fifty guineas reward for the return of the +photograph to him either before landing or at the Great Eastern Hotel, +Calcutta, and having thereby established his reputation as a mild +lunatic, sat down to twirl his thumbs and await the outcome, +confidently anticipating there would be none. "They" had outwitted him +and not five hundred guineas would tempt "them," he believed. It +remained only to contrive a triumph in despite of this setback. + +But how to set about it? How might he plan against forces of whose very +nature he was ignorant--save that he guessed them to be evil? How could +he look ahead and scheme to circumvent the unguessable machinations of +the unknown?... His wits, like wild things in a cage, battered +themselves to exhaustion against the implacable bars of his +understanding. + +For the thousand-and-first time he reviewed the maddeningly scanty +store of facts at his command, turning them over and over in his mind, +vainly hopeful of inferring a clue. But, as always, he found his +thoughts circling a beaten track of conjecture.... What dread power had +hounded Rutton, forth from the haunts of his kind, from pillar to post +of the world (as he had said) to his death among the desolate dunes of +Long Island? What "staggering blow against the peace and security of +the world" could that or any power possibly strike, with Rutton for its +tool, once it had caught and bent him to its will? What fear had set +upon his lips a seal so awful that even in the shadow of death he had +not dared speak, though to speak were to save the one being to whom his +heart turned in the end? To save his daughter from what, had he +voluntarily renounced her, giving her into another's care, forswearing +his paternal title to her love, refusing himself even the cold comfort +of seeing her attain to the flower of her womanly beauty as another's +child? What--finally--was the ordeal of the Gateway of Swords, and what +could it be that made the Gateway of Death seem preferable to it? + +For the thousand-and-first time Amber abandoned his efforts to divine +the inscrutable, to overcome the insurmountable, to attain to the +inaccessible, but abandoned them grudgingly, grimly denying the +possibility of ultimate failure. Though he were never to know the dark +heart of the mystery, yet would he snatch from its pythonic coils the +woman he had sworn to save, the woman he loved! + +And while the black steamer with the buff super-structure toiled on, +cleaving its arduous way through the turbulent yellow flood between the +contracting shores of the Sunderbunds, while the offshore wind buffeted +Amber's cheeks with the hot panting breath of Bengal, his eyes, dimmed +with dreaming, saw only Her face. + +So often of late had he in solitude pondered her photograph, striving +to solve the puzzle of her heart that was to him a mystery as +unfathomable as that which threatened her, that he had merely to think +of her to bring her picture vividly before him. He could close his eyes +(he closed them now, shutting out the moving panorama of the river) and +see the girl that he had known in those few dear hours: the girl with +eyes as brown as sepia but illumined by traces of gold in the +irides--eyes that could smile and frown and be sweetly grave, all in +the time that a man needs to catch his breath; the girl with the +immaculate, silken skin, milk-white, with the rose-blush of young blood +beneath; with lips softly crimson as satin petals of a flower, that +could smile a man into slavery; the girl to contemplate whose adorably +modelled chin and firm, round, young neck would soften the austerity of +an anchorite; in whose hair was blended every deep shade of bronze and +gold.... + +Something clutched at his heart as with a hand of ice. He could never +forget, dared not remember what he could not believe yet dared not +deny. To him, reared as he had been, the barrier of mixed blood rose +between them, a thing surmountable only at the cost of caste; the +shadow of that horror lay upon his soul like ink--as black as the +silhouetted rails and masts and rigging of the _Poonah_ on her dead +white decks. He could win her heart only to lose his world. And still +he loved, still pursued his steadfast way toward her, knowing that, +were he to find her and his passion to be returned, death alone could +avert their union in marriage. He might not forget but ... he loved. +With him the high wind of Romance was a living gale, levelling every +obstacle between him and the desire of his heart. + +This is to be borne in mind: it was the man's first love. Theretofore +the habits of a thinker had set his feet in paths apart from those of +other men. Pretty women he had always admired--from a discreet +distance; that distance abridged, he had always found himself a little +afraid of and dismayed by them. They were the world's disturbing +element; they took men's lives in the rosy hollows of their palms and +moulded them as they would. While Amber had desired to mould his own +life. The theme of love that runs a golden thread through the drab +fabric of existence had to him been an illusion--a hallucination to +which others were subject, from which he was happily, if unaccountably, +exempt. But that had been yesterday; to-day.... + +In the afternoon the _Poonah_ touched at Diamond Harbour, landing the +majority of her passengers. Amber was among those few who remained +aboard. + +When the steamer swung off from the jetty and, now aided by a +favourable tide, resumed her progress up the river, he replaced his +notice on the bulletin-board with one offering a hundred guineas for +the return of the photograph before they docked in the port of +Calcutta; the offer of fifty guineas for its return to the Great +Eastern Hotel remained unaltered. + +His anticipations were not disappointed; positively nothing came of it. +All afternoon the _Poonah_ plodded steadily on toward the pall of smoke +that hemmed the northern horizon. The reedy river banks narrowed and +receded, gorgeous with colour, unvaryingly monotonous, revealing +nothing. Behind walls of rank foliage, dense green curtains almost +impenetrable even to light, the flat and spongy delta of the Ganges lay +decorously screened. If now and again the hangings parted they +disclosed nothing more than a brief vista of half-stagnant water or a +little clearing, half-overgrown, with the crumbling red brick walls of +some roofless and abandoned dwelling. + +In the lavender and gold and scarlet of a windless sunset, Calcutta +lifted suddenly up before them, a fairy city, mystic and unreal with +its spires and domes and minarets a-glare with hot colour behind a +hedge of etched black masts and funnels--all dimmed and made indefinite +by a heavy dun haze of smoke: lifted up in glory against the evening +sky and was blotted out as if by magic by the swooping night; then +lived again in a myriad lights pin-pricked upon the dense +bluish-blackness. + +The _Poonah_ slipped in to her dock under cover of darkness. Amber, +disembarking with Doggott, climbed into an open ghari on the landing +stage and was driven swiftly to his hotel. + +As he alighted and, leaving Doggott to settle with the ghariwallah, +crossed the sidewalk to the hotel entrance, a beggar slipped through +the throng of wayfarers, whining at his elbow: + +"Give, O give, Protector of the Poor!" + +Preoccupied, Amber hardly heard, and passed on; but the native stuck +leech-like to his side. + +"Give, hazoor--and the mercy of God shall be upon the Heaven-born for +ten-thousand years!" + +Now "Heaven-born" is flattery properly reserved for those who sit in +high places. Amber turned and eyed the man curiously, at the same time +dropping into the filthy, importunate palm a few annas. + +"May the shadow of the Heaven-born be long upon the land, when he shall +have passed through the Gateway of Swords!" + +And like a flash the man was gone--dodging nimbly round the ghari and +across Old Court House Street, losing himself almost instantly in the +press of early evening traffic. + +"The devil!" said Amber thoughtfully. "Why should it be assumed that I +have any shadow of an intention of entering that damnable Gateway of +Swords?" + +An incident at the desk, while he was arranging for his room, further +mystified him. He had given his name to the clerk, who looked up, +smiling. + +"Mr. David Amber?" he said. + +"Why, yes--" + +"We were expecting you, sir. You came by the _Poonah_?" + +"Yes, but--" + +"There's a note for you." The man turned to a rack, sorting out a small +square envelope from others pigeon-holed under "A." + +Could it be possible that Sophia Farrell had been advised of his +coming? Amber's hand trembled slightly with eagerness and excitement as +he took the missive. + +"An Eurasian boy left it for you half an hour ago," said the clerk. + +"Thank you," returned Amber, controlling himself sufficiently to wait +until he should be conducted to his room before opening the note. + +It was not, he observed later, superscribed in a feminine hand. Could +it be from Quain's friend Labertouche? Who else?... Amber lifted his +shoulders resignedly. "I wish Quain had minded his own business," he +said ungratefully; "I can take care of myself. This Labertouche'll +probably make life a misery for me." + +There was a quality in the note, however, to make him forget his +resentment of Quain's well-meant interference. + +"My dear Sir," it began formally: "Quain's letter did not reach me +until this afternoon; a circumstance which I regret. Otherwise I should +be better prepared to assist you. I have, on the other hand, set afoot +enquiries which may shortly result in some interesting information +bearing upon the matters which engage you. I expect to have news of the +Fs. to-night, and shall be glad to communicate it to you at once. I am +presuming that you purpose losing no time in attending to the affair of +the goldsmith, but I take the liberty of advising you that to attempt +to find him without proper guidance or preparation would be an +undertaking hazardous in the extreme. May I offer you my services? If +you decide to accept them, be good enough to come before ten to-night +to the sailors' lodging house known as 'Honest George's,' back of the +Lal Bazaar, and ask for Honest George himself, refraining from +mentioning my name. Dress yourself in your oldest and shabbiest +clothing; you cannot overdo this, since the neighbourhood is +questionable and a well-dressed man would immediately become an object +of suspicion. Do not wear the ring; keep it about you, out of sight. +Should this fail to reach you in time, try to-morrow night between +eight and ten. You would serve us both well by _burning_ this +immediately. Pray believe me yours to command in all respects." + +There was no signature. + +Amber frowned and whistled over this. "Undoubtedly from Labertouche," +he considered. "But why this flavour of intrigue? Does he know anything +more than I do? I presume he must. It'd be a great comfort if.... Hold +on. 'News of the Fs.' That spells the Farrells. How in blazes does he +know anything about the Farrells? I told Quain nothing.... Can it be a +trap? Is it possible that the chap who took that photograph +recognised...?" + +The problem held him in perplexity throughout the evening meal. He +turned it over this way and that without being able to arrive at any +comforting solution. Impulse in the end decided him--impulse and a +glance at his watch which told him that the time grew short. "I'll go," +he declared, "no matter what. It's nearly nine, but the Lal Bazaar's +not far." + +In the face of Doggott's unbending disapproval he left the hotel some +twenty minutes later, having levied on Doggott's wardrobe for suitable +clothing. Dressed in an old suit of soft grey serge, somewhat too large +for him, and wearing a grey felt hat with the brim pulled down over his +eyes, he felt that he was not easily to be identified with his +every-day self--the David Amber whose exacting yet conservative +"correctness" had become a by-word with his friends. + +Once away from the Great Eastern he quietly insinuated himself into the +tide of the city's night life that tirelessly ebbs and flows north of +Dalhousie Square--the restless currents of native life that move +ceaselessly in obedience to impulses so meaningless and strange to the +Occidental understanding. Before he realised it he had left +civilisation behind him and was breathing the atmosphere, heady and +weird, of the Thousand-and-One Nights. The Lal Bazaar seethed round him +noisily, with a roaring not unlike that of a surf in the hearing of him +who had so long lived separate from such scenes. But gradually the +strangeness of it passed away and he began to feel at home. And ere +long he passed in a single stride from the glare of many lights and the +tumult of a hundred tongues to the dark and the quiet hush of an alley +that wormed a sinuous way through the hinterland of the bazaar. Here +the air hung close and still and gravid with the odour of the East, +half stench, half perfume, wholly individual and indescribable; here +black shadows clung jealously to black and slimy walls, while lighter +ones but vaguely suggestive of robed figures glided silently hither and +yon; and odd noises, whispers, sobs, sounds of laughter and of rage, +assailed the ear and excited the imagination.... + +At a corner where there was more light he came upon a policeman whose +tunic, helmet, and truncheon were so closely patterned after those of +the London Bobby that the simple sight of them was calculated to revive +confidence in the security of one's person. He inspected Amber shrewdly +while the latter was asking his way to Honest George's, and in response +jerked a white-gloved thumb down the wide thoroughfare. + +"You carn't miss it, sir--s'ylors' boardin'-'ouse, all lit up and +likely with a row on at the bar. Mind your eye, guv'nor. It ayn't a +plyce you'd ought to visit on your lone." + +"Thanks; I've business there. I reckon to take care of myself." + +Nevertheless it was with a mind preyed upon by forebodings that Amber +stumbled down the cobbled way, reeking with filth, toward the +establishment of Honest George. Why on earth should Labertouche make an +appointment in so unholy a spot? Amber's doubts revived and he became +more than half persuaded that this must be a snare devised by those +acute intelligences which had instigated both the theft of the +photograph and that snarled mock-benediction of the mendicant. + +"I don't like it," he admitted ruefully; "it's so canny." + +He stopped in front of a building whose squat brick facade was lettered +with the reassuring sobriquet of its proprietor. A bench, running the +width of the structure, was thick with sprawling loafers, who smoked +and spat and spoke a jargon of the seas, the chief part of which was +blasphemy. Within, visible through windows never closed, was a crowded +barroom ablaze with flaring gas-jets, uproarious with voices thick with +drink. + +One needed courage of no common order to run the gauntlet of that rowdy +room and brave the more secret dangers of the infamous den. "You've got +to have your nerve with you," Amber put it. "But I suppose it's all in +the game. Let's chance it." And he entered. + +Compared with the atmosphere of that public-room a blast from Hell were +sweet and cooling, thought Amber; the first whiff he had of it all but +staggered him; and he found himself gasping, perspiration starting from +every pore. Faint with disgust he elbowed his way through the mob to +the bar, thankful that those about him, absorbed in the engrossing +occupation of getting drunk, paid him not the least heed. Flattening +himself against the rail he cast about for the proprietor. A blowsy, +sweating barmaid caught his eye and without a word slapped down upon +the sloppy counter before him a glass four fingers deep with +unspeakable whiskey. And he realised that he would have to drink it; to +refuse would be to attract attention, perhaps with unpleasant +consequences. "It's more than I bargained for," he grumbled, making a +pretence of swallowing the dose, and to his huge relief managing to +spill two-thirds of it down the front of his coat. What he swallowed +bit like an acid. Tears came to his eyes, but he choked down the cough, +and as soon as he could speak paid the girl. "Where's the boss?" he +asked. + +"Who?" Her glance was penetrating. "Oh, he's wytin' for you." She +nodded, lifting a shrill voice. "Garge, O Garge! 'Ere's that Yankee." +With a bare red elbow she indicated the further end of the room. +"You'll find 'im down there," she said, her look not unkindly. + +Amber thanked her quietly and, extricating himself from the press round +the bar, made his way in the direction indicated. A couple of billiard +tables with a small mob of onlookers hindered him, but by main strength +and diplomacy he wormed his way past and reached the rear of the room. +There were fewer loafers here and he had little hesitation about +selecting from an attendant circle of sycophants the genius of the +dive--Honest George himself, a fat and burly ruffian who filled to +overflowing the inadequate accommodation of an armchair. Sitting thus +enthroned in his shirt-sleeves, his greasy and unshaven red face +irradiating a sort of low good-humour that was belied by the cold +cunning of his little eyes, he fulfilled admirably the requirements of +the role he played self-cast. + +"'Ere, you!" he hailed Amber brusquely. "You're a 'ell of a job-'unter, +ain't you? Mister Abercrombie's been wytin' for you this hour gone. +'Know the w'y upstairs?" + +His tone was boisterous enough to fix upon Amber the attention of the +knot of loafers round the arm-chair. Amber felt himself under the +particular regard of a dozen pair of eyes, felt that his measure was +taken and his identification complete. Displeased, he answered curtly: +"No." + +"This w'y, then." Honest George hoisted himself ponderously out of his +arm-chair and lumbered heavily across the room, shouldering the crowd +aside with a high-handed contempt for the pack of them. Jerking open a +small door in the side wall, he beckoned Amber on with a backward nod +of his heavy head. "Be a bit lively, carn't you?" he growled; and +Amber, in despite of qualms of distrust, followed the fellow into a +small and noisome hallway lighted by a single gas-jet. On the one hand +a flight of rickety steps ran up into repellent obscurity; on the other +a low door stood open to the night. + +The crimp lowered his voice. "Your friend's this w'y." He waved his fat +red hand toward the door. "Them fools back there 'll think you're +tryin' for a berth with Abercrombie, the ship-master. I 'opes you'll +not tyke offense at the w'y I 'ad to rag you back there, sir." + +"No," said Amber, and Honest George led the way out into a small, +flagged well between towering black walls and left him at the threshold +of a second doorway. "Two flights up, the door at the top," he said; +"knock twice and then twice." And without waiting for an answer he +lurched heavily back to his own establishment. + +Amber watched his broad back fill the dimly-lighted doorway opposite +and disappear, of two minds whether or not to turn tail and run. +Suspicious enough in the beginning, the affair had now an exceeding +evil smell--as repulsive figuratively as was the actual effluvium of +the premises. He hung hesitant in doubt, with a heart oppressed by +those grim and silent walls of blackness that loomed above him. With +feet slipping on slimy flags he might be pardoned for harbouring +suspicions of some fouler treachery. The yawning mouth of the narrow +doorway, with the blackness of Erebus within, was deterring at its +best; in such a hole a man might be snared and slain and his screams, +though they rang to high Heaven, would fall meaningless on mundane +ears. Honest George's with its flare of lights and its crowd had been +questionable enough.... + +With a shrug, at length, he took his courage in his hands--and his +life, too, for all he knew to the contrary--and moved on into the +blackness, groping his way cautiously down a short corridor, his +fingers on either side brushing walls of rotten plaster. He had +absolutely nothing to guide him beyond the crimp's terse instructions. +Underfoot the flooring seemed to sag ominously; it creaked hideously. +Abruptly he stumbled against an obstruction, halted, and lighted a +match. + +The insignificant flame showed him a flight of stairs, leading up to +darkness. With a drumming heart he began to ascend, counting twenty-one +steps ere his feet failed to find another. Then groping again, one hand +encountered a baluster-rail; with this for guide he turned and followed +it until it began to slant upwards. This time he counted sixteen steps +before his eyes, rising above the level of the upper floor, discovered +to him a thin line of light, bright along the threshold of a door. He +began to breathe more freely, yet apprehension kept him strung up to a +high tension of nerves. + +He knuckled the door loudly--one double knock followed by another. + +From within a voice called cheerfully, in English: "Come in." + +He fumbled for the knob, found and turned it, and entered a small, +low-ceiled chamber, very cosy with lamplight, and simply furnished with +a single chair, a charpoy, a water-jug, a large mirror, and beneath the +latter a dressing-table littered with a collection of toilet gear, +cosmetics and bottles, which would have done credit to an actress. + +There was but a single person in the room and he occupied the chair +before the dressing-table. As Amber came in, he rose; a middle-aged +babu in a suit of pink satin, very dirty. In one hand something caught +the light, glittering. + +"Oah, Mister Amber, I believe?" he gurgled, oily and affable. "Believe +me most charmed to make acquaintance." And he laughed agreeably. + +But Amber's face had darkened. With an oath he sprang back, threw his +weight against the door, and with his left hand shot the bolt, while +his right whipped from his pocket Rutton's automatic pistol. + +"Drop that gun, you monkey!" he cried sharply. "I was afraid of this, +but I think you and I'll have an accounting before any one else gets in +here." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +PINK SATIN + + +Shaking with rage, Amber stood for a long moment with pistol poised and +eyes wary; then, bewildered, he slowly lowered the weapon. "Well," he +observed reflectively, "I'm damned." For the glittering thing he had +mistaken for a revolver lay at his feet; and it was nothing more nor +less than a shoehorn. While as for the babu, he had dropped back into +the chair and given way to a rude but reassuring paroxysm of gusty, +silent laughter. + +"I'm a fool," said Amber; "and if I'm not mistaken you're Labertouche." + +With a struggle the babu overcame his emotion. "I am, my dear fellow, I +am," he gasped. "And I owe you an apology. Upon my word, I'd forgotten; +one grows so accustomed to living the parts in these masquerades, after +a time, that one forgets. Forgive me." He offered a hand which Amber +grasped warmly in his unutterable relief. "I'm really delighted to meet +you," continued Labertouche seriously. "Any man who knows India can't +help being glad to meet the author of 'The Peoples of the Hindu Kush.'" + +"You did frighten me," Amber confessed, smiling. "I didn't know what to +expect--or suspect. Certainly,"--with a glance round the incongruously +furnished room--"I never looked forward to anything like this--or you, +in that get-up." + +"You wouldn't, you know," Labertouche admitted gravely. "I might have +warned you in my note; but that was a risky thing, at best. I feared to +go into detail--it might have fallen into the wrong hands." + +"Whose?" demanded Amber. + +"That, my dear man, is what we're here to find out--if we can. But sit +down; we shall have to have quite a bit of talk." He scraped a heap of +gaily-coloured native garments off one end of the charpoy and motioned +Amber to the chair. At the same time he fished a cigar-case out of some +recess in his clothing. "These are good," he remarked, opening the case +and offering it to Amber; "I daren't smoke anything half so good when +at work. The native tobacco is abominable, you know--_quite_ +three-fourths filth." + +"At work?" questioned Amber, clipping the end of his cigar and lighting +it. "You don't mean to say you travel round in those clothes?" + +"But I do. It's business with me--though few people know it. Quain +didn't; only I had a chance, one day, to tell him some rather startling +facts about native life. This sort of thing, done properly, gives a man +insight into a lot of unusual things." + +Labertouche puffed his cigar into a glow and leaned back, clasping one +knee with two brown hands and squinting up at the low, discoloured +ceiling. And Amber, looking him over, was amazed by the absolute +fidelity of his make-up; the brownish stain on face and hands, the +high-cut patent-leather boots, the open-work socks through which his +tinted calves showed grossly, his shapeless, baggy, soiled +garments--all were hopelessly babu-ish. + +"And if it isn't done properly?" + +"Oh, then----!" Labertouche laughed, lifting his shoulders +expressively. "No Englishman incapable of living up to a disguise has +ever tried it more than once in India; few, very few, have lived to +tell of the experiment." + +"You're connected with the police?" Amber's brows contracted as he +remembered Rutton's emphatic prohibition. + +But Quain had not failed to mention that. "Officially, no," said +Labertouche readily. "Now and again, of course, I run across a bit of +valuable information; and then, somehow, indirectly, the police get +wind of it. But this going _fantee_ in an amateur way is simply my +hobby; I've been at it for years--and very successfully, too. Of +course, it'll have its end. One's bound to slip up eventually. You can +train yourself to live the life of the native, but you can't train your +mind to think as he thinks. That's how the missteps happen. Some +day...." He sighed, not in the least unhappily.... "Some day I'll dodge +into this hole, or another that I know of, put on somebody else's +rags--say, these I'm wearing--and inconspicuously become a mysterious +disappearance. That's how it is with all of us who go in for this sort +of thing. But it's like opium, you know; you try it the first time for +the lark of it; the end is tragedy." + +Amber drew a long breath, his eyes glistening with wonder and +admiration of the man. "You don't mean to tell me you run such risks +for the pure love of it?" + +"Well ... perhaps not altogether. But we needn't go into details, need +we?" Labertouche's smile robbed the rebuke of its sting. "The opium +simile is a very good one, though I say it who shouldn't. One acquires +a taste for the forbidden, and one hires a little room like this from +an unprincipled blackguard like Honest George, and insensibly one goes +deeper and deeper until one gets beyond one's depth. That is all. It +explains me sufficiently. And," he chuckled, "you'd never have known it +if your case hadn't been exceptional." + +"It is, I think." Amber's expression became anxious. "I want to know +what you think of it--now Quain's told you. And, I say, what did you +mean by 'news of the Fs.'?" + +"News of the Farrells--father and daughter, of course." Labertouche's +eyes twinkled. + +"But how in the name of all that's strange--!" + +"Did I connect the affair Rutton with the Farrells? At first by simple +inference. You were charged with a secret errand, demanding the utmost +haste, by Rutton; your first thought was to travel by the longer +route--which, as it happens, Miss Farrell had started upon a little +while before. You had recently met her, and I've heard she's rather a +striking young woman. You see?" + +"Yes," admitted Amber sheepishly. "But--" + +"And then I remembered something," interrupted Labertouche. "I recalled +Rutton. I knew him years ago, when he was a young man.... You know the +yarn about him?" + +"A little--mighty little. I know now that he was a Rajput--though he +never told me that; I know that he married a Russian noblewoman"--Amber +hesitated imperceptibly--"that she died soon after, that he chose to +live out of India and to die rather than return to it." + +"He was," said Labertouche, "a singular man, an exotic result of the +unnatural conditions we English have brought about in India. The word +renegade describes him aptly, I think: he was born and bred a Brahmin, +a Rajput, of the hottest and bluest blood in Rajputana; he died to all +intents and purposes a European--with an English heart. He is--was--by +rights Maharana of Khandawar. As the young Maharaj he was sent to +England to be educated. I'm told his record at Oxford was a brilliant +one. He became a convert to Christianity--that was predestined--was +admitted to the Church of England, a communicant. When his father died +and he was summoned to take his place, Rutton at first refused. +Pressure was brought to bear upon him by the English Government and he +returned, was enthroned, and for a little time ruled Khandawar. It was +then that I knew him. He was continually dissatisfied, however, and +after a year or two disappeared. It was rumoured that he'd struck a +bargain with his prime-minister, one Salig Singh. At all events Salig +Singh contrived to usurp the throne, Government offering no objection. +Rutton turned up eventually in Russia and married a woman there who +died in childbirth--twenty years ago, perhaps. The child did not +survive its mother...." Labertouche paused deliberately, his glance +searching Amber's face. "So the report ran, at least," he concluded +quietly. + +"How do you know all this?" Amber countered evasively. + +"Government watches its wards very tenderly," said Labertouche with a +grin. "Besides, India's a great place for gossip.... And then," he +pursued tenaciously, "I remembered something else. I recalled that +Rutton had one very close friend, an Englishman named Farrell--" + +"Oh, what's the use?" Amber cut in nervously. "You understand the +situation too well. It's no good my trying to keep anything from you." + +"Such as the fact that Colonel Farrell adopted Rutton's daughter, who, +as it happens, did survive her mother? Yes; I knew that--or, rather, +part I knew and part I guessed. But don't worry, Mr. Amber; I'll keep +the secret." + +"For the girl's sake," said Amber, twisting his hands together. + +"For her sake. I pledge you my word." + +"Thank you." + +"And now ... for what purpose did Rutton ask you to come to India? +Wasn't it to get Miss Farrell out of the country?" + +"I think you're the devil himself," said Amber. + +"I'm not," confessed Labertouche; "but I am a member of the Indian +Secret Service--not officially connected with the police, observe!--and +I know a deal that you don't. I think, in short, I can place my finger +on the reason why Rutton was so concerned to get his daughter out of +the country." + +Amber looked his question. + +"You read the papers, don't you, in America?" + +"Rather." Amber smiled. + +"You've surely not been so blind as to miss the occasional reports that +leak out about native unrest in India?" + +"Surely you don't mean----" + +"I assuredly do mean that the Second Mutiny impends," declared +Labertouche solemnly. "Such, at least, is my belief, and such is the +belief of every thinking man in India who is at all informed. The +entire country is undermined with conspiracy and sedition; day after +day a vast, silent, underground movement goes on, fomenting rebellion +against the English rule. The worst of it is, there's no stopping it, +no way of scotching the serpent; its heads are myriad, seemingly. And +yet--I don't know--since yesterday I have hoped that through you we +might eventually strike to the heart of the movement." + +"Through me!" cried Amber, startled. + +Labertouche nodded. "Just so. The information you have already brought +us is invaluable. Have you thought of the significance of Chatterji's +'Message of the Bell'?" + +"'_Even now,_'" Amber quoted mechanically, "'_The Gateway of Swords +yawns wide, that he who is without fear may pass within; to the end +that the Body be purged of the Scarlet Evil._'" He shook his head +mystified. "No; I don't understand." + +"It's so simple," urged Labertouche; "all but the Gateway of Swords. I +don't place that--yet.... But the 'Body'--plainly that is India; the +'Scarlet Evil'--could anything more fittingly describe English rule +from the native point of view?" + +Amber felt of his head solicitously. "And yet," he averred plaintively, +"it doesn't _feel_ like wood." + +Labertouche laughed gently. "Now to-night you will learn something from +this Dhola Baksh--something important, undoubtedly. May I see this +ring--this Token?" + +Unbuttoning his shirt, Amber produced the Eye from the chamois bag. +Labertouche studied it for a long time in silence, returning it with an +air of deep perturbation. + +"The thing is strange to me," he said. "For the present we may dismiss +it as simply what it pretends to be--a token, a sign by which one man +shall know another.... Wear it but turn the stone in; and keep your +hands in your pockets when we're outside." + +Amber obeyed. "We'll be going, now?" + +"Yes." Labertouche rose, throwing away his cigar and stamping out its +fire. + +"But the Farrells?" + +"Forgive me; I had forgotten. The Farrells are at Darjeeling, where the +Colonel is stationed just now--happily for him." + +"Then," said Amber, with decision, "I leave for Darjeeling to-morrow +morning." + +"I know no reason why you shouldn't," agreed Labertouche. "If anything +turns up I'll contrive to let you know." He looked Amber up and down +with a glance that took in every detail. "I'm sorry," he observed, "you +couldn't have managed to look a trace shabbier. Still, with a touch +here and there, you'll do excellently well as a sailor on a spree." + +"As bad as that?" + +"Oah, my dear fallow!"--it was now the babu speaking, while he hopped +around Amber with his head critically to one side, like an inquisitive +jackdaw, now and again darting forward to peck at him with hands that +nervously but deftly arranged details of his attire to please a taste +fastidious and exacting in such matters--"Oah, my dear fallow, surely +you appreciate danger of venturing into nateeve quarters in European +dress? As regular-out-and-out sahib, I am meaning, of course. It is +permeesible for riff-raff, sailors and Tommies from the Fort, and soa +on, to indulge in debauchery among nateeves, but first-class +sahib--Oah, noah! You would be mobbed in no-time-at-all, where we are +going." + +"All right; I guess I can play the part, babu. At least, I've plenty of +atmosphere," Amber laughed, mentioning the incident of the peg he had +not consumed over Honest George's bar. + +"I had noticed that; a happy accident, indeed. I think"--Labertouche +stepped back to look Amber over again--"I think you will almost do. One +moment." + +He seized Amber's hat and, dashing it violently to the floor, +deliberately stamped it out of shape; when restored to its owner it had +aged five years in less than half as many minutes. Amber laughed, +putting it on. "Surely you couldn't ask me to look more disreputable," +he said with a dubious survey of himself in the mirror. + +His collar had been confiscated with his tie; his coat collar was +partially turned up in the back; what was visible of his shirt was +indecently dirty. His polished shoes had been deprived of their +pristine lustre by means of a damp rag, vigorously applied, and then +rubbed with dust. An artistic stain had been added to one of his +sleeves by the simple device of smudging it with the blacking from his +shoes. As for his hat, with the brim pulled down in front, it was +nothing more nor less than shocking. + +"You'll do," chuckled Labertouche approvingly. "Just ram your hands +into your trouser pockets without unbuttoning your coat, and shuffle +along as if nocturnal rambles in the slums of Calcutta were an everyday +thing to you. If you're spoken to, don't betray too much familiarity +with the vernacular. You know about the limit of the average Tommy's +vocabulary; don't go beyond it." He unbolted and locked the door by +which Amber had entered, putting the key in his pocket, and turned to a +second door across the room. "We'll leave this way; I chose this place +because it's a regular rabbit warren, with half a dozen entrances and +exits. I'll leave you in a passage leading to the bazaar. Wait in the +doorway until you see me stroll past; give me thirty yards lead and +follow. Keep in the middle of the way, avoid a crowd as the plague, and +don't lose sight of me. I'll stop in front of Dohla Baksh's shop long +enough to light a cheroot and go on without looking back. When you come +out I'll be waiting for you. If we lose one another, get back to your +hotel as quickly as possible. I may send you word. If I don't, I shall +understand you've taken the first morning train to Darjeeling. I think +that's all." + +As Amber left the room Labertouche extinguished the lamp, shut and +locked the door, and followed, catching Amber by the arm and guiding +him through pitch darkness to the head of the stairs. "Don't talk," he +whispered; "trust me." They descended an interminable flight of steps, +passed down a long, echoing corridor, and again descended. From the +foot of the second flight Labertouche shunted Amber round through what +seemed a veritable maze of passages--in which, however, he was +evidently quite at home. At length, "_Now go ahead!_" was breathed at +Amber's ear and at the same time his arm was released. + +He obeyed blindly, stumbling down a reeking corridor, and in a minute +more, to his unutterable relief, was in the open air of the bazaar. + +Blinking with the abrupt transition from absolute night to garish +light, he skulked in the shadow of the doorway, waiting. Beneath his +gaze Calcutta paraded its congress of peoples--a comprehensive +collection of specimens of every tribe in Hindustan and of nearly every +other race in the world besides: red-bearded Delhi Pathans, towering +Sikhs, lean sinewy Rajputs with bound jaws, swart agile Bhils, Tommies +in their scarlet tunics, Japanese and Chinese in their distinctive +dress, short and sturdy Gurkhas, yellow Saddhus, Jats stalking proudly, +brawling knots of sailormen from the Port, sleek Mahrattas, polluted +Sansis, Punjabis, Bengalis, priests, beggars, dancing girls; a blaze of +colour ever shifting, a Babel of tongues never stilled, a seething scum +on a witch's brew of humanity.... + +Like a fat, tawdry moth in his garments of soiled pink, a babu loitered +past, with never a sidelong glance for the loaferish figure in the +shadowed doorway; and the latter seemed himself absorbed in the family +of Eurasians who were shrilly squabbling with the keeper of a +vegetable-stall adjacent. But presently he wearied of their noise, +yawned, thrust both hands deep in his pockets, and stumbled away. The +bazaar accepted him as a brother, unquestioning, and he picked his way +through it with an ease that argued nothing but absolute familiarity +with his surroundings. But always you may be sure, he had the gleam of +pink satin in the corner of his eye. + +Before long Pink Satin diverged into the Chitpur Road, with Amber a +discreet shadow. So far the latter had been treading known ground, but +a little later, when Pink Satin dived abruptly into a darksome alleyway +to the right, drawing Amber after him as a child drags a toy on a +string, the Virginian lost his bearings utterly and was thereafter +helplessly dependent upon the flutter of Pink Satin, and unworried only +so long as he could see him, in a fidget of anxiety whenever the +labyrinth shut Labertouche from his sight for a moment or two. + +It was quiet enough away from the main thoroughfare, but with a +sinister quiet. Tall dwellings marched shoulder to shoulder along the +ways, shuttered, dark, grim, with an effect of conspirators, their +heads together in lawless conference. The streets were intolerably +narrow, the paving a farce; pools of stagnant water stood in the +depressions, piles of refuse banked the walls. The fetid air hung +motionless but sibilant with stealthy footsteps and whisperings.... +Preferable to this seemed even the infinitely more dangerous and +odorous Coolootollah purlieus into which they presently passed--nesting +place though it were for the city's most evil and desperate classes. + +In time broad Machua Bazaar Street received them--Pink Satin and the +sailorman out for a night of it. And now Pink Satin began to stroll +more sedately, manifesting a livelier interest in the sights of the +wayside. Amber's impatience--for he guessed that they neared the +goldsmith's stall--increased prodigiously; the shops, the stalls, the +thatched dance-halls in which arose the hideous music of the nautch, +had no lure for him, though they illustrated all that was most evil and +most depraved in the second city of the Empire. He was only eager to +have done with this unsavoury adventure, to know again the clean walls +of his room in the Great Eastern, to taste again the purer air of the +Maidan. + +Without warning Pink Satin pulled up, extracted from the recesses of +his costume a long, black and vindictive-looking native cigar, and +lighted it, thoughtfully exhaling the smoke through his nose while he +stared covetously at the display of a slipper-merchant whose stand was +over across from the stall of a goldsmith. + +With true Oriental deliberation Pink Satin finally made up his mind to +move on; and Amber lurched heavily into the premises occupied by one +Dhola Baksh, a goldsmith. + +A customer, a slim, handsome Malayan youth, for the moment held the +attention of the proprietor. The two were haggling with characteristic +enjoyment over a transaction which seemed to involve less than twenty +rupees. Amber waited, knowing that patience must be his portion until +the bargain should be struck. Dhola Baksh himself, a lean, +sharp-featured Mahratta grey with age, appraised with a single look the +new customer, and returned his interest to the Malay. But Amber +garnered from that glance a sensation of recognition. He wondered +dimly, why; could the goldsmith have been warned of his coming? + +Two or three more putative customers idled into the shop. Beyond its +threshold the stream of native life rolled on, ceaselessly fluent; a +pageant of the Middle Ages had been no more fantastic and unreal to +Western eyes. Now and again a wayfarer paused, his interest attracted +by the goldsmith's rush of business. + +Unexpectedly the proprietor made a substantial concession. Money passed +upon the instant, sealing the bargain. The Malay rose to go. Dhola +Baksh lifted a stony stare to Amber. + +"Your, pleasure, sahib?" he enquired with a thinly-veiled sneer. What +need to show deference to a down-at-the-heel sailor from the Port? + +"I want money--I want to borrow," said Amber promptly. + +"On your word, sahib?" + +"On security." + +"What manner of security can you offer?" + +"A ring--an emerald ring." + +Dhola Baksh shrugged. His eyes shifted from Amber to the encircling +faces of the bystanders. "I am a poor man," he whined. "How should I +have money to lend? Come to me on the morrow; then mayhap I may have a +few rupees. To-night I have neither cash nor time." + +The hint was lost upon Amber. "A stone of price----" he persisted. + +With a disturbed and apprehensive look, the money-lender rose. "Come, +then," he grumbled, "if you must----" + +A voice cried out behind Amber--"_Heh_!"----more a squeal than a cry. +Intuitively, as at a signal of danger, he leaped aside. Simultaneously +something like a beam of light sped past his head. The goldsmith +uttered one dreadful, choking scream, and went to his knees. For as +many as three seconds he swayed back and forth, his features terribly +contorted, his thin old hands plucking feebly at the handle of a +broadbladed dagger which had transfixed his throat. Then he tumbled +forward on his face, kicking. + +There followed a single instant of suspense and horror, then a mad rush +of feet as the street stampeded into the shop. Voices clamoured to the +skies. Somehow the lights went out. + +Amber started to fight his way out. As he struggled on, making little +headway through the press, a hand grasped his arm and drew him another +way. + +"Make haste, hazoor!" cried the owner of the hand, in Hindustani. "Make +haste, lest they seek to fasten this crime upon your head." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +MAHARANA OF KHANDAWAR + + +Both hand and voice might well have been Labertouche's; Amber believed +they were. And the darkness rendered visual identification impossible. +No shadow of doubt troubled him as he yielded to the urgent hand, and +permitted himself to be dragged, more than led, through the reeking, +milling mob, whose numbers seemed each instant augmented. He had +thought, dully, to find it a difficult matter to worm through and +escape, but somehow his guide seemed to have little trouble. Others, +likewise, evidently wished to get out of sight before the arrival of +the police, and in the wake of a little knot of these Amber felt +himself drawn along until, within less than two minutes, they were on +the outskirts of the crowd. + +He drew a long breath of relief. Ever since that knife had flown +whining past his cheek, his instinct of self-preservation had been +dominated by a serene confidence that Pink Satin was at hand to steer +him in safety away from the brawl. For his own part he was troubled by +a feeling of helplessness and dependence unusual with him, who was of a +self-reliant habit, accustomed to shift for himself whatever the +emergency. But this was something vastly different from the run of +experiences that had theretofore fallen to his lot. In. the foulest +stews of a vast city, with no least notion of how to win his way back +to the security of the Chowringhee quarter; in the heart of a howling +native rabble stimulated to a pitch of frenzy by the only things that +ever seem really to rouse the Oriental from his apathy--the scent and +sight of human blood; and with a sense of terror chilling him as he +realised the truth at which his guide had hinted--that the actual +assassin would not hesitate an instant to cry the murder upon the head +of one of the Sahib-logue: Amber felt as little confidence in his +ability to work out his salvation as though he had been a child. He +thanked his stars for Labertouche--for the hand that clasped his arm +and the voice that spoke guardedly in his ear. + +And then, by the light of the street, he discovered that his gratitude +had been premature and misplaced. His guide had fallen a pace behind +and was shouldering him along with almost frantic energy; but a glance +aside showed Amber, in Labertouche's stead, a chunky little Gurkha in +the fatigue uniform of his regiment of the British Army in India. Pink +Satin was nowhere in sight and it was immediately apparent that an +attempt to find him among the teeming hundreds before the goldsmith's +stall would be as futile as foolish--if not fatal. Yet Amber's impulse +was to wait, and he faltered--something which seemed to exasperate the +Gurkha, who fairly danced with excitement and impatience. + +"Hasten, hazoor!" he cried. "Is this a time to loiter? Hasten ere they +charge you with this spilling of blood. The gods lend wings to our feet +this night!" + +"But who are you?" demanded Amber. + +"What matter is that? Is it not enough that I am here and well disposed +toward you, that I risk my skin to save yours?" He cannoned suddenly +against Amber, shunting him unceremoniously out of the bazaar road and +into a narrow black alley. + +Simultaneously Amber heard a cry go up, shrill above the clamour of the +mob, screaming that a white sailor had knifed the goldsmith. And he +turned pale beneath his tan. + +"You hear, hazoor? They are naming you to the police-wallahs. Come!" + +"You're right." Amber fell into a long, free stride that threatened +quickly to distance the Gurka's short, sturdy legs. "Yet why do you +take this trouble for me?" + +"Why ask?" panted the Gurkha. "Did I not stand behind you and see that +you did not throw the knife? Am I a dog to stand by and see an innocent +man yoked to a crime?" He laughed shortly. "Am I a fool to forget how +great is the generosity of Kings? This way, hazoor!" + +"Why call me King?" Amber hurdled a heap of offal and picked up his +pace again. "Yet you will find me generous, though but a sahib." + +"The sahibs are very generous." Again the Gurkha laughed briefly and +unpleasantly. "But this is no time for words. Save your breath, for now +we must run." + +He broke into a springy lope, with his chin up, elbows in and chest +distended, his quick small feet slopping regardlessly through the +viscous mud of the unpaved byway. "Hear that!" he cried, as a series of +short, sharp yells rose in the bazaar behind them. "The dogs have found +the scent!" And for a time terror winged their flight. Eastern mobs are +hard to handle; if overtaken the chances were anything-you-please to +one that the fugitives would be torn to pieces as by wild animals ere +the police could interfere. + +They struck through stranger and more awful quarters than Amber had +believed could be tolerated, even in India. For if there were a better +way of escape they had no time to pause and choose it. From the racket +in their rear the pursuit was hot upon their trail, and with every +stride, well-nigh, they were passing those who would mark them down +and, when the rabble came up, cry it on with explicit directions. + +And so Amber found himself pounding along at the heels of his Gurkha, +threading acres of flimsy huts huddled together in meaningless +confusion--frail boxes of bamboo, mud, and wattles thrown roughly +together upon corrupt, naked earth that reeked of the drainage of +uncounted generations. Whence they passed through long, brilliant, +silent streets lined with open hovels wherein Vice and Crime bred +cheek-by-jowl, the haunts of Shame, painted and unabashed, sickening in +the very crudity of its nakedness.... There is no bottom to the Pit +wherein the native sinks.... And on, panting, with labouring chests and +aching limbs, into the abandoned desolation of the Chinese quarter, and +back through the still, deadly ways which Amber had threaded in the +footsteps of Pink Satin--where the houses towered high and were +ornamented with dingy, crumbling stucco and rusty, empty, treacherous +balconies of iron, and the air hung in stagnation as if the very winds +here halted to eavesdrop upon the iniquities that were housed behind +the jealous, rotting blinds of wood and iron. + +By now the voice of the chase had subsided to a dull and distant +muttering far behind them, and the way was clear. Beyond its age-old, +ineradicable atmosphere of secret infamy there was nothing threatening +in the aspect of the neighbourhood. And the Gurkha pulled up, breathing +like a wind-broken horse. + +"Easily, hazoor!" he gasped. "There is time for rest." + +Willingly Amber dropped into a wavering stride, so nearly exhausted +that his legs shook under him and he reeled drunkenly; and, fighting +for breath, they stumbled on, side by side, in the shadow of the +overhanging walls, until as they neared a corner the Gurkha stopped and +halted Amber with an imperative gesture. + +"The police, sahib, the police!" he breathed, with an expressive sweep +of his hand toward the cross street. "Let us wait here till they pass." +And in evident panic he crowded Amber into the deep and gloomy recess +afforded by a door overhung by a balcony. + +Taken off his guard, but with growing doubt, Amber was on the point of +remonstrating. Why should the police concern themselves with peaceful +wayfarers? They could not yet have heard of the crime in the Bazaar, +miles distant. But as he opened his lips he heard the latch click +behind him, and before he could lift a finger, the Gurkha had flung +himself bodily upon him, fairly lifting the American across the +threshold. + +They went down together, the Gurkha on top. And the door crashed to +with a rattle of bolts, leaving Amber on his back, in total darkness, +betrayed, lost, and alone with his enemies.... + +Now take a man--a white man--an American by preference--such an one as +David Amber--who has led an active if thoughtful life and lived much +out of doors, roughing it cheerfully in out-of-the-way corners of the +world, and who has been careful to maintain his physical condition at +something above par; bedevil him with a series of mysterious +circumstances for a couple of months, send him on a long journey, +entangle him in a passably hopeless love affair, work his expectations +up to a high pitch of impatience, exasperate him with disappointment, +and finally cause him to be tripped up by treachery and thrust into a +pitch-black room in an unknown house in one of the vilest quarters of +Calcutta: treat him in such a manner and what may you expect of him? +Not discretion, at least. + +Amber went temporarily mad with rage. He was no stranger to fear--no +man with an imagination is; but for the time being he was utterly +foolhardy. He forgot his exhaustion, forgot the hopelessness of his +plight, forgot everything save his insatiable thirst for vengeance. He +was, in our homely idiom, fighting-mad. + +One instant overpowered by and supine beneath the Gurkha, the next he +had flung the man off and bounded to his feet. There was the automatic +pistol in his coat-pocket, but he, conscious that many hands were +reaching out in the darkness to drag him down again, found no time to +draw it. He seemed to feel the presence of the nearest antagonist, whom +he could by no means see; for he struck out with both bare, clenched +fists, one after the other, with his weight behind each, and both blows +landed. The sounds of their impact rang like pistol-shots, and beneath +his knuckles he felt naked flesh crack and give. Something fell away +from him with a grunt like a poled ox. And then, in an instant, before +he could recover his poise, even before he knew that the turned-in +stone of the emerald ring had bitten deep into his palm, he was the +axis of a vortex of humanity. And he fought like a devil unchained. +Those who had thrown themselves upon him, clutching desperately at his +arms and legs and hanging upon his body, seemed to be thrown off like +chips from a lathe--for a time. In two short minutes he performed +prodigies of valour; his arms wrought like piston-rods, his fists flew +like flails; and such was the press round him that he struck no blow +that failed to find a mark. The room rang with the sounds of the +struggle, the shuffle, thud, and scrape of feet both booted and bare, +the hoarse, harsh breathing of the combatants, their groans, their +whispers, their low tense cries.... + +And abruptly it was over. He was borne down by sheer weight of numbers. +Though he fought with the insanity of despair they were too many for +him. He went a second time to the floor, beneath a dozen half-nude +bodies. Below him lay another, with an arm encircling his throat, the +elbow beneath his chin compressing his windpipe. Powerless to move hand +or foot, he gave up ... and wondered dully why it was that a knife had +not yet slipped between his ribs--between the fifth and sixth--or in +his back, beneath the left shoulder-blade, and why his gullet remained +unslit. + +Gradually it was forced upon him that his captors meant him no bodily +harm, for the present at least. His wrath subsided and gave place to +curiosity while he rested, regaining his wind, and the natives squirmed +away from him, leaving one man kneeling upon his chest and four others +each pinioning a limb. + +There followed a wait, while some several persons indulged in a +whispered confabulation at a distance from him too great for their +words to be articulate. Then came a croaking laugh out of the darkness +and words intended for his ear. + +"By Malang Shah! but my lord doth fight like a Rajput!" + +Amber caught his breath and exploded. "Half a chance, you damned thugs, +and I'd show you how an American can fight!" + +But he had spoken in English, and his hearers gathered the import of +his words only from his tone, apparently. He who had addressed him +laughed applausively. + +"It was a gallant fight," he commented, "but like all good things hath +had its end. My lord is overcome. Is my lord still minded for battle or +for peace? Dare I, his servant, give orders for his release, or----" + +Here Amber interrupted; stung by the bitter irony, he told the speaker +in fluent idiomatic Hindustani precisely what he might expect if his +"lord" ever got the shadow of a chance to lay hands upon him. + +The grim cackling laugh followed his words, a mocking echo, and was his +only answer. But for all his defiance, he presently heard orders issued +to take him up and bear him to another chamber. Promptly the man on his +chest moved away, and his fellows lifted and carried Amber, gently and +with puzzling consideration, some considerable distance through what he +surmised to be an underground corridor. He suffered this passively, +realising his impotence, and somewhat comforted if perplexed by the +tenderness accorded him in return for his savage fight for freedom. + +Unexpectedly he was let down upon the floor and released. Bare feet +scurried away in the darkness and a door closed with a resounding bang. +He was alone, for all he could say to the contrary--alone and unharmed. +He was more: he was astonished; he had not been disarmed. He got up and +felt of himself, marvelling that his pocket still sagged with the +weight of the pistol as much as at the circumstance that, aside from +the inevitable damage to his clothing--a coat-sleeve ripped from the +arm-hole, several buttons missing, suspenders broken--he had come out +of the melee unhurt, not even bruised, save for the hand that had been +cut by the emerald. He wrapped a handkerchief about this wound, and +took the pistol out, deriving a great deal of comfort from the way it +balanced, its roughened grip nestling snugly in his palm. + +He fairly itched to use the thing, but lacking an excuse, had time to +take more rational counsel of himself. It were certainly unwise to +presume upon the patience of his captors; though he had battered some +of them pretty brutally and himself escaped reprisals, the part of +wisdom would seem to be to save his ammunition. + +With this running through his mind, the room was suddenly revealed to +his eyes, that had so long strained fruitlessly to see. A flood of +lamplight leaped through some opening behind him and showed him his +shadow, long and gigantic upon a floor of earth and a wall of stone. He +wheeled about, alert as a cat; and the sight of his pistol hung steady +between the eyes of one who stood at ease, with folded arms, in an open +doorway. Over his shoulder was visible the bare brown poll of an +attendant whose lank brown arm held aloft the lamp. + +One does not shoot down in cold blood a man who makes no aggressive +move, and he who stood in the doorway endured impassively the mute +threat of the pistol. Above its sight his eyes met Amber's with a level +and unwavering glance, shining out of a dark, set face cast in a mould +of insolence and pride. A bushy black beard was parted at his chin and +brushed stiffly back. Between his thin hard lips, parted in a shadowy +smile, his teeth gleamed white. Standing a head taller than Amber and +very gracefully erect in clothing of a semi-military cut and of regal +magnificence, every inch of his pose bespoke power, position, and the +habit of authority. His head was bound with a turban of spotless white +from whose clasp, a single splendid emerald, a jewelled aigret nodded; +the bosom of his dark-green tunic blazed with orders and decorations; +at his side swung a sabre with richly jewelled hilt. Heavy white +gauntlets hid his hands, top-boots of patent leather his legs and feet. + +At once impressed and irritated by his attitude, Amber lowered his +weapon. "Well?" he demanded querulously. "What do you want? What's your +part in this infamous outrage?" + +On the other's face the faint smile became more definite. He nodded +nonchalantly at Amber's pistol. "My lord intends to shoot?" he enquired +in English, his tone courteous and suave. + +"That's as may be," retorted Amber defiantly. "I'm going to have +satisfaction for this outrage if I die getting it. You may count on +that, first and last." + +The man lifted his eyebrows and his shoulders in deprecation; then +turned to his attendant. "Put down the light and leave us," he said +curtly in Hindustani. + +Bowing obsequiously, the servant entered and departed, leaving the lamp +upon a wooden shelf braced against one side of the four-square, +stone-walled dungeon. As he went out he closed the door, and Amber +noted that it was a heavy sheet of iron or steel, very substantial. His +face darkened. + +"I presume you know what that means," he said, with a significant jerk +of his head toward the door. "It'll never be shut on me alone. We'll +leave together, you and I, if we both go out feet first." He lifted the +pistol and took the measure of the man, not in any spirit of bravado +but with absolute sincerity. "I trust I make my meaning plain?" + +"Most clear, hazoor." The other showed his teeth in an appreciative +smile. "And yet"--with an expressive outward movement of both +hands--"what is the need of all this?" + +"What!" Amber choked with resentment. "What was the need of setting +your thugs upon me--of kidnapping me?" + +"That, my lord, was an error of judgment on the part of one who shall +pay for it full measure. I trust you were not rudely treated." + +"I'd like to know what in blazes you call it," snapped Amber. "I'm +dogged by your spies--Heaven knows why!--lured to this place, butted +bodily into the arms of a gang of ruffians to be manhandled, and +finally locked up in a dark cell. I don't suppose you've got the nerve +to call that courteous treatment." + +He had an advantage, and knowing it, was pushing it to the limit; for +all his nonchalance the black man was not unconscious of the pistol; +his eye never forgot it. And Amber's eyes left his not an instant. +Despite that the fellow's next move was a distinct surprise. + +Suddenly and with superb grace, he stepped forward and dropped to one +knee at Amber's feet, bowing his head and offering the hilt of his +sword to the American. + +"My lord," he said swiftly in Hindustani, "if I have misjudged thee, if +I have earned thy displeasure, upon my head be it. See, I give my life +into thy hands; but a little quiver of thy forefinger and I am as +dust.... An ill report of thee was brought to me, and I did err in +crediting it. It is true that I set this trap for thee; but see, my +lord! though I did so, it was with no evil intent. I thought but to +make sure of thee and bid thee welcome, as a faithful steward should, +to thy motherland.... Maha Rao Rana, Har Dyal Rutton Bahadur, +Heaven-born, King of Kings, Chosen of the Voice, Cherished of the Eye, +Beloved of the Heart, bone of the bone and flesh of the flesh of the +Body, Guardian of the Gateway of Swords!... I, thy servant, Salig +Singh, bid thee welcome to Bharuta!" + +Sonorous and not unpleasing, his voice trembled with intense and +unquestionable earnestness; and when it ceased he remained motionless +in his attitude of humility. Amber, hardly able to credit his hearing, +stared down at the man stupidly, his head awhirl with curiously +commingled sensations of amazement and enlightenment. Presently he +laughed shortly. + +"Get up," he said; "get up and stand over there by the wall and don't +be a silly ass." + +"Hazoor!" There was reproach in Salig Singh's accents; but he obeyed, +rising and retreating to the further wall, there to hold himself at +attention. + +"Now see here," began Amber, designedly continuing his half of the +conversation in English--far too much misunderstanding had already been +brought about by his too-ready familiarity with Urdu. He paused a +little to collect his thoughts, then resumed: "Now see here, you're +Salig Singh, Maharana of Khandawar?" This much he recalled from his +conversation with Labertouche a couple of hours gone. + +"Hazoor, why dost thou need ask? Thou dost know." The Rajput, on his +part, steadfastly refused to return to English. + +"But you are, aren't you?" + +"By thy favour, it is even so." + +"And you think I'm Rutton--Har Dyal Rutton, as you call him, the former +Maharana who abdicated in your favour?" + +The Rajput shrugged expressively, an angry light in his dark, bold +eyes. "It pleases my lord to jest," he complained; "but am I a child, +to be played with?" + +"I'm not joking, Salig Singh, and this business is no joke at all. What +I'm trying to drive into your head is the fact that you've made the +mistake of your life. I'm not Rutton and I'm nothing like Rutton; I am +an American citizen and----" + +"Pardon, hazoor, but is this worth thy while? I am no child; what I +know I know. If thou art indeed not Har Dyal Rutton, how is it that +thou dost wear upon thy finger the signet of thy house"--Salig Singh +indicated the emerald which Amber had forgotten--"the Token sent thee +by the Bell? If thou are not my lord the rightful Maharana of +Khandawar, how is it that thou hast answered the summons of the Bell? +Are the servants of the Body fools who have followed the hither, losing +trace of thee no single instant since thou didst slay the Bengali who +bore the Token to thee? Am I blind--I, Salig Singh, thy childhood's +playmate, the Grand Vizier of thy too-brief rule, to whom thou didst +surrender the reins of government of Khandawar? I know thee; thou canst +not deceive me. True it is that thou art changed--sadly changed, my +lord; and the years have not worn upon thee as they might--I had +thought to find thee an older man and, by thy grace, a wiser. But even +as I am Salig Singh, thou art none other than my lord, Har Dyal +Rutton." + +Salig Singh put his shoulders against the wall and, leaning so with +arms folded, regarded Amber with a triumph not unmixed with contempt. +It was plain that he considered his argument final, his case complete, +the verdict his. While Amber found no words with which to combat his +false impression, and could only stare, open-mouthed and fascinated. +But at length he recollected himself and called his wits together. + +"That's all very pretty," he admitted fairly, "but it won't hold water. +I don't suppose these faithful servants of the Bell you mentioned +happened to tell you that Chatterji himself mistook me for Rutton, to +begin with, and just found out his mistake in time to recover the +Token. Did they?" + +The man shook his head wearily. "Nothing to that import hath come to +mine ears," he said. + +"All right. And of course they didn't tell you that Rutton committed +suicide down there on Long Island, just after he had killed the babu?" + +Again Salig Singh replied by a negative movement of his head. + +"Well, all I've got to say is that your infernal 'Body' employs a giddy +lot of incompetents to run its errands." + +Salig Singh said nothing, and Amber pondered the situation briefly. He +understood now how the babu's companion had fallen into error: how +Chatterji, possessing sufficient intelligence to recognise his initial +mistake, had, having rectified it, saved his face by saying nothing to +his companion of the incident; and how the latter had remained in +ignorance of Rutton's death after the slaying of Chatterji, and had +pardonably mistaken Amber for the man he had been sent to spy upon. The +prologue was plain enough, but how to deal with this its sequel was a +problem that taxed his ingenuity. A single solution seemed practicable, +of the many he debated: to get in touch with Labertouche and leave the +rest to him. + +He stood for so long in meditation that the Rajput began to show traces +of impatience. He moved restlessly, yawned, and at length spoke. + +"Is not my lord content? Can he not see, the dice are cast? What profit +can he think to win through furtherance of this farce?" + +"Well," curiosity prompted Amber to ask, "what do you want of me, +then?" + +"Is there need to ask? Through the Mouthpiece, the Bengali, Behari Lai +Chatterji, whom thou didst slay, the message of the Bell was brought to +thee. Thou hast been called; it is for thee to answer." + +"Called----?" + +"To the Gateway of Swords, hazoor." + +"Oh, yes; to be sure. But where in thunderation is it?" + +"That my lord doth know." + +"You think so? Well, have it your own way. But suppose I decline the +invitation?" + +Salig Singh looked bored. "Since thou hast come so far," he said, "thou +wilt go farther, hazoor." + +"Meaning--by force?" + +"Of thine own will. Those whom the Voice calleth are not led to the +Gateway by their noses." + +"But," Amber persisted, "suppose they won't go?" + +"Then, hazoor, doth the Council of the Hand sit in judgment upon them." + +The significance was savagely obvious, but Amber merely laughed. "And +the Hand strikes, I presume?" Salig Singh nodded. "Bless your heart, +I'm not afraid of your 'Hand'! But am I to understand that compulsion +is not to be used in order to get me to the Gateway--wherever that is? +I mean, I'm free to exercise my judgment, whether or not I shall +go--free to leave this place and return to my hotel?" + +Gravely the Rajput inclined his head. "Even so," he assented. "I caused +thee to be brought hither solely to make certain what thou hast out of +thine own mouth confirmed--the report that thou hadst become altogether +traitor to the Bell. So be it. There remains but the warning that for +four days more, and four days only, the Gateway remains open to those +summoned. On the fifth it closes." + +"And to those who remain in the outer darkness on that fifth day, Salig +Singh----?" + +"God is merciful," said the Rajput piously. + +"Very well. If that is all, I think I will now leave you, Salig Singh," +said Amber, fondling his pistol meaningly. + +"One word more," Salig Singh interposed, very much alive to Amber's +attitude: "I were unfaithful to the trust thou didst once repose in me +were I not to warn thee that whither thou goest, the Mind will know; +what thou dost, the Eye will see; the words thou shalt utter, the Ear +will hear. To all things there is an end, also--even to the patience of +the Body. Shabash!" + +"Thank you 'most to death, Salig Singh. Now will you be good enough to +order a ghari to take me back to the Great Eastern?" + +"My lord's will is his servant's." Salig Singh started for the door the +least trace too eagerly. + +"One moment," said Amber sharply. "Not so fast, my friend." He tapped +his palm with the barrel of the pistol to add weight to his peremptory +manner. "I think if you will lift your voice and call, some one will +answer. I've taken a great fancy to you, if you don't know it, and I +don't purpose letting you out of my sight until I'm safely out of this +house." + +With a sullen air the Rajput yielded. From his expression Amber would +have wagered much that there was a bad quarter of an hour in store for +those who had neglected to disarm him when the opportunity was theirs. + +"As you will," conceded Salig Singh; and he clapped his hands smartly, +crying: "Ohe, Moto!" + +Almost instantly the iron door swung open and the lamp-bearer appeared, +salaaming. + +"Tell him," ordered Amber, "to bring me a cloak of some sort--not too +conspicuous. I've no fancy to kick up a scandal at the hotel by +returning with these duds visible. You can charge it up to profit and +loss; if it hadn't been for the tender treatment your assassins gave +me, I'd be less disreputable." + +A faint smile flickered in Salig Singh's eyes--a look that was not +wholly devoid of admiration for the man who had turned the tables on +him with such ease. "Indeed," he said, "I were lacking in courtesy did +I refuse thee that." And turning to the servant he issued instructions +in accordance with Amber's demands, adding gratuitously an order that +the way of exit should be kept clear. + +As the man bowed and withdrew Amber grinned cheerfully. "It wasn't a +bad afterthought, Salig Singh," he observed; "precautions like that +relieve the mind wonderfully sometimes." + +But the humour of the situation seemed to be lost upon the Rajput. + +In the brief wait that followed Amber shifted his position to one +wherefrom he could command both the doorway and Salig Singh; his +solicitude, however, was without apparent warrant; nothing happened to +justify him of his vigilance. Without undue delay the servant returned +with a light cloak and the announcement that the ghari was in waiting. + +His offer to help the American don the garment was graciously declined. +"I've a fancy to have my arms free for the present," Amber explained; +"I can get it on by myself in the ghari." He took the cloak over his +left arm. "I'm ready; lead on!" he said, and with a graceful wave of +the pistol bowed Salig Singh out of the cellar. + +Moto leading with the light, they proceeded in silence down a musty but +deserted passage, Amber bringing up the rear with his heart in his +mouth and his finger nervous upon the trigger. After a little the +passage turned and discovered a door open to the street. Beyond this a +ghari could be seen. + +Amber civilly insisted that both the servant and his master leave the +house before him, but, once outside, he made a wary detour and got +between them and the waiting conveyance. Then, "It's kind of you, Salig +Singh," he said; "I'm properly grateful. I'll say this for you: you +play the game fairly when anybody calls your attention to the rules. +Good-night to you--and, I say, be kind enough to shut the door as you +go in. I'll just wait until you do." + +The Rajput found no answer; conceivably, his chagrin was intense. With +a curt nod he turned and reentered the house, Moto following. The door +closed and Amber jumped briskly into the ghari. + +"Home, James," he told the ghariwallah, in great conceit with himself. +"I mean, the Great Eastern Hotel--and _juldee jao_!" + +The driver wrapped a whiplash round the corrugated flanks of his horse +and the ghari turned the corner with gratifying speed. In half a minute +they were in the Chitpur Road. In fifteen they drew up before the +hotel. + +It was after midnight and the city had begun to quiet down, but Old +Court House Street was still populous with carriages and pedestrians, +black and tan and white. There was a Viceregal function of some sort +towards in the Government House, and broughams and victorias, coaches, +hansoms, and coupes, with lamps alight and liveried coachmen--turn-outs +groomed to the last degree of smartness--crowded the thoroughfare to +the peril and discomfort of the casual ghari. The scene was +unbelievably brilliant. Amber felt like rubbing his eyes. Here were +sidewalks, pavements, throbbing electric arcs, Englishmen in evening +dress, fair Englishwomen in dainty gowns and pretty wraps, the hum of +English voices, the very smell of civilisation. And back there, just +across the border he had so recently crossed, still reigned the +midnight of the Orient, glamorous with the glamour of the Arabian +Nights, dreadful with its dumb menace, its atmosphere of plot and +counterplot, mutiny, treason, intrigue, and death. Here, a little +island of life and light and gay, heedless laughter; there, all round +it, pressing close, silence and impenetrable darkness, like some dark +sea of death lapping its shores.... + +In a cold sweat of horror Amber got out of the vehicle and paid his +fare. As he turned he discovered an uniformed policeman stalking to and +fro before the hotel, symbol of the sane power that ruled the land. +Amber was torn by an impulse to throw himself upon the man and shriek +aloud his tale of terror--to turn and scream warning in the ears of +those who lived so lightly on the lip of Hell.... + +A Bengali drifted listlessly past, a bored and blase babu in a suit of +pink satin, wandering home and interested in nothing save his own bland +self and the native cigarette that drooped languidly from his lips. He +passed within a foot of Amber, and from somewhere a voice spoke--the +Virginian could have taken an oath that the babu's lips did not +move--in a clear yet discreet whisper. + +"To-morrow," it said; "Darjeeling." + +Amber hitched his cloak round him and entered the hotel. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE TONGA + + +"Badshah Junction, Mr. Amber ... Badshah Junction ... We'll be there in +'alf an hour ..." + +Inexorably the voice droned on, repeating the admonition over and over. + +Mutinous, Amber stirred and grumbled in his sleep; stirred and, +grumbling, wakened to another day. Doggott stood over him, doggedly +insistent. + +"Not much time to dress, sir; we're due in less than 'alf an hour." + +"Oh, _all_ right." Drowsy, stiff and sore in bone and muscle, Amber sat +up on the edge of the leather-padded bunk and stared out of the window, +wondering. With thundering flanges the train fled from east to west +across a landscape that still slept wrapped in purple shadows. Far in +the north the higher peaks of a long, low range of treeless hills were +burning with a pale, cold light. A few stars glimmered in the cloudless +vault--glimmered wan, doomed to sudden, swift extinction. Beside the +railroad a procession of telegraph poles marched with dipping loops of +wire between. There was nothing else to see. None the less the young +man, now fully alive to the business of the day, said "Thank God!" in +all sincerity. + +"Even a tonga will be a relief after three days of this, Doggott," he +observed, surrendering himself to the ministrations of the servant. + +It was the third morning succeeding that on which he had risen from his +bed in the Great Eastern Hotel in Calcutta, possessed by a wild anxiety +to find his way with the least possible delay to Darjeeling and Sophia +Farrell--a journey which he was destined never to make. For while he +breakfasted a telegram had been brought to him. + +"_Your train for Benares_," he read, "_leaves Howrah at nine-thirty. +Imperative_." It was signed: "_Pink Satin_." + +He acted upon it without thought of disobedience; he was in the hands +of Labertouche, and Labertouche knew best. Between the lines he read +that the Englishman considered it unwise to attempt further +communication in Calcutta. Something had happened to eliminate the trip +to Darjeeling. Labertouche would undoubtedly contrive to meet and +enlighten him, either on the way or in Benares itself. + +In the long, tiresome, eventless journey that followed his faith was +sorely tried; nor was it justified until the train paused some time +after midnight at Mogul Serai. There, before Amber and Doggott could +alight to change for Benares, their compartment was invaded by an +unmistakable loafer, very drunk. Tall and burly; with red-rimmed eyes +in a pasty pockmarked face, dirty and rusty with a week-old growth of +beard; clothed with sublime contempt for the mode and exalted beyond +reason with liquor--a typical loafer of the Indian railways--he flung +the door open and himself into Amber's arms, almost knocking the latter +down; and resented the accident at the top of his lungs. + +"You miserable, misbegotten blighter of a wall-eyed American----" At +this point he became unprintably profane, and Doggott fell upon him +with the laudable intention of throwing him out. In the struggle Amber +caught his eye, and it was bright with meaning. "Pink Satin!" he +hissed. "He's gone ahead.... You're to keep on to Agra.... Change for +Badshah Junction, Rajputana Route.... Then tonga to Kuttarpur.... +Farrell's there and his daughter.... That's right, my man, throw me +out!..." + +His downfall was spectacular. In his enthusiasm for the part he played, +he had erred to the extent of delivering a blow in Doggott's face more +forcible, probably, than he had intended it to be. Promptly he landed +sprawling on the station platform and, in the sight of a multitude of +natives, but the moment gone by his shrieks roused from their sleep in +orderly ranks upon the floor, was gathered into the arms of the +stationmaster and had the seriousness of his mistake pointed out to him +forthwith and without regard to the sensitiveness of human anatomy. + +And the train continued on its appointed way, bearing both Amber and +the injured Doggott. + +Thus they had come to the heart of Rajputana. + +In the chill of dawn they were deposited at Badshah Junction. A scanty +length of rude platform received them and their two small travelling +bags. + +On their left the Haiderabad express roared away, following the night, +its course upon the parallel ribbons of shining steel marked by a +towering pillar of dust. On their right, beyond the sharp-cut edge of +the world, the sun had kindled a mighty conflagration in the skies. On +every hand, behind and before them, the desert lay in ebbing shadows, a +rolling waste seared by arid nullahs--the bone-dry beds of +long-forgotten streams. Off in the north the hills cropped up and stole +purposelessly away over the horizon. + +They stood, then, forlorn in a howling desolation. For signs of life +they had the station, a flimsy shelter roofed with corrugated iron, a +beaten track that wandered off northwards and disappeared over a +grassless swell, a handful of mud huts at a distance, and the +ticket-agent. The latter a sleepy, surly Eurasian in pyjamas, surveyed +them listlessly from the threshold of the station, and without a sign +either of interest or contempt turned and locked himself in. + +Amber sat down on his upturned suit-case and laughed and lit a +cigarette. Doggott growled. The noise of the train died to silence in +the distance, and a hyena came out of nowhere, exhibited himself upon +the ridge of a dry desert swell, and mocked them sardonically. Then he, +like the ticket-agent, went away, leaving an oppressive silence. + +Presently the sun rose in glory and sent its burning level rays to cast +a shadow several rods long of an enraged American beating frantically +with clenched fists upon the door of an unresponsive railway station. + +He hammered until he was a-weary, then deputised his task to Doggott, +who resourcefully found him a stone of size and proceeded to make dents +in the door. This method elicited the Eurasian. He came out, listened +attentively to abuse and languidly to their demands for a tonga to bear +them to Kuttarpur, and observed that the mail tonga left once a day--at +three in the afternoon. Doggott caught him as he was on the point of +returning to his interrupted repose and called his attention to the +unwisdom of his ways. + +Apparently convinced, this ticket-agent announced his intention of +endeavouring to find a tonga for the sahib. Besides, he was not +unwilling to acquire rupees. He scowled thoughtfully at Amber, +ferociously at Doggott, went back into the station, gossipped casually +with the telegraph sounder for a quarter of an hour, and finally +reappearing, without a word or a nod left the platform for the road and +walked and walked and walked and walked. Within thirty yards his figure +was blurred by the dance of new-born heat devils. Within a hundred he +disappeared; the desert swallowed him up. + +An hour passed as three. The heat became terrific; not a breath of wind +stirred. The face of the world lost its contours in wavering mirage. +The travellers found lukewarm water in the station and breakfasted +sparingly from their own stores of biscuit and tinned things. Then, in +the shadow of the station, they settled down to wait, bored to +extinction. Lulled by the hushed chatter of the telegraph sounder, +Doggott nodded and slept audibly; Amber nodded, felt himself going, +roused with a struggle, and lapsed into a dreary mid-world of +semi-stupor. + +In the simple fulness of Asiatic time a tonga came from Heaven knew +where and roused him by rattling up beside the platform. He got up and +looked it over with a just eye and a temper none the sweeter for his +experience. It was a brute of a tonga, a patched and ramshackle wreck +of what had once been a real tonga, with no top to protect the +travellers from the sun, and accommodation only for three, including +the driver. + +The Eurasian ticket-agent alighted and solicited rupees. He got them +and with them Amber's unvarnished opinion of the tonga; something which +was not received with civility by the driver. + +He remained in his seat--a short, swart native with an evil countenance +and, across his knees, a sheathed tulwar--arguing with Amber in broken +English and, abusing him scandalously in impurest Hindi, flinging at +him in silken tones untranslatable scraps of bazaar Billingsgate. For, +as he explained in an audible aside to the ticket-agent, this sahib was +an outlander and, being as ignorant as most sahibs, could not +understand Hindi. At this the Eurasian turned away to hide a grin of +delight and the driver winked deliberately at Amber the while he +broadly sketched for him his ancestry and the manner of his life at +home and abroad. + +Thunderstruck, Amber caught himself just as he was on the point of +attempting to drag the driver from his seat and beat him into a more +endurable frame of mind. He swallowed the hint and gave up the contest. + +"Oh, very well," he conceded. "I presume you're trying to say there +isn't another tonga to be had and it can't be helped; but I don't like +your tone. However, there doesn't seem to be anything to do but take +you. How much for the two of us?" + +"Your servant, sahib? He cannot ride in this tonga," asserted the +driver impassively. + +"He can't! Why not?" + +"You can see there is room for but two, and I have yet another +passenger." + +"Where?" + +"At the first dak-bungalow, Sahib, where the mail-tonga broke down last +night. This tonga, which I say is an excellent tonga, an _aram_ tonga, +a tonga for ease, is sent to take its place. More than this, I am +bidden to go in haste; therefore there is little time for you to decide +whether or not you will go with me alone. As for your servant, he can +follow by this afternoon's mail tonga." + +Upon this ultimatum he stood, immovable; neither threats nor bribery +availed. It was an order, he said: he had no choice other than to obey. +Shabash! Would the sahib be pleased to make up his mind quickly? + +Perforce, the sahib yielded. "It'll be Labertouche; he's arranged +this," he told himself. "That loafer said he'd gone on ahead of us." +And comforted he issued his orders to Doggott, who received and acceded +to them with all the ill-grace imaginable. He was to remain and follow +to Kuttarpur by the afternoon's tonga. He forthwith sulked--and Amber, +looking round upon the little Tephet that was Badshah Junction, had not +the heart to reprove the man. + +"It's all very well, sir," said Doggott. "I carn't s'y anything, I +know. But, mark my words, sir--beggin' your pardon--there'll be trouble +come of this. That driver's as ill-favoured a scoundrel as ever I see. +And as for this 'ere ape, if 'e smiles at me just once more, I'll give +'im what-for." And he scowled so blackly upon the Eurasian that that +individual hastily sought the seclusion which the station granted. + +Amber left him, then, with a travelling-bag and a revolver for company, +and the ticket-agent and his bad temper to occupy his mind. + +Climbing aboard, the Virginian settled himself against the endless +discomforts of the ride which he foresaw; the tonga was anything but +"an _aram_ tonga--a tonga for ease," there was no shade and no breeze, +and the face of the land crawled with heat-bred haze. + +To a crisp crackling of the whip-lash over the backs of the two sturdy, +shaggy, flea-bitten ponies, the tonga swept away from the station, +swift as a hunted fox with a dusty plume. The station dropped out of +sight and the desert took them to its sterile heart. + +On every hand the long swales rolled away, sunbaked, rocky, innocent of +any sign of life other than the trooping telegraph poles in the south, +destitute of any sort of vegetation other than the inevitable ak and +gos. Wherever the eye wandered the prospect was the same--limitless +expanses of raw blistering ochres, salmon-pinks, and dry faded reds, +under a sky of brass and fire. + +Amber leaned forward, watching the driver's face. "Your name, +tonga-wallah?" he enquired. + +"Ram Nath, sahib." The man spoke without moving his head, attending +diligently to the management of his ponies. + +"And this other passenger, who awaits us at the dak-bungalow, Ram +Nath--is he, perchance, one known both to you and to me?" + +Ram Nath flicked the flagging ponies. "How should I know?" he returned +brusquely. + +"One," persisted Amber, "who might be known by such a name as, say, +Pink Satin?" + +"What manner of talk is this?" demanded Ram Nath. "I am no child to be +amused by a riddle. I know naught of your 'Pink Satin.'" He bent +forward, shortening his grasp upon the reins, as if to signify that the +interview was at an end. + +Amber sat back, annoyed by the fellow's impudence yet sensitive to a +suspicion that Ram Nath was playing his part better than his passenger, +that the rebuke was merited by one who had ventured to speak of secret +things in a land whose very stones have ears. For all that he could say +their every move was watched by invisible spies, of whom the +rock-strewn waste through which they sped might well harbour a hidden +legion.... But perhaps, after all, Ram Nath had nothing whatever to do +with Labertouche. Undeniable as had been his wink, it might well have +been nothing more than an impertinence. At the thought Amber's eyes +darkened and hardened and he swore bitterly beneath his breath. If that +were so, he vowed, the tonga-wallah would pay dearly for the +indiscretion. He set his wits to contrive a way to satisfy his doubts. + +Meanwhile the tonga rocked and bounded fiendishly over an infamous +parody of a road, turning and twisting between huge boulders and in and +out of pebbly nullahs, Ram Nath tooling it along with the hand of a +master. But all his attention was of necessity centred upon the ponies, +and presently his tulwar slipped from his knees and clattered upon the +floor of the tonga. Amber saw his chance and put his foot upon it. + +"Ram Nath," he asked gently, "have you no other arms?" + +"I were a fool had I not." The man did not deign to glance round. "He +hath need of weapons who doth traffick with the Chosen of the Voice, +sahib." + +"Ah, that Voice!" cried Amber in exasperation. "I grow weary of the +word, am Nath." + +"That may well be," returned the man, imperturbable. "None the less it +were well for you to have a care how you fondle the revolver in your +pocket, sahib. Should it by any chance go off and the bullet find +lodgment in your tonga-wallah, you are like to hear more of that Voice, +and from less friendly lips." + +"I think you have eyes in the back of your head, Ram Nath." Amber +withdrew his hand from his coat pocket and laughed shortly as he spoke. + +"There is a saying in this country, sahib, that even the stones in the +desert have ears to hear and eyes to see and tongues withal to tell +what they have seen and heard." + +"Ah-h!... That is a wise saying, Ram Nath." + +"There be those I could name who would do well to lay that saying to +heart, sahib." + +"You are right, indeed.... Now if there be aught of truth in that +saying, and if one were unwisely to speak a certain name, even +here----" + +"The echo of that name might be heard beyond the threshold of a certain +Gateway, sahib." + +Amber grunted and said no more, contented now with the assurance that +he was in truth in touch with Labertouche, that this Ram Nath was an +employee of the I.S.S. The wink was now explained away with all the +rest of the tonga-wallah's churlishness. Since there was a purpose +behind it all, the Virginian was satisfied to contain his curiosity. +Nevertheless he could not help thinking that there must be some +fantastic exaggeration in the excessive degree of caution that was thus +tacitly imposed upon him. + +He looked round him, narrowing his eyes against the sun-glare; and the +desert showed itself to his eyes a desert waste and nothing more. The +day lay stark upon its lifeless face and it seemed as if, within the +wide rim of the horizon, no thing moved save the tonga. They were then +passing rapidly over higher ground and seemed to have drawn a shade +nearer to the raw red northern hills. Amber would have said that they +could never have found a solitude more absolute. + +The thought was still in his mind when the tonga dipped unexpectedly +over another ridge, began to descend another long grade of dead, +parched earth, and discovered some distance ahead of them on the +wagontrack a cloud of dust like a tinted veil, so dense, opaque, and +wide and high that its cause was altogether concealed in its reddish, +glittering convolutions. But the Virginian knew the land well enough to +recognise the phenomenon and surmise its cause, even before his ears +began to be assailed by the hideous rasping screech of wheels of solid +wood revolving reluctantly on rough-hewn axles guiltless of grease. And +as the tonga swiftly lessened the distance, his gaze, penetrating the +thinning folds, discerned the contours of a cotton-wain drawn by twin +stunted bullocks, patient noses to the ground, tails a-switch. Beside +his cattle the driver plodded, goad in hand, a naked sword upon his +hip. Within his reach, between the rude bales of the loaded cart, the +butt of a brass-bound musket protruded significantly.... All men went +armed in that wild land: to do as much is one of the boons attendant +upon citizenship in an unprogressive, independent native State. + +Deliberately enough the carter swerved his beasts aside to make way for +the tonga, lest by undue haste he should make himself seem other than +what he was--a free man and a Rajput. But when his fierce, hawk-like +eyes encountered those of the dak traveller, his attitude changed +curiously and completely. Recognition and reverence fought with +surprise in his expression, and as Ram Nath swung the tonga past the +man salaamed profoundly. His voice, as he rose, came after them, +resonant and clear: + +"_Hail, thou Chosen of the Gateway! Hail_!" + +Amber neither turned to look nor replied. But his frown deepened. The +incident passed into his history, marked only by the terse comment it +educed from Ram Nath--words which were flung curtly over the +tonga-wallah's shoulder: "Eyes to see and ears to hear and a tongue +withal ... sahib!" + +The Virginian said nothing. But it was in his mind that he had indeed +thrust his head into the lion's mouth by thus adventuring into the +territory which every instinct of caution and common-sense proclaimed +taboo to him--the erstwhile kingdom of the Maharana Har Dyal Rutton. It +was, in a word, foolhardy--nothing less. But for his pledged word it +had been so easy to order Ram Nath to convey him back to Badshah +Junction to order and to enforce obedience at the pistol's point, if +needs be! Honour held him helpless, bound upon the Wheel of his +Destiny: he must and would go on.... + +He sat in silent gloom while sixty minutes were drummed out by the +flying hoofs. The hills folded in about the way, diverting it hither +and yon with raw, seamed spurs, whose flanks flung back harsh and heavy +echoes of the tonga's flight through riven gulch and scrub-grown +valley. And then it was that Ram Nath proved his mettle. Hardened +himself, he showed no mercy to his passenger, and never once drew rein, +though the tonga danced from rock to ridge and ridge to rut and back +again, like a tin can on the tail of an astonished dog. As for Amber, +he wedged his feet and held on with both hands, grimly, groaning in +spirit when he did not in the flesh, foreseeing as he did nine hours +more of this heroic torture punctuated only by brief respites at the +end of each stage. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE LONG DAY + + +One travels dak by relays casually disposed along the route at the whim +of the native contractor. Between Badshah Junction and Kuttarpur there +were ten stages, of which the conclusion of the first was at +hand--Amber having all but abandoned belief in its existence. + +Slamming recklessly down the bed of an ancient watercourse, the tonga +spun suddenly upon one wheel round a shoulder of the banks and dashed +out upon a rolling plain, across which the trail snaked to other +farther hills that lay dim and low, a wavy line of blue, upon the +horizon--the hills in whose heart Kuttarpur itself lay occult. And, by +the roadside, in a compound fenced with camel-thorn, sat an aged and +indigent dak-bungalow, marking the end of the first stage, the +beginning of the second. + +It wore a look of Heaven to the traveller. In the shade of its veranda +he read an urgent invitation to rest and surcease of sunlight. He +approved it thoroughly; the ramshackle rest-house itself, the sheds in +the rear for the accommodation of relays, the syce squatting asleep in +the sunshine, the few scrawny chickens squabbling and scratching over +their precarious sustenance in the deep hot dust of the compound, even +the broken tonga reposing with its shafts uplifted at a piteous angle +of decrepitude--all these Amber surveyed with a kindly eye. + +Ram Nath reined in with a flourish and lifted a raucous voice, hailing +the syce, while Amber, painfully disengaging his cramped limbs, climbed +down and stumbled toward the veranda. The abrupt transition from +violent and erratic motion to a solid and substantial footing affected +him unpleasantly, with an undeniable qualm; the earth seemed to rock +and flow beneath him as if under the influence of an antic earthquake. +He was for some seconds occupied with the problem of regaining his +poise, and it was not until he heard an Englishwoman's voice uplifted +in accents of anger, that he remembered the other wayfarer with whom he +was to share his tonga, or associated the white-clad figure in the dark +doorway of the bungalow with anything but the khansamah, coming to +greet and cheat the chance-brought guest. + +"Where is that tonga-wallah who deserted me here last night?" the woman +was demanding of Ram Nath, too preoccupied with her resentment to have +eyes for the other traveller, who at sight of her had stopped and +removed his pith helmet and now stood staring as if he had come from a +land in which there were no women. "Where," she continued, with an +imperative stamp of a daintily-shod foot, "is that wretched +tonga-wallah?" + +"Sahiba," protested Ram Nath, with a great show of deference, "how +should I know? Belike he is in Badshah Junction, whither ha returned +very late last night, being travel-worn and weary, and where I left +him, being sent with this excellent tonga to take his place." + +"You were? And why have I been detained here, alone and unprotected, +this long night? Simply because that other tonga-wallah was a fool, am +I to be imposed upon in this fashion?" + +"What am I," whimpered Ram Nath, "to endure the wrath of the sahiba for +a fault that is none of mine?" + +"I beg your pardon, sir," said the girl, turning to Amber, "but it is +very annoying." She looked him over, first with abstraction, then with +a puzzled gathering of her brows, for he was far from her thoughts--the +last person she would have expected to meet in that place, and very +effectually disguised in dust and dirt besides, "The tire came off the +wheel just as we got here, late yesterday evening, and in trying, or +pretending to try, to fit it on again, that block-head of a +tonga-wallah hammered the rim with a rock as big as his head and +naturally smashed it to kindling-wood. Then, before I could stop him, +he flung himself on the back of a pony and went away, saying that it +was the will of God that he should return to Badshah for a better +tonga. Since when I have had for company one stable-syce, one +deaf-and-dumb patriarch of a khansamah and ... the usual dak-bungalow +discomforts--insects, bad food, and a terrible fear of dacoits." + +"I am so sorry, Miss Farrell," Amber put in. "If I had only been +here...." + +The girl gave a little gasp and sat down abruptly in one of the veranda +chairs, thereby threatening it with instant demolition and herself with +a bad spill; for the chair was feeble with the burden of its many +years, and she was a quite substantial young person. Indeed, so loudly +did it croak a protest and a warning that she immediately arose in +alarm. + +"Mr. Amber!" she said; and, "Well ...!" + +"You'll forgive me the surprise?" he begged, going up on the veranda to +her. "I myself had no hope of finding you here." + +"But," she protested, with a pretty flush of colour--"but I left you in +the States such a little while ago!" + +"Yes?" he said gravely. "It seems so long to me.... And when you had +gone, Long Island was a very lonely place indeed," he added, with +calculated impudence. + +Her colour deepened and she sought another chair, seating herself with +gingerly decision. "I'm sure you don't mean me to assume that you've +followed me half round the world?" + +"Why not?" He brought another chair to face her. "Besides, I haven't +seen anything of ... India for a good many years." + +"Mr. Amber!" + +"Ma'am?" he countered with affected humility. + +"You're spoiling it all. I was so glad to see you--I'd have been glad +to see any white man, of course----" + +"Much obliged, I'm sure." + +"And now you're actually flirting with me--or pretending to." + +"I'm not," he declared soberly. "As a matter of solemn fact, I had to +come to India." + +"You _had_ to?" + +"On a matter of serious business. Please don't ask me what, just yet; +but it's very serious, to my way of thinking. This happy accident--I +count myself a very happy man to have been so fortunate--only makes my +errand the more pleasant." + +She regarded him intently, chin in hand, her brown eyes sedate with +speculation, for some time. "I believe you've been speaking in +parables," she asserted, at length. "If I'm unjust, bear with me; +appearances are against you. There isn't any reason I know of why you +should tell me what brought you here----" + +"There's every reason, in point of fact, Miss Farrell; only ... I can't +explain just now." + +"Very well," she agreed briskly; "let's be content with that. I am glad +to see you again, truly; and--we're to travel on to Kuttarpur in the +same tonga?" + +"If you'll permit----" + +"After what I've endured, this awful night, I wouldn't willingly let +you out of my sight." + +"Or any other white man?" + +She laughed, pleased. "I presume you're wondering what I'm doing here?" + +"You were to join your father in Darjeeling, I believe?" he countered, +cautious. + +"But I found he'd been transferred unexpectedly to Kuttarpur. So, of +course, I had to follow. I telegraphed him day before yesterday when I +was to arrive at Badshah Junction, and naturally expected he'd come in +person or have some one meet me, but I presume the message must have +gone astray. At all events there was no one there for me and I had to +come on alone. It's hardly been a pleasant experience; that incompetent +tonga-wallah behaved precisely as though he had deliberately made up +his mind to delay me.... And the tonga's nearly ready; I must lock my +kit-bag." + +She went into the bungalow, leaving him thoughtful, for perhaps.... But +the back of Ram Nath, as that worthy busied himself superintending the +harnessing in of fresh ponies, conveyed to him no support for his +half-credited hypothesis that this "accident" had been carefully +planned by Labertouche for Amber's especial benefit. + +He vexed himself with vain speculations, for it was perfectly certain +that he would get nothing in the way of either denial or confirmation +out of Ram Nath; and, presently, acknowledging this, he called the +khansamah and ordered a peg for the sake of the dust in his throat. + +The girl joined him on the veranda in due course, very demure and sweet +to look upon in her travelling-dress of light pongee and her pith +helmet, whose green under-brim and puggaree served very handsomely to +set off her fair colouring. If she overlooked the adoration of his +eyes, she was rather less than woman; for it was in them, plain to be +seen for the looking. The khansamah followed her from the bungalow, +staggering under the weight of her box and kit-bag, and with Ram Nath's +surly assistance made them fast to the front seat. While Amber gave the +girl his hand to help her to her place, and lifted himself to her side +in a mute glow of ecstasy. Fate, he thought with reason, was most kind +to him. + +They rattled headlong from the compound, making for the distant hills +of blue. The girl drew down her puggaree, with its soft, thin folds +sheltering the pure contours of her face from the dust and burning +sun-glare. He watched her hungrily, holding his breath as the thought +came to him that he was seated elbow to elbow with the woman who was to +be his wife, his hand still a-tingle with the reminiscence of her +gloved fingers that had touched it so transiently. She caught his +intent look and smiled, her eyes lustrous through the veiling. + +She was very tired after her night-long vigil, and after a few words of +commonplace as they drew away from the station, he forebore to weary +her with talk, and a silence as sweet as communion lengthened between +them as the stage lengthened. He was very intent upon her presence; the +consciousness of her there beside him seemed, at times, almost +suffocating. He could by no means forget that she had in a curious way +been assigned to him--set aside to be his wife, the partner of all his +days; and she tolerated him kindly, all unsuspicious of the +significance of his advent into her life.... If she were made to +suspect, to understand, what effect would it have upon their relations, +slight and but lately established as they were? Would she shrink from +or encourage him? + +His wife! He wagged his head in solemn stupefaction, trying to +appreciate the intangible, the chimerical dream of yesterday resolved +into the actuality of to-day; realising that, even when most intrigued +by the adventure of which she was at once the cause and the prize, even +though he had met and been charmed by her before becoming enmeshed in +its web of incident, he had thought of her with a faint trace of +incredulity, as though she had been a thing of fable, trapped with all +the fanciful charms of beleaguered fairy princesses, rather than a +living woman of flesh and fire and blood--such as she proved to be who +rode with him, her thoughts drowsily astray in the vastnesses of her +inscrutable, virginal moods. + +To think that she was foreordained to be his wife was not more +unbelievable than the consciousness that he, her undeclared lover, her +predestined mate and protector, was listlessly permitting her to delve +further into the black heart of a land out of which he had promised to +convey her with all possible speed, for the salvation of her body and +soul.... Yet what could he do, save be passive for the time, and wait +upon the turn of events? He could not, dared not seize her in his arms +and insist that she love him, marry him, fly with him--all within the +compass of an hour or even of a day. For words of love came haltingly +to his unskilled tongue, though they came from a surcharged heart, and +to him the strategy of love was as a sealed book, at whose contents he +could but guess, and that with a diffidence and distrust sadly +handicapping to one who had urgent need of expedition in his courting. + +With a rueful smile and a perturbed heart he pondered his problem. The +second stage wore away without a dozen words passing between them; so +also the third. The pauses were brief enough, the ponies being +exchanged with gratifying despatch. The tonga would pull up, Ram Nath +would jump down ... and in a brace of minutes or little more the +vehicle would be _en route_ again, Amber engaged with the infinite +ramifications of this labyrinthal riddle of his, and the girl +insensibly yielding to the need of sleep. She passed, at length, into +sound unconsciousness. + +Thus the morning stages flowed beneath the tonga, personified in a +winding ribbon of roadway, narrow, deep-rutted, inexpressibly dusty, +lined uncertainly over a scrubby, sun-scorched waste. Sophia napped +uneasily by fits and starts, waking now and again with a sleepy smile +and a fragmentary, murmured apology. She roused finally very much +refreshed for the midday halt for rest and tiffin, which they passed at +one of the conventional bungalows, in nothing particularly unlike its +fellows unless it were that they enjoyed, before tiffin, the gorgeous +luxury of plenty of clean water, cooled in porous earthen jars. Amber, +overwhelmed by the discovery of this abundance, promptly went to the +extreme of calling in the khansamah to sluice him down with jar after +jar, and felt like himself for the first time in five days when, shaved +and dressed, he returned to the common living-room of the resthouse. + +The girl kept him waiting but a little while. Lacking the attentions of +an ayah she had probably been unable to bathe so extensively as he, but +eventually she appeared in an immeasurably more happy state of body and +mind, calling up to him the simile, stronger than any other, of a tall, +fair lily after a morning shower. And she was in a bewitching humour, +one that ingenuously enough succeeded in entangling him more thoroughly +than ever before in the web of her fascinations. Over an execrable +curry of stringy fowl and questionable rice, eked out with tea and +tinned delicacies of their own, their chatter, at the beginning +sufficiently gay and inconsequent, drifted by imperceptible and +unsuspected gradations perilously close to the shoals of intimacy. And +subsequently, when they had packed themselves back into the narrow +tonga-seat and Again were being bounced and juggled breathlessly over +shocking roads, the exchange of confidences continued with unabated +interest. Amber on his part was led to talk of his life and work, of +his adventures in the name of Science, of his ambitions and +achievements. In return he received a vivid impression of the lives of +those women who share with their men the burden of official life in +British India: of serene days in the brisk, invigorating, clear +atmosphere of hill stations; of sunsmitten days and steaming nights in +the Deccan; of the uncertain, anchorless existences of those who know +not from one day to another when they may be whisked half across an +Empire at the whim of that awful force simply nominated Government.... + +For all the taint upon her pedigree, she proved herself to Amber at +heart a simple, lonely Englishwoman--a stranger in a sullen and +suspicious land, desiring nothing better than to return to the England +she had seen and learned to love, the England of ample lawns, of +box-hedges, and lanes, of travelled highways, pavements and gaslights, +of shops and theatres, of home and family ties.... + +But India she knew. "I sometimes fancy," she told him with the +conscious laugh that deprecates a confessed superstition, "that I must +have lived here in some past incarnation." She paused, but he did not +speak. "Do you believe in reincarnation?" Again he had no answer for +her, though temporarily he saw the daylight as darkness. "It's hard to +live here for long and resist belief in it.... But as a matter of fact +I seem to understand these people better than they're understood by +most of _my_ people. Don't you think it curious? Perhaps it's merely +intuition----" + +"That's the birthright of your sex," he said, rousing. "On the other +hand, you have to remember that your father is one of a family that for +generations has served the Empire. And your mother?" + +"She, too, came of an Anglo-Indian family. Indeed, they met and courted +here, though they were married in England.... So you think my insight +into native character a sort of birthright--a sense inherited?" + +"Perhaps--something of the sort." + +"You may be right. We'll never know. At all events, I seem to have a +more--more painful comprehension of the native than most of the English +in this country have; I seem to feel, to sense their motives, their +desires, aspirations, even sometimes their untranslatable thoughts. I +believe I understand perfectly their feeling toward us, the governing +race." + +"Then," said Amber, "you know something his Highness the Viceroy +himself would give his ears to be sure of." + +"I know that; but I do." + +"And that feeling is----?" + +"Not love, Mr. Amber." + +"Much to the contrary----?" + +"Very much," she affirmed with deep conviction. + +"This 'Indian unrest' one reads of in the papers is not mere gossip, +then?" + +"Anything but that; it's the hidden fire stirring within the volcano we +told ourselves was dead. The quiet of the last fifty years has been not +content but slumber; deep down there has always been the fire, slow, +deadly, smouldering beneath the ashes. The Mutiny still lives in +spirit; some day it will break out afresh. You must believe me--I +_know_. The more we English give our lives to educate the natives, the +further we spread the propaganda of discontent; day by day we're +teaching them to understand that we are no better than they, no more +fit to rule; they are beginning to look up and to see over the rim of +the world--and we have opened their eyes. They have learned that +Japanese can defeat Caucasians, that China turns in its sleep, that +England is no more omnipotent than omniscient. They've heard of anarchy +and socialism and have learned to throw bombs. Only the other day a +justice in Bengal was killed by a bomb.... I fancy I talk," the girl +broke off with her clear laugh, "precisely like my father, who talks +precisely as a political pamphleteer writes. You'll see when you meet +him." + +"Do you take much interest in politics?" + +"No more than the every-day Englishwoman; it's one of our staples of +conversation, when we've exhausted the weather, you know. But I'm not +in the least advanced, if that's what you mean; I hunger after +fashion-papers and spend more time than I ought, devouring home-made +trash imported in paper-covers. I only feel what I feel by instinct--as +I said awhile ago." + +Perhaps if he had known less about the girl, he would have attached +less importance to her statements. As it was, she impressed him +profoundly. He pondered her words deeply, storing them in his memory, +remembering that another had spoken in the same manner--one for whose +insight into the ways of the native he had intense respect. + +As the slow afternoon dragged out its blazing hours, their spirits +languished, and they fell silent, full weary and listless. Towards the +last quarter of the journey their road forsook the spacious, haggard +plain and again entered a hilly country, but this time one wherein +there was no lack either of water or of life: a green and fertile land +parcelled into farms and dotted with villages. + +Night overtook the tonga when it was close upon Kuttarpur, swooping +down upon the world like a blanket of darkness, at the moment that the +final relay of ponies was being hitched in. The sun dipped behind the +encircling hills; the west blazed with the lambent flame of fire-opal; +the wonderful translucent blue of the sky shaded suddenly to deep +purple lanced by great shafts of mauve and amethyst light, and in the +east stars popped out; the hills shone like huge, crude gems--sapphire, +jade, jasper, malachite, chalcedony--their valleys swimming with mists +of mother-of-pearl.... And it was night, the hills dark and still, the +sky a deeper purple and opaque, the ruddy fires of wayfarers on the +roadside leaping clear and bright. + +With fresh ponies the tonga took the road with a wild initial rush soon +to be moderated, when it began to climb the last steep grade to the +pass that gives access to Kuttarpur from the south. For an hour the +road toiled up and ever upward; steep cliffs of rock crowded it, +threatening to push it over into black abysses, or to choke it off +between towering, formidable walls. It swerved suddenly into a broad, +clear space. The tonga paused. Voluntarily Ram Nath spoke for almost +the first time since morning. + +"Kuttarpur," he said, with a wave of his whip. + +Aloof, austere and haughty, the City of Swords sits in the mouth of a +ravine so narrow that a wall no more than a hundred yards in length is +sufficient to seal its southerly approach. Beneath this wall, to one +side of the city gate, a river flows from the lake that is Kuttarpur's +chiefest beauty. Within, a multitude of dwellings huddles, all +interpenetrated by streets and backways so straitened and sinuous as +scarcely to permit the passage of an elephant from the Maharana's herd; +congested in the bottom of the valley, the houses climb tier upon tier +the flanking hillsides, until their topmost roofs threaten even the +supremacy of that miracle in white marble, the Raj Mahal. + +Northwards the palace of Khandawar's kings stands, exquisite, rare, and +marvellous, unlike any other building in the world. White, all white, +from the lake that washes its lowest walls to the crenellated rim of +its highest roof, it sweeps upward in breath-taking steps and wide +terraces to the crest of the western hill, into which it burrows, from +which it springs; a vast enigma propounded in white marble without a +note of colour save where the foliage of a hidden garden peeps over the +edge of a jealous screen--a hundred imposing mansions merged into one +monstrous and imperial maze. + +Impregnable in the old days, before cannon were brought to India, +Kuttarpur lives to-day remote, unfriendly, inhospitable. Within its +walls there is no room for many visitors; they who come in numbers, +therefore, must perforce camp down before the gates. + +Now figure the city to yourself, seeing it as Sophia was later to see +it in the light of day; then drench it with blue Indian night and stud +it with a myriad eyes of fire--lamps, torches, candles, blue-white +electric arcs, lights running up and down both hillsides and fringing +the very star-sheeted skies, clustering and diverging in vast, +bewildering, inconsequent designs, picking out the walls and main +thoroughfares, shining through coloured globes upon the palace +terraces, glimmering mysteriously from isolate windows and balconies; +and add to these the softly illuminated walls of a hundred silken state +marquees and a thousand meaner canvas tents arrayed south of the +city.... And that is Kuttarpur as it first revealed itself to Amber and +Sophia Farrell. + +But for a moment were they permitted to gaze in wonderment; Ram Nath +had little patience. When he chose to, he applied his whip, and the +ponies stretched out, the tonga plunging on their heels down the steep +hillside, like an ungoverned, ungovernable thing, maddened. Within a +quarter of an hour they were careering through the city of tents on the +parked plain before the southern wall. In five minutes more they drew +up at the main city gate to parley with the Quarter Guard. + +Here they suffered an exasperating delay. It appeared that the gates +were shut at sundown, in deference to custom immemorial. Between that +hour and sunrise none were permitted to pass either in or out without +the express sanction of the State. The commander of the guard +instituted an impudent catechism, in response to which Ram Nath +discovered the several identities and estates of his charges. The +commander received the information with impartial equanimity and +retired within the city to confer with his superiors. After some time a +trooper was sent to advise the travellers that the tonga would be +permitted to enter with the understanding that the unaccredited +Englishman (meaning Amber) would consent to lodge for the night in no +other spot than the State rest-house beyond the northern limits of the +city. + +Amber agreed. The trooper saluted with much deference and withdrew. And +for a long time nothing happened; the gates remained shut, the postern +of the Quarter Guard irresponsive to Ram Nath's repeated summons. His +passengers endured with what patience they could command; they were +aware that it was necessary to obtain from some quarter official +sanction for the opening of the gates, but they had understood that it +had already been obtained. + +Abruptly the peace of the night was shattered, and the hum of the +encampment behind them with the roar of the city before them was +dwarfed, by a dull and thunderous detonation of cannon from a terrace +of the palace. The tonga ponies, reared and plunged, Ram Nath mastering +them with much difficulty. Sophia was startled, and Amber himself +stirred uneasily on his perch. + +"What now?" he grumbled. "You'd think we were visitors of state and had +to be durbarred!" + +Far up on the heights a second red flame stabbed the night, and again +the thunder pealed. Thereafter gun after gun bellowed at imperative, +stately intervals. + +"Fifteen," Amber announced after a time. "Isn't this something +extraordinary, Miss Farrell?" + +"Perhaps," she suggested, "there's a native potentate arriving at the +northern gate. They're very punctilious about their salutes, you know." + +Another crash silenced her. Amber continued to count. "Twenty-one," he +said when it seemed that there was to be no more cannonading. "Isn't +that a royal salute?" + +"Yes," said the girl; "four more guns than the Maharana of Khandawar +himself is entitled to." + +"How do you explain it?" + +"I don't," she replied simply. "Can you?" + +He was dumb. Could it be possible that this imperial greeting was +intended for the man supposed to be the Maharana of Khandawar--Har Dyal +Rutton? He glanced sharply at the girl, but her face was shadowed; and +he believed she suspected nothing. + +A great hush had fallen, replacing the rolling thunder of the State +ordnance. Even the voice of the city seemed moderate, subdued. In +silence the massive gates studded with sharp-toothed elephant-spikes +swung open. + +With a grunt, Ram Nath cracked his whiplash and the tonga sped into the +city. Amber bent forward. + +"What's the name of that gate, Ram Nath--if you happen to know?" + +"That," said the tonga-wallah in a level voice, "is known as the +Gateway of Swords, sahib." He added in his own good time: "But not +_the_ Gateway of Swords." + +Amber failed to educe from him any satisfactory explanation of this +orphic utterance. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE PHOTOGRAPH + + +That same night Amber dined at the Residency, on the invitation of +Raikes, the local representative of Government, seconded by the +insistence of Colonel Farrell. It developed that Sophia's telegram had +somehow been lost in transit, and Farrell's surprise and pleasure at +sight of her were tempered only by his keen appreciation of Amber's +adventitious services, slight though they had been. He was urged to +stay the evening out, before proceeding to his designated quarters, and +the reluctance with which he acceded to this arrangement which worked +so happily with his desires, may be imagined. + +Their arrival coincided with the dinner-hour; the meal was held half an +hour to permit them to dress. Raikes put a room at Amber's disposal, +and the Virginian contrived to bathe and get into his evening clothes +within less time than had been allowed him. Sophia, contrary to the +habit of her sex, was little tardier. At thirty minutes past eight they +sat down to dine, at a table in the garden of the Residency. + +Ease of anxiety was more than food and drink to Amber; his feeling of +relief, to have convoyed Sophia to the company and protection of +Anglo-Saxons like himself, was intense. Yet he swallowed his +preliminary brandy-peg in a distinctly uncomfortable frame of mind, +strangely troubled by the reflection that round that lone white table +was gathered together the known white population of the State; a census +of which accounted for just five souls. + +In the encompassing, exotic gloom of that blue Indian night--the kind +of night that never seems friendly to the Occidental but forever teems +with hints of tragic mystery--the cloth, lighted by shaded candles, +shone as immaculate and lustrous as an island of snow in a sea of +ink--as a good deed in a naughty world. Its punctilious array of +crystal and silver was no more foreign to the setting than were the men +who sat round it, stiff in that black-and-white armour of civilisation, +impregnable against the insidious ease of the East, in which your +expatriate Englishman nightly encases himself wherever he may be, as +loath to forego the ceremony of "dressing for dinner" as he would be to +dispense with letters from Home. + +Raikes presided, a heavy man with the flaming red face of one who +constitutionally is unable to tan; of middle-age, good-natured, mellow, +adroit of manner. On his one hand sat Amber, over across from Sophia. +Next to Amber sat Farrell, tall and lean, sad of eye and slow of +speech, his sun-faded hair and moustache streaked with grey setting off +a dark complexion and thin, fine features. He wore the habit of +authority equally with the irascibility of one who temporizes with his +liver. Opposite him was a young, mild-eyed missionary, too new in the +land to have lost his illusions or have blunted the keen edge of his +enthusiasms; a colourless person with a finical way of handling his +knife and fork, who darted continually shy, sidelong glances at Sophia, +or interpolated eager, undigested comments, nervously into the +conversation. + +The table-talk was inconsequent; Amber took a courteous and easy part +in it without feeling that any strain was being put upon his +intelligence. His attention was centred upon the woman who faced him, +flushed with gaiety and pleasure, not alone because she was once more +with her father, but also because she unexpectedly was looking her +best. If she had been well suited in her tidy pongee travelling +costume, she found her evening gown no less becoming. It was a black +affair, very simple and individual; her shoulders rose from it with +intensified purity of tone, like fair white ivory gleaming with a +suggestion of the sleek sheen of satin; their strong, clean lines +rounded bewitchingly into the fair, slender neck upholding the young +head with its deftly coiffed crown of bronze and gold.... + +Tall, well-trained, silent servants moved like white-robed wraiths +behind the guests; the dishes of the many courses disappeared and were +replaced in a twinkling, as if by slight of hand. They were over +plentiful; Amber was relieved when at length the meal was over, and +Miss Farrell having withdrawn in conformance with inviolable custom, +the cloth was deftly whisked away and cigars, cigarettes, liqueurs, +whiskey and soda were served. + +Amber took unto himself a cigar and utilised an observation of the +Political's as a lever to swing the conversation to a plane more likely +to inform him. Farrell had grumbled about the exactions of his position +as particularly instanced by the necessity of his attending tedious and +tiresome native ceremonies in connection with the _tamasha_. + +"What's, precisely, the nature of this _tamasha_, Colonel Farrell?" + +"Why, my dear young man, I thought you knew. Isn't it what you came to +see?" + +"No," Amber admitted cautiously; "I merely heard a rumour that there +was something uncommon afoot. Is it really anything worth while?" + +"Rather," Raikes interjected drily; "the present ruler's abdicating in +favour of his son, a child of twelve. That puts the business in a class +by itself." + +"There's been one precedent, hasn't there?" said the missionary, +pretending to be at ease with a cigarette. "The Holkar of Indore?" + +"Yes," agreed Farrell; "a similar case, to be sure." + +"But why should a prince hand over the reins of government to a child +of twelve? There must be some reason for it. Isn't it known?" asked +Amber. + +"Who can fathom a Hindu's mind?" grunted Farrell. "I daresay there's +some scandalous native intrigue at the bottom of it. Eh, Raikes?" + +The Resident shook his head. "Don't come to this shop for information +about what goes on in Khandawar. I doubt if there's another Resident in +India who knows as little of the underhand devilment in his State as I +do. His Majesty the Rana loves me as a cheetah loves his trainer. He's +an intractable rascal." + +"They grease the wheels of the independent native States with +intrigue," Farrell explained. "I know from sore experience. And your +Rajput is the deepest of the lot. I don't envy Raikes, here." + +"The man who can guess what a Rajput intends to do next is entitled to +give himself a deal of credit," commented the Resident, with a short +laugh. + +"I've travelled a bit," continued Farrell, "and have seen something of +the courts of Europe, but I've yet to meet a diplomat who's peer to the +Rajput. You hear a great deal about the astuteness of the Russians and +the yellow races, and a Greek or Turk can lie with a fairly straight +face when he sees a profit in deception, but none of them is to be +classed with these people. If we English ever decide to let India rule +herself, her diplomatic corps will be recruited exclusively from the +flower of Rajputana's chivalry." + +"I'll back Salig Singh against the field," said Raikes grimly; "he'll +be dean of the corps, when that time comes. He'd rather conspire than +fight, and the Rajputs--of course you know--are a warrior caste. I've a +notion"--the Resident leaned back and searched the shadows for an +eavesdropper--"I've a notion," he continued, lowering his voice, "that +the Rana has got himself in rather deep in some rascality or other, and +wants to get out before he's put out. There's bazaar gossip.... Hmm! Do +you speak French, Mr. Amber?" + +"A little," said Amber in that tongue. "And I," nodded the missionary. +The talk continued in the language of diplomacy. + +"Bazaar gossip----?" Farrell repeated enquiringly. + +"There have been a number of deaths from cholera in the Palace lately, +the grand vizier's amongst them." + +"White arsenic cholera?" + +"That, and the hemp poison kind." + +"Refractory vizier?" questioned Farrell. "The kind that wants to +retrench and institute reforms--railways and metalled roads and so +forth?" + +"No; he was quite suited to his master. But the bazaar says Naraini +took a dislike to him for one reason or another." + +"Naraini?" queried Amber. + +"The genius of the place." Raikes nodded toward the Raj Mahal, shining +like a pearl through the darkness on the hill-side over against the +Residency. "She's Salig's head queen. At least that's about as near to +her status as one can get. She's not actually his queen, but some sort +of a heritage from the Rutton dynasty--I hardly know what or why. Salig +never married her, but she lives in the Palace, and for several +years--ever since she first began to be talked about--she's ruled from +behind the screen with a high hand and an out-stretched arm. So the +bazaar says." + +"I've heard she was beautiful," Farrell observed. + +"As beautiful as a peri, according to rumour. You never can tell; very +likely she's a withered old hag; nine out of ten native women are, by +the time they're thirty." Raikes jerked the glowing end of his cigar +into the shrubbery and reverted to English. "Shall we join Miss +Farrell?" + +They arose and left the table to the servants, the Resident with Amber +following Farrell and young Clarkson. + +"Old women we are, forever talking scandal," said Raikes, with a +chuckle. "Oh, well! it's shop with us, you know." + +"Of course.... Then I understand that the _tamasha_ is the reason for +the encampment beyond the walls?" + +"Yes; they've been coming in for a week. By to-morrow night, I daresay, +every rajah, prince, thakur, baron, fief, and lord in Rajputana, each +with his 'tail,' horse and foot, will be camped down before the walls +of Kuttarpur. You've chosen an interesting time for your visit. It'll +be a sight worth seeing, when they begin to make a show. My troubles +begin with a State banquet to-morrow that I'd give much to miss; +however, I'll have Farrell for company." + +"I'm glad to be here," said Amber thoughtfully. Could it be possible +that the proposed abdication of Salig Singh in favour of his son were +merely a cloak to a conspiracy to restore to power the house of Rutton? +Or had the _tamasha_ been arranged in order to gather together all the +rulers in Rajputana without exciting suspicion, that they might agree +upon a concerted plan of mutiny against the Sirkar? This state affair +of surpassing importance had been arranged for the last day of grace +allotted the Prince of the house of Rutton. What had it to do with the +Gateway of Swords, the Voice, the Mind, the Eye, the Body, the Bell? + +"By the way, Mr. Raikes," said the Virginian suddenly, "what do they +call the gate by which we entered the city--the southern gate?" + +"The Gateway of Swords, I believe." + +Farrell, on the point of entering the house, overheard and turned. "Is +that so? Why, I thought _that_ gateway was in Kathiapur." + +"I've heard of a Gateway of Swords in Kathiapur," Raikes admitted. +"Never been there, myself." + +"Kathiapur?" + +"A dead city, Mr. Amber, not far away--originally the capital of +Khandawar. It's over there in the hills to the north, somewhere. Old +Rao Rutton, founder of the old dynasty, got tired of the place and +caused it to be depopulated, building Kuttarpur in its stead--I +believe, to commemorate some victory or other. That sort of thing used +to be quite the fashion in India, before we came." Raikes fell back, +giving Amber precedence as they entered the Residency. "By the way, +remind me, if you think of it, Colonel Farrell, to get after the +telegraph-clerk to-morrow. There's a new man in charge--a Bengali +babu--and I presume he's about as worthless as the run of his kind." + +Amber made a careful note of this information; he was curious about +that babu. + +In the drawing-room Raikes and Farrell impressed Clarkson for +three-handed Bridge. Sophia did not care to play and Amber was ignorant +of the game--a defect in his social education which he found no cause +to regret, since it left him in undisputed attendance upon the girl. + +She had seated herself at a warped and discouraged piano, for which +Raikes had already apologised; it was, he said, a legacy from a former +Resident. For years its yellow keys had not known a woman's touch such +as that to which they now responded with thin, cracked voices; the +girl's fine, slender fingers wrung from them a plaintive, pathetic +parody of melody. Amber stood over her with his arms folded on the top +of the instrument, comfortably unconscious that his pose was copied +from any number of sentimental photogravures and "art photographs." His +temper was sentimental enough, for that matter; the woman was very +sweet and beautiful in his eyes as she sat with her white, round arms +flashing over the keyboard, her head bowed and her face a little +averted, the long lashes low upon her cheeks and tremulous with a +fathomless emotion. It was his thought that his time was momentarily +becoming shorter, and that just now, more than ever, she was very +distant from his arms, something inaccessible, too rare and delicate +and fine for the rude possession of him who sighed for his own +unworthiness. + +Abruptly she brought both hands down upon the keys, educing a jangled, +startled crash from the tortured wires, and swinging round, glanced up +at Amber with quaint mirth trembling behind the veil of moisture in her +misty eyes. + +"India!" she cried, with a broken laugh: "India epitomised: a homesick, +exiled woman trying to drag a song of Home from the broken heart of a +crippled piano! That is an Englishwoman's India: it's our life, ever to +strive and struggle and contrive to piece together out of makeshift +odds and ends the atmosphere of Home!... It's suffocating in here. +Come." She rose with a quick shrug of impatience, and led the way back +to the gardens. + +The table had been removed together with the chairs and candles; +nothing remained to remind them of the hour just gone. The walks were +clear of servants. Their only light came from the high arch of stars +smitten to its zenith with pale, quivering waves of light from the moon +invisible behind the hills. Below them the city hummed like a disturbed +beehive. Somewhere afar a gentle hand was sweeping the strings of a +_zitar_, sounding weird, sad chords. The perfumed languor of the night +weighed heavily upon the senses, like the woven witchery of some +age-old enchantment.... + +Pensive, the girl trained her long skirts heedlessly over the +dew-drenched grasses, Amber at her side, himself speechless with an +intangible, ineluctable, unreasoning sense of expectancy. Never, he +told himself, had a lover's hour been more auspiciously timed or +staged; and this was his hour, altogether his!... If only he might find +the words of wooing to which his lips were strange! He dared not delay; +to-morrow it might be too late; in the womb of the morrow a world of +chances stirred--contingencies that might in a breath set them a world +apart. + +They found seats in the shadow of a pepul. + +"You must be tired, Mr. Amber," she said. "Why don't you smoke?" + +"I hadn't thought of it, and hadn't asked permission." + +"Please do. I like it." + +He found his cigarette-case and struck a match, Sophia watching +intently his face in the rosy glow of the little, flickering flame. + +"Are you in the habit of indulging in protracted silences?" she rallied +him gently. "Between friends of old standing they're permissible, I +believe, but----" + +"A day's journey by tonga matures acquaintanceships wonderfully," he +observed abstrusely. + +"Indeed?" She laughed. + +"At least, I hope so." + +He felt that he must be making progress; thus far he had been no less +inane than any average lover of the stage or fiction. And he wondered: +was she laughing at him, softly, there in the shadows? + +"You see," she said, amused at his relapse into reverie, "you're +incurable and ungrateful. I'm trying my best to be attractive and +interesting, and you won't pay me any attention whatever. There must be +something on your mind. Is it this mysterious errand that brings you so +unexpectedly to India--to Kuttarpur, Mr. Amber?" + +"Yes," he answered truthfully. + +"And you won't tell me?" + +"I think I must," he said, bending forward. + +There sounded a stealthy rustling in the shrubbery. The girl drew away +and rose with a startled exclamation. With a bound, a man in native +dress sped from the shadows and paused before them, panting. + +Amber jumped up, overturning his chair, and instinctively feeling for +the pistol that was with his travelling things, upstairs in the +Residency. + +The native reassured him with a swift, obsequious gesture. "Pardon, +sahib, and yours, sahiba, if I have alarmed you, but I am come on an +errand of haste, seeking him who is known as the Sahib David Amber." + +"I am he. What do you want with me?" + +"It is only this, that I have been commissioned to bear to you, sahib." + +The man fumbled hurriedly in the folds of his surtout, darting quick +glances of apprehension round the garden. Amber looked him over as +closely as he could in the dim light, but found him wholly a +stranger--merely a low-caste Hindu, counterpart of a million others to +be encountered daily in the highways and bazaars of India. The +Virginian's rising hope that he might prove to be Labertouche failed +for want of encouragement; the intruder was of a stature the Englishman +could by no means have counterfeited. + +"From whom come you?" he demanded in the vernacular. + +"Nay, a name that is unspoken harms none, sahib." The native produced a +small, thin, flat package and thrust it into Amber's hands. "With +permission, I go, sahib; it were unwise to linger----" + +"There is no answer?" + +"None, sahib." The man salaamed and strode away, seeming to melt +soundlessly into the foliage. + +For a minute Amber remained astare. The girl's voice alone roused him. + +"I think you are a very interesting person, Mr. Amber," she said, +resuming her chair. + +"Well!... _I_ begin to think this a most uncommonly interesting +country." He laughed uncertainly, turning the package over and over. +"Upon my word----! I haven't the least notion what this can be!" + +"Why not bring it to the light, and find out?" + +He assented meekly, having been perfectly candid in his assertion that +he had no suspicion of what the packet might contain, and a moment +later they stood beneath the window of the Residency, from which a +broad shaft of light streamed out like vaporised gold. + +Amber held the packet to the light; it was oblong, thin, stiff, covered +with common paper, guiltless of superscription, and sealed with +mucilage. He tore the covering, withdrew the enclosure, and heard the +girl gasp with surprise. For himself, he was transfixed with +consternation. His look wavered in dismay between the girl and the +photograph in his hand--_her_ photograph, which had been stolen from +him aboard the _Poonah_. + +She extended her hand imperiously. "Give that to me, please, Mr. +Amber," she insisted. He surrendered it without a word. "Mr. Amber!" +she cried in a voice that quivered with wonder and resentment. + +He faced her with a hang-dog air, feeling that now indeed had his case +been made hopeless by this contretemps. "Confound Labertouche!" he +cried in his ungrateful heart. "Confound his meddling mystery-mongering +and hokus-pokus!" + +"Well?" enquired the girl sharply. + +"Yes, Miss Farrell." He could invent nothing else to say. + +"You--you are going to explain, I presume." + +He shook his head in despair. "No-o...." + +"What!" + +"I've no explanation whatever to make--that'd be adequate, I mean." + +He saw that she was shaken by impatience. "I think," said she +evenly--"I think you will find it best to let me judge of that. This is +my photograph. How do you come to have it? What right have you to it?" + +"I ... ah...." He stammered and paused, acutely conscious of the voices +of the Englishmen, Farrell, Raikes, and young Clarkson, drifting out +through the open window of the drawing-room. "If you'll be kind enough +to return to our chairs," he said, "I'll try to make a satisfactory +explanation. I'd rather not be overheard." + +The girl doubted, was strongly inclined to refuse him; then, perhaps +moved to compassion by his abject attitude, she relented and agreed. +"Very well," she said, and retaining the picture moved swiftly before +him into the shadowed garden. He lagged after her, inventing a hundred +impracticable yarns. She found her chair and sat down with a manner of +hauteur moderated by expectancy. He took his place beside her. + +"Who sent you this photograph of me?" she began to cross-examine him. + +"A friend." + +"His name?" + +"I'm sorry I can't tell you just now." + +"Oh!... Why did he send it?" + +"Because...." In his desperation it occurred to him to tell the +truth--as much of it, at least, as his word to Rutton would permit. +"Because it's mine. My friend knew I had lost it." + +"How could it have been yours? It was taken in London a year ago. I +sent copies only to personal friends who, I know, would not give them +away." She thought it over and added: "The Quains had no copy; it's +quite impossible that one should have got to America." + +"None the less," he maintained stubbornly, "it's mine, and I got it in +America." + +"I can hardly be expected to believe that." + +"I'm sorry." + +"You persist in saying that you got it in America?" + +"I must." + +"When?" + +"After you left the Quains." + +"How?" she propounded triumphantly. + +"I can't tell you, except vaguely. If you'll be content with the +substance of the story, lacking details, for the present----" + +"For the present? You mean you'll tell me the whole truth--?" + +"Sometime, yes. But now, I may not.... A dear friend of mine owned the +photograph. He gave it me at my request. I came to India, and on the +steamer lost it; in spite of my offer of a reward, I was obliged to +leave the boat without it, when we got to Calcutta. My friend here knew +how highly I valued it----" + +"Why?" + +"Because I'd told him." + +"I don't mean that. Why do you value it so highly?" + +"Because of its original." He took heart of despair and plunged boldly. + +She looked him over calmly. "Do you mean me to understand that you told +this friend you had followed me to India because you were in love with +me?" + +"Precisely.... Thank you." + +She laughed a little, mockingly. "Are you, Mr. Amber?" + +"In love with you?... Yes." + +"Oh!" She maintained her impartial and judicial attitude admirably. +"But even were I inclined to believe that, your whole story is +discredited by the simple fact that through no combination of +circumstances could this picture have come into your possession in +America." + +"I give you my word of honor, Miss Farrell." + +"I wish you wouldn't. If you are perfectly sincere in asserting that, +you force me to think you----" + +"Mad? I'm not, really," he argued earnestly. "It's quite true." + +"No." She shook her head positively. "You say you obtained it from a +man, which can't be so. There were only a dozen prints made; four I +gave to women friends in England and seven I sent to people out here. +The other one I have." + +"I can only repeat what I have already told you. There are gaps in the +story, I know--incredible gaps; they can't be bridged, just now. I beg +you to believe me." + +"And how soon will you be free to tell me the whole truth?" + +"Only after ... we're married." + +She laughed adorably. "Mr. Amber," she protested, "you are +dangerous--you are delightful! Do you really believe I shall ever marry +you?" + +"I hope so. I came to India to ask you--to use every means in my power +to make you marry me. You see, I love you." + +"And ... and when is this to happen, please--in the name of impudence?" + +"As soon as I can persuade you--to-night, if you will." + +"Oh!" + +He was obliged to laugh with her at the absurdity of the suggestion. +"Or to-morrow morning, at the very latest," he amended seriously. "I +don't think we dare wait longer." + +"Why is that?" + +"Delays are perilous. There might be another chap." + +"How can you be sure there isn't already?" + +He fell sober enough at this. "But there isn't, is there, really?" + +She delayed her reply provokingly. At length, "I don't see why I should +say," she observed, "but I don't mind telling you--no, there +isn't--yet." And as she spoke, Farrell called "Sophia?" from the window +of the drawing-room. She stood up, answering clearly with the assurance +that she was coming, and began deliberately to move toward the house. + +Amber followed, deeply anxious. "I've not offended you?" + +"No," she told him gravely, "but you have both puzzled and mystified +me. I shall have to sleep on this before I can make up my mind whether +or not to be offended." + +"And ... will you marry me?" + +"Oh, dear! How do I know?" she laughed. + +"You won't give me a hint as to the complexion of my chances?" + +She paused, turning. "The chances, Mr. Amber," she said without +affection or coquetry, "are all in your favour ... _if_ you can prove +your case. I do like you very much, and you have been successful in +rousing my interest in you to an astonishing degree.... But I shall +have to think it over; you must allow me at least twelve hours' grace." + +"You'll let me know to-morrow morning?" + +"Yes." + +"Early?" + +"You've already been bidden to breakfast by Mr. Raikes." + +"Meanwhile, may I have my photograph?" + +"Mine, if you please!... I think not; if my decision is favourable, you +shall have it back--after breakfast." + +"Thank you," he said meekly. And as they were entering the Residency he +hung back. "I'm going now," he said; "it's good-night. Will you +remember you've not refused me the privilege of hoping?" + +"I've told you I like you, Mr. Amber." Impulsively she extended her +hand. "Good-night." + +He bowed and put his lips to it; and she did not resist. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +OVER THE WATER + + +Ram Nath, patient and impassive as ever, had the tonga waiting for +Amber before the Residency. Exalted beyond words, the American +permitted himself to be driven off through Kuttarpur's intricate +network of streets and backways, toward a destination of which he knew +as little as he cared. He was a guest of the State, officially +domiciled at the designated house of hospitality; without especial +permission, obtained through the efforts of the Resident, he could +sleep in no other spot in the city or its purlieus. He was indifferent, +absolutely; the matter interested him as scantily--which is to say not +at all--as did the fact that an escort of troopers of the State, very +well accoutred and disciplined, followed the tonga with a great +jangling of steel and tumult of hoofs. + +He was in that condition of semi-daze which is the not extraordinary +portion of a declared lover revelling in the memory of his mistress's +eyes, whose parting look has not been unkind. Upon that glance of +secret understanding, signalled to him from eyes as brown as beautiful, +he was building him a palace of dreams so strange, so sweet, that the +mere contemplation of its unsubstantial loveliness filled him with an +exquisite agony of hope, a poignant ecstasy of despair. It was too much +to hope for, that she should smile upon him in the morning.... Yet he +hoped. + +Unconscious of the passage of time, he was roused only by the pausing +of the tonga and its escort before the Gateway of the Elephants--the +main octroi gate in the northern wall of the city. There ensued a brief +interchange of formalities between the sergeant of his escort and the +captain of the Quarter Guard. Then the tonga was permitted to pass out, +and for five minutes rattled and clattered along the border of the +lake, stopping finally at the rest-house. + +Alighting in the compound, Amber disbursed a few rupees to the +troopers, paid off Ram Nath--who was swift to drive off city-wards, in +mad haste lest the gates be shut upon him for the night--and entered +the bungalow. An aged, talkative, and amiable khansamah met him at the +threshold with expressions of exaggerated respect, no doubt genuine +enough, and followed him, a mumbling shadow, as the Virginian made a +brief round of inspection. + +Standing between the road and the water, the rest-house proved to be +moderately spacious and clean; on the lake-front it opened upon a +marble bund, or landing-stage, its lip lapped by whispering ripples of +the lake. Amber went out upon this to discover, separated from him by +little more than half a mile of black water, the ghostly white walls of +the Raj Mahal climbing in dim majesty to the stars. A single line of +white lights outlined the topmost parapet; at the water's edge a single +marble entrance was aglow; between the two, towers and terraces, +hanging gardens and white scarp-like walls rose in darkened confusion +unimaginable--or, rather, fell like a cascade of architecture, down the +hillside to the lake. A dark hive teeming with the occult life of +unnumbered men and women--Salig Singh the inscrutable and strong, +Naraini the mysterious, whose loveliness lived a fable in the land, and +how many thousand others--living and dying, working and idling, in joy +and sadness, in hatred and love, weaving forever that myriad-stranded +web of intrigue which is the life of native palaces ... + +The Virginian remained long in rapt wondering contemplation of it, +until the wind blowing across the waters had chilled him to the point +of shivering; when he turned indoors to his bed. But he was to have +little rest that night. The khansamah who attended him had hardly +turned low his light when Amber was disturbed by the noise of an angry +altercation in the compound. He arose and in dressing-gown and slippers +went to investigate, and found Ram Nath in violent dispute with the +sergeant of the escort--which, it appeared, had builded a fire and +camped round it in the compound: a circumstance which furnished food +for thought. + +Amber began to suspect that the troops had been furnished as a guard +less of honour than of espionage, less in formal courtesy than in +demonstration of the unsleeping vigilance of the Eye--kindly assisted +by the Maharana of Khandawar. + +A man who, warmed by the ardour of his first love, feels suddenly the +shadow of death falling cold upon him, is apt to neglect nothing. Amber +considered that he had given Ram Nath no commission of any sort, and +bent an attentive ear to the communication which the tonga-wallah +insisted upon making to him. + +Ram Nath had returned, he asserted, solely for the purpose of informing +Amber in accordance with his desires. "The telegraph-office for which +you enquired, sahib, stands just within the Gateway of the Elephants," +he announced. "The telegraph-babu will be on duty very early in the +morning, should you desire still to send the message." + +"Oh, yes," said Amber indifferently. "I'd forgotten. Thanks." + +He returned to his charpoy with spirits considerably higher. Ram Nath +had not winked this time, but the fact was indisputable that Amber had +_not_ expressed any interest whatever in the location of the +telegraph-office. + +Wondering if the telegraph-babu by any chance wore pink satin, he dozed +off on the decision that he would need to send a message the first +thing in the morning. + +Some time later he was a second time awakened by further disputation in +the compound. The troopers were squabbling amongst themselves; he was +able to make this much out in spite of the fact that the sepoys, +recruited exclusively from the native population of Khandawar, spoke a +patois of Hindi so corrupt that even an expert in Oriental languages +would experience difficulty in trying to interpret it. Amber did not +weary himself with the task, but presently lifted up his voice and +demanded silence, desiring to be informed if his sleep was to be +continually broken by the bickerings of sons of mothers without noses. +There followed instantaneous silence, broken by a chuckle and an +applausive "Shabash!" and nothing more. + +Amber snuggled down again upon his pillow and soothed himself with the +feel of the pistol that his fingers grasped beneath the clothes. + +A bar of moonlight slipped through the blinds and fell athwart his +eyes. He cursed it bitterly and got up and moved his charpoy into +shadow. The sibilant lisping of the wavelets against the bund sang him +softly toward oblivion ... and a convention of water-fowl went into +stormy executive session out in the middle of the lake. This had to be +endured, and in time Amber's senses grew numb to the racket and he +dropped off into a fitful doze.... + +Footfalls and hushed voices in the bungalow were responsible for the +next interruption. Amber came to with a start and found himself sitting +up on the edge of the charpoy, with a dreamy impression that two people +had been standing over him and had just left the room, escaping by way +of the khansamah's quarters. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and went +out to remonstrate vigorously with the khansamah. The latter naturally +professed complete ignorance of the visitation and dwelt with such +insistence upon the plausibility of dreams that Amber lost patience and +kicked him grievously, so that he complained with a loud voice and cast +himself at the sahib's feet, declaring that he was but as the dust +beneath them and that Amber was his father and mother and the light of +the Universe besides. In short, he raised such a rumpus that some of +the sepoys came in to investigate and--went out again, hastily, to +testify to their fellows that the hazoor was a man of fluent wrath, +surprisingly versed in the art and practice of abuse. + +Somewhat mollified and reflecting, at the same time, that this was all +but a part of the game, to be expected by those who patronise +rest-houses off the beaten roads of travel, the Virginian returned to +his charpoy and immediately lapsed into a singularly disquieting +dream.... He was strolling by the border of the lake when a coot swam +in and hailed him in English; and when he stopped to look the coot +lifted an A.D.T. messenger-boy's cap and pleaded with him to sign his +name in a little black book, promising that, if he did so, it would be +free to doff its disguise and be Labertouche again. So Amber signed +"Pink Satin" in the book and the coot stood up and said, "I'm not +Labertouche at all, but Ram Nath, and Ram Nath is only another name for +Har Dyal Rutton, and besides you had better come away at once, for the +Eye thou dost wear upon thy finger never sleeps and it's only a paste +Token anyway." Hearing which, Amber caught the coot by the leg and +found that he had grasped the arm of Salig Singh, whose eyes were both +monstrous emeralds without any whites whatever. And Salig Singh tapped +him on the shoulder and began to say over and over again in a whisper... + +But here Amber another time found himself wide awake and sitting up, +his left hand gripping the wrist of a native and his right holding his +pistol steadily levelled at the native's breast. While the voice he +heard was real and no figment of a dream-mused imagination; for the man +was whispering earnestly and repeatedly: + +"_Hasten, hazoor, for the night doth wane and the hour is at hand_." + +"What deviltry's this?" Amber demanded sharply, with a threatening +gesture. + +But the native neither attempted to free himself nor to evade the +pistol's mouth. "Have patience, hazoor," he begged earnestly, "and make +no disturbance. It is late and the sepoys sleep; if you will be +circumspect and are not afraid--" + +"Who are you?" + +"I was to say, '_I come from you know whom_,' hazoor." + +"That all?" + +"In the matter of a certain photograph, hazoor." + +"By thunder!" Labertouche's name was on Amber's lips, but he repressed +it. "Wait a bit." He gulped down the last dregs of sleep. "Let me think +and--see." + +This last was an afterthought. As it came to him he dropped the pistol +by his side and felt for matches in the pocket of his coat, which hung +over the back of a bedside chair. Finding one, he struck it noiselessly +and, as the tiny flame broadened, drew his captive nearer. + +It was a fat, mean, wicked face that stood out against the darkness: an +ochre-tinted face with a wide, loose-lipped mouth and protruding eyes +that blinked nervously into his. But he had never seen it before. + +"Who are you?" He cast away the match as its flame died and snatched up +his weapon. + +"I was to say--" + +"I heard that once. What's your name?" + +"Dulla Dad, hazoor." + +"And who are you from?" + +"Hazoor, I was not to say." + +"I think you'd better," suggested Amber, with grim significance. + +"I am the hazoor's slave. I dare not say." + +"Now look here--" + +"Hazoor, it was charged upon me to say, _'I come from you know whom.'_" + +"The devil it was.... Well, what do you want?" + +"I was to say, '_Hasten, hazoor, for the night--_" + +"I've heard that, too. You mean you're to lead me to somebody, +somewhere--you can't say where?" + +"Aye, hazoor, even so." + +"Get over there, in the corner, while I think this over--and don't move +or I'll make you a present of a nice young bullet, Dulla Dad." + +"That is as Allah wills; only remember, hazoor, the injunction for +haste." + +The man, a small stunted Mohammedan, sidled fearsomely over to the spot +indicated and waited there, cringing and supplicating Amber with +eloquent gestures. The Virginian watched him closely until comforted by +the reflection that, had murder been the object, he had been a dead man +long since. Then he put aside the revolver and began to dress. + +"Only Labertouche would have to communicate with me by such stealth," +he considered. "Besides, that reference to the photograph--" + +He slipped hurriedly into his clothing and ostentatiously dropped the +pistol into his right-hand coat-pocket. "I'm ready," he told the man. +"Lead the way; and remember, if there's any treachery afoot, you'll be +the first to suffer for it, Dulla Dad." + +The Mohammedan bowed submissively. "Be it so, my lord," he said in +Hindi, and, moving noiselessly with unshod feet, glided through the +door which opened upon the bund, Amber close behind him. + +That it was indeed late was shown by the position of the moon; and the +sweet freshness of early morning was strong in the keen air. The wind +had failed and the lake stretched flawless from shore to shore, a sheet +of untarnished silver. Over against them the palace slept, or seemed to +sleep, in its miraculous beauty, glacier-like with its shining surfaces +and deep, purple-shadowed crevasses. There were few lights visible in +the city, and the quiet of it was notable; so likewise with the wards +outside the walls and the lakeside palaces and villas. Only in a +distant temple a drum was throbbing, throbbing. + +In the water at their feet a light boat was gently nosing the marble +bund. Dulla Dad, squatting, drew it broadside to the steps and motioned +Amber to enter. The Virginian boarded it gingerly, seating himself at +the stern. Dulla Dad dropped in forward and pushed off. The boat moved +out upon the bosom of the lake with scarce a sound, and the native, +grasping a double-bladed paddle, dipped it gently and sent the frail +craft flying onward with long, swift, and powerful strokes, guiding it +directly toward the walls of the Raj Mahal. + +Two-thirds of the way across the Virginian surrendered to his mistrust +and drew his pistol. "Dulla Dad," he said gently; and the man ceased +paddling with a shudder--"Dulla Dad, you're taking me to the palace." + +"Yea, hazoor; that is true," the native answered, his voice quavering. + +"Who awaits me there? Answer quickly!" + +"Hazoor, it is not wise to speak a name upon the water, where voices +travel far." + +"Dulla Dad!" + +"Hazoor, I may not say!" + +"I think, Dulla Dad, you'd better. If I lose patience--" + +"Upon my head be your safety, hazoor! See, you can fire, and thereafter +naught can trouble me. But I, with a single sweep of this paddle, can +overturn us. Be content, hazoor, for a little time; then shall you see +that naught of harm is intended. My life be forfeit if I speak not +truth, hazoor!" + +"You have said it," said Amber grimly, "Row on." After all, he +considered, it might still be Labertouche. At first blush it had seemed +hardly credible that the Englishman could have gained a footing in that +vast pile; and yet, it would be like him to seek precisely such a +spot--the very heart of the conspiracy of the Gateway, if they guessed +aright. + +The boat surged swiftly on, while again and again Amber's finger +trembled on the trigger. Though already the white gleaming walls +towered above him, it was not yet too late--not too late; but should he +withdraw, force Dulla Dad to return, he might miss ... what? He did +nothing save resign himself to the issue. As they drew nearer the +moonlit walls he looked in vain for sign of a landing-stage, and +wondered, the lighted bund that he had seen from over the water being +invisible to him round an angle of the building. But Dulla Dad held on +without a pause until the moment when it seemed that he intended to +dash the boat bows first against the stone; then, with a final dextrous +twist of the paddle, he swung at a sharp angle and simultaneously +checked the speed. Under scant momentum they slid from moonlight and +the clean air of night into a close well between two walls, and then +suddenly beneath an arch and into a cavernous chamber filled with the +soft murmuring of water--and with darkness. + +Here the air was sluggish and heavy and dank with the odour of slime. +Breathing it, seeing nothing save the spectral gleam of moonlight +reflected inwards, hearing nothing save the uncanny lapping and purring +of the ripples, it was not easy to forget the tales men told of palace +corruption and crime--of lovers who had stolen thus secretly to meet +their mistresses, and who had met, instead, Death; of assassins who had +skulked by such stealthy ways to earn blood-money; of spies, of a +treacherous legion who had gained entry to the palace by such ways as +this--perhaps had accomplished their intent and returned to tell the +tale, perhaps had been found in the dawn-light, floating out there on +the lake with drawn, wan faces upturned to the pallid skies.... + +"Hazoor!" + +It was Dulla Dad's voice, sleek with fawning. For all the repulsiveness +of the accents, Amber was not sorry to hear them. At least the native +was human and ... this experience wasn't, hardly.... He leaned toward +the man, eyes aching with the futile strain of striving to penetrate +the blackness. He could see nothing more definite than shadows. The +boat was resting motionless on the tide, as if suspended in an abyss of +night, fathomless and empty. + +"Well, what now?" he demanded harshly. "Be careful, Dulla Dad!" + +"Still my lord distrusts me? There is naught to fear, none here to lift +hand against you. Your servant lives but to serve you in all loyalty." + +"Indeed?" + +"My lord may trust me." + +"It seems to me I have--too far." + +"My lord will not forget?" + +"Be sure of that, Dulla Dad.... Well, what are you waiting for?" + +"We are arrived, hazoor," said the native calmly. "If you will be +pleased to step ashore, having care lest you overturn the boat, the +steps are on your left." + +"Where?... Oh!" Amber's tentative hand, groping in obscurity, fell upon +a slab of stone, smooth and slippery, but solid. "You mean here?" + +"Aye, hazoor." + +"And what next?" + +"I am to wait to conduct you back to your place of rest." + +"Um-m. You are, eh?" Amber, doubtful, tried the stone again; it was +substantial enough; only the boat rocked. He struck a match; the +short-lived flame afforded him a feeble, unsatisfactory impression of a +long, narrow, vaulted chamber, whereof the floor was half water, half +stone. There was a landing to the left, a rather narrow ledge, with a +low, heavy door, bossed with iron, in the wall beyond. + +Shaking his head, he lifted himself cautiously out of the boat. "You +stay right there, Dulla Dad," he warned the native, "until I see what +happens. If I catch you trying to get away--the boat'll show up nicely +against the opening, you know--I'll give you cause for repentance." + +"I am here, hazoor. Turn you and knock upon the door thus"--rapping the +gunwale of the boat--"thrice." + +Amber obeyed, wrought up now to so high a pitch of excitement and +suspense that he could hardly have withdrawn had he wished to and been +able to force Dulla Dad to heed him. As he knuckled the third signal, +the door swung slowly inward, disclosing, in a dim glow of light, stone +walls--a bare stone chamber illumined by a single iron lamp hanging in +chains from the ceiling. Across the room a dark entry opened upon a +passageway equally dark. + +By the door a servant stood, his attitude deferential. As the +Virginian's gaze fell upon him he salaamed respectfully. + +Amber entered, his eyes quick, his right hand in his pocket and +grateful for the cold caress of nickelled steel, his body poised +lightly and tensely upon the balls of his feet--in a word, ready. +Prepared against the worst he was hopeful of the best: apprehensive, he +reminded himself that he had first met Labertouche under auspices +hardly more prepossessing than these. + +The clang of the door closing behind him rang hollowly in the +stillness. The warder moved past him to the entrance of the corridor. +Amber held him with a sharp question. + +"Am I to wait here?" + +"For a moment, Heaven-born!" He disappeared. + +Without a sound a door at Amber's elbow that had escaped his cursory +notice, so cunningly was it fitted in the wall, swung open, and a +remembered voice boomed in his ears, not without a certain sardonic +inflection: "Welcome, my lord, welcome to Khandawar!" + +Amber swung upon the speaker with a snarl. "Salig Singh!" + +"Thy steward bids thee welcome to thy kingdom, hazoor!" + +Dominating the scene with his imposing presence--a figure regal in the +regimentals of his native army--the Rajput humbled himself before the +Virginian, dropping to his knee and offering his jewelled sword-hilt in +token of his fealty. + +"Oh, get up!" snapped Amber impatiently. "I'm sick of all this damned +tomfoolery. Get up, d'you hear?--unless you want me to take that pretty +sword of yours and spank you with it!" + +A quiver, as of self-repression, moved the body of the man at his feet; +then, with a jangle of spurs, Salig Singh leaped up and stood at a +distance of two paces, his head high, his black eyes glittering +ominously with well-nigh the sinister brilliance of his vibrating +emerald aigrette. + +"My lord!" he cried angrily. "Are these words to use to one who offers +thee his heart and hand? Is this insolence to be suffered by a Rajput, +a son of Kings?" + +"As for that," returned Amber steadily, giving him look for look, "your +grandfather was a _bunia_ and you know it. Whether or not you're going +to 'suffer' what you call my insolence, I don't know, and I don't much +care. You've made a fool of me twice, now, and I'm tired of it. I give +you my word I don't understand why I don't shoot you down here and now, +for I believe in my heart you're the unholiest scoundrel unhung. Is +that language plain enough for you?" + +For an instant longer they faced one another offensively, Amber cool +enough outwardly and inwardly boiling with rage that he should have +walked into the trap with his eyes open, Salig Singh trembling with +resentment but holding himself in with splendid restraint. + +"As for me," continued Amber, "I suspect I'm the most hopeless ass in +the three Presidencies, if that's any comfort to you, Salig Singh. Now +what d'you want with me?" + +A shadowy smile softened the blackness of the Rajput's wrath. He +shrugged and moved his hands slightly, exposing their palms, subtly +signifying his submission. + +"Thou art my overlord," he said quietly, with a silky deference. "In +time thou wilt see how thou hast wronged me. For the present, I remain +thy servant. I harbour no resentment, I owe thee naught but loyalty. I +await thy commands." + +"The dickens you do!" Amber whistled inaudibly, his eyes narrowing as +he pondered the man. "You protest a lot, Salig Singh. If you're so much +at my service ... why, prove it." + +By way of reply Salig Singh lifted his sword in its scabbard from its +fastenings at his side and, with a magnificent gesture, cast it +clanking to the floor between them. A heavy English army-pattern +revolver followed it. The Rajput spread out his hands. "Thou art armed, +my lord," he said, "I, at thy mercy. If thou dost misjudge my purpose +in causing thee to be brought hither, my life is in thy hands." + +"Oh, yes." Amber nodded. "That's very pretty. But presuming I chose to +take it?" + +"Thou art free as the winds of the morning. See, then." Salig Singh +strode to the outer door and threw it open. "The way of escape is +clear--not even locked." + +The lamplight fell across the stone landing and made visible the +waiting boat with Dulla Dad sitting patiently at the oar. + +"I see," assented Amber. "Well?" + +Salig Singh shut the door gently. "Is there more to say?" he enquired. +"I have shown thee that thou art free." + +"Oh, so far as that goes, you've demonstrated pretty clearly that +you're not afraid of me. Of course I know as well as you do that at the +first shot Dulla Dad would slip out to the lake and leave me here to +die like a rat in a corner." + +"Thou knowest, lord, that no man in Khandawar would do thee any hurt. +Thy person is sacred--" + +"That's all bosh. You don't expect me to believe that you still stick +to that absurd fiction of yours--that I'm Rutton?" + +"Then mine eyes have played me false, hazoor. Shabash!" Salig Singh +bowed resignedly. + +"Well, then, what do you want? Why have you brought me here?" + +"Why didst thou come? There was no force used: thou didst come of thine +own will--thine own will, which is the will of the Body, hazoor!" + +"Oh, damnation! Why d'you insist on beating round the bush forever? You +know well why I came. Now, what do you want?" + +"My lord, I move, it seems, in the ways of error. A little time ago the +words of the Voice were made known to thee in a far land; thou didst +answer, coming to this country. A few days agone I myself did repeat to +you the message of the Bell; thou didst swear thou wouldst not answer, +yet art thou here in Kuttarpur. Am I to be blamed for taking this for a +sign of thy repentance?... Hazoor, the Body is patient, the Will +benignant and long-suffering. Still is the Gateway open." + +"Is that what you wanted to tell me, Salig Singh?" + +"What else? Am I to believe thee a madman, weary of life, that thou +shouldst venture hither with a heart hardened against the Will of the +Body? I seek but to serve thee in thus daring thy displeasure. Why +shouldst thou come to Bharuta [Footnote: India.] at all if thou dost +not intend to undergo the Ordeal of the Gateway? Am I a fool or--I say +it in all respect, my lord--art thou?" + +"From the look of things, I fancy the epithet fits us both, Salig +Singh. You refuse to take my word for it that I know nothing of your +infamous Gateway and have no intention of ever approaching it, that I +have not a drop of Indian blood in me and am in no way related to or +connected with Har Dyal Rutton, who is dead--" + +"I may not believe what I know to be untrue." + +"You'll have to learn to recognise the truth, I'm afraid. For the final +time I tell you that I am David Amber, a citizen of the United States +of America, travelling in India on purely personal business." + +The Rajput inclined his head submissively. "Then is my duty all but +done, hazoor. Thrice hath the warning been given thee. There be still +four-and-twenty hours in which, it may be, thou shalt learn to see +clearly. My lord, I ask of thee a single favour. Wilt thou follow me?" +He motioned toward the arched entrance to the passageway. + +"Follow thee?" Amber at length dropped into Urdu, unconsciously +adopting the easier form of communication now that, he felt, the issue +between them was plain, that the Rajput laboured under no further +misunderstanding as to the reason of his presence in Khandawar. +"Whither?" + +"There is that which I must show thee." + +"What?" + +"My life be forfeit if thou dost not return unharmed to the rest-house +ere sunrise. Wilt thou come?" + +"To what end, Salig Singh?" + +"Furthermore," the Rajput persisted stubbornly, his head lifted in +pride and his nostrils dilated a little with scorn--"furthermore I +offer thee the word of a Rajput. Thou are my guest, since thou wilt +have it so. No harm shall come to thee, upon my honour." + +Curiosity triumphed. Amber knew that he had exacted the most honoured +pledge known in Rajputana. His apprehensions were at rest; nothing +could touch him now--_until_ he had returned to the bungalow. Then, he +divined, it was to be open war--himself and Labertouche pitted against +the strength of the greatest conspiracy known in India since the days +of '57. But for the present, no pledge of any sort had been exacted of +him. + +"So be it," he assented on impulse. "I follow." + +With no other word Salig Singh turned and strode down the corridor. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +FROM A HIGH PLACE + + +The passageway was long and dark and given to sudden curves and angles, +penetrating, it seemed, the very bowels of the Raj Mahal. It ended +unexpectedly in a low arch through which the two men passed into an +open courtyard, apparently given over entirely to stables. Despite the +lateness of the hour it was tenanted by several wideawake syces, +dancing attendance upon a pair of blooded stallions of the stud royal, +who, saddled, bridled and hooded, pawed and champed impatiently in the +centre of the yard, making it echo with the ringing of iron on stone +and the jingling of their silver curb-chains. + +Salig Singh paused, with a wave of his hand calling Amber's attention +to the superb brutes. + +"Thou canst see, hazoor, that all is prepared!" + +"For what?" + +But Salig Singh merely smiled enigmatically, and shaking a patient +head, passed on. + +A second arch gave upon a corridor which led upwards and presently +changed into a steep flight of steps, of ancient stone worn smooth and +grooved with the traffic of generations of naked feet. At the top they +turned aside and passed through a deserted hanging garden, and then, +through a heavy door which Salig Singh unlocked with a private key, +into a vast, vacant room, with a lofty ceiling supported by huge, +unwieldy pillars of stone, sculptured with all the loves and wars of +Hindu mythology. At one end the fitful, eerie flare of a great bronze +brazier revealed the huge proportions of an ivory throne, gorgeous with +gems and cloth of gold, standing upon a dais and flanked by two +motionless figures which at first sight Amber took to be pieces of +statuary. But they quickened, saluting with a single movement and a +flash of steel, as the Maharana drew nearer, and so proved themselves +troopers of the State, standing guard with naked swords. + +"There is no need, perhaps, to tell thee, hazoor," Salig Singh +muttered, bending to Amber's ear, "that sitting upon this throne, in +this Hall of Audience, for generations thy forefathers ruled this land, +making and administering its laws, meting out justice, honoured of all +men--and served, my lord, for generations by my forebears, the faithful +stewards of thy House; even as I would prove faithful...." + +"Interesting," Amber interrupted brusquely, "if true. Is this what you +wanted to show me?" + +"Nay, hazoor, not this alone. Come." + +The Rajput led him out of the hall by way of a small doorway behind the +throne, and after a little turning and twisting through tortuous +passages they began to ascend again, and so went on up, ever upwards, +the flights of steps broken by other corridors, other apartments, other +galleries and gardens, until at length they emerged into a garden laid +out in the very topmost court of all--the loftiest spot in all +Kuttarpur. + +It was a very wonderful garden, a jungle of exotic plants and shrubs +threaded by narrow walks that led to secluded nooks and unsuspected +pleasaunces, and lighted by low-swung festoons of dim lamps, +many-coloured. A banian grew curiously in its midst, and there also +they found a great tank of crystal water with a bed of brilliant +pebbles over which small golden gleaming fish flashed and loitered. +Here, where the walls of acacia, orange, thuia and pepal shut out every +breath of wind, the air was dense with the cloying sweetness of +jasmine, musk and marigold.... + +"My lord," said the Maharana, pausing, "if thou wilt wait here for a +little, permitting me to excuse myself--?" + +"All right," Amber told him tolerantly. "Run along." + +Salig Singh quietly effaced himself, and the American watched him go +with an inward chuckle. "I presume I'll have to pay for my impudence in +the end," he thought; "but it's costing Salig Singh a good deal to hold +himself in." He was for the time being not ill-pleased with this phase +of his adventure; he had a notion that this must be a sort of very +private pleasure-ground of the rulers of Khandawar, and that very few, +if any, white people had ever been permitted to inspect it. What the +Maharana's next move would be he had not the least suspicion; but since +he must be content and abide the developments as they came, he was +minded to amuse himself. He moved away from the cistern, idling down a +path in a direction opposite that taken by Salig Singh. + +An abrupt turn brought him to the outer wall, and he stopped to gaze, +leaning upon the low marble balustrade. + +From his feet the wall fell away sheer, precipitous, a hundred feet or +more, to another hanging garden like that which lay behind him. From +this there was another stupendous drop. On all sides the marble walls +spread over the hillsides, descending it in great strides broken by +terraces, gardens, paved courts, all white and silver and deep violet +shadow, with here and there a window glowing softly yellow or a web of +saffron rays peeping through the intricacies of a carved stone lattice. +Far below, on the one hand, the lake lay like a sheet of steel; on the +other the city stretched, a huddle of flat roofs not unlike an armful +of child's building blocks. At that great height the effect was that of +peering over the upper lip of an avalanche of masonry on the point of +tumbling headlong down a mountainside to crush all beneath it. + +In the hush there rose to Amber a muted confusion of sounds--the +blended voices of the multitude that inhabited the hidden chambers of +the palace: the pawing and shrill neighing of the stallions in the +lower courtyard, a shivering clash of steel against steel, somewhere +the tinkle of a stringed instrument and a soft voice singing, a man's +accents weighty with authority, the ripple of a woman's laugh--all +relieved against an undertone like a profound sigh, waning and waxing: +the breathing of the Raj Mahal ... + +Amber turned away to rejoin Salig Singh by the cistern. But the Rajput +was not there; and, presently, another path tempting him to unlawful +exploration, he yielded and sauntered aimlessly away. A sudden corner +cloaked with foliage brought him to a little open space, a patch of +lawn over which a canopy had been raised. Beneath this, a woman sat +alone. He halted, thunderstruck. + +Simultaneously, with a soft swish of draperies, a clash of jewelled +bracelets, dull and musical, and a flash of coruscating colour, the +woman stood before him, young, slender, graceful, garbed in +indescribable splendour--and veiled. + +For the space of three long breaths the Virginian hesitated, +unspeakably amazed. Though she were veiled, it were deep dishonour for +a woman of a Rajput's household to be seen by a stranger. It seemed +inexplicable that Salig Singh should have wittingly left him in any +place where he might encounter an inmate of the zenana. Yet the +Maharana must have known.... Amber made an irresolute movement, as if +to go. But it was too late. + +With a murmur, inaudible, and a swift, infinitely alluring gesture, the +woman swept the veil away from her face, and looked him squarely in the +eyes. She moved toward him slowly, swaying, as graceful as a fawn, more +beautiful than any woman he had ever known. His breath caught in his +throat, for sheer wonder at this incomparable loveliness. + +Her face was oval without a flaw, and pale as newly-minted gold, with a +flush of red where the blood ran warm beneath the skin. Her hair was +black as ebony and finer than the finest silk, rich and lustrous; her +jet-black eyebrows formed a perfect arch. Her mouth was like a +passion-flower, but small and sweet, with lips full and firm and +scarlet. Her eyes were twin pools of darkness lighted with ardent inner +fire. They held him speechless and motionless with the beauty of their +unuttered desire, and before he could collect his wits she had made him +captive--had without warning cast herself upon her knees before him and +imprisoned both his hands, burying her face in their palms. He felt her +lips hot upon his flesh, and then--wonder of wonders!--tears from those +divine eyes streaming through his fingers. + +The shock of it brought him to his senses. Pitiful, dumfounded, +horrified, he glared wildly about him, seeking some avenue of escape. +There was no one watching: he thanked Heaven for that, while the cold +sweat started out upon his forehead. But still at his feet the woman +rocked, softly sobbing, her fair shoulders gently agitated, and still +she defied his gentle efforts to free his hands, holding them in a +grasp he might not break without hurting her. He found his tongue +eventually. + +"Don't!" he pleaded desperately. "My dear, you mustn't. For pity's sake +don't sob like that! What under the sun's the trouble? Don't, +please!... Good Lord! what am I to do with this lovely lunatic?" Then +he remembered that he had spoken in English and thoughtfully translated +the gist of his remonstrances, with as little effect as if he had +spoken to the empty air. + +Though in time the fiercest paroxysm of her passion passed and her sobs +diminished in violence, she clung heavily to him and made no resistance +when he lifted her in his arms. The error was fatal; he had designed to +get her on her feet and then stand away. But no sooner had he raised +her and succeeded in disengaging his hands, than soft round arms were +clasped tightly about his neck and her face--if possible, more +ravishing in tears than when first he had seen it--pillowed on his +breast. And for the first time she spoke coherently. + +"_Aie_!" she wailed tremulously. "_Aie_! Now is the cup of my happiness +full to brimming, now that thou hast returned to me at last, O my lord! +Well-nigh had I ceased to hope for thee, O Beloved; well-nigh had this +heart of mine grown cold within my bosom, that had no nourishment save +hope, save hope! Day and night I have watched for thy coming for many +years, praying that thou shouldst return to me ere this frail +prettiness of mine, that made thee love me long ago, should wane and +fade, so that thy heart should turn to other women, O my husband!" + +"Husband! Great--Heavens! Look here, my dear, hadn't you better come to +your senses and let me go before--" + +"Let thee go, _Lalji_, ere what? Ere any come to disturb us? Nay, but +who should come between husband and wife in the first hour of their +reunion after many years of separation? Is it not known--does not all +Khandawar know how I have waited for thee, almost thy widow ere thy +wife, all this weary time?... Or is it that thy heart hath forgotten +thy child-bride? Am I scorned, O my Lord--I, Naraini? Is there no love +in thy bosom to leap in response to the love of thee that is my life?" + +She released him and whirled a pace or two away, draperies swirling, +jewels scintillating cold fire in hopeless emulation of the radiance of +her tear-gemmed eyes. + +"Naraini?" stammered Amber, recalling what he had heard of the woman. +"Naraini!" + +"Aye, my lord, Naraini, thy wedded wife!" The rounded little chin went +up a trifle and her eyes gleamed angrily. "Am I no longer thy Naraini, +then? Or wouldst thou deny that thou art Har Dyal, my king and my +beloved? Hast thou indeed forgotten the child that was given thee for +wife when thy father reigned in Khandawar and thou wert but a boy--a +boy of ten, the Maharaj Har Dyal? Hast thou forgotten the little maid +they brought thee from the north, _Lalji_--the maiden who had grown to +womanhood ere thy return from thy travels to take up thy father's +crown?... _Aie_! Thou canst never forget, Beloved; though years and the +multitude of faces have come between us as a veil, thou dost +remember--even as thou didst remember when the message of the Bell came +to thee across the great black waters, and thou didst learn that the +days of thy exile were numbered, that the hour approached when again +thou shouldst sit in the place of thy fathers and rule the world as +once they ruled it." + +A denial stuck in Amber's throat. The words would not come, nor would +they, he believed, have served his purpose could he have commanded +them. If he had found no argument wherewith to persuade Salig Singh, he +found none wherewith to refute the claim of this golden-faced woman who +recognised him for her husband. He was wholly dismayed and aghast. But +while he lingered in indecision, staring in the woman's face, her look +of petulance was replaced by one of divine forgiveness and compassion. +And she gave him no time to think or to avoid her; in a twinkling she +had thrown herself upon him again, was in his arms and crushing her +lips upon his. + +"Nay," she murmured, "but I did wrong thee, Beloved! Perchance," she +told him archly, "thou didst not think to see me so soon, or in this +garden? Perchance surprise hath robbed thee of thy wits--and thy tongue +as well, O wordless one? Or thou art overcome with joy, as I am +overcome, and smitten dumb by it, as I am not? _Aho, Lalji!_ was ever a +woman at loss for words to voice her happiness?" And nestling to him +she laughed quietly, with a note as tender and sweet as the cooing of a +wood-dove to its mate. + +"Nay, but there is a mistake." He recovered the power of speech +tardily, and would have put her from him; but she held tight to him. "I +am not thy husband, nor yet a Rajput. I come from America, the far land +where thy husband died.... Nay, it doth pain me to hurt thee so, Ranee, +but the mistake is not of my making, and it hath been carried too far. +Thy husband died in my presence--" + +"It is so, then!" she cut him short. And his arms were suddenly empty, +to his huge relief. "Indeed they had warned me that thou wouldst tell +this story and deny me--why, I know not, unless it be that thou art +unworthy of thy lineage, a coward and a weakling!" Her small foot +stamped angrily and on every limb of her round body bracelets and +anklets clashed and shimmered. "And so thou hast returned only to +forswear me and thy kingdom, O thou of little spirit!" The scarlet lips +curled and the eyes grew cold and hard with contempt. "If that be so, +tell me, why hast thou returned at all? To die? For that thou must +surely come to, if it be in thy mind to defy the behests of the Voice, +thou king without a kingdom!... Why, then, art thou here, rather than +running to hide in some far place, thinking to escape with thy +worthless life--worthless even to thee, who art too craven to make a +man's use of it--from the Vengeance of the Body?... Dost think I am to +be tricked and hoodwinked--I, in whose heart thine image hath been +enshrined these many weary years?" + +"I neither think, nor know, nor greatly care, Ranee," Amber interposed +wearily. "Doubtless I deserve thine anger and thy scorn, since I am not +he who thou wouldst have me be. If death must be my portion for this +offence, for that I resemble Har Dyal Rutton ... then it is written +that I am to die. My business here in Khandawar hath concern neither +with thee, nor with the State, not yet with the Gateway of Swords--of +the very name of which I am weary.... Now," and his mouth settled in +lines of unmistakable resolve, "I will go; nor do I think that there be +any here to stop me." + +He wheeled about, prepared to fight his way out of the palace, if need +be. Indeed, it was in his mind that a death there were as easy as one +an hour after sunrise; for he had little doubt but that he was to die +if he remained obdurate, and the hospitality of the Rajput would cease +to protect him the moment he set foot upon the marble bund of his +bungalow. + +But the woman sprang after him and caught his arm. "Of thy pity," she +begged breathlessly, "hold for a space until I have taken thought.... +Thou knowest that if what thou hast told me be the truth, then am I +widow before my time--widowed and doomed!" + +"Doomed?" + +"Aye!" And there was real terror in her eyes and voice. "Doomed to +_sati_. For, since I am a widow--since thou dost maintain thou art not +my husband--then my face hath been looked upon by a man not of mine own +people, and I am dishonoured. Fire alone can cleanse me of that +defilement--the pyre and the death by flame!" + +"Good God! you don't mean that! Surely that custom has perished!" + +"Thou shouldst know that it dieth not. What to us women in whose bodies +runs the blood of royalty, is an edict of your English Government? +What, the Sirkar itself to us in Khandawar?" She laughed bitterly. "I +am a Rohilla, a daughter of kings: my dishonour may be purged only by +flame. _Arre_! that I should live to meet with such fate--I, Naraini, +to perish in the flower of my beauty.... For I am beautiful, am I not?" +She dropped the veil which instinctively she had caught across her +face, and met his gaze with childish coquetry, torn though she seemed +to be by fear and disappointment. + +"Thou art assuredly most beautiful, Ranee," Amber told her, with a +break in his voice, very compassionate. And he spoke simple truth. "Of +thy kind there is none more lovely in the world ..." + +"There was tenderness then in your tone, my lord!" she caught him up +quickly. "Is there no mercy in thy heart for me?... Who is this woman +across the seas who hath won thy love?... Aye, even that I know--that +thou dost love this fair daughter of the English. Didst thou not lose +the picture of her that was taken with the magic-box of the sahibs?... +Is it for her sake that thou dost deny me, O my husband? Is she more +fair than I, are her lips more sweet?" + +"I am not thy husband," he declared vehemently, appalled by her +reversion to that delusion. "Till this hour I have never seen thee; nor +is the sahiba of any concern to thee. Let me go, please." + +But she had him fast and he could not have shaken her off but with +violence. He had been a strong man indeed who had not been melted to +tenderness by her beauty and her distress. She lifted her glorious face +to him, pleading, insistent, and played upon him with her voice of +gold. "Yet a moment gone thou didst tell me I was greatly gifted with +beauty. Have I changed in thine eyes, O my king? Canst thou look upon +this poor beauty and hear me tell thee of my love--and indeed I am +altogether thine, _Lalji_!--and harden thy heart against me?... What +though it be as thou hast said? What though thou art of a truth not of +the house of Rutton, nor yet a Rajput? Let us say that this is so, +however hard it be to credit: even so, am _I_ not reward enough for thy +renunciation?" + +"I know not thy meaning, Ranee, I--" + +"Come, then, and I will show thee, my king. Come thou with me.... Nay, +why shouldst thou falter? There is naught for thee to fear--save me." +She tugged at his hand and laughed low, in a voice that sang like +smitten glasses. "Come, Beloved!" + +Unwillingly, he humoured her. This could not last long.... The woman +half led, half dragged him to the northern boundary of the garden, +where they entered a little turret builded out from the walls over an +abyss fully three-hundred feet in depth. And here, standing upon the +verge of the parapet, with naught but a foot high coping between her +and the frightful fall, utterly fearless and unutterably lovely, +Naraini flung out a bare, jewelled arm in an eloquent gesture. + +"See, my king!" she cried, her voice vibrant, her eyes kindling as they +met his. "Look down upon thy kingdom. North, south, east, west--look!" +she commanded. "Wherever thine eyes may turn, and farther than they can +see upon the clearest day, this land is all thine ... for the taking. +Look and tell me thou hast strength to renounce it ... and me, +Beloved!" + +A little giddy with the consciousness of their perilous height, his +breath coming harshly, he looked--first down to the lake that shone +like a silver dollar set in velvet, then up the misty distances of the +widening valley through which ran the stream that fed the lake, and out +to the hills that closed it in, miles away, and then farther yet over +the silvered summits of the great, rough hills that rolled away +endlessly, like a sea frozen in its fury. + +"There lies thy kingdom, O my king!" The bewitching voice cooed +seduction at his shoulder. "There and ... here." She sought his hand +and placed it firmly upon her bosom, holding it there with gentle +pressure until he felt the thumping of her heart and the warm flesh +that heaved beneath a shred of half-transparent lace. + +Reddening and a little shaken, he snatched his hand away. And she +laughed chidingly. + +"From the railway in the north to the railway in the south, all the +land is Khandawar, Beloved: thine inheritance--thine for the taking ... +even as I am thine, if thou wilt take me.... Look upon it, thy father's +kingdom, then upon me, thy queen.... Yea!" she cried, throwing back her +head and meeting his gaze with eye languorous beneath their heavy +silken lashes. "Yea, I am altogether thine, my king! Wilt thou cast me +aside, then, who am faint with love for thee?... Never hast thou +dreamed of love such as the love that I bear for thee. How could it be +otherwise, when thou hast passed thy days in the chill exile of the +North? O my husband, turn not from me--" + +He pulled himself together and stood away. "Madam," he said with an +absurdly formal bow, "I am not your husband." + +She opened her arms with infinite allure. "It is so little that is +asked of thee--only to ascend thy father's throne and be honoured of +all Bharuta, only to wield the sceptre that is thine by right, only to +reign an undisputed king in two kingdoms--Khandawar and thy Naraini's +heart!" + +"I am very sorry," he returned with the same preciseness. "It is quite +impossible. Besides, it seems that you leave the Sirkar altogether out +of your calculations. It may not have occurred to you that the Supreme +Government of India may have something to say about the contemplated +change." + +He saw her bite her lips with chagrin, and the look she flashed to his +face was anything but kind and tender. "_Arre!_" she laughed +derisively. "And of what account is this frail, tottering Sirkar's will +besides the Will of the Body? Of what avail its dicta against the +rulings of the Bell? Thou knowest--" + +"Pardon, I know nothing. I have told thee, Ranee, that I am not Har +Dyal Rutton." + +She was mistress of a thousand artifices. Brought to a standstill on +the one line of attack, she diverged to another without the quiver of +an eyelash to betray her discomfiture. + +"Yea, thou hast told me," she purred. "But I, Naraini, _I_ know what I +know. Thou dost deny thyself even as thou dost deny me, but ... art +thou willing to be put to the proof, my king?" + +"If you've any means of proving my identity, I would thank you for +making use of it, Ranee." + +"There is the test of the Token, _Lalji_." + +"I am not aware of it." + +"The test of the Token--the ring that was brought to thee, the signet +of thy House. Surely thou hast it with thee?" + +Since that night in Calcutta Amber had resumed his habit of carrying +the Token in the chamois bag. Now, on the reflection that it had been +given him for a special purpose, which had been frustrated by the death +of Dhola Baksh, so that he had no further use for it, he decided +against the counsels of prudence. "What's the odds," he asked himself, +"if I do lose it? I don't want the damn' thing--it's brought me nothing +but trouble, thus far." And he thrust a hand within his shirt and +brought forth the emerald. "Here it is," he told the woman cheerfully. +"Now this test?" "Place it upon thy finger--so, even upon thy little +finger, as was thy father's wont with it. Now lift up thine arm, so, +and turn the stone to the west, toward Kathiapur." + +Without comprehension he yielded to this whim, folding up his right arm +and turning the emerald to the quarter indicated by Naraini. + +The hour had drawn close upon dawn. A cold air breathed down the valley +and was chill to them in that lofty eyrie. The moon, dipping towards +the rim of the world, was poised, a globe of dull silver, upon the +ridge of a far, dark hill. As they watched it dropped out of sight and +everything was suddenly very bleak and black. + +And a curious thing happened. + +Naraini cried out sharply--"_Aho_!"--as if unable to contain her +excitement. + +Somewhere in the palace behind them a great gong boomed like thunder. + +A pause ensued, disturbed only by the fluttering of the woman's breath: +for the space of thirty pulse-beats nothing happened. Then Naraini's +fingers closed like bands of steel about Amber's left wrist. + +"See!" she cried in a voice of awe, while the bracelets shivered and +clashed upon her outstretched arm, "The Eye, my king, the Eye!" + +Amber shut his teeth upon an exclamation of amaze. For just above the +far, dark mountain ridge, uncannily brilliant in the void of the pale, +moonlit firmament, a light had blazed out; a vivid emerald light, +winking and stabbing the darkness with shafts of seemingly supernatural +radiance. + +"And thy ring, lord--look! The Token!" + +The great emerald seemed to have caught and to be answering the light +Naraini called the Eye; in the stone's depths an infernal fire leaped +and died and leaped again, now luridly blazing, now fitfully a-quiver +as though about to vanish, again strong and steady: even as the light +of the strange emerald star above the mountains ebbed and flowed +through the night. + +Naraini shuddered and cried out guardedly for very fear. "By Indur, it +is even as the Voice foretold! Nay, Heaven-born"--she caught his sleeve +and forcibly pulled down his hand--"tempt not the Unseen further. And +put away this Token, lest a more terrible thing befall us. There be +mysteries that even we of the initiate may not comprehend, my lord. It +is not well to meddle with the unknown." + +The ring was off his finger now and the woman was cramming it into his +coat-pocket with tremulous hands. And where the Eye had shone, the sky +was blank. They stood in darkness, Amber mute with perplexity, Naraini +clinging to his arm and shaking like a reed in the wind. + +"Now am I frightened, lord of my heart! Lead me back to the garden, for +I am but a woman and afraid. Who am I, Naraini, to see the Eye? What am +I, a weak woman, to trespass upon the Mysteries? I am very much afraid. +Do thou take me hence and comfort me, my king!" She drew his arm about +her waist, firm, round, and slender, and held it so, her body yielding +subtly to his, her head drooping wearily upon his shoulder. + +They moved slowly from the turret and back along the lighted walks of +the garden, the woman apparently content, Amber preoccupied--to tell +the truth, more troubled than he would have been willing to confess. As +for the intimacy of their attitude, he was temporarily careless of it; +it meant less to him than the woman guessed. It seems likely that she +inferred a conquest from his indifference, for when they had come back +to the tank of the gold-fish beneath the banian she slipped from his +embrace and confronted him with a face afire with elation. + +"See now how thou art altogether controverted, _Lalji!_" she cried +joyfully. "No longer canst thou persist that thou art other than thy +true self, the lord of Naraini's heart, the king returned to his +kingdom.... For who would dare give the lie to the Eye?... Indeed," she +continued with a low, sighing laugh, "I myself had begun to doubt, my +faith borne down and overcome by thy repeated denials; but now I know +thee. Did not the Bell foretell that the Eye should be seen of men only +when Har Dyal Rutton had returned to his kingdom, and then only when he +wore the Token? Even as it was said, so has it been.... And now art +thou prepared to go?" + +"Whither?" + +"To Kathiawar--even to the threshold of the Gateway?... There is yet +time, before the dawn, and it were wise to go quickly, my king; but for +one night more is the Gateway open to receive thee. Thou didst see the +saddled stallions in the courtyard? They wait there for thee, to bear +thee to Kathiawar.... Nay, it were better that thou shouldst wait, +mayhap, for the hours be few before the rising of the sun. Go then to +thy rest, heart of my heart, since thou must leave me; and this night +we shall ride, thou and I, together to the Gateway." + +"So be it," he assented, with a grave inclination of his head. +Convinced of the thanklessness of any further attempt to convince the +woman against her will, he gave it up, and was grateful for the respite +promised him. In twelve or eighteen hours he might accomplish +much--with the aid of Labertouche. At worst he would find some means to +communicate with the Farrells and then seek safety for himself in +flight or hiding until what he had come to term "that damned +Gateway-thing" should be closed and he be free to resume his strange +wooing. Some way, somehow, he could contrive to extricate himself and +his beloved. + +Therefore he told the woman: "Be it so, O Queen! Now, I go." + +"And leave me," she pouted prettily, "with no word but that, my king? +Am I not worth a caress--not even when I beg for it?" + +He smiled down at her, tolerant and amused, and impulsively caught her +to him. "The point's well taken," he said. "Decidedly you're worth it, +Naraini. And if you were not, the show was!" + +And he kissed and left her, all in a breath. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +SUNRISE FOR TWO + + +I + +Amber found his way out of the garden without difficulty; at the +doorway an eunuch waited. The Maharana himself, perhaps in deference to +the dictates of discretion, did not reappear, and Amber had no desire +to see him again. He was eager only to get away, to find a place and +time to think, and to get into communication with Labertouche. + +The eunuch bowed submissively to his demand to be shown out, and +silently led him down through the echoing marble corridors and +galleries of the many-tiered palace. They took a different way from +that by which Amber had ascended; had his life depended on it, he could +not have found his way back to the garden of Naraini, but by accident. + +As they passed through the lower court of stables he remarked the fact +that the stallions were being led away to their stalls. The +circumstances confirmed Naraini's statement; the hour of their +usefulness was ended for the day--or, rather, for the night. + +The Virginian wondered dully if ever he would find himself astride one +of the superb animals. After what he had witnessed and been a part of +there was for him no longer any circumscribing horizon to the world of +possibility. For him the improbable no longer existed. He had met the +incredible face to face and found it real. + +In the cavern-like chamber at the water-level Dulla Dad had the boat in +readiness. Amber embarked, not without a sigh of relief, and the +Mohammedan with his double-bladed paddle drove the boat out of the +secret entrance, in an impassive silence. In the stern Amber watched +the indefinite grey light of dawn wavering over the face of the waters +and wondered ... + +The boat swung in gently to the marble steps of the bund. Amber rose +and stepped ashore, very tired and very much inclined to believe he +would presently wake up to a sane and normal world. + +"Hazoor," the voice of Dulla Dad hailed him. He turned. "Hazoor, I was +to say that at the third hour after sunset to-night this boat will be +in waiting here. You are to call me by name, and I will put in for you, +hazoor." + +"What's that? I don't understand.... Oh, very well." + +"And I was to say further, my lord, these words: 'You shall find but +one way to Kathiapur.'" + +Amber shook his head, smiling. "If you don't mind getting yourself +disliked on my account, Dulla Dad, you may take back to the author of +that epigram this answer: 'You shall find but one way to Jehannum, and +that right speedily.' Good-morning, Dulla Dad." + +"The peace of God abide always with the Heaven-born!" + +With a single, strong stroke the creature of the palace sent the boat +skimming far out from the bund, and, turning, headed for the palace. + +Amber entered the bungalow, to find the khansamah already awake and +moving about. At the Virginian's request he shuffled off to prepare +coffee--much coffee, very strong and black and hot, Amber stipulated. +He needed the stimulant badly. He was sleepy and his head was in a +whirl. + +He sat lost in thought until the khansamah brought the decoction, then +roused and drank it as it came from the pot, without sugar, gulping +down huge bitter mouthfuls of the scalding black fluid. But the effect +that he expected and desired was strangely long in making itself felt. +He marvelled at his drowsiness, nodding and blinking over his empty +cup. Out of doors the skies were hot and blue--white with forerunners +of the sun, and the world of men was stirring and making preparation +against the business of the day; but Amber, who had a work so serious +and so instant to his hand, sat on in dreamy lethargy, musing.... + +The faces of two women stood out vividly against the misty formless +void before his eyes: the face of Naraini and that of Sophia Farrell. +He looked from one to the other, stupidly contrasting them, trying to +determine which was the lovelier, until their features blurred and ran +together and the two became as one and ... + +The khansamah tiptoed cautiously into the room and found the Virginian +sleeping like a log, his head upon the table. His face was deeply +coloured with crimson, as if a fever burned him, and his breathing was +loud and stertorous. + +Pausing, the native beckoned to one who skulked without, and the latter +entering, the two laid hold of the unconscious man and bore him to the +charpoy. The second native slipped silver money into the khansamah's +palm. + +"He will sleep till evening," he said. "If any come asking for him, say +that he has gone abroad, leaving no word. More than this you do not +know. The sepoys have an order to prevent all from entrance." + +The khansamah touched his forehead respectfully. "It is an order. +Shabash!" he muttered. + +A shaft of sunlight struck in through the window and lay stark upon the +sleeper's face. He did not move. The khansamah drew close the shades, +and with the other left the room in semi-dusk. + + +II + +Beneath the spreading banian, by the cistern of the goldfish, Naraini +with smouldering eyes watched Amber disappear in the wilderness of +shrubbery. He walked as a man with a set purpose, never glancing back. +She laughed uneasily but waited motionless where he had left her, until +the echo of his boot-heels on the marble slabs had ceased to ring in +the neighbouring corridor. Then, lifting a flower-like hand to her +mouth, she touched her lips gently and with an air of curiosity. The +resentment in her eyes gave place to an emotion less superficial. "By +Indur and by Har!" she swore softly. "In one thing at least he is like +a Rajput: he kisses as a man kisses." + +She moved indolently along the walk to the rug beneath the canopy where +he had found her, her lithe, languid, round body in its gorgeous +draperies no whit less insolent than the flaming bougainvillea whose +glowing magenta blossoms she touched with idle fingers as she passed. + +The east was grey with dusk of dawn--a light that grew apace, making +garish the illumination of the flickering, smoking, many-coloured lamps +in the garden. Naraini clapped her hands. Soft footsteps sounded in the +gallery and one of her handmaidens threaded the shrubbery to her side. + +"The lamps, Unda," said the queen; "their light, I think, little +becomes me. Put them out." And when this was done, she composedly +ordered her pipe and threw herself lazily at length upon a pile of +kincob cushions, her posture the more careless since she knew herself +secure from observation; the garden being private to her use. + +When the tire-woman had departed, leaving at Naraini's side a small +silver _huqa_ loaded with fine-cut Lucknow weed, a live ember of +charcoal in the middle of the bowl, she sat up and began to smoke, her +face of surpassing loveliness quaintly thoughtful as she sucked at the +little mouthpiece of chased silver and exhaled faint clouds of aromatic +vapour. From time to time she smiled pensively and put aside the tube +while she played with the rings upon her slender, petal-like fingers; +five rings there were to each hand, from the heavy thumb circlet that +might possibly fit a man's little finger to the tiny band that was on +her own, all linked together by light strands of gold radiating from +the big, gem-encrusted boss of ruddy gold midway between her slim round +waist and dimpled knuckles.... + +The tread of boots with jingling spurs sounded in the gallery, warning +her. She sighed, smiled dangerously to herself, and carelessly adjusted +her veil, leaving rather more than half her face bare. Salig Singh +entered the garden and found his way to her, towering over her beneath +the canopy, brave in his green and tinsel uniform. She looked up with a +listless hauteur that expressed her attitude toward the man. + +"_Achcha_!" she said sharply. "Thou art tardy, Heaven-born. Yet have I +waited for thee this half-hour gone, heavy with sleep though I +be--waited to know the pleasure of my lord." + +There was a mockery but faintly disguised in her tone. The Maharana +seemed to find it not unpleasant, for he smiled grimly beneath his +moustache. + +"There was work to be done," he said briefly--"for the Cause. And +thou--how hast thou wrought, O Breaker of Hearts?" + +The woman cast the silver mouthpiece from her and clasped her hands +behind her head. "Am I not Naraini?" + +"The man is ours?" + +"Mine," she corrected amiably. His face darkened with a scowl of +jealousy and she laughed in open derision. "Were I Naraini could I not +divine the heart of a man?" + +"By what means?" + +"What is that to thee, O Heaven-born?" She snuggled her body +complacently into the luxurious pile of cushions. "If I have +accomplished the task thou didst set for me, what concern hast thou +with the means I did employ? Thou art only Salig Singh, Maharana of +Khandawar, but I am Naraini, a free woman." + +"Thou--!" Rage choked the Rajput. "Thou," he sputtered--"thou art--" + +"Softly, Heaven-born, softly--lest I loose a thunderbolt for thy +destruction. Is it wise to forget that Naraini holds thy fate in the +hollow of her hands?" She sat forward, speaking swiftly and with +malice. "Thou art pledged to produce Har Dyal Rutton in the Hall of the +Bell before another sunrise, and none but Naraini knows to what a +perilous resort thou art driven to redeem thy word." + +"I was lied to," he argued sullenly. "A false tale was brought me--by +one who hath repented of his error! If I was told that Har Dyal Rutton +would be in India upon such-and-such a day, am I to blame that I did +promise to bring him to the Gateway?" + +"And seeing that the man is dead, art thou to blame for bringing in his +place a substitute, even so poor a changeling as this man Amber? Nay, +be not angry; do I blame thee? Have I done aught but serve thee to the +end thou dost desire?... Thou shouldst be grateful to me, rather than +menace me with thine anger.... And," she added sweetly, "it were well +for thee that thou shouldst bear always in mind my intimacy with thy +secret. If thou art king, then am I more than queen, in Khandawar." + +"I am not angry, Naraini," he told her humbly, "but mad with love for +thee--" + +"And lust, my lord, for--power," she interpolated. + +"But if what thou hast said be true--" + +"'Who lies to the King, is already a dead man.' Why should I trouble to +deceive thee, Heaven-born? I tell thee, the man is won. The day shall +declare it: this night will he ride with me to Kathiapur. Why didst +thou not tarry to eavesdrop? Indeed thou hast lost an opportunity that +may never a second time be thine--to learn of the wiles of woman." + +"There was work to be done," he repeated. "I went to take measures +against thy failure." + +"O thou of little faith!" + +"Nay, why should I neglect proper precautions? Whether thy confidence +be justified or no, this night will Har Dyal Rutton--or one like +him--endure the Ordeal of the Gateway." + +"So I have told thee," she assented equably. "He will come, because +Naraini bids him." + +"It may be so. If not, another lure shall draw him." + +She started with annoyance. "The Englishwoman of the picture?" + +"Have I named her?" He lifted his heavy brows in affected surprise. + +"Nay, but--" + +"Secret for secret," he offered: "mine for thine. Is it a bargain, O +Pearl of Khandawar?" + +"Keep thy silly secret, then, as I will keep mine own counsel," she +said, with assumed disdain. It was no part of wisdom, in her +understanding, to tell him of her interview with Amber. A man's +jealousy is a potent weapon in a woman's hands, but must be wielded +with discretion. + +He was persistent: "I will back my plan against thine, Ranee." + +"So be it," she said shortly. "Whichever wins, the stake is won for +both. What doth it matter?" + +She rose and moved impatiently down the walk and back again, bangles +tinkling, jewels radiant on wrist and brow, ankle and bosom. The man +watched her with sulky eyes until she turned, then bent his head and +stood glowering at the earth and twisting his moustache. She paused +before him, hands on hips, and raised her eyes in silent inquiry. He +pretended not to notice her. She sighed with a pretence of humility +thinly disguised. "Thy trouble, my lord?" she rallied him. + +"I have wondered," he said heavily: "will he pass?" + +"If not, it were well for thee to die this night, O Heaven-born." + +"That was my thought." + +"Thou hast little need to worry, lord." Woman-like she shifted to suit +his humour. "He is a man: I answer for that, though ... he is no fool. +Still, when the hour strikes, what he must, that will he endure for the +sake of that which Naraini hath promised him." + +"Or for another," Salig Singh growled into his beard. + +"I did not hear." + +"I said naught. I am distraught." + +"Be of good heart," she comforted him still further. "If he doth fail +to survive the Ordeal--Har Dyal Rutton hath died. If he doth survive--" + +"Har Dyal Rutton shall die within the hour," Salig Singh concluded +grimly. "But ... I am troubled. I cannot but ask myself continually: +Were it not wiser to confess failure and abide the outcome?" + +"How long wouldst thou abide the outcome, my king, after thou hadst +informed the Council of this deception to which thou hast been too +willing and ready a party?... He who misled you died a dog's death. But +thou--art thou in love with death?" + +"Unless thy other name be Death, Naraini ..." + +"Or if the Council should spare thee--as is unlikely? The patience of +the Body is as the patience of Kings--scant; and its mercy is like unto +its patience.... But say thou art spared: what then? How long art thou +prepared to wait until the Members of the Body shall again be in such +complete accord as now? When again shall all Hindustan be ripe for +revolt?... _Aho!_ Thou wouldst have sweet patience in the waiting, +Salig Singh!... Let matters rest as they be, my lord"--this a trace +imperiously. "Leave the man to me: I stand sponsor for him until the +Gateway shall have received him and--and perhaps for a little +afterwards." + +"Thou art right as ever." He lifted his gaze to meet hers and his eyes +flamed. "I leave my life on your knees, Naraini. I love thee and ... by +all the gods, thou art altogether a woman!" + +"And thou ... a man, your Highness?" she countered provokingly. "Nay!" +she continued, evading him with a supple squirm, "be content until this +affair be consummated. Wait until the time when an empress shall reign +over all Bharuta and thou, my lord, shall be her Minister of State." + +The man's voice shook. "That hour is not far off, my queen. Thou wilt +not keep me waiting longer?" + +She gave him the quick promise of her eyes. "Thou shouldst know--thou +of all men, my lord.... But see!" It was necessary to distract him and +she seized hastily upon the first pretext. "The last day of the old +order dawns ... and the dawn is crimson, my lord, as with blood!" Her +soft scarlet lips curled thirstily and showed her teeth, small, sharp +and white as pearls. "I think," she added with somber conviction, "this +omen is propitious!" + +She swept away from him, toward the parapet. He took a single step in +pursuit and halted, following her with a glance that was at once a +caress and a threat. + +She paused only when she could go no further, and stood in silent +waiting. + +Deep down in the valley the city was stirring from its sleep; the dull +and peaceful humming of its hived hordes rose to her, pulsating in the +still air. Above the eastern ridge the sky was hot and angry, banded +with magenta, scarlet, and cadmium, and shot with expanding shafts of +fierce radiance, like ribs of a fan of fire. In a long and breathless +instant of suspense the hilltops blushed with the glare and threw down +the light to the night mists swimming in the valley, rendering them +opalescent, as with a heart of flame. + +With eyes half-veiled by long languorous lashes the woman threw back +her head until her swelling throat was tense. She raised her arms and +stretched them wide. The sun, soaring suddenly, a crimson disk above +the ridge, seemed to strike fire from her strange, savage beauty as +from a jewel. Bathed in its ruddy glare she seemed to embody in her +frail, slight form all that was singular to that cruel, passionate land +of fire and steel. Her face became suffused, her blood leaping in +response to the ardour of the sun. + +Her parted lips moved, but the man, who had drawn near enough to hear, +caught two words only. + +"_Naraini!... Empress!_" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE WAY TO KATHIAPUR + + +Gall and wormwood in his mouth, more bitter than remorse, Amber became +conscious. Or perhaps it were more true to say that he struggled out of +unconsciousness, dragging his ego back by main will-power from the deep +oblivion of drugged slumber. One by one his faculties fought their way +past the barrier, until he was fully sentient, save that his memory +drowsed. His head was hot and heavy, his eyes burned in their sockets +like balls of live charcoal, a dulled buzzing sounded in his ears, his +very heart felt sore and numb; he was as one who wakes from evil dreams +to the blackness of foreknown despair. + +He lay for a time without moving. Because it was dark and his memory +not working properly, time had ceased to be for him, and to-day was as +yesterday and to-morrow. The ceiling-cloth above him was blood-red with +light from the sepoys' fire in the compound, and all was as it had been +when he had first lain down the night before. And yet.... + +Suddenly he raised himself upon the charpoy and called huskily for the +khansamah. Promptly the squat white figure that he remembered appeared +in the doorway. "Bring lights," Amber ordered, peremptory. + +"Bring lights quickly--and water." And when the man had returned with a +lamp, which he put on the table, Amber seized the red earthenware +water-jug and drained it greedily. Returning it, empty, to the brown +hands, he motioned to the man to wait, while he consulted his watch. It +had run down. He thrust it back into his pocket and enquired: "What's +o'clock?" + +"Eight of the evening, sahib." + +Amber gasped and stared. "Eight of the ... Let me think. Go and bring +me food and a brandy-peg--or, hold on! Bring a bottle of soda-water and +a glass only." + +The khansamah withdrew. Amber fell back with his shoulders to the wall +and stared unwinking at the lamp. He distinctly remembered undressing +before going to bed; he now found himself fully clothed. He felt of his +pocket, and found the emerald ring there, instead of in its chamois +case. Then it had not been a nightmare! + +He had a bottle of brandy which had never been uncorked, in his +travelling-kit. Rising, he found it and inspected the cork narrowly to +make sure it had not been tampered with; then he drew it. + +The khansamah returned with the glass and an unopened bottle of +Schweppe's, and prepared the drink under eyes that watched him +narrowly. While Amber drank he laid a place for him at the table. When +he left the room a second time the Virginian produced his automatic +pistol and satisfied himself that it remained loaded and in good +working order. + +In the course of a few minutes the native reappeared with a tray of +food and pot of coffee. These arranged, he stood by the chair, ready to +serve the guest. Then he found himself looking into the muzzle of +Amber's weapon, and became apparently rigid with terror. + +"Sahib--!" + +"Make no outcry, dog, and tell me no lies, if you value your +contemptible life. Why did you drug me--at whose instance?" + +"Sahib!..." + +"Answer me quickly, son of vipers!" + +"By Dhola Baksh, hazoor, I am innocent! Another has done these +things--he who served you last night, belike, and whose place I have +taken." + +Now the oaths of India are many and various, so that a new specimen +need not be held wonderful. But Amber sat bolt upright, his eyes +widening and his jaw dropping. "Dhola--!" he said, and brought his +teeth together with an audible click, staring at the khansamah as if he +were a recrudescence of a prehistoric mammal. He caught a motion of the +head and a wave of the hand toward the window, warning him that there +might be an eavesdropper lurking without, and rose admirably to the +emergency. + +"That is a lie, misbegotten son of an one-eyed woman of shame! By the +Gateway at Kathiapur, that is a lie! Speak, brother of jackals and +father of swine, lest my temper overcome me and I make carrion of you!" + +"My lord, hear me!" protested the man in an extremity of fright. "These +be the words of truth. If otherwise, let my head be forfeit.... Early +in the morning you returned from the lake, heavy with sleep, and so +soundly have you slept since that hour that no effort of mine could +rouse you, though many came to the door, making inquiry. I am Ram Lal, +a true man, and no trafficker in drugs and potions." + +"Even so!" said Amber, ironic. "But if, on taking thought, I find +you've lied to me ... Go now and hold yourself fortunate in this, that +I am not a man of hasty judgment." + +"Hazoor!" Like a shadow harried by a wind of night, the khansamah +scurried from the room. But on the threshold he paused long enough to +lay a significant finger upon his lips and nod toward the table. + +Amber put away his pistol, sighed from the bottom of his soul, and, +seating himself, without the least misgiving, broke his long fast with +ravenous appetite, clearing every dish and emptying the coffee pot of +all save dregs. Then, with a long yawn of satisfaction, repletion, and +relief, he lighted a cigarette and stretched himself, happily conscious +of returning strength and sanity. + +From the khansamah's quarters came an occasional clash of crockery and +pattering of naked feet. Outside, in the compound, the sepoys were +chattering volubly; their words were indistinguishable, but from their +constantly increasing animation Amber inferred that they were keenly +relishing the topic of discussion. He became sure of this when, at +length, his curiosity roused, he went to the window and peered out +between the wooden slats of the blind. The little company was squatting +in a circle round the fire, and a bottle was passing from hand to hand. + +He turned back, puzzled, to find the khansamah calmly seated at the +table and enjoying one of Amber's choicest cigarettes. + +"Thank God," he said, with profound emotion, "for a civilised smoke!" + +"Labertouche!" cried Amber. + +The pseudo-khansamah rose, bowed formally, and shook hands with +considerable cordiality. "It's good to see you whole and sound," he +said. "I had to wait until Ram Nath's work began to show results. He's +out there, you know, keeping the bottle moving. I don't believe those +damned sepoys will bother us much, now, but we've got no time at all to +spare. Now tell me what you have to tell, omitting nothing of the +slightest consequence." + +Amber dropped into a chair, and the Englishman sat near to him. "I say, +thank God for you, Labertouche! You don't know how I've needed you." + +"I can fancy. I've had a ripping time of it myself. Sorry I couldn't +communicate with you safely before you left Calcutta. But we've not a +minute to waste. Get into your yarn, please; explanations later, if we +can afford 'em." + +Inhaling with deep enjoyment, he narrowed his dark eyes, listening +intently to Amber's concise narrative of his experiences since their +parting before the stall of Dhola Baksh in the Machua Bazaar. Not once +was he interrupted by word or sign from Labertouche; and even when the +tale was told the latter said nothing, but dropped his gaze +abstractedly to the smouldering stump of his cigarette. + +"And you?" demanded the Virginian. "Have pity, Labertouche! Can't you +see I'm being eaten alive by curiosity?" + +Labertouche eyed him blankly for an instant. "Oh!" he said, with an +effort freeing his mind from an intense concentration of thought. "I? +What's there to tell? I've been at work. That's all.... I was jostled +off to one side when the row started in the bazaar, and so lost you. +There was then nothing to do but strike back to the hotel and wait for +a clue. You can figure my relief when you dropped out of that +ticca-ghari! I gave you the word to go on to Darjeeling, intending to +join you _en route_. But you know why that jaunt never came off. I +found out my mistake before morning, wired you, and left Calcutta +before you, by the same train that conveyed his Majesty the Maharana of +Khandawar. Fortunately enough we had Ram Nath already on the ground, +working up another case--I'll tell you about it some time. He's one of +our best men--a native, but loyal to the core, and wrapped up in his +work. He'd contrived to get a billet as tonga-wallah to the Kuttarpur +_bunia_ who has the dak-service contract. I myself had arranged to have +the telegraph-babu here transferred, and myself appointed in his place. +So I was able to attach myself to the 'tail' of the Maharana without +exciting comment. Miss Farrell came by the same train, but Salig Singh +was in too great a hurry to get home to pay any attention to her, and +I, knowing you'd be along, arranged that tonga accident with Ram Nath. +He bribed his brother tonga-wallah to bring it about." + +"Thank you," said Amber from his heart. + +Labertouche impatiently waved the interruption aside. "I looked for you +at the telegraph office this morning, but of course when you didn't +appear I knew something was up. So I concocted a message to you for an +excuse, came down, engaged the khansamah in conversation (I think he +had some idea I was an agent of the other side) and ... he is an old +man, not very strong. Once indoors, I had little trouble with him. He's +now enjoying perfect peace, with a gag to insure it, beneath his own +charpoy. Ram Nath happened along opportunely and created a diversion +with his gin-bottle. That seems to be all, and I'm afraid we mayn't +talk much longer. I must be going--and so must you." + +He glanced anxiously at his watch--a cheap and showy thing, such as +natives delight in. Both men rose. + +"You return to the telegraph station, I presume?" said Amber. + +"Not at all. It wouldn't be worth my while." + +"How's that?" + +"The wires haven't been working since ten this morning," said +Labertouche quietly. Amber steadied himself with the back of his chair. +"You mean they've been cut?" + +"Something of the sort." + +"And that means--" + +"That this infernal conspiracy is scheduled to come to a head +to-night--as you must have inferred, my dear fellow: this is the last +night of your probation. The cutting off of Khandawar from all British +India is a bold move and shows Salig Singh's confidence. It means +simply: 'Governmental interference not desired. Hands off.' He knows +well that we've spies here, that enough has leaked out, unavoidably, to +bring an army corps down on his back within twenty-four hours, if he +permitted even the most innocent-seeming message to get out of the +city." + +Amber whistled with dismay. "And you--" + +"I'm going to find out for myself what's towards in Kathiapur." + +"You're going there--alone?" + +"Not exactly; I shall have company. A gentleman of the Mohammedan +persuasion is going to change places with me for the night. No; he +doesn't know it yet, but I have reason to believe that he got an +R.S.V.P. for the festive occasion and intends to put in a midnight +appearance. So I purpose saving him the trouble. It's only a two-hour +ride." + +"But the risk!" + +Labertouche chuckled grimly. "It's the day's work, my boy. I'm not sure +I shan't enjoy it. Besides, I mayn't hang back where my subordinates +have not feared to go. We've had a man in Kathiapur since day before +yesterday." + +"And I? What am I to do?" + +"Your place is at Miss Farrell's side. No; you'd be only a hindrance to +me. Get that out of your thoughts. Three years ago I found time to make +a pretty thorough exploration of Kathiapur, and, being blessed with an +excellent memory, I shall be quite at home." + +Amber made a gesture of surrender. "Of course you're right," he said. +"You're always right, confound you!" + +"Exactly," agreed Labertouche, smiling. "I'm only here to help you +escape to the Residency. Raikes and Colonel Farrell have already been +advised to make preparations for a siege or for instant flight, if I +give the word. They need you far more than I shall. It would be simple +madness for you to venture to Kathiapur to-night. The case is clear +enough for you to see the folly of doing anything of the sort." + +"It may be clear to you...." + +"See here," said Labertouche, with pardonable impatience; "I'm +presuming that you know enough of Indian history to be aware that the +Rutton dynasty in Khandawar is the proudest and noblest in India; it +has descended in right line from the Sun. There's not a living Hindu +but will acknowledge its supremacy, be he however ambitious. That makes +it plain, or ought to, why Har Dyal Rutton, the last male of his line, +was--and is--considered the natural, the inevitable, leader of the +Second Mutiny. It devolved upon Salig Singh to produce him; Salig Singh +promised and--is on the point of failure. I can't say precisely what +penalty he'll be called upon to pay, but it's safe to assume that it'll +be something everlastingly unpleasant. So he's desperate. I can't +believe he has deceived himself into taking you for Rutton, but whether +or no he intends by hook or crook to get you through this Gateway +affair to-night. He's got to. Now you are--or Rutton is--known to be +disloyal to the scheme. Inevitably, then, the man who passes through +that Gateway in his name is to be quietly eliminated before he can +betray anything--in other words, as soon as he has been put through the +'Ordeal,' as they call it, for the sake of appearances and the moral +effect upon the Hindu race at large. Now I think you understand." + +"I think I do, thanks," Amber returned drily. "You're quite right, as I +said before. So I'm off to the Residency. But how to get through that +guard out there?" + +He received no response. In as little time as it took him to step +backwards from Amber, Labertouche had resumed his temporarily discarded +masquerade. Instantaneously it was the khansamah who confronted the +Virginian--the native with head and shoulders submissively bended, as +one who awaits an order. + +Amber, surprised, stared, started to speak, received a sign, and was +silent, the excuse for Labertouche's sudden change of attitude being +sufficiently apparent in an uproar which had been raised without the +least warning in the compound. The advent of a running horse seemed to +have been responsible for it, for the clatter of hoofs as the animal +was checked abruptly in mid-stride was followed by a clamour of drunken +cries, shrieks of alarm, and protests on the part of the sepoys +disturbed in the midst of their carouse. Over all this there rang the +voice of an Englishman swearing good, round, honest British oaths. + +"Stand aside, you hounds!" + +Amber turned pale. "That's Farrell's voice!" he cried, guessing at the +truth. + +Labertouche made no answer, but edged toward the khansamah's quarters. + +The din subsided as Farrell gained the veranda. His feet rang heavily +on the boards, and a second later he thrust the door violently open and +slammed breathlessly into the room, booted, spurred, his keen old face +livid, a riding-whip dangling from one wrist, a revolver in the other +hand. + +He wheeled on the threshold and lifted his weapon, then, with a gasp of +amazement, dropped it. "By Heaven, sir!" he cried, "that's odd! Those +damned sepoys tried to prevent my seeing you and now they've cleared +out, every mother's son of them!" + +Amber stepped to his side; to his own bewilderment, the compound was +deserted; there was not a sepoy in sight. + +"So much the better," he said quickly, the first to recover. "What's +wrong, sir?" + +"Wrong!" Farrell stumbled over to the table and into a chair, panting. +"Everything's wrong! What's gone wrong with you, that we haven't been +able to find you all day?" + +"I've been lying there," Amber told him, nodding to the charpoy, +"drugged. What's happened? Is Miss Farrell--?" + +"Sophia!" The Political lifted his hand to his eyes and let it fall, +with an effect of confusion. "In the name of charity tell me you know +where she is!" + +"You don't mean--" + +"She's gone, Amber--gone! She's disappeared, vanished, been spirited +away! Don't you understand me? She's been kidnapped!" + +In dumb torment, Amber heard a swift, sharp hiss of breath as pregnant +with meaning as a spoken word, and turned to meet Labertouche's eyes, +and to see that the same thought was in both their minds. Salig Singh +had found the way to lure Amber to Kathiapur. + +No spoken word was needed; their understanding was implicit on the +instant. Indeed the secret-agent dared not speak, lest he be overheard +by an eavesdropper and so be the cause of his own betrayal. With a +flutter of white garments he slipped noiselessly from the room, and +Amber knew instinctively that if they were to meet again that night it +would be upon the farther side of the Gateway of Swords. For himself, +his path of duty lay clear to the Virginian's vision; like +Labertouche's, it was the road to Kathiapur. He had no more doubt that +Sophia had been conveyed thither than he had of Farrell's presence +before him. And in his heart he cursed, not Naraini, not Salig Singh, +but himself for his inept folly in bringing to India the photograph +which had been stolen from him and so had discovered to the +conspirators his interest in the girl. + +He thought swiftly of Dulla Dad's parting admonition: "_You shall find +but one way to Kathiapur_." + +"Well, sir? Well?" Exasperated by his silence the Political sprang to +his feet and brought the riding-crop against his leg with a smack like +a gun-shot. "Have you nothing to say? Don't you realise what it means +when a white woman disappears in this land of devils? Good God! you +stand there, doing nothing, saying nothing, like a man with a heart of +stone!" + +"Speak French," Amber interposed quietly. He continued in that tongue, +his tone so steady and imperative that it brought the half-frantic +Englishman to his senses. "Speak French. You must know that we're spied +upon every instant; every word we speak is overheard, probably. Tell me +what happened--how it happened--and keep cool!" + +"You're right; I beg your pardon." Farrell collected himself. "There's +little enough to go on.... You disappointed us this morning. During the +day we got word from a secret but trustworthy source to look out for +trouble from the native side. Nevertheless, Raikes and I were obliged, +by reason of our position, representing Government, to attend the +banquet in honor of the coronation to-morrow. We called in young +Clarkson--the missionary, you know--to stay in the house during our +absence. When we returned the Residency was deserted--only we found +Clarkson bound, gagged, and nearly dead of suffocation in a closet. He +could tell us nothing--had been set upon from behind. Not a servant +remained.... But, by the way, your man Doggott came in by the evening +dak-tonga." + +"Where's Raikes?" + +"Gone to the palace to threaten Salig Singh with an army corps." + +"You know the telegraph wires are cut?" + +"Yes, but how--" + +"Never mind how I know--the story's too long. The thing to do is to get +troops here without a day's delay." + +"But how?" + +"Take Raikes, Clarkson, and Doggott and ride like hell to Badshah +Junction. Telegraph from there. The four of you ought to be able to +fight your way through." + +"But, man, my daughter!" + +"I know where to find her--or think I do. No matter which, I'll find +her and bring her back to you safely, or die trying. You spoke just now +of a secret but trustworthy source of information: I work with it this +night. I can't mention names--you know why; but that source was in this +room ten minutes ago. He's gone after your daughter now. I follow. +No--I go alone. It's the only way. I know how you feel about it, but +believe me, the thing for you to do is to find some way to summon +British troops. Now the quicker you go, the quicker I'm off. I +can't--daren't move while you're here." + +Farrell eyed him strangely. "I'll go," he said after a pause. "But ... +why can't I--" + +"There are just two white men living, Colonel Farrell, who can go where +I am going to look for your daughter to-night. I'm one of them. The +other is--you know who." + +"One of us is mad," said Farrell with conviction. "I think you are." + +"Or else I know what I'm talking about. In either event you only hinder +me now. Please go." + +His manner impressed the man; for a moment Farrell lingered, doubting, +then impetuously offered his hand. "I'm hanged if I understand why," he +said, "but somehow I believe you know what you're about. Good-night +and--and God be with you, Amber." + +The Virginian followed him to the doorway. Farrell's horse, a docile, +well-trained animal, had come to the edge of the veranda to wait for +his master. Otherwise the compound was as empty as the night was quiet. +Mounting, the Political waved a silent farewell and spurred off toward +the city. Amber passed back through the bungalow to the bund. + +It was a wonderful blue night of clear moonlight, quickened by a rowdy +wind that rioted down the valley from the north. The roughened surface +of the lake was dark save where the moon had blazed its trail of +shimmering golden scales. There was no boat visible, and for the first +time Amber's heart misgave him and he doubted whether it were not best +to seek a mount from the stables of the Residency and try to reach +Kathiapur on his own initiative. But his ignorance of the neighbouring +topography was too great a handicap to be overcome; and now that +Labertouche had gone, he was without a friendly, guiding hand. He could +but deliver himself into the hands of the enemy and do what he might +thereafter. + +He lifted his voice and called: "_Ohe_, Dulla Dad!" + +There came a soft shuffle of feet on the stones behind him, and the +stunted, white-clad figure of Dulla Dad stood at his side, making +respectful obeisance. "Hazoor!" + +"You damned spying scoundrel!" Amber cried, enraged. "You've been +waiting there by the window, listening!" + +"Hazoor," the native quavered in fright, "it was cold upon the water +and you kept me waiting over-long. I landed, seeking shelter from the +wind. If your talk was not for mine ears, remember that you used a +tongue I did not know." + +"So you were listening!" Amber calmed himself. "Never mind. Where's +your boat?" + +"I thought to hide it in the rushes. If the hazoor will be patient for +a little moment ..." The native dropped down from the bund and +disappeared into the reedy tangle of the lake shore. A minute or so +later Amber saw the boat shoot out from the shore and swing in a long, +graceful curve to the steps of the bund. + +"Make haste," he ordered, as he jumped in and took his place. "If I +have kept you waiting, as you say, then I am late." + +"Nay, there is time to spare." Dulla Dad spun the boat round and away. +"I did but think to anticipate your impatience, knowing that you would +assuredly come." + +"Ah, you knew that, Dulla Dad? How did you know?" + +The man giggled softly, plying a busy paddle. "Am I not of the palace, +hazoor? What are secrets in the house of kings? Gossip of herders and +bazaar-women!" + +"And how much more do you know, Dulla Dad?" Amber's tone was ominous. + +"I, hazoor? Who am I to know aught?... Nay, this have I heard"--he +paused cunningly: "'_You shall find but one way to Kathiapur_.'" + +Amber, realising that he had invited this insolence, was fair enough +not to resent it, and held his peace until he could no longer be blind +to the fact that the native was shaping a course almost exactly away +from the Raj Mahal. "What treachery is this, dog?" he demanded. "This +is not the way--" + +"Be not mistrustful of your slave, hazoor," whined the native. "I do +the bidding of those before whose will I am as a leaf in the wind. It +is an order that I land you on the bund of the royal summer pavilion, +by the northern shore of the lake. There will you find one waiting for +you, my lord." + +Amber contented himself with a fresh examination of his pistol; it was +all one to him, whatever the route by which he was to reach Kathiapur, +so long as the change involved no delay. But this way across the water +was so much longer than that which he had anticipated that he had time +to work himself into a state of fuming impatience before the boat +finally ranged alongside a pretentious marble bund backed by ragged +plantations of palms and bananas. To the left the white-columned facade +of the Maharana's stately pleasure-house glimmered spectral in the +moonlight. It showed no lights, and Amber very naturally concluded that +it was unoccupied. + +He landed on the steps of the bund and waited for Dulla Dad to join +him; but when, hearing a splash of the paddle, he looked round, it was +to find that the native had already put a considerable distance between +himself and the shore. Amber called after him angrily, and Dulla Dad +rested upon his paddle. + +"Nay, Heaven-born!" he replied. "Here doth my responsibility end. +Another will presently appear to be your guide. Go you up to the jungly +path leading from the bund." + +The Virginian lifted his shoulders indifferently, and ascended to +discover a wide footpath running inland between dark walls of +shrubbery, but quite deserted. He stopped with a whistle of vexation, +peering to right and left. "What the deuce!" he said aloud. "Is this +another of their confounded tricks?" + +A low and marvellously sweet laugh sounded at his elbow, and he turned +with a start and a flutter of his pulses. "Naraini!" he cried. + +It had been impossible to mistake the gracious lines of that slight, +round figure, cloaked though it was in many thicknesses of white +veiling. She had stolen upon him without a sound, and seemed pleased +with the completeness of his surprise, for she laughed again before he +spoke. + +"Tell me not thou art disappointed, O my king!" she said, placing a +soft hand firmly upon his arm. "Didst thou hope to meet another here?" + +"Nay, how should I expect thee?" His voice was gentle though he steeled +his heart against her fascinations; for now he had a use for her. "Had +Dulla Dad conveyed me to the palace, then I should have remembered thy +promise to ride with me to Kathiapur. But, being brought to this place..." + +"Then thou didst wish to ride with me?" She nodded approval and +satisfaction. "That is altogether as I would have it be, Lord of my +Heart. By this have I proven thee, for thou hast consented to approach +the Gateway, not altogether because the Voice hath summoned thee, but +likewise, I think, because thine own heart urged thee. Nay, but tell +me, King of my Soul, did it not leap a little at the thought of meeting +me?" + +With a quick gesture she threw her veil aside and lifted her +incomparably fair face to his, and he was conscious that he trembled a +little, and that his voice shook as he answered evasively: "Thou +shouldst know, Ranee." + +"_Ahi!_ Then am I a happy woman, to think that, though thou wert in +open mutiny against the Voice, when I called, thou didst yield.... And +thou art ready?" + +"Am I not here?" + +"Now of a verity do I know that thou art a man, my king!--a Rajput, a +son of kings, and ... my husband!" Pitched to a minor, thrilling key, +her accents were as musical as the singing of a 'cello. "For thou dost +know what thou must dare this night of nights, and he is a brave man +who can dare so much, unfaltering. Tell me thou art not afraid, my +king?" + +"Why should I be?" + +"Thou wilt not draw back in the end?" Her arms clipped him softly about +the neck and drew his head down so that her breath was fragrant in his +face, her lips a sweet peril beneath his own. "Thou wilt brave whatever +may be prepared for thy testing, for the sake of Naraini, who awaits +thee beyond the Gateway; O my Beloved?" + +"I shall not be found wanting." + +Lithe as a snake, she slipped from his arms. "Nay, I trust thee not!" +she laughed, a quiver of tenderness in her merriment. "Let my lips be +mine alone until thou hast proven thyself worthy of them." She raised +her voice, calling: "_Ohe_, Runjit Singh!" + +The cry rang bell-clear in the stillness, and its silver echo had not +died before it was answered by one who stepped out from the black +shadow of a spreading banian, some distance away, and came toward them, +leading three horses. As the moonlight fell upon him, Amber recognised +the uniform the man wore as that of the Imperial Household Guard of +Khandawar, while the horses seemed to be the stallions he had seen in +the palace yard, with another but little their inferior in mettle or +beauty. + +"Now," announced the woman in tones of deep contentment, "we will +ride!" + +She turned to Amber, who took her up in his arms and set her in the +saddle of one of the stallions; who, his bridle being released by the +trooper, promptly leaped away and danced a spirited saraband with his +shadow, until Naraini, with a strength that seemed incredible when one +recalled the slightness of her wrists, curbed him in and taught him +sobriety. + +"By Har!" she panted, "but I think he must know that he carries +to-night the destinies of empire! Mount, mount, my lord, and bear me +company if this son of Eblis tries to run away with me!" + +The sowar surrendered to Amber the reins of the other stallion, and +stepped hastily aside. The Virginian took the saddle with a flying +leap, and a thought later was digging his knees into the brute's sleek +flanks and sawing on the bits, while the path flowed beneath him, +dappled with moonlight and shadow, like a ribbon of grey-green silk, +and trees and shrubbery streaked back on either hand in a rush of +melting blacks and greys. + +Swerving acutely, the path ran into the dusty high-road. Amber heard a +rush of hoofs behind him, and then slowly the gauze-wrapped figure of +the queen drew alongside. + +"_Maro!_ Let him run, my king! The way is not far for such as he. Have +no fear lest he tire!" + +But Amber set his teeth and wrought with the reins until his mount +comprehended the fact that he had met a master, and, moderating his +first furious burst of speed, settled down into a league-devouring +stride, crest low, limbs gathering and stretching with the elegant +precision of clockwork. His rider, regaining his poise, found time to +look about him and began to enjoy, for all his cares, this wild race +through the blue-white night. + +Behind them, carbine on saddle-bow, the sowar thundered in pursuit, at +an interval of about a hundred yards--often greater, when the stallions +would have it so and spent their temper in brief, brisk contests for +the leadership. On Amber's left the woman rode as one to the saddle +born, her face turned eagerly to the open road, smiling a little with +excitement beneath the tissue of thin veiling which the speed-bred +breeze moulded cunningly to the contour of her flawless features. The +fire in her blood shone lambent in the eyes that now and again met +Amber's. More than once he heard her laugh low, with a lilt of +happiness. + +For himself he was drunk with the spirit of adventure. Bred of the +moonlit sky and the far shy stars, of the flooding moonlight breaking +crisply against impenetrable shadows like surf against black rocks, of +the tune of hoofs, of the singing wind and sighing waters, a wild and +reckless humor possessed him, ran molten in his veins, swam in his +brain like fumes of wine. + +As the tale of miles increased, the valley opened out, and presently +they swung to the west from the northerly track, branching off into a +rougher way through a wilder countryside. Rugged hilltops marched +beside them, looming stark black against the silvered purple of the +sky. They met no one, their road winding through a land whose grandeur +was enhanced by its positive desolation--a land tenanted only by a +million devils of loneliness with naught to do save to fling back +mocking echoes of the road-song of the flying hoofs.... + +Toward the close of the second hour the valleys began to widen, the +hills to be less lofty and precipitous. The horses swung up gentler +ascents, down slopes less sharp. The road ran for a time along the bank +of a broad and placid river, then crossed it by a massive arch of +masonry as old as history. They circled finally a great, round, +grassless hillside, and pulled rein in the notch of a gigantic V formed +by two long, prow-like spurs running out upon a plain whose sole, vague +boundary was the vast arc of the horizon. + +Before them loomed dead Kathiapur, an island of stone girdled by the +shallow silver river. Like the rugged pedestal of some mammoth column, +its cliffs rose sheer threescore feet from the water's edge to the foot +of the outermost of its triple walls. From the notch in the hills a +great stone causeway climbed with a long and easy grade to the level of +the first great gate, spanning the chasm over the river by means of a +crazy wooden bridge. + +Above the broken rim of the three-fold walls the moon's unearthly +splendor made visible a vast confusion of crumbling cornices, blank +walls, turrets, domes, and towers, the gnarled limbs of dead trees, the +luxuriant dark foliage of banian and pepal, palm and acacia. But +nothing moved and there was not a light to be seen. These things with +the silence told the tale of death. With the cessation of the ringing +hoofbeats the stillness had closed down upon the riders like a spell to +break the which were to invite the wrath of the undying gods +themselves. Other than the silken breathing of the horses, an +occasional muffled thud or the jingle of a bridle-chain as one pawed +the earth or tossed his head, they heard no sound. The unending hum of +a living city was not there. Sister of Babylon, Nineveh and Tyre, kin +to Chitor and that proud city of the plains that Jai Singh abandoned +when he built him his City of Victory, Kathiapur is as Tadmor--dead. +The shell remains; the soul has flown. + +A gasp from the woman and an oath from the sowar startled Amber out of +somber apprehensions into which he had been plunged by contemplation of +this impregnable fortress of desolation. Gone was his lust for peril, +gone his high, heedless joy of adventure, gone the intoxication which +had been his who had drunk deep of the cup of Romance; there remained +only the knowledge that he, alone and single-handed, was to pit his +wits against the invisible and mighty forces that lurked in hiding +within those walls, to seem to submit to their designs and so find his +way to the woman of his love, tear her from the grasp of the unseen, +and with her escape... + +Naraini had, indeed, no need to cry aloud or clutch his hand in order +to apprise him that the Eye was vigilant. He himself had seen it break +forth, a lurid star of emerald light suspended high above the dark +heart of the city--high in the air where the moment gone there had been +nothing; so powerful that it shaded with sickly pallor the face of the +woman, who clung shuddering to Amber; so unpresaged its appearance and +so malign its augury that it shook even the skepticism of him whose +reason had been nourished by the materialism of the Occident. + +Slowly, while they watched, the star descended, foot by foot dropping +until the topmost pinnacle of a hidden temple seemed to support it; and +there it rested, throbbing with light, now bright, now dull. + +Amber shook himself impatiently. "Silly charlatanry!" he muttered, +irritated by his own susceptibility to its sinister suggestion.... "I'd +like to know how they manage it, though; the light itself's +comprehensible enough, but their control of it.... If there were enough +wind, I'd suspect a kite...." + +"Thou art not dismayed, my king?" + +He laughed, not quite as successfully as he could have wished, and, +"Not I, Naraini," he returned in English: a tongue which seemed somehow +better suited for service in combating the esoteric influences at work +upon his mind. "What's the next turn on the programme?" + +"I like not that tone, nor yet that tongue." The woman shivered. "Even +as the Eye seeth, my lord, so doth the Ear hear. Is it meet and wise to +speak with levity of that in whose power thou shalt shortly be?" + +"Perhaps not," he admitted, thoughtful. "'In whose power I shall +shortly be.' ... Well, of course!" + +"And thou wilt go on? Thou art not minded to withdraw thy hand?" + +"Not so that you'd notice it, Naraini." + +"For the sake of the reward Naraini offers thee?" she persisted +dangerously. + +"I don't mind telling you that you'd turn 'most any man's head, my +dear," he said cheerfully, and let her interpret the words as she +pleased. + +She was not pleased, for her acquaintance with English was more +intimate than she had chosen to admit; but if she felt any chagrin she +dissimulated with her never-failing art. "Then bid me farewell, O my +soul, and go!" + +"Up there?" he enquired, lifting his brows. + +"Aye, up the causeway and over the bridge, into the city of death." + +"Alone?" + +"Aye, alone and afoot, my king." + +"Pleasant prospect, thanks." Amber whistled, a trifle dashed. "And +then, when I get up there--?" + +"One will meet thee. Go with him, fearing naught." + +"And what will you do, meanwhile?" + +"When thou shalt have passed the Gateway, my lord, Naraini will be +waiting for thee." + +"Very well." Amber threw a leg over the crupper, handed the stallion's +reins to the sowar, who had dismounted and drawn near, and dropped upon +his feet. + +Naraini nodded to the sowar, who led the animal away. When he was out +of earshot the woman leaned from the saddle, her glorious eyes to +Amber's. "My king!" she breathed intensely. + +But the thought of Sophia Farrell and what she might be suffering at +that very moment was uppermost--obtruded itself like a wall between +himself and the woman. He had no further inclination for make-believe, +and he saw Naraini with eyes that nothing illuded. Quite as casually as +though she had been no more to him than a chance acquaintance, he +reached up, took her hand, and gave it a perfunctory shake. + +"Good-night, my dear," he said amiably; and, turning, made off toward +the foot of the causeway. + +When he had gained it, he looked back to see her riding off at a wide +angle from the causeway, heading out into the plain. When he looked +again, some two or three minutes later, Naraini, the sowar, and the +horses had vanished as completely as if the earth had opened to receive +them. He rubbed his eyes, stared, and gave it up. + +So he was alone!... With a shrug, he plodded on. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE HOODED DEATH + + +The causeway down which the horsemen of forgotten kings of Khandawar +had clattered forth to war, in its age-old desuetude had come to decay. +Between its great paving blocks grass sprouted, and here and there +creepers and even trees had taken root and in the slow immutable +process of their growth had displaced considerable masses of stone; so +that there were pitfalls to be avoided. Otherwise a litter of rubble +made the walking anything but good. Amber picked his way with caution, +grumbling. + +The grade was rather more steep than it had seemed to be from the +plain. Now and then he stopped to regain his breath and scrub a +handkerchief over his forehead, on which sweat had started despite the +cold. At such times his gaze would seek inevitably and involuntarily, +the lotus-pointed pinnacle whereon the Eye was poised, blazing. Its +baleful emerald glare coloured his mood unpleasantly. He had a fancy +that the thing was actually watching him. The sensation was creepy. + +For that matter, nothing that met his eye was calculated to instil +cheer into his heart. Desolation worked with silence sensibly upon his +thoughts, so that he presently made the alarming discovery that the +bottom had dropped completely out of his stock of scepticism, leaving +him seriously in danger of becoming afraid of the dark. Scowling over +this, he stumbled on, telling himself that he was a fool: a conclusion +so patent that neither then nor thereafter at any time did he find +reason to dispute it. + +After some three-quarters of an hour of hard climbing he came to the +wooden bridge, and halted, surveying it with mistrust. Doubtless in the +olden time a substantial but movable structure, strong enough to +sustain a troop of warriors but light enough to be easily drawn up, had +extended across the chasm, rendering the city impregnable from capture +by assault. If so, it had long since been replaced by an airy and +well-ventilated latticework of boards and timbers, none of which seemed +to the wary eye any too sound. Amber selected the most solid-looking of +the lot and gingerly advanced a pace or two along it. With a soft +crackling a portion of the timber crumbled to dust beneath his feet. He +retreated hastily to the causeway, and swore, and noticed that the Eye +was watching him with malevolent interest, and swore some more. +Entirely on impulse he heaved a bit of rock, possibly twenty pounds in +weight, to the middle of the structure. There followed a splintering +crash and the contraption dissolved like a magic-lantern effect, +leaving a solitary beam about a foot in width and six or eight inches +thick, spanning a flight of twenty and a drop of sixty feet. The river +received the rubbish with several successive splashes, distinctly +disconcerting, and Amber sat down on a boulder to think it over. + +"Clever invention," he mused; "one'd think that, after taking all this +trouble to get me here, they'd changed their minds about wanting me. +I've a notion to change mine." He looked up at the cusped and +battlemented gateway opposite him, shifted his regard to the Eye, and +shook his fist vindictively at the latter. "If ever I get hold of the +chap that invented you...!" An ingenious imagination failing to suggest +any form of torture commensurate with the crime, he relapsed into +gloomy meditation. + +There seemed to be no possibility of turning back at that stage, +however. Kuttarpur was rather far away, and, moreover, he doubted if he +would be permitted to return. Having come thus far, he must go on. +Moreover, Sophia Farrell was on the other side of that Swordwide +Bridge, and such being the case, cross it he would though he were to +find the next world at its end. Finally he considered that he was +presently to undergo an Ordeal of some unknown nature, probably +extremely unpleasant, and that this matter of the vanishing bridge must +have been arranged in order to put him in a properly subdued and +tractable frame of mind. + +He got up and tested the remaining girder with circumspection and +incredulity; but it seemed firm enough, solidly embedded in the +stonework of the causeway and immovable at the city end. So he +straddled it and, averting his eyes from the scenery beneath him, +hitched ingloriously across, collecting splinters and a very distinct +impression that, as a vocation, knight-errantry was not without its +drawbacks. + +When again he stood on his feet he was in the shadow of the outer +gateway, the curtain of the second wall confronting him. The stillness +remained unbroken but the moonlight illuminated with startling +distinctness the frescoes, half obliterated by time, and they were +monstrous, revolting and obscene, from a Western point of view. A +bastion of the third wall hid the Eye, however; he was grateful for +that. + +Casting about, he discovered the second gateway at some distance to the +left, and started toward it, forcing a way through a tangle of scrubby +undergrowth, weeds, and thorny acacia, but had taken few steps ere a +heavy splash in the river below brought him up standing, with a +thumping heart. After an irresolute moment he turned back to see for +himself, and found his apprehension only too well grounded; the +Swordwide Bridge was gone, displaced by an agency which had been prompt +to seek cover--though he confessed himself unable to suggest where that +cover had been found. There was no one visible on the causeway, and +nobody skulked in the shadows of the bastions of the main gate. +Furthermore it seemed hardly possible that in so scant a space of time +human hands could have worked that heavy beam out of its sockets. And +if the hands had been human (of course any other hypothesis were +ridiculous) what had become of their owners? + +He gave it up, considering that it were futile to badger his wits for +the how and the wherefore. The important fact remained that he was a +prisoner in dead Kathiapur, his retreat cut off, and--Here he made a +second discovery, infinitely more shocking: his pistol was gone. + +Amber remembered distinctly examining the weapon in Dulla Dad's boat, +since when he had found no occasion to think of it. Now either it had +jolted out of his pocket in that wild ride from Kuttarpur, or else +Naraini had managed deftly to abstract it while in his arms by the +summer palace, or when, later, she had shrunk against him in real or +affected terror of the Eye. Of the two explanations his reason favoured +the second. But he made no audible comment, though his thoughts were as +black as his brow and as grimly fashioned as the set of his jaw. + +Turning back at length he made his way to the second gateway and from +it to the third, under the lewdly sculptured arch of which he stopped +and gasped, forgetting himself as for the first time Kathiapur the +Fallen was revealed to him in all the awful beauty of its naked +desolation. + +A wide and stately avenue stretched away from the portals, between rows +of dwellings, palaces of marble and stone, tombs and mausoleums, with +meaner houses of sun-dried brick and rubble, roofless all and +disintegrating in the slow, terrible process of the years. Here a wall +had caved in, there an arch had fallen out. The thoroughfare was strewn +with fallen lintels, broken marble screens, blocks of red sandstone, +bricks, and in between them the fig and pipal nourished with the +bebel-thorn, the ak, the mimosa, the insidious convolvulus twining +everywhere. At the far end of the street a yawning black arch rose in +the white, beautiful facade of a marble temple on whose uppermost +pinnacle the Eye hovered, staring horridly. + +As Amber moved forward small, alert ghosts rose from the undergrowth +and scurried silently thence: a circumstance which made him very +unhappy. Even a brilliant chorus of sharp barks from an adjacent street +failed to convince him that he had merely disturbed a pack of jackals, +after all, and not the disconsolate brooding wraiths of those who had +died and been buried in the imposing ruined tombs, what time Kathiapur +boasted ten thousand swords and elephants by the herd. + +The way was difficult and Amber tired. After a while, having seen +nothing but the jackals, an owl or two, several thousand bats and a +crawling thing which had lurched along in the shadow of a wall some +distance away, giving an admirable imitation of a badly wounded man +pulling himself over the ground, and making strange gutteral +noises--Amber concluded to wait for the guide Naraini had promised him. +He turned aside and seated himself upon the edge of a broken sandstone +tomb. The silence was appalling and for relief he took refuge in cheap +irreverence. "Home," he observed aloud, "never was like this." + +A heart-rending sigh from the tomb behind him was followed by a rattle +of dislodged rubbish. Amber found himself unexpectedly in the middle of +the street and, without stopping to debate the method of his getting +there with such unprecedented rapidity, looked back hopefully to the +tomb. At the same moment a black-shrouded figure swept out of it and +moved a few paces down the street, then paused and beckoned him with a +gaunt arm. "I wish," said Amber earnestly, "I had that gun." + +The figure was apparently that of a native swathed in black from his +head to his heels and seemed the more strikingly peculiar in view of +the fact that, as far as Amber could determine, he had neither eyes nor +features although his head was without any sort of covering. He gulped +over the proposition for an instant, then stepped forward. + +"Evidently my appointed cicerone," he considered. "Unquestionably this +ghost-dance is excellently stage-managed.... Though, of course, I _had_ +to pick out that particular tomb." + +He followed in the wake of the figure, which sped on with a singular +motion, something between a walk and a glide, conscious that his +equanimity had been restored rather than shaken by the incident. "You +wouldn't think," he reflected, "that a man like Salig Singh would lend +himself to anything so childish. Still, I'm not through with it yet." +He conceived a scheme to steal up behind his guide and strip him of his +masquerade, but though he mended his pace he got no nearer, and +eventually abandoned it on the consideration that it was probably most +inadvisable. After all, he had to remember that he was there for a +purpose, and a very serious one, and that properly to further that +purpose he must comport himself with dignity, submissively, accepting, +at least with a show of ease, each new development of the affair along +its prearranged lines. And so he held on in pursuit of the black +shadow, passing forsaken temples and lordly pleasure-houses, all marble +tracery and fretwork, standing apart in what had once been noble +gardens, sunken tanks all weed-grown and rank with slime, humbler +dooryards and cots on whose hearthstones the fires for centuries had +been cold--his destination evidently the temple of the unspeakable Eye. + +As they drew nearer the leading shadow forsook the shade of the walls +which he had seemed to favour, sweeping hastily across a plaza white +with moonglare and without pause on into the black, gaping hole beyond +the marble arch. + +Here for the first time Amber hung back, stopping a score of feet from +the door, his nerves a-jangle. He did not falter in his purpose; he was +going to enter the inky portal, but ... would he ever leave it? And the +world was still sweet to him. His quick, darting gaze registered a +dozen impressions in as many seconds: of the silver splendour spilled +so lavishly upon the soulless corpse of the city, of the high, bright +sky, of dead black shadows sharp-edged against the radiance, of the +fleet flitting spectre that was really a flying-fox.... + +Afar a hyena laughed with a sardonic intonation wholly uncalled-for--it +was blood-curdling, besides. And down the street a melancholy air +breathed gently, sighing like a soul astray. + +"This won't do," he told himself; "it can't be worse inside than out +here." + +He took firm hold of his reason and went on across the dark threshold, +took three uncertain strides into the limitless unknown, and pulled up +short, hearing nothing, unable to see a yard before him. Then with a +terrific crash like a thunder-clap the great doors swung to behind him. +He whirled about with a stifled cry, conscious of a mad desire to find +the doors again, took a step or two toward them, paused to wonder if he +were moving in the right direction, moved a little to the left, half +turned, and was lost. Reverberating, the echoes of the crash rolled far +away and back again, diminishing in volume, dying until they were no +more than as a whisper adrift in the silence, until that was gone.... + +Profound night enveloped him, vast, breathless, without dimensions. One +can endure the blackness that abides within four well-kenned walls; but +night unrelieved by the least gleam of light, night without bounds or +measurements, enfolding one like a stifling blanket and instilling into +the brain the fear of nameless things, quickening the respiration and +oppressing the heart--that is another thing entirely, and that is what +Amber found in the Temple of the Bell. Darkness swam visibly before his +eyes, like a fluid. The sound of his constrained breathing seemed most +loud and unnatural. He could hear his heart rumbling like a distant +drum. + +Digging his nails into his palms, he waited; and in the suspense of +dread began to count the seconds. + +One minute ... two ... three ... four.... + +He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.... + +Seven ... + +He passed a hand across his face and brought it away wet with +perspiration.... + +Nine ... + +In some remote spot a bell began to toll; at first slowly--_clang_!... +_clang_!... _clang_!--then more quickly, until the roar of its +sonorous, gong-like tones seemed to fill all the world and to set it +a-tremble. Then, insensibly, the tempo became more sedate, the fierce +clamour of it moderated, and Amber abruptly was alive to the fact that +the bell was _speaking_--that its voice, deep, clear, sound, metallic, +was rolling forth again and again a question couched in purest +Sanskrit: + +"_Who is there_?... _Who is there_?... _Who is there_?..." + +The hair lifted on his scalp and he swallowed hard in the effort to +answer; but the lie stuck in his throat: he was not Rutton and ... and +it is very hard to lie effectively when you stand in stark darkness +with a mouth dry as dust and your hair stirring at the roots because of +the intensely impersonal and aloof accents of an inhuman Bell-voice, +tolling away out of Nowhere. + +"_Who is there_?" + +Again he failed to answer. Somewhere near him he heard a slight noise +as of a man moving impatiently; and then a whisper: "Respond, thou +fool!" + +"Art thou come, O Chosen of the Gateway?" the Bell-voice rang. + +"I ... I am come," Amber managed to reply. And so still and small +sounded his own voice in the huge spaces of the place that he was +surprised to find he had been heard. + +"Hear ye!" rang the Bell. "Hear ye, O Lords and Rulers in Medhyama! O +Children of my Gateway, hear ye well! He is come! He stands upon the +threshold of the Gateway!" + +Resonant, the echoes of those awe-inspiring tones died upon the +stillness, and in response a faint sighing rose and, momentarily +growing in volume, became as the roaring of a mighty wind; and suddenly +it was abrupted, leaving only a ringing in the ears. + +A great drum roared like the crack of Doom; and Amber's jaw dropped. +For in the high roof of the temple a six-foot slab had been noiselessly +withdrawn, and through it a cold shaft of moonlight fell, cutting the +gloom like a gigantic rapier, and smote with its immaculate radiance +the true Gateway of Swords. + +Not six paces from him it leaped out of the darkness in an iridescent +sheen: an arch a scant ten feet in height, and in span double the width +of a big man's shoulders, woven across like a weaver's frame with +ribbons of pale fire. But the ribbons were of steel--steel blades, +sharp, bright, gleaming: a countless array of curved tulwars and +crescent scimetars, broad jataghans, short and ugly kukurees, long +kutars with straight ends, slender deadly patas, snake-like bichwas; +swords with jewelled hilts and engraved and damascened blades; sabres +with channels cut from point to guard wherein small pearls ran singing; +khands built for service and for parade; swords of every style and +period in all the history of India. With their pommels cunningly +affixed so that their points touched and interlaced, yet swung free, +they lined the piers of the arch from base to span and all the graceful +sweep of the intrados, a curtain of shimmering, trembling steel, +barring the way to the Mystery beyond. Which was--darkness. + +"O ye Swords!" belled the Voice.... "O ye Swords that have known no +dishonour! O ye Swords that have sung in the grasp of my greatest! +Swords of Jehangar, Akbar, Alamgir! Swords of Alludin, Humayun, Shah +Jehan! Swords of Timur-Leng, Arungzeb, Rao Rutton!..." + +The invocation seemed interminable. Amber recognised almost every name +noted in the annals and legends of Hindustan.... + +"Hearken, O my Swords! He, thy Chosen, prayeth for entry! What is thy +welcome?" + +One by one the blades began to shiver, clashing their neighbours, until +the curtain of steel glimmered and glistened like phosphorescence in a +summer sea, and the place was filled with the music of their contact; +and through their clamour boomed the Bell: + +"O my Chosen!" Amber started and held himself firmly in hand. "Look +well, look well! Here is thy portal to kingship and glory!" + +He frowned and took a step forward as if he would throw himself through +the archway; for he had suddenly remembered with compelling vividness +that Sophia Farrell was to be won only by that passage. But as he moved +the swords clattered afresh and swung outwards, presenting a bristle of +points. And he stopped, while the Voice, indifferent and remote as +always, continued to harangue him. + +"If thy heart, O my Chosen, be clean, unsullied with fear and guile; if +thy faith be the faith of thy fathers and thy honour rooted in love of +thy land; if thou hast faith in the strength of thy hands to hold the +reins of Empire ... enter, having no fear." + +"Trick-work," he told himself. He set his teeth with determination. +"Hope they don't see fit to cut me to pieces on suspicion. Here goes." +He moved forward with a firm step until his bosom all but touched the +points. + +Instantaneously, with another clash as of cymbals, the blades were +deflected and returned to their first position, closing the way. He +hesitated. Then, "That shan't stop me!" he said through his teeth, and +pushed forward, heart in mouth. He breasted the curtain and felt it +give; the blades yielded jealously, closing round his body like cold +caressing arms; he felt their chill kisses on his cheeks and hands, +even through his clothing he was conscious of their clinging, deadly +touch. Abruptly they swung entirely away, leaving the entrance clear, +and he was drawing a free breath when the moon glare showed him the +swords returned to position with the speed of light. He jumped for his +life and escaped being slashed to pieces by the barest inch. They swung +to behind him; and again the drum roared, while afar there arose a +furious, eldritch wailing of conches. Overhead the opening disappeared +and the light was shut out. In darkness as of the Hall of Eblis the +conches were stilled and the echoes ebbed into a silence that held sway +for many minutes ere again the Bell spoke. + +"Stretch forth thy hand." + +Somewhat shaken, Amber held out an open palm before him. A second time +the gusty sighing arose and breathed through the night, increasing +until the very earth beneath him seemed to rock with the magnitude of +the sound, until, at its highest, it ceased and was as if it had not +been; not even an echo sang its passing. Then out of nothingness +something plopped into Amber's hand and his fingers closed convulsively +about it. It was a hand, very small, small as a child's, gnarled and +hard as steel and cold as ice. + +Amber sunk his teeth into his lower lip and subdued an almost +uncontrollable impulse to scream and fling the thing away; for his +sense of touch told him that the hand was dead. And yet he became +sensible that it was tugging at his own, and he yielded to its +persuasion, permitting himself to be led on for so long a journey that +his fingers clasping the little hand grew numb with cold ere it was +over. He could by no means say whither he was being conducted, but was +conscious of a long, gradual descent. Many times he swept his free arm +out round him, but touched nothing. + +Abruptly the guiding hand was twisted away. He stopped incontinently, +and possessed himself with what patience he could muster throughout +another long wait tempered by strange sibilant whisperings and +rustlings in the void all about him. + +Without any forewarning two heavy hands gripped him, one on either +shoulder, and he was forced to his knees. At the same instant, with a +snapping crackle a spurt of blue flame shot down from the zenith, and +where it fell with a thunderclap a dazzling glare of emerald light shot +up breasthigh. + +To his half-blinded eyes it seemed, for a time, to dance suspended in +the air before him. A vapour swirled up from it, a thin cloud, +luminous. By degrees he made out its source, a small, brazen bowl on a +tripod. + +A confusion of hushed voices swelled as had the sound of that mighty, +rushing, impalpable wind, and died more slowly. + +Conscious that his features were in strong light, he strove to exhibit +an impassiveness that belied his temper; then glancing round beneath +lowered eyelids he sought to determine something of the nature of his +surroundings, but could see little. The hands had left his shoulders +the minute his knees touched the floor; he knelt utterly alone in the +middle of what seemed to be a vast hall, or cavern, of which the size +was but faintly suggested. As his eyes became accustomed to the +chiaroscuro he became aware of monstrous images of stone that appeared +to advance from and retreat to the far walls on either hand as the +green light flared and fell, and of a great silent and motionless +concourse of people grouped about the massive pedestals--a crowd as +contained and impassive as the gods that towered above its heads, +blending into the gloom that shrouded the high roof of the place. + +In front of him he could see nothing beyond the noiselessly wavering +flame. But presently a hand appeared, as if by magic, above the bowl--a +hand, bony, brown, and long of finger, that seemed attached to +nothing--and cast something like a powder into the fire. There followed +a fizz and puff of vapour, and a strong and heady gust of incense was +wafted into Amber's face. Again and again the hand appeared, sprinkling +powder in the brazier, until the smoke clouded the atmosphere with its +fluent, eddying coils. + +The gooseflesh that had pricked out on Amber's skin subsided, and his +qualms went with it. "Greek fire burning in a bowl," he explained the +phenomenon; "and a native with his arm wrapped to the wrist in black is +feeding it. Not a bad effect, though." + +It was, perhaps, as well that he had not been deceived, for there was a +horror to come that required all his strength to face. He became +conscious that something was moving between him and the +brazier--something which he had incuriously assumed to be a piece of +dirty cloth left there carelessly. But now he saw it stir, squirm, and +upend, unfolding itself and lifting its head to the leaping flame: an +immense cobra, sleek and white as ivory, its swelling hood as large as +a man's two hands, with a binocular mark on it as yellow as topaz, and +with vicious eyes glowing like twin rubies in its vile little head. + +Amber's breath clicked in his throat and he shrank back, rising; but +this instinctive move had been provided against and before his knees +were fairly off the rocky floor he was forced down again by the hands +on his shoulders. He was unable to take his eyes from the monster, and +though terror such as man is heir to lay cold upon his heart, he did +not again attempt to stir. + +There was now no sound. Alone and undisturbed the bleached viper warmed +to its dance with the pulsing flame, turning and twisting, weaving and +writhing in its infernal glare.... + +"Hear ye, O my peoples!" + +Amber jumped. The Voice had seemed to ring out from a point directly +overhead. + +He looked up and discovered above him, vague in the obscurity, the +outlines of a gigantic bell, hanging motionless. The green glare, +shining on its rim and partly illumining its empty hollow (he saw no +clapper) revealed the sheen of the bronze of which it was fashioned. + +Out of its immense bowl, the Voice rolled like thunder: + +"Hear ye, O my peoples!" + +A responsive murmur ascended from the company round the walls: + +"We hear! We hear, O Medhyama!" + +"Mark well this man, O Children of my Gateway! Mark well! Out of ye all +have I chosen him to lead thee in the work of healing; for I thy +Mother, I Medhyama, I Bharuta, I the Body from which ye are sprung, +call me by whatever name ye know me--I am laid low with a great +sickness.... Yea, I am stricken and laid low with a sickness." + +A great and bitter wailing arose from the multitude. + +"Yea, I am overcome with a faintness, and my strength is gone out from +me, and my limbs are as water; I am sick with a fever and languish; in +my veins runs the Evil like fire and like poison; and I burn and am +stricken; I toss in my torment and murmur, and the sound of my Voice +has come to thine ears. Ye have heard me and answered. The tale of my +sufferings is known to ye. Say, shall I perish?" + +In the brazier the flame leaped high and subsided, and with it the +cobra leaped and sank low upon its coils. From the people a mighty +shout of negation went up, so that the walls rang with it, and the +echoes were bandied back and forth, insensibly decreasing through many +minutes. When all was still the Voice began to chant again, and the +flames blazed higher and brighter, while the cobra resumed its mystic +dance. + +Amber knelt on in a semi-stupor, staring glassily at the light and the +serpent. + +"I, thine old Mother, have called ye together to help in my healing. +From my feet to my head I am eaten with pestilence; yea, I am devoured +and possessed by the Evil. Even of old was it thus with thy Mother; +long since she complained of the Plague that is Scarlet--moaned and +cried out and turned in her misery.... But ye failed me. Then my +peoples were weaklings and their hearts all were craven; the Scarlet +Evil dismayed them; they fled from its power and left it to batten on +me in my sickness." + +A deep groan welled in uncounted throats and resounded through the +cavern. + +"Will ye fail me again, O my Children?" + +"Nay, nay, O our Mother!" + +"Too long have I suffered and been patient in silence. Now must I be +cleansed and made whole as of old time; yea, I must be purged +altogether and the Evil cast out from me. It is time.... Ye have heard, +ye have answered; make ready, for the day of the cleansing approacheth. +Whet thy swords for the days of the healing, for my cleansing can be +but by steel. Yea, thy swords shall do away with the Evil, and the land +shall run red with the blood of Bharuta, the blood of thy Mother; it +shall run to the sea as a river, bearing with it the Red Evil. So and +no otherwise shall I, thine old Mother, be healed and made whole +again." + +"Aye, aye, O our Mother!" + +The flames, dying, rose once more, and the Voice continued, but with a +change of temper. It was now a clarion call, stirring the blood like +martial music. + +"Ye shall show me your swords for a token.... Swords of the North, are +ye ready?" + +"We are ready, old Mother!" + +With a singing shiver of steel, all around the walls, in knots and +clusters, naked blades leaped up, flashing. + +"Swords of the East, are ye loyal?" + +"Aye, old Mother!" + +And the tally of swords was doubled. + +"Swords of the South, are ye thirsty?" + +A third time the crashing response shattered the echoes. + +"Swords of the West, do ye love me?" + +With the fourth ringing shout and showing of steel, a silence fell. The +walls were veritably hedged with quivering blades, all a-gleam in the +ghastly glare of green. Over the sculptured faces of the great idols +flickering shadows played, so that they seemed to move and grimace, as +if with approbation. + +Amber was watching the serpent--dazed and weary as if with a great need +of sleep. Even the salvos of shouts came to him as from a great +distance. To the clangour of the Bell alone he had become abnormally +sensitive; every fibre of his being shuddered, responsive to its weird +nuances. + +It returned to its solemn and stately intoning. + +"Out of ye all have I chosen and fixed upon one who shall lead ye. +Through him shall my strength be made manifest, my Will be made known +to my peoples. Him must ye serve and obey; to him must ye bow down and +be humble. Say, are ye pleased? Will ye have him, my Children?" + +Without an instant's delay a cry of ratification rang to the roof. +"Yea, O our Mother! Him we will serve and obey, to him bow down and be +humble." + +The Voice addressed itself directly to the kneeling man. He stiffened +and roused. + +"Thou hast heard of the honour we confer upon thee--I Medhyama, thy +Mother, and these my children, thy brothers. Ye shall lead and shall +rule in Bharuta. Are ye ready?" + +Half hypnotised, Amber opened his mouth, but no words came. His chin +dropped to his breast. + +"Thy strength must be known to my peoples; they must see thee put to +the proof of thy courage, that they may know thee to be the man for +their leader.... Ye are ready?" + +He was unable to move a finger. + +"Stretch out thine arms!" + +He shuddered and tried to obey. The Voice rang imperative. + +"Stretch forth thine arms for the testing!" + +Somehow, mechanically, he succeeded in raising his arms and holding +them rigid before him. Alarmed by the movement, the cobra turned with a +hiss, waving his poisonous head. But the Virginian made no offer to +withdraw his hands. His eyes were wide and staring and his face livid. + +A subdued murmur came from the men clustered round the idols, in +semi-darkness. + +The Bell boomed forth like an organ. + +"O hooded Death.... O Death, who art trained to my service! Thou before +whom all men stand affrighted! Thou who canst look into their hearts +and read them as a scroll that is unrolled ... Look deep into the heart +of my Chosen! Judge if he be worthy or wanting, judge if he be false or +true ... Judge him, O Death!" + +Before Amber the great serpent was oscillating like a pendulum, its +little tongue playing like forked red lightning, its loathsome red eyes +holding his own. Terror gripped his heart, and his soul curdled. He +would have cried out, but that his tongue clave to the roof of his +mouth. He could not have moved had he willed to. + +"Look well, O Death, and judge him!" + +The dance of the Hooded Death changed in character, grew more frenzied; +the white writhing coils melted into one another in dizzying confusion; +figure merged into figure like smoke.... The suspense grew intolerable. + +"Hast thou judged him, O Death?" + +Instantly the white cobra reared up to its utmost and remained poised +over Amber, barely moving save for the almost imperceptible throbbing +of the hood and the incessant darting of the forked tongue. + +"If he be loyal, then spare him ..." + +The hood did not move. Amber's flesh crawled with unspeakable dread. + +"If he be faithless, then ... _strike!_" + +For another moment the cobra maintained the tensity. Then slowly, cruel +head waving, hood shrinking, eyes losing their deathly lustre, coil by +coil it sank. + +A thick murmur ran the round of the walls, swelling into an +inarticulate cry, which beat upon Amber's ears like the raving of a +far-off surf. From his lips a strangled sob broke, and, every muscle +relaxing, he lurched forward. + +Alarmed, in a trice the cobra was up again, hood distended to the +bursting point, head swinging so swiftly that the eye could not follow +it. In another breath would come the final thrust.... + +A firearm exploded behind Amber, singeing his cheek with its flame. He +fell over sideways, barely escaping the head of the cobra, which, with +its hood blown to tatters, writhed in convulsions, its malignant tongue +straining forth as if in one last attempt to reach his hand. + +A second shot followed the first and then a brisk, confused fusillade. +Amber heard a man scream out in mortal agony, and the dull sound of a +heavy body falling near him; but, coincident with the second report, +the brazier had been overturned and its light extinguished as if sucked +up into the air. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +RUTTON'S DAUGHTER + + +In darkness the blacker for the sudden disappearance of the light, +somebody stumbled over Amber--stumbled and swore in good English. The +Virginian sat up, crying out as weakly as a child: "Labertouche!" A +voice said: "Thank God!" He felt strong hands lift him to his feet. He +clung to him who had helped him, swaying like a drunkard, wits a-swirl +in the brain thus roughly awakened from semi-hypnosis. + +"Here," said Labertouche's voice, "take my hand and follow. We're in +for it now!" + +He caught Amber's hand and dragged him, yielding and unquestioning, +rapidly through a chaotic rush of unseen bodies. + +The firing had electrified the tense-strung audience. With a +pandemonium of shrieks, oaths, shouts, orders unheard and commands +unheeded, a concerted rush was made from every quarter to the spot +where the doomed man had been kneeling. Men running blundered into +running men and cannoned off at direct angles to their original +courses, without realising it. Disorder reigned rampant, and the cavern +rang with a thousand echoes, while the Bell awoke and roared a raging +tocsin, redoubling the din. No man could have said where he stood or +whither he ran--save one, perhaps. That one was at Amber's side and had +laid his course beforehand and knew that both their lives depended upon +his sticking to it without deviation. To him a rush of a hundred feet +in a direct line meant salvation, the least deviation from it, death. +He plunged through the scurrying masses without regard for any hurt +that might come either to him or to his charge. + +A red glare of torches was breaking out over the heads of the mob +before they gained their destination. Amber saw that they were making +for a corner formed by the junction of one of the pedestals with a +rocky wall. He was now recovering rapidly and able to appreciate that +they stood a good chance of winning away; for the natives were all +converging toward the centre of the cavern, and apparently none heeded +them. Nevertheless Labertouche, releasing him, put a revolver in his +hand. + +"Don't hesitate to shoot if any one comes this way!" he said. "I've got +to get this door open and..." + +He broke off with an ejaculation of gratitude; for while he had been +speaking, his fingers busily groping in the convolutions of the +sculptured pedestal had encountered what he sought, and now he pulled +out an iron bar two feet or so in length and as thick as a woman's +wrist. Inserting this in a socket, as one familiar with the trick, he +put his weight upon it; a carved sandstone slab slid back silently, +disclosing a black cavernous opening. + +"In with you," panted Labertouche, removing the lever. "Don't +delay...." + +Amber did not. He took with him a hazy impression of a vast, vaulted +hall filled with a ruddy glare of torchlight, a raving rabble of +gorgeously attired natives in its centre. Then the opening received him +and he found himself in a black hole of an underground gallery--a place +that reeked with the dank odours of the tomb. + +Labertouche followed and with the aid of a small electric pocket-lamp +discovered another socket for the lever. A moment later the slab moved +back into place, and the Englishman dropped the metal bar. "If there +were only some way of locking that opening," he gasped, "we'd be fairly +safe. As it is, we'll have to look nippy. That was a near call--as near +a one as ever you'll know, my boy; and we're not out yet. What are you +doing?" he added, as Amber stopped to pick up the lever. + +"It isn't a bad weapon," said the Virginian, "at a pinch. You'll want +your gun, and that she-devil, Naraini, got mine." + +"Keep the one I gave you and don't be afraid to use it. I've another +and a couple of knives for good measure. That Mohammedan prince whom I +persuaded to change places with me was a walking arsenal." Labertouche +chuckled. "Come along," he said, and drew ahead at a dog-trot. + +They sped down a passage which delved at a sharp grade through solid +rock. Now and again it turned and struck away in another direction. +Once they descended--or rather fell down--a short, steep flight of +steps. At the bottom Amber stopped. + +"Hold on!" he cried. + +Labertouche pulled up impatiently. "What's the matter?" + +"Sophia--!" + +"Trust me, dear boy, and come along." + +Persuaded, Amber gave in, blundering on after Labertouche, who loped +along easily, with the confidence of one who threads known ways, the +spot-light from his lamp dancing along the floor several feet before +him. Otherwise they moved between walls of Stygian darkness. + +It was some time later that Labertouche extinguished his lamp and threw +a low word of warning over his shoulder. Synchronously Amber discerned, +far ahead, a faint glow of yellow light. As they bore down upon it with +unmoderated speed, he could see that it emanated from a rough-hewn +doorway, opening off the passage. Before it a man stood guard with a +naked sword. + +"_Johar!_" he greeted them in the Mahar form: "O, warrior!" + +"_Johar!_" returned Labertouche, panting heavily. He closed upon the +native confidently, but was brought up short by a peremptory sweep of +the sword, coupled with an equally imperative demand for an explanation +of their haste. The Englishman replied with apparent difficulty, as if +half-winded. "It is an order, _Johar_. The woman is to be brought to +the Hall of the Bell." + +"You have the word?" The Mahar lowered his sword. "It hath been said to +me that--" + +Labertouche stumbled over his feet, and caught the speaker for support. +The native gurgled in a sodden fashion, dropped his sword, stared +stupidly at Labertouche, and put an uncertain hand to his throat. Then +he lurched heavily and collapsed upon himself. + +The secret-agent stepped back, dropping the knife he had used. "Poor +devil!" he said in a compassionate undertone. "That was cold-blooded +murder, Mr. Amber." + +"Necessary?" gasped Amber, regarding with horror the bloodstained heap +of rags and flesh at his feet. + +"Judge for yourself," said Labertouche coolly, stepping over the body. +"Here," he added, pausing by the doorway, "you go first; she knows +you." + +He pushed Amber on ahead. Stooping, the Virginian entered a small, rude +chamber hollowed out of the rock of Kathiapur. A crude lamp in a +bracket furnished all its illumination, filling it with a reek of hot +oil. Amber was vaguely aware of the figures of two women--one standing +in a corner, the other seated dejectedly upon a charpoy, her head +against the wall. As he lifted his head after passing under the low +lintel, the woman in the corner fired at him point-blank. + +The Virginian saw the jet of flame spurt from her hand and felt the +bullet's impact upon the wall behind his head. He flung himself upon +her instantly. There was a moment of furious struggle, while the cell +echoed with the reverberations of the shot and the screaming of the +woman on the charpoy. The pistol exploded again as he grappled with the +would-be murderess; the bullet, passing up his sleeve, creased his left +arm as with a white-hot iron, and tore out through the cloth on his +shoulder. He twisted brutally the wrist that held the weapon, and the +woman dropped it with a cry of pain. + +"You would!" he cried, and threw her from him, putting a foot upon the +pistol. + +She reeled back against the wall and crouched there, trembling, her +cheeks on fire, her eyes aflame with rage. "You dog!" she shrilled in +Hindi--and spat at him like a maddened cat. Then he recognised her. + +"Naraini!" He stepped back in his surprise, his right hand seeking +instinctively the wrist of his left, which was numb with pain. + +His change of position left the pistol unguarded, and the woman swooped +down upon it like a bird of prey; but before she could get her fingers +on its grip, Labertouche stepped between them, fended her off, and +quietly possessed himself of the weapon. + +"Your pardon, madam," he said gravely. + +Naraini retreated, shaking with fury, and Amber employed the respite to +recognise Sophia Farrell in the woman on the charpoy. She was still +seated, prevented from rising by bonds about her wrists and ankles, and +though unnaturally pale, her anguish of fear and despair had set its +marks upon her face without one whit detracting from the appeal of her +beauty. He went to her immediately, and as their eyes met, hers flamed +with joy, relief and--he dared believe--a stronger emotion. + +"You--you're not hurt, Mr. Amber?" + +"Not at all. The bullet went out through my sleeve. And you?" He +dropped on his knees, with his pocket-knife severing the ends of rope +that bound her. + +"I'm all right." She took his hands, helping herself to rise. "Thank +you," she said, her eyes shining, a flush of colour suffusing her face +with glory. + +"Did you cut those ropes, Amber?" Labertouche interposed curtly. + +"Yes. Why?" + +The Englishman explained without turning from his sombre and morose +regard of Naraini. "Too bad--we'll have to tie this woman up, somehow. +She's a complication I hadn't foreseen.... Here; you'd better leave me +to attend to her--you and Miss Farrell. Go on down the gallery--to the +left, I'll catch up with you." + +The pistol which he still held lent to his demand a sinister +significance of which he was, perhaps, thoughtless. But Sophia Farrell +heard, saw, and surmised. + +"No!" she cried, going swiftly to the secret-agent. "No!" She put a +hand upon his arm, but he shook it off. + +"Did you hear me, Amber?" said Labertouche, still watching the queen. + +"What do you mean to do?" insisted Sophia. "You can't--you mustn't--" + +"This is no time for half-measures, Miss Farrell," Labertouche told her +brusquely. "Our lives hang in the balance--Mr. Amber's, yours, mine. +Please go." + +"You promise not to harm her?" + +"Amber!" cried the Englishman impatiently. "Will you--" + +"Please, Miss Farrell!" begged Amber, trying to take the girl's hand +and draw her away. + +"I won't!" she declared. "I'll not move a step until he promises. You +don't understand. No matter what the danger she's--" + +"She's a fiend incarnate," Labertouche broke in. "Amber, get that +girl--" + +"She's my sister!" cried Sophia. "_Now_ will you understand?" + +"What!" The two men exclaimed as one. + +"She's my sister," the girl repeated, holding up her head defiantly, +her cheeks burning--"my sister by adoption. We were brought up +together. She was the daughter of an old friend of my father's--an +Indian prince. A few years ago she ran away--" + +"Thank God!" said Amber from the bottom of his soul; and, "Ah, you +would!" cried Labertouche tensely, as Naraini seized the opportunity, +when his attention was momentarily diverted, to break for freedom. + +Amber saw the flash of a steel blade in the woman's hand as she struck +at the secret-agent, and the latter, stepping back, deflected the blow +with a guarding forearm. Then, with the quickness of a snake, Naraini +stooped, glided beneath his arms, and slipped from the cell. + +With a smothered oath Labertouche leaped to the doorway, lifting his +pistol; but he was no quicker than Sophia, who caught his arm and held +him back. "No," she panted; "not even for our lives--not at that +price!" + +He yielded unexpectedly. "Of course you are perfectly right, Miss +Farrell," said he, with a little bow. "I'm sorry that circumstances ... +But come! She'll have this hornet's nest about our ears in a brace of +seconds. Hark to that!" + +A long, shrill shriek echoed down the gallery. Labertouche shrugged and +turned to the left. "Come along," he said. "Amber, take Miss Farrel's +hand and keep close to me." He led the way from the cell at a brisk +pace--one, indeed, that taxed Sophia's powers of endurance to maintain. +Amber aided her as much as he might, but that was little; the walls of +the passageway were too close together to permit him to be by her side +much of the time. For the most part he had to lead the way, himself +guided by the swiftly moving patch of light cast by Labertouche's +bull's-eye. But through it all he was buoyed up and exhilarated out of +all reason by the consciousness of the hand that lay trustfully in his +own; a hand soft and small and warm and (though he could not see it) +white, all white! More, it was the hand of his wife to be; he felt this +now with an unquestioning assurance. He wondered if she shared the +subject of his thoughts ... + +The gallery sloped at varying grades, more or less steep--mostly +more--and minute by minute the air became more dank and cold. At an +unseen turning, where another passage branched away, a biting wind +swept out of the black nowhere, chilling them to the marrow. Deeper and +still deeper, into the very bowels of the earth, it seemed, the +secret-agent led them, finding his way with an unfaltering confidence +that exalted Amber's admiration of him to the pitch of hero-worship. + +At length the gallery dipped and ran level, and now, while still cold, +the wind that blew in their faces was cleaner, burdened with less of +the clammy effluvium of death and decay; and then, abruptly, the walls +narrowed suddenly, so that Amber was forced to surrender possession of +the girl's hand and to fall behind her. She went forward without +question, following the dancing spotlight. + +Amber paused to listen for sounds of pursuit, but hearing nothing save +the subdued sigh of the draught between the straitened walls of rock, +followed until the walls fell away and his hands, outstretched, failed +to touch them, and he was aware that the stone beneath his feet had +given way to gravel. He halted, calling guardedly to Labertouche. + +The secret-agent's voice came from some distance. "It's all right, my +boy. Miss Farrell is with me. Come along." + +There was an _elan_ in his tone that bespoke a spirit of gratulation +and relief and led Amber to suspect that they were very close upon the +end of their flight, near to escape from the subterranean ways of +Kathiapur the dead. He proceeded at discretion in the direction of +Labertouche's voice--the light being invisible--and brought up flat +against a dead wall. Coincidently he heard Sophia exclaim with surprise +and delight, somewhere off on his left, and, turning, he saw her head +and shoulders move across a patch of starlit sky. In half a dozen +strides he overtook her. + +They stood on a low, pebbly ledge, just outside the black maw of the +passage--an entrance hidden in a curtain-like fold in the face of the +cliff that towered above them, casting an ink-black shadow. But beyond +it the emblazoned firmament glowed irradiant, and at their feet the +encircling waters ran, a broad ribbon of black silk purling between the +cliff and the opposing shores, where a thicket of tamarisks rose, a +black and ragged wall. + +Labertouche strode off into the water. "Straight ahead," he announced; +"don't worry--'tisn't more than knee-deep at the worst. I've horses +waiting on the other side--" + +"Horses!" Amber interrupted. "Great heavens, man, you're--you're +omniscient!" + +"No--lucky," Labertouche retorted briskly. "Where'd I've been without +Ram Nath? He's taking care of the animals.... Come along. What're you +waiting for? Don't you know--" He turned to see the girl hesitant, +though with lifted skirts. "Oh," he said in an accent of understanding, +and came back. "If you'll help me, Amber, I daresay we can get Miss +Farrell across without a wetting." + +He offered to clasp hands with the Virginian and so make a seat; but +Amber had a happier thought. + +"I think I can manage by myself, thank you--if Miss Farrell will trust +me." + +His eyes met the girl's, and in hers he read trust and faith unending: +he was conscious of a curious fluttering in his bosom. + +"Trust _you!_" she said, with a little, broken laugh, and gave herself +freely to his arms. + +Labertouche grunted and turned his back, wading out into the stream +with a great splashing. + +Amber straightened up, holding her very close to him, and that with +ease. Had she been thrice as heavy he could have borne her with as +little care as he did his own immeasurably lightened heart in that hour +of fulfilment. And she lay snug and confident, her arms round his neck, +the shadowed loveliness of her face very near to him. The faint and +elusive fragrance of her hair was sweet and heady in the air he +breathed; he could read her eyes, and their allure and surrender was +like a draught of wine to him. He felt the strength of ten men +invigorate him, and his soul was sober with a great happiness. But a +little while and she would be in safety; already her salvation seemed +assured.... The further bank neared all too quickly. He would willingly +have lingered to prolong the stolen sweetness of that moment, forgetful +altogether of the danger that lay behind them. + +Ahead, he saw Labertouche step out upon a shelving shore and, shaking +his legs with an effect irresistibly suggestive of a dog leaving the +water, peer inland through the tamarisks. His low, whistled signal +sounded as Amber joined him and put down the girl--reluctantly. Her +whispered thanks were interrupted by an exclamation from Labertouche. + +"Hang it all! he can't've mistaken the spot. I told him to wait right +here, and now ... We daren't delay." He cast an apprehensive glance +across the stream. "Look lively, please." + +He shouldered away through the thicket, and for several moments they +struggled on through the hindering undergrowth, their passage betrayed +by much noisy rustling. Then, as they won through to open ground, +Labertouche paused and whistled a second time, staring eagerly from +right to left. + +"I'm blessed!" he declared, with a vehemence that argued his desire for +stronger language. "This is bad--bad--bad! He never failed me before! +I--" + +A mocking chuckle seemed to break from the ground at their feet, and in +the flicker of an eyelash a shadow lifted up out of the +scrub-encumbered level. Sophia cried aloud with alarm; Labertouche +swore outright, heedless; and Amber put himself before her, drawing his +revolver, heartsick with the conviction that they were trapped, that +their labour had gone all for naught, that all futilely had they +schemed and dared.... + +But while his finger was yet seeking the trigger the first shadow was +joined by a score of fellows--shades that materialised with like +swiftness and silence from the surface of the earth--and before he +could level the weapon Labertouche seized his wrist. For an instant he +resisted, raging with disappointment; but the Englishman was cool, +strong, determined; inevitably in the outcome the weapon was pointed to +the sky. + +"Steady, you ass!" breathed the secret-agent in his ear. "Can't you +see--" + +And Amber gave over, in amazement unbounded, seeing the starlight +glinting down a dozen levelled rifle-barrels, glowing pale on the +spiked, rounded crowns of pith helmets, and striking soft fire from +burnished accoutrements; while a voice, thick with a brogue that was +never bred out of hearing of Bow Bells, was hectoring them to +surrender. + +"'Ands up, ye bloomin' black beggars! 'Ands up, I s'y!" + +"Tommies!" cried Amber; and incontinently he dropped the revolver as +though it had turned hot in his hand. + +"Steady, my man!" Labertouche interrupted what threatened to develop +into a string of intolerable abuse. "Hold your tongue! Can't you see +we've a lady with us?" + +"Ul-_lo!_" The soldier lowered his rifle and stepped closer, his voice +vibrating with astonishment. "Blimme, 'ere's a go!... beggar of a +nigger givin' me wot-for 's if 'e was a gent! 'Oo in 'ell d'ye think +y'are, yer 'ighness?' + +"That'll do. Put down those guns, and call your commanding officer. +I'll explain to him. Where is he? What troops are you? When did you +arrive?" + +Such queries and commands discharged quickly in crisp English from the +mouth of one who wore the color and costume of a Mohammedan of high +degree, temporarily dazed his captors. In a body they pressed round the +three, peering curiously into their faces--the two white and the one +dark; and their murmurings rose and swelled discordant. "Blimme if 'e +_ain't_ a gent!" "T'other un is!" "An this un a leddy!"...But to his +interrogations Labertouche got no direct reply. While as for Amber, he +could have laughed aloud from a heart that brimmed with thanksgiving +for the honest sound of their rich rough voices; besides which, Sophia +stood very close to him, and her fingers were tight about his.... + +"What's this?" A sharp voice cut the comments of the Tommies, and they +were smitten silent by it. An officer, with jingling spurs and sword in +hand, elbowed through the heart of the press. "Stop that row instantly. +What's this? Who are you, sir?" + +"I sent the message from Kathiapur, and I'm uncommonly happy to meet +you, whoever you may be, sir. Tell your men to fall back, please, and +I'll introduce myself properly." + +Two words secured the secret-agent the privacy he desired; the officer +offered him an ungloved hand as the troopers withdrew out of hearing. + +"Happy, indeed!" he said cheerfully. "I'm Rowan, Captain, Fourteenth +Pioneers." + +"I'm Labertouche, I.S.S. This is Miss Farrell, daughter of Colonel +Farrell, and this Mr. Amber, of New York. We're just escaped from that +rock over there and--if you'll pardon--I'd suggest you set a strong +guard over the ford behind those tamarisks." + +"One moment, please." The officer strode off to issue instructions in +accordance with Labertouche's advice. "We got here only a quarter of an +hour ago," he apologised, swinging back as the men deployed into the +thicket, "and haven't had time to nose out the lay of the land +thoroughly." + +"I infer you got my man with the horses--native calling himself Ram +Nath?" + +"He's with the Colonel-commanding now, Mr. Labertouche. As I was +saying, we've hardly had time to do more than throw a line of pickets +round the rock. It's been quick work for us--marching orders at +midnight yesterday, down by train to Sar, and forced march across the +desert ever since daybreak." + +"I'd hardly hoped the thing could be done so quickly. If I had been +able to get the information an instant earlier, my mind would've been +easier, captain, but--Hello!" + +From the ford an abrupt clamour of voices interrupted. The officer +hooked up his scabbard. "Sounds as if my men had gathered in somebody +else," he said hastily. "If you'll excuse me, I'll have a look." He +trotted off into the shade of the tamarisks. + +As he disappeared the disturbance abated somewhat. "False alarm," Amber +guessed. + +"I fancy not," said Labertouche. "If I'm not mistaken our friend +Naraini left for the special purpose of raising the hue and cry. This +should be the vanguard of the pursuit." + +Amber looked upward. Overhead the soulless city slumbered in a +stillness apparently unbroken, yet he who saw its profile rugged +against the stars, could fancy what consternation was then, or +presently would be, running riot through its haunted ways. + +"How many of 'em are there, do you reckon?" he asked. + +"Three or four hundred," replied the secret-agent absently; "the pick +and flower of Indian unrest. My word, but this will kick up a row! +Think of it, man! three hundred and fifty-odd lords and princes bagged +all at once in the act of plotting the Second Mutiny! What a change it +will work on the political face of the land! ... And the best of it is, +they simply can't get away." + +"Is this the only exit, then--the way we escaped?" + +"Not by three--all on the other side of the rocky where they rode up +and left their horses. And that's where the most of 'em will come out, +by twos and threes, like the animals out of the Ark, you know. What a +catch!" + +"And we've you to thank!" + +"I? Oh, dear boy, thank the Tommies!" + +"But what would we have done, or the Tommies either, without you?" + +"What indeed!" Sophia echoed warmly. "I've had no chance, as yet--" + +"Not another word, my dear Miss Farrell!" Labertouche protested, +acutely uncomfortable. "To've been able to help you out of the scrape +is enough." + +"But I must--" she began, and stopped with a little cry as a shot rang +out from the heart of the thicket, to be followed by another and then +by a shriek of agony and a great confusion of sounds--shouts and oaths +and noisy crashings in the tamarisks as of many men blundering hither +and yon. + +Silenced, with a slight shudder of apprehension, the girl drew to +Amber's side, as if instinctively. He took her hand and drew it through +his arm. + +"Run to earth at last!" cried Labertouche. "I wonder--" + +"If my hope's good for anything," Amber laughed, less because he felt +like laughing than for the purpose of reassuring Sophia, "this will be +the gentleman who trained the Hooded Death to dance, or else he who--" + +He was thinking with vindictive relish of what fate he would mete out +to the manipulator of the Bell, were it left to him to pass sentence. +But he broke off as a body of soldiery burst from the tamarisks, and, +headed by young Rowan, hurried toward the three, bringing with them a +silent and unresisting prisoner. + +"I say," the officer called excitedly in advance, "here's something +uncommon' rum. It's a woman, you know." + +"Aha!" said Labertouche, and "Ah!" said Amber, "with a click of his +teeth, while the woman on his arm clung to him the closer. + +"I thought we'd better bring her to you, for she said ..." Rowan +paused, embarrassed, and took a fresh start. "My men got to the ford +just as she was coming ashore with three other men, and the whole pack +took to cover on this side. Two of the men are still missing, but we +routed out the other just now with this--ah--lady. He showed fight and +got bayonetted. But the woman--excuse me, Mr. Amber--she protests--by +George, it's too ridiculous!--" + +"I have claimed naught that is not true!" an unforgettably sweet voice +interrupted from the centre of the group. It opened out, disclosing +Naraini between two guards, in that moment of passion and fear perhaps +more incomparably beautiful than any woman they had ever looked upon, +save her who held to Amber's arm, a-quiver with womanly sympathy and +compassion. + +During her flight and her resistance Naraini's veil had been rent away; +in the clear starlight her countenance, framed in hair of lustrous jet +and working with uncontrollable rage and despair, shone like that of +some strange tempestuous Aphrodite fashioned of palest gold. Beneath +its folds of tightly drawn, bespangled gauze her bosom swelled and fell +convulsively, and on her perfect arms, more softly beautiful than any +Phidias ever dreamed to chisel, the golden bracelets and bangles +clashed and tinkled as she writhed and fought to free herself of the +defiling hands. Half-mad with disappointment, she raged amid the +scattered shreds of her dream of power like a woman hopelessly +deranged. + +"Aye, I have claimed!" she stormed. "I have claimed justice and the +rights of wifehood, the protection of him whose wife I am; or, if he +deny me, I claim that he must suffer with me--he who hath played the +traitor's part to-night, betraying his Cause and his wife alike to +their downfall!... I claim," she insisted, lifting, in spite of the +soldiers' restraining hands, one small quivering arm to single Amber +out and point him to scorn, "that this is the man who, wedded to me by +solemn right and the custom of the land, hath deserted and abandoned +me, hath denied me even as he denies his birthright, when it doth +please him, and forswears the faith of his fathers! I claim to be +Naraini, Queen, wife to Har Dyal Rutton, rightful ruler of +Khandawar--coward, traitor, renegade--who stands there!" + +"For the love of Heaven, Rowan, shut her up!" cried Labertouche. "It's +all a pack of lies; the woman's raving. Rutton's dead, in the first +place; in the second, he's her father. She can't be his wife very well, +whether he's alive or dead. It's simply a dodge of hers to gain time. +Shut her up and take her away--she's as dangerous as a wildcat!" + +"Nay, I will not be gagged nor taken hence till I have said my say!" +With a sudden furious wrench Naraini wrested her arms from the grasp of +the guards and sprang away, eluding with lithe and snake-like movements +their attempts to recapture her. "Not," she cried, "until I have +wrought my will upon the two of them. Thou hast stood in my light too +long, O my sister!" + +A hand blazing with jewels tore at the covering of her bosom and +suddenly came away clutching a dagger, thin, long, and keen; and +snarling she sprang toward the girl, to whose influence, however +unwitting, she rightly ascribed the downfall of her scheme of empire. +Rowan and Labertouche leaped forward and fell short, so lightning swift +she moved; only Amber stood between her and her vengeance. Choking with +horror, he put the girl behind him with a resistless hand, and took +Naraini to his arms. + +"Ah, hast thou changed thy mind, Beloved?" The woman caught him +fiercely to her with an arm about his waist, and her voice rose shrill +with mocking triumph, "Are my lips become so sweet to thee again? Then +see how I kiss, thou fool!" + +She thrust with wicked cunning, twice and again, before the men tore +her away and disarmed her. For an instant wrestling like a demon with +them, still animated by her murderous frenzy, still wishful to fill her +cup of vengeance to the brim with the blood of the girl, she of a +sudden ceased to resist and fell passive in their hands, a dying +flicker of satisfaction in the eyes that watched the culmination of her +crime.... + +To Amber it was as if his body had been penetrated thrice by a needle +of fire. The anguish of it was exquisite, stupefying. He was aware of a +darkening, reeling world, wherein men's faces swam like moons, pallid, +staring, and of a mighty and invincible lethargy that pounced upon him, +body, brain and soul, like a black panther springing from the ambush of +the night. Yet there were still words that must be spoken, lest they +live in his subconsciousness to torment him through all the long, black +night that was to receive him. He tried to steady himself, and lifted +an arm that vibrated like the sprung limb of a sapling, signing to the +secret-agent. + +"_Labertouche_," he said thickly ... "_Sophia ... out of India ... at +once ... life_ ..." + +The girl's arms received him as he fell. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +A LATER DAY + + +A man awoke from a long dream of night and fear, of passion, pain, and +death, and opened eyes whose vision seemed curiously clear, to realise +a new world, very unlike that in which the incoherent action of his +dream had moved--a world of light and lively air, as sweet and +wholesome as glistening white paint, sunshine, and an abundance of +pure, cool air could render it. + +Because he had known these things in a former existence, he understood +that he lay in the lower berth of a first-cabin stateroom, aboard an +ocean steamship; a spacious, bright box of a room, through whose open +ports swayed brilliant shafts of temperate sunlight, together with +great gusts of the salt sweet breath of the open sea. Through them, +too, he could see patches of unclouded blue, athwart which now and +again gulls would sweep on flashing, motionless pinions. + +The man lay still and at peace, watching, wondering idly, soothed by +the sense of being swung through space, only vaguely conscious of the +plunging pulsations of the ship's engines, hammering away indomitably +far in the hold beneath him. His thoughts busied themselves lightly +with a number of important questions, to whose answers the man realised +that he was singularly indifferent. Who was he? What had happened to +bring him back to life (for he was sure that he had died, a long time +ago)? How had he come to that stateroom? What could the name of the +vessel be? Where ... Deep thoughts were these and long; the man drowsed +over them, but presently was aroused by the sensation of being no +longer alone, of being watched. + +His eyeballs seemed to move reluctantly in their sockets, and his head +felt very light and empty, although so heavy that he could not lift it +from the pillow. But he managed to shift his gaze from the window until +it rested upon a man's face--a gaunt, impassive brown face illuminated +by steady and thoughtful eyes, filled with that mystic, unshakable +spirit of fatalism that is the real Genius of the eastern peoples. The +head itself stood out with almost startling distinctness against the +background of pure white. It was swathed with an immaculate white +turban. The thin, stringy brown neck ran into a loose surtout of snowy +white. + +The sick man felt that he recognised this countenance--had known it, +rather, in some vague, half-remembered life before his latest death. +The name...? He felt his lips move and that they were thin and glazed. +Moistening them with his tongue he made another attempt to articulate. +A thin whisper passed them in two breaths: "Ram ... Nath ..." + +Hearing this, the dark man started out of his abstraction, cast a +swift, pitiful glance at the sick man's face, and came to hold a +tumbler to his lips. The liquid, colourless, acrid, and pungent, +slipped into his mouth, and he had to swallow whether he would or no. +When the final drop disappeared, Ram Nath put down the glass, smiled, +laid a finger on his lips, and went on tiptoe from the stateroom. + +After awhile the man without an identity fell asleep, calmly, +restfully, in absolute peace. When again he awakened it was with the +knowledge that he was David Amber, and that a woman sat beside him. + +Her face was turned from him, and her brown eyes, clouded with dreams, +were staring steadfastly out through the open port; the flowing banners +of sunshine now and again touched her hair with quick fire--her +wonderfully spun hair, itself scarcely less radiant than the light that +illumined it. Against the blue-white background her gracious profile +showed womanly and sweet. There was rich colour in cheeks fresh from +the caress of the sea wind. She smiled in her musing, scarlet lips +apart. + +"Sophia..." + +His voice sounded in his own hearing very thin and brittle. The girl +turned her gaze upon him swiftly, the soft smile deepening, the +dream-light in her eyes burning brighter and more steady. She bent +forward, placing over his wasted hand a hand firm and warm, strong yet +gentle, its whiteness enhanced by the suggested tracery of blue veins +beneath the silken skin, and by the rosy tips of her slender, subtle +fingers. + +"David!" she said. + +He sighed and remembered. His brows knitted, then smoothed themselves +out; for with memory came the realisation that, since he was there and +she by his side, God was surely in his Heaven, all well with the world! + +"How long...Sophia?" + +"Five days, David." + +"Where...?" + +"At sea, David, on a _Messageries_ boat for Marseilles. Dear ..." + +He closed his eyes in beatific content: "David ... Dear ...!" + +"Can you listen?" + +"Yes ... sweetheart." + +Her voice faltered; she flushed adorably. "You mustn't talk. But I'll +tell you.... They refused to let us go back to Kuttarpur; an escort +took us across the desert to Nok, you in a litter, I on horseback. +There we took train to Haidarabad and Karachi. Ram Nath came with us, +as bearer, it being necessary that he too should leave India. My father +and your man Doggott joined us at Karachi, where this steamer touched +the second day." + +"You understand, now--?" + +"Everything, dearest." + +"Labertouche--?" + +"He told me nothing. I haven't seen him since that morning, when, just +after you were wounded, we started for Nok. He posted off to Kuttarpur +to find my father.... No; it was you who told me--everything--in your +delirium." + +"And ... you forgive--?" + +"Forgive!" + +He smiled faintly. "That photograph?" + +"I had it ready to return to you that morning, David." + +"Knowing what it meant to me?" + +"Knowing what it meant to _me_--what it meant to both of us, David." + +"So you weren't offended, that night?" + +"I loved you even then, David. I think I must have loved you from that +first day at Nokomis. Do you remember...?" + +His eyes widened, perplexed, staring into her grave, dear eyes. "Then +why did you pretend--?" + +With the low, caressing laugh of a happy child, the girl knelt by the +side of his berth, and laid her cheek against his own. "Oh, David, my +David! When do you expect to understand the heart of a woman, dear +heart of mine?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE FINAL INCARNATION + + +About five o'clock of an evening in April the Cunarder _Caronia_, four +hours out from Queenstown and buckling down to a night's hard work +against the northwesterly gale, shipped a sea. It was not much of a +sea--merely a playful slap of a wave that broke against the staunch +black side and glanced upward in a shower of spray, spattering +liberally a solitary passenger who had been showing enough interest in +the weather to remain on deck until that particular moment. Apparently +undisconcerted by the misadventure, he shook himself and laughed a +sober, contented laugh, found a handkerchief and mopped his face with +it, then, with a final approving survey of the lowering and belligerent +canopy of wind-cloud that overhung the tortured ocean, permitted +himself to be blown aft to the door of the first-cabin smoking-room. +Opening this by main strength, he entered. The gale saved him the +bother of closing it. + +Removing his rain-coat and cap and depositing them on a convenient +chair, he glanced round the room and discovered that he shared it with +a single passenger, who was placidly exhausting the virtues of an +excellent cigarette. Upon this gentleman the newcomer bent a regard +steadfast and questioning, but after returning it casually the smoker +paid him no further attention. Dissatisfied, the other moved toward +him, and the deck slanted suddenly and obligingly the better to +accelerate his progress, so that he brought up with a lurch in the seat +next the smoker. The latter raised the eyebrows of surprise and hoped +that the gentleman had not hurt himself. + +"I didn't, thank you, Mr. David Amber." + +Mr. David Amber looked the gentleman over with heightened interest. He +saw a man of medium height, with a sturdy figure that bore without +apparent fatigue the years that go with slightly greyish hair. He was +quietly dressed and had intelligent eyes, but was altogether +unimpressive of manner, save for a certain vague air of reserve that +assorted quaintly with his present attitude. + +"You've the advantage of me, sir," Amber summed up the result of his +scrutiny. + +"It's not the first time," asserted the other, with an argumentative +shake of his head. "No-o?" Light leaped in Amber's eyes. "Labertouche!" + +"Surprised you, eh?" The Englishman grinned with pleasure, pumping +Amber's arm cordially. "I don't mind owning that I meant to." + +"Well, considering that this is positively your first appearance as +yourself on the stage of my life, you don't deserve any credit for +being able to deceive me. When one gets accustomed to remembering you +only as a native--generally as a babu in dirty pink satin--...Do you +know, I made all sorts of enquiries after you, but they told me, in +response to my wires to Calcutta, that you'd dropped out of the world +entirely. I had begun to fear that those damned natives must have got +you, after all, and that I'd never see you again." + +"I'd almost given up hope of ever seeing myself again," said +Labertouche drily. + +"But why didn't you--?" + +"Business, dear boy, business.... I was needed for several days in the +neighbourhood of Kathiapur." + +"It seems as though I'd waited several years for news of Kathiapur. The +papers--" + +"There are a good many things that happen in India that fail to get +into the newspapers, Amber. It wasn't thought necessary to advise the +world, including Russia, that half the native potentates in Hindustan +had been caught in the act of letting the Second Mutiny loose upon +India." A network of fine wrinkles appeared about his eyes as he smiled +enjoyment of what he seemed to consider a memorable joke. + +"Go on," pleaded Amber. + +"Kathiapur was a sort of mousetrap; the brutes came out by twos and +three, just as I said they would, for the better part of three days. It +was either surrender or starve with them, and after five-sixths of them +had elected not to starve we turned a couple of companies of Tommies +into the place, and I don't believe they left unturned a stone big +enough to hide a rabbit. One by one they routed 'em out and booted 'em +down to us. Meanwhile we had rushed enough troops to Kuttarpur to keep +their tails quiet." + +"And Salig Singh--and Naraini?" + +"Salig Singh, it turned out, was the chap that got bayoneted in the +tamarisks. Naraini managed somehow to steal away the next night, under +the noses of any number of sentries; beauty such as hers would bribe +her way out of hell, I think. What became of her I don't know, but I +can prophesy that she won't live long. She was rather too advanced in +her views, for India--some centuries ahead of her race. She and Salig +Singh had it all planned, you know; his was the master-mind, hers the +motive-power. They were to crown you, instead of Salig's son, the next +day--in the name of Har Dyal Rutton; and then you were to die suddenly +by virtue of hemp poison or some other contagious disease, and Salig +was to step into your shoes as Emperor of Hindustan, with Naraini as +his Empress.... She should have stayed home and been a suffragette." + +"Better for her," said Amber. "Of course I've found out about her, from +Farrell. It seems that she was brought up in England, with Sophia, and +always given to believe she was his own daughter, but she was a wild +thing and hard to handle. One day she found out about her +parentage--how, it's not known, but Farrell suspects that the men who +were hounding Rutton got into communication with her. At all events, +she brooded over the thing, and when, five years or so ago, Mrs. +Farrell died and the Colonel sent for Sophia to join him in India, +Naraini--well, she rebelled. He refused to let her leave England, and +she finally took the bit in her teeth and ran away--vanished and was +never heard of again until Sophia recognised her in Kathiapur." + +"I myself can fill in the gap," Labertouche volunteered. "She joined +some of Salig's underlings in Paris and went thence direct to +Khandawar, assuming the name of one of the old queens who had elected +opportunely to die.... Queer case--singular instance of reversion to +type." + +"A mighty distressing one to the old colonel; you know Rutton kept +religiously to his promise not to see the child after he'd given her +into Farrell's care. Farrell lost all track of him and was unable to +communicate with him, of course, when Naraini chose to strike out for +herself.... One thing has always puzzled me; the girl called me by her +father's name, pretending to recognise me as her husband; you can't +reconcile such conduct." + +"You can, easily enough--beg pardon, my dear fellow. Neither she nor +Salig Singh was for an instant deceived. But Salig _had_ to deliver up +_a_ Har Dyal Rutton to the Council, so Naraini was set to seduce you. +Their plans only required that you should be madly infatuated with her +for a couple of days; after that ..." Labertouche turned down his thumb +significantly. "I fancy there must have been a family secret or +tradition, handed down from father to son in the Rutton line, that some +day one of the family would be called upon to raise the standard of the +Second Mutiny. That will explain why Har Dyal Rutton, a gentleman of +parts and cultivation, dared not live in India, and why--because he was +sworn to keep the secret--he laid stress on the condition that you were +not to mention his name." + +"Still, he gave me permission to talk to Dhola Baksh." + +"True; but it seems that Dhola Baksh had been his confidential +body-servant in Kuttarpur, during his too-brief reign. Rutton thought +he would be able to help you, and knew that he would be loyal to his +master's memory." + +"Finally, what about that photograph?" + +"You've Salig Singh to thank for its return, I fancy. I had nothing to +do with it. But they were bent on luring you to Naraini's bower, and +they figured that after receiving it you'd go anywhere to meet the man +who returned it. By the way, where's Ram Nath?" + +"He's staying in England as body-servant to Colonel Farrell." + +"He's well off, so; his sphere of usefulness in India was at an end. +So, in fact, was mine. That's why I'm here--on indefinite leave of +absence. One or two things grew out of the affair of the Gateway to +make me a person of interest to the natives, and when that happens in +India it's just as well for the interesting person to pack up and get +thence with all possible expedition. It's too bad; I was really doing +some good work there. Well...! When the East gets into a fellow's +blood, he's a hopeless, incurable case; I shall go back, I presume, +some day. If the big trouble comes in my lifetime--and I think it will; +come it will unquestionably, soon or late--I shan't be able to keep +away, you know." He glanced at his watch and rose. "Time to dress for +dinner," said he; and as they were moving to the door, he added: "What +ever became of that emerald ring, Amber?" + +"The Eye?" Amber laughed. "Well--it was silly enough; but women are +superstitious, you know--Sophia dropped it overboard one day as we were +coming through the Mediterranean. She said she was afraid of it ... and +I don't know but I sympathise with her." + +"I'm certain I do. And yet, in your case, it was the means of +introducing you, wasn't it?... But there! It's been on the tip of my +tongue a dozen times to ask, but other things got in the way.... How +_is_ Mrs. Amber?" + +"You shall see for yourself," said Amber, "when we meet for dinner." + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE BRONZE BELL *** + +This file should be named 7brzb10.txt or 7brzb10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 7brzb11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 7brzb10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: The Bronze Bell + +Author: Louis Joseph Vance + +Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9927] +[This file was first posted on October 31, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE BRONZE BELL *** + + + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Janice Piette, Sheila Vogtmann, Elaine +Walker, and Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + +THE BRONZE BELL + +By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE + +1909 + + + + + + + +To + +F. E. Z. + +Chatelaine of Juniper Lodge + +This story is dedicated by one to whom her hospitality, transplanted +from its Kentucky home, will ever remain a charming memory. + + + +[Illustration: "NOT ONCE DID HE LOOK BACK WHILE AMBER WATCHED--HIMSELF +DIVIDED BETWEEN AMUSEMENT, ANNOYANCE, AND ASTONISHMENT" (PAGE 14)] + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER + + I DESTINY AND THE BABU + + II THE GIRL AND THE TOKEN + + III MAROONED + + IV THE MAN PERDU + + V THE GOBLIN NIGHT + + VI RED DAWN + + VII MASKS AND FACES + + VIII FIRST STEPS + + IX PINK SATIN + + X MAHARANA OF KHANDAWAR + + XI THE TONGA + + XII THE LONG DAY + + XIII THE PHOTOGRAPH + + XIV OVER THE WATER + + XV FROM A HIGH PLACE + + XVI SUNRISE FOR TWO + + XVII THE WAY TO KATHIAPUR + +XVIII THE HOODED DEATH + + XIX RUTTON'S DAUGHTER + + XX A LATER DAY + + XXI THE FINAL INCARNATION + + + + +CHAPTER I + +DESTINY AND THE BABU + + +Breaking suddenly upon the steady drumming of the trucks, the prolonged +and husky roar of a locomotive whistle saluted an immediate +grade-crossing. + +Roused by this sound from his solitary musings in the parlour-car of +which he happened temporarily to be the sole occupant, Mr. David Amber +put aside the magazine over which he had been dreaming, and looked out +of the window, catching a glimpse of woodland road shining white +between sombre walls of stunted pine. Lazily he consulted his watch. + +"It's not for nothing," he observed pensively, "that this railroad +wears its reputation: we are consistently late." + +His gaze, again diverted to the flying countryside, noted that it had +changed character, pine yielding to scrub-oak and second-growth--the +ragged vestments of an area some years since denuded by fire. This, +too, presently swung away, giving place to cleared land--arable acres +golden with the stubble of garnered harvests or sentinelled with +unkempt shocks of corn. + +In the south a shimmer of laughing gold and blue edged the faded +horizon. + +Eagerly the young man leaned forward, dark eyes the functions of +waiting-room and ticket and telegraph offices. From its eaves depended +a weather-worn board bearing the legend: "Nokomis." + +The train, pausing only long enough to disgorge from the baggage-car a +trunk or two and from the day-coaches a thin trickle of passengers, +flung on into the wilderness, cracked bell clanking somewhat +disdainfully. + +By degrees the platform cleared, the erstwhile patrons of the road and +the station loafers--for the most part hall-marked natives of the +region--straggling off upon their several ways, some afoot, a majority +in dilapidated surreys and buckboards. Amber watched them go with +unassumed indifference; their type interested him little. But in their +company he presently discovered one, a figure so thoroughly foreign and +aloof in attitude, that it caught his eye, and, having caught, held it +clouded with perplexity. + +Abruptly he abandoned his belongings and gave chase, overtaking the +object of his attention at the far end of the station. + +"Doggott!" he cried. "I say, Doggott!" + +His hand, falling lightly upon the man's shoulder, brought him squarely +about, his expression transiently startled, if not a shade truculent. + +Short and broad yet compact of body, he was something round-shouldered, +with the stoop of those who serve. In a mask of immobility, +full-colored and closely shaven, his lips were thin and tight, his eyes +steady, grey and shallow: a countenance neither dishonest nor +repellent, but one inscrutable. Standing solidly, once halted, there +remained a suggestion of alertness in the fellow's pose. + +"Doggott, what the deuce brings you here? And Mr. Rutton?" + +Amber's cordiality educed no response. The grey eyes, meeting eyes +dark, kindly, and penetrating, flickered and fell; so much emotion they +betrayed, no more, and that as disingenuous as you could wish. + +"Doggott!" insisted Amber, disconcerted. "Surely you haven't forgotten +me--Mr. Amber?" + +The man shook his head. "Beg pardon, sir," he said; "you've got my nyme +'andy enough, but I don't know _you_, and--" + +"But Mr. Rutton?" + +"Is a party I've never 'eard of, if you'll excuse my sayin' so, no +more'n I 'ave of yourself, sir." + +"Well!" began Amber; but paused, his face hardening as he looked the +man up and down, nodding slowly. + +"Per'aps," continued Mr. Doggott, unabashed, "you mistyke me for my +brother, 'Enery Doggott. 'E was 'ome, in England, larst I 'eard of 'im. +We look a deal alike, I've been told." + +"You would be," admitted Amber drily; and, shutting his teeth upon his +inherent contempt for a liar, he swung away, acknowledging with a curt +nod the civil "Good-arfternoon, sir," that followed him. + +The man had disappeared by the time Amber regained his kit-bag and +gun-case; standing over which he surveyed his surroundings with some +annoyance, discovering that he now shared the station with none but the +ticket-agent. A shambling and disconsolate youth, clad in a three-days' +growth of beard, a checked jumper and khaki trousers, this person +lounged negligently in the doorway of the waiting-room and, caressing +his rusty chin with nicotine-dyed fingers, regarded the stranger in +Nokomis with an air of subtle yet vaguely melancholy superiority. + +"If ye're lookin' for th' hotel," he volunteered unexpectedly, "there +aint none;" and effected a masterly retreat into the ticket-booth. + +Amused, the despised outlander picked up his luggage and followed +amiably. "I'm not looking for the hotel that aint," he said, planting +himself in front of the grating; "but I expected to be met by someone +from Tanglewood--" + +"Thet's the Quain place, daown by th' ba-ay," interpolated the youth +from unplumbed depths of mournful abstraction. + +"It is. I wired yesterday--" + +"Yeour name's Amber, aint it?" + +"Yes, I--" + +"Well, Quain didn't get yeour message till this mornin'. I sent a kid +daown with it 'baout ten o'clock." + +"But why the--but I wired yesterday afternoon!" + +"I knaow ye did," assented the youth wearily. "It come through raound +closin' time and they wa'n't nobody baound that way, so I held it +over." + +"This craze for being characteristic," observed Mr. Amber obscurely, +"is the only thing that really stands in the way of Nokomis becoming a +thriving metropolis. Do you agree with me? No matter." He smiled +engagingly: a seasoned traveller this, who could recognise the futility +of bickering over the irreparable. Moreover, he had to remind himself +in all fairness, the blame was, in part at least, his own; for he had +thoughtlessly worded his telegram, "Will be with you to-morrow +afternoon"; and it was wholly like Quain that he should have accepted +the statement at its face value, regardless of the date line. + +"I _can_ leave my things here for a little while, I presume?" Amber +suggested after a pause. + +The ticket-agent stared stubbornly into the infinite, making no sign +till a coin rang on the window-ledge; when he started, eyed the +offering with fugitive mistrust, and gloomily possessed himself of it. +"I'll look after them," he said. "Be ye thinkin' of walkin'?" + +"Yes," said Amber over his shoulder. He was already moving toward the +door. + +"Knaow yeour wa-ay?" + +"I've been here before, thank you." + +"Fer another quarter," drawled the agent with elaborate apathy, "I'd +leave the office long enough to find somebody who'd fetch ye daown in a +rig for fifty cents." + +But Amber was already out of ear-shot. + +Crossing the tracks, he addressed himself to the southward-stretching +highway. Walking briskly at first, he soon left behind the +railway-station with its few parasitic cottages; a dip in the land hid +them, and he had hereafter for all company his thoughts, the desultory +road, a vast and looming sky, and bare fields hedged with impoverished +forest. + +A deep languor brooded over the land: the still, warm enchantment of an +Indian Summer which, protracted though it were unseasonably into the +Ides of November, had yet lost nothing of its witchery. There was no +wind, but now and again the air stirred softly, and when it stirred was +cool; as if the earth sighed in sheer lassitude. Out of a cloudless +sky, translucent sapphire at its zenith fading into hazy topaz-yellow +at the horizon, golden sunlight slanted, casting shadows heavy and +colourful; on the edge of the woodlands they clung like thin purple +smoke, but motionless, and against them, here and there, a clump of +sumach blazed like a bed of embers, or some tree loath to shed its +autumnal livery flamed scarlet, russet, and mauve. The peace of the +hour was intense, and only emphasised by a dull, throbbing +undertone--the muted murmur of the distant sea. + +Amber had professed acquaintance with his way; it seemed rather to be +intimacy, for when he chose to forsake the main-travelled road he did +so boldly, striking off upon a wagon-track which, leading across the +fields, delved presently into the heart of the forest. Here it ran +snakily and, carved by broad-tired wheels and beaten out by slowly +plodding hoofs in a soil more than half sand, glimmered white as +rock-salt where the drifting leaves had left it naked. + +Once in this semi-dusk made luminous by sunlight which touched and +quivered upon dead leaf and withered bush and bare brown bough like +splashes of molten gold, the young man moved more sedately. The hush of +the forest world bore heavily upon his senses; the slight and stealthy +rustlings in the brush, the clear dense ringing of some remote axe, an +attenuated clamour of cawing from some far crows' congress, but served +to accentuate its influence. On that windless day the vital breath of +the sea might not moderate the bitter-sweet aroma of decay that swam +beneath the unmoving branches; and this mournful fragrance of dying +Autumn wrought upon Amber's mood as might a whiff of some exquisite +rare perfume revive a poignant memory in the bosom of a bereaved lover. +His glance grew aimless, his temper as purposeless, lively anticipation +giving way to a retrospection tinged with indefinable sadness. + +Then into the silence crept a sound to rouse him from his formless +reverie: at first a mere pulsing in the stillness, barely to be +distinguished from the song of the surf; but presently a pounding, ever +louder and more insistent. He paused, attentive; and while he waited +the drumming, minute by minute gaining in volume, swept swiftly toward +him--the rhythmic hoofbeats of a single horse madly ridden. When it was +close upon him he stepped back into the tangled undergrowth, making +room; for the track was anything but wide. + +Simultaneously there burst into view, at the end of a brief aisle of +trees, the horse--a vigorous black brute with white socks and +muzzle--running freely, apparently under constraint neither of whip nor +of spur. In the saddle a girl leaned low over the horn--a girl with +eyes rapturous, face brilliant, lips parted in the least of smiles. A +fold of her black habit-skirt, whipping out, almost snapped in Amber's +face, so close to him she rode; yet she seemed not to see him, and very +likely did not. A splendid sketch in black-and-white, of youthful +spirit and joy of motion: so she passed and was gone.... + +Hardly, however, had the forest closed upon the picture, ere a cry, a +heavy crashing as of a horse threshing about in the underbrush, and a +woman's scream of terror, sent Amber, in one movement, out into the +road again and running at a pace which, had he been conscious of it, +would have surprised him. + +A short fifty yards separated him from the bend in the way round which +the horse and its rider had vanished. He had no more than gained this +point than he was obliged to pull up sharply to avoid running into the +girl herself. + +Although dismounted, she was on her feet, and apparently uninjured. She +stood with one hand against the trunk of a tree, on the edge of a small +clearing wherein the axes of the local lumbermen had but lately been +busy. Her horse had disappeared; the rumble of his hoofs, diminuendo, +told the way he had gone. + +So much Amber comprehended in a single glance; with a second he sought +the cause of the accident, and identified it with a figure so _outré_ +and bizarre that he momentarily and excusably questioned the testimony +of his senses. + +At a little distance from the girl, in the act of addressing her, stood +a man, obese, gross, abnormally distended with luxurious and sluggish +living, as little common to the scene as a statue of Phoebus Apollo had +been: a babu of Bengal, every inch of him, from his dirty red-and-white +turban to his well-worn and cracked patent-leather shoes. His body was +enveloped in a complete suit of emerald silk, much soiled and faded, +and girt with a sash of many colours, crimson predominating. His hands, +fat, brown, and not overclean, alternately fluttered apologetically and +rubbed one another with a suggestion of extreme urbanity; his lips, +thick, sensual, and cruel, mouthed a broken stream of babu-English; +while his eyes, nearly as small and quite as black as shoe-buttons +--eyes furtive, crafty, and cold--suddenly distended and became +fixed, as with amazement, at the instant of Amber's appearance. + +Instinctively, as soon as he had mastered his initial stupefaction, +Amber stepped forward and past the girl, placing himself between her +and this preposterous apparition, as if to shield her. He was neither +overly imaginative nor of a romantic turn of mind; but, the +circumstances reviewed, it's nothing to his discredit that he +entertained a passing suspicion of some curious conspiracy against the +girl, thought of an ambuscade, and with quick eyes raked the +surroundings for signs of a confederate of the Bengali. + +He found, however, nothing alarming, no indication that the man were +not alone; nor, for that matter, could he reasonably detect in the +fellow's bearing anything but a spirit of conciliation almost servile. +None the less he held himself wary and alert, and was instant to halt +the babu when he, with the air of a dog cringing to his master's feet +for punishment, would have drawn nearer. + +"Stop right there!" Amber told him crisply; and got for response +obedience, a low salaam, and the Hindu salutation accorded only to +persons of high rank: "Hazoor!" But before the babu could say more the +American addressed the girl. "What did he do?" he inquired, without +looking at her. "Frighten your horse?" + +"Just that." The girl's tone was edged with temper. "He jumped out from +behind that woodpile; the horse shied and threw me." + +"You're not hurt, I trust?" + +"No--thank you; but"--with a nervous laugh--"I'm furiously angry." + +"That's reasonable enough." Amber returned undivided attention to the +Bengali. "Now then," he demanded sternly, "what've you got to say for +yourself? What do you mean by frightening this lady's horse? What are +you doing here, anyway?" + +Almost grovelling, the babu answered him in Urdu: "Hazoor, I am your +slave--" + +Without thinking Amber couched his retort in the same tongue: "Count +yourself lucky you are not, dog!" + +"Nay, hazoor, but I meant no harm. I was resting, being fatigued, in +the shelter of the wood, when the noise of hoofs disturbed me and I +stepped out to see. When the woman was thrown I sought to assist her, +but she threatened me with her whip." + +"That is quite true," the girl cut in over Amber's shoulder. "I don't +think he intended to harm me, but it's purely an accident that he +didn't." + +Inasmuch as the babu's explanation had been made in fluent, vernacular +Urdu, Amber's surprise at the girl's evident familiarity with that +tongue was hardly to be concealed. "You understand Urdu?" he stammered. + +"Aye," she told him in that tongue, "and speak it, too." + +"You know this man, then?" + +"No. Do you?" + +"Not in the least. How should I?" + +"You yourself speak Urdu." + +"Well but--" The situation hardly lent itself to such a discussion; he +had the babu first to dispose of. Amber resumed his cross-examination. +"Who are you?" he demanded. "And what is your business in this place?" + +The fat yellowish-brown face was distorted by a fugitive grimace of +deprecation. "Hazoor, I am Behari Lal Chatterji, solicitor, of the +Inner Temple." + +"Well? And your business here?" + +"Hazoor, that is for your secret ear." The babu drew himself up, +assuming a certain dignity. "It is not meet that the message of the +Bell should be uttered in the hearing of an Englishwoman, hazoor." + +"What are you drivelling about?" In his blank wonder, Amber returned to +English as to a tongue more suited to his urgent need of forcible +expression. "And, look here, you stop calling me 'Hazoor.' I'm no more +a hazoor than you are--idiot!" + +"Nay," contended the babu reproachfully; "is it right that you should +seek to hoodwink me? Have I not eyes with which to see you, ears that +can hear you speak our tongue, hazoor? I am no child, to be played +with--I, the appointed Mouthpiece of the Voice!" + +"I know naught of your 'Voice' or its mouthpiece; but certainly you are +no child. You are either mad, or insolent--or a fool to be kicked." And +in exasperation Amber took a step toward the man as if to carry into +effect his implied threat. + +Alarmed, the babu cringed and retreated a pace; then, suddenly, raising +an arm, indicated the girl. "Hazoor!" he cried. "Be quick--the woman +faints!" And as Amber hastily turned, with astonishing agility the babu +sprang toward him. + +Warned by his moving shadow as much as by the girl's cry, Amber leapt +aside and lifted a hand to strike; but before it could deliver a blow +it was caught and a small metallic object thrust into it. Upon this his +fingers closed instinctively, and the babu sprang back, panting and +quaking. + +"The Token, hazoor, the Token!" he quavered. "It is naught but +that--the Token!" + +"Token, you fool!" cried Amber, staring stupidly at the man. "What in +thunder----!" + +"Nay, hazoor; how should I tell you now, when another sees and hears? +At another time, hazoor, in a week, or a day, or an hour, mayhap, I +come again--for your answer. Till then and forever I am your slave, +hazoor: the dust beneath your feet. Now, I go." + +And with a haste that robbed the courtesy of its grace, the Bengali +salaamed, then wheeled square about and, hitching his clothing round +him, made off with a celerity surprising in one of his tremendous bulk, +striking directly into the heart of the woods. + +For as much as a minute he was easily to be followed, his head and +shoulders rising above the brush through which he forged purposefully, +with something of the heedless haste of a man bent on keeping a +pressing engagement--or a sinner fleeing the wrath to come. Not once +did he look back while Amber watched--himself divided between +amusement, annoyance, and astonishment. Presently the trees blotted out +the red-and-white turban; the noise of the babu's elephantine retreat +diminished; and Amber was left to knit his brows over the object which +had been forced upon him so unexpectedly. + +It proved to be a small, cubical box, something more than an inch +square, fashioned of bronze and elaborately decorated with minute +relief work in the best manner of ancient Indian craftsmanship. + +"May I see, please?" The voice of the girl at his side recalled to +Amber her existence. "May I see, too, please, Mr. Amber?" she repeated. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE GIRL AND THE TOKEN + + +In his astonishment he looked round quickly to meet the gaze of +mischievous eyes that strove vainly to seem simple and sincere. His +own, in which amusement was blended with wonder, noted that they were +very handsome eyes and rather curiously colourful, the delicate sepia +shade of the pupils being lightened by a faint sheen of gold in the +irides; they were, furthermore, large and set well apart. On the whole +he decided that they were even beautiful, for all the dancing glimmer +of perverse humour in their depths; he could fancy that they might well +seem very sweet and womanly when their owner chose to be serious. + +Aware that he faced an uncommonly pretty woman, who chose to study him +with a straightforward interest he was nothing loath to imitate, he +took time to see that she was very fair of skin, with that creamy, +silken whiteness that goes with hair of the shade commonly and unjustly +termed red. This girl's hair was really brown, a rich sepia interwoven +with strands of raw, ruddy gold, admirably harmonious with her eyes. +Her nose he thought a trace too severely perfect in its modelling, but +redeemed by a broad and thoughtful brow, a strong yet absolutely +feminine chin, and a mouth.... Well, as to her mouth, the young man +selected a rosebud to liken it to; which was really quite a poor +simile, for her lips were nothing at all like rose-leaves save in +colour; but they were well-shapen and wide enough to suggest +generosity, without being in the least too wide. + +Having catalogued these several features, together with the piquant +oval of her face, and remarked that her poise was good and gracious in +the uncompromising lines of her riding-habit, he had a mental portrait +of her he was not likely soon to forget. For it's not every day that +one encounters so pretty a girl in the woods of Long Island's southern +shore--or anywhere else, for that matter. He felt sure of this. + +But he was equally certain that he was as much a stranger to her as she +to him. + +She, on her part, had been busy satisfying herself that he was a very +presentable young man, in spite of the somewhat formidable reputation +he wore as a person of learned attainments. There could be no better +way to show him to you than through her eyes, so you must know that she +saw a man of less than thirty years, with a figure slight and not +over-tall but well-proportioned, and with a complexion as dark as hers +was light. His eyes, indeed, were a very dark grey, and his hair was +black, and his face and hands had been coloured by the sun and wind +until the tan had become indelible, almost, so that his prolonged +periods of studious indoor seclusion worked little toward lightening +it. If his looks attracted, it was not because he was handsome, for +that he wasn't, but because of certain signs of strength to be +discerned in his face, as well as an engaging manner which he owned by +right of ancestry, his ascendants for several generations having been +notable representatives of one of the First Families of Virginia. Amber +was not inordinately proud of this fact, at least not more so than nine +out of any ten Virginians; but his friends--who were many but mostly +male--claimed that he wrote "F.F.V." before the "F.R.S." which he was +entitled to inscribe after his name. + +The pause which fell upon the girl's use of his name, and during which +they looked one another over, was sufficiently prolonged to excuse the +reference to it which Amber chose to make. + +"I'm sure," he said with his slow smile, "that we're satisfied we've +never met before. Aren't we?" + +"Quite," assented the girl. + +"That only makes it the more mysterious, of course." + +"Yes," said she provokingly; "doesn't it?" + +"You know, you're hardly fair to me," he asserted. "I'm rapidly +beginning to entertain doubts of my senses. When I left the train at +Nokomis station I met a man I know as well as I know myself--pretty +nearly; and he denied me to my face. Then, a little later, I encounter +a strange, mad Bengali, who apparently takes me for somebody he has +business with. And finally, you call me by name." + +"It isn't so very remarkable, when you come to consider it," she +returned soberly. "Mr. David Amber is rather well known, even in his +own country. I might very well have seen your photograph published in +connection with some review of--let me see.... Your latest book was +entitled 'The Peoples of the Hindu Kush,' wasn't it? You see, I haven't +read it." + +"That's sensible of you, I'm sure. Why should you?... But your theory +doesn't hold water, because I won't permit my publishers to print my +picture, and, besides, reviews of such stupid books generally appear in +profound monthlies which abhor illustrations." + +"Oh!" She received this with a note of disappointment. "Then my +explanation won't do?" + +"I'm sorry," he laughed, "but you'll have to be more ingenious--and +practical." + +"And you won't show me the present the babu made you?" + +He closed his fingers jealously over the bronze box. "Not until...." + +"You insist on reciprocity?" + +"Absolutely." + +"That's very unkind of you." + +"How?" he demanded blankly. + +"You will have it that I must surrender my only advantage--my +incognito. If I tell you how I happen to know who you are, I must tell +you who I am. Immediately you will lose interest in me, because I'm +really not at all advanced; I doubt if I should understand your book if +I had to read it." + +"Which Heaven forfend! But why," he insisted mercilessly, "do you wish +me to be interested in you?" + +She flushed becomingly at this and acknowledged the touch with a +rueful, smiling glance. But, "Because I'm interested in you," she +admitted openly. + +"And ... why?" + +"Are you hardened to such adventures?" She nodded in the direction the +babu had taken. "Are you accustomed to being treated with extraordinary +respect by stray Bengalis and accepting tokens from them? Is romance +commonplace to you?" + +"Oh," he said, disappointed, "if it's only the adventure--! Of course, +that's easily enough explained. This half-witted mammoth--don't ask me +how he came to be here--thought he recognised in me some one he had +known in India. Let's have a look at this token-thing." + +He disclosed the bronze box and let her take it in her pretty fingers. + +"It must have a secret spring," she concluded, after a careful +inspection. + +"I think so, but...." + +She shook it, holding it by her ear. "There's something inside--it +rattles ever so slightly. I wonder!" + +"No more than I." + +"And what are you going to do with it?" She returned it reluctantly. + +"Why, there's nothing to do but keep it till the owner turns up, that I +can see." + +"You won't break it open?" + +"Not until curiosity overpowers me and I've exhausted every artifice, +trying to find the catch." + +"Are you a patient person, Mr. Amber?" + +"Not extraordinarily so, Miss Farrell." + +"Oh, how did you guess?" + +"By remembering not to be stupid. You are Miss Sophia Farrell, daughter +of Colonel Farrell of the British Diplomatic Service in India." He +chuckled cheerfully over this triumph of deductive reasoning. "You are +visiting the Quains for a few days, while _en route_ for India with +some friends whose name I've forgotten--" + +"The Rolands," she prompted involuntarily. + +"Thank you.... The Rolands, who are stopping in New York. You've lived +several years with your father in India, went back to London to 'come +out' and are returning, having been presented at the Court of St. +James. Your mother was an American girl, a schoolmate of Mrs. Quain's. +I'm afraid that's the whole sum of my knowledge of you." + +"You've turned the tables fairly, Mr. Amber," she admitted. "And Mr. +Quain wrote you all that?" + +"I'm afraid he told me almost as much about you as he told you about +me; we're old friends, you know. And now I come to think of it, Quain +has one of the few photographs of me extant. So my chain of reasoning's +complete. And I think we'd better hurry on to Tanglewood." + +"Indeed, yes. Mrs. Quain will be wild with worry if that animal finds +his way back to the stable without me; I've been very thoughtless." She +caught up her riding-skirt and started down the path with Amber +trudging contently beside her. "However," she considered demurely, "I'm +not at all sorry, really; it's quite an experience to have a notability +at a disadvantage, even if only for a few minutes." + +"I wish you wouldn't," he begged in boyish embarrassment. "I'm not a +notability, really; Quain's been talking too much. I'll get even with +him, though." + +"That sounds so modest that I almost believe I've made a mistake about +your identity. But I've no doubt you're right; Mr. Quain does +exaggerate in praise of his friends. Very likely it is as you insist, +and you're only an ordinary person, after all. At least, you would be +if stray babus didn't make you mysterious presents." + +"So long as there is that to hold your interest in me, I'm content," he +told her, diverted. "How much longer shall you stay at Tanglewood, Miss +Farrell?" + +"Unhappily," she sighed, "I must leave on the early train to-morrow, to +join the Rolands in New York." + +"You don't want to go?" + +"I'm half an American, Mr. Amber. I've learned to love the country +already. Besides, we start immediately for San Francisco, and it'll be +such a little while before I'll be in India." + +"You don't care for India?" + +"I've known it for less than six years, but already I've come to hate +it as thoroughly as any exiled Englishwoman there. It sits there like a +great, insatiable monster, devouring English lives. Indirectly it was +responsible for my mother's death; she never recovered from the illness +she contracted when my father was stationed in the Deccan. In the +course of time it will kill my father, just as it did his father and +his elder brother. It's a cruel, hateful, ungrateful land--not worth +the price we pay for it." + +"I know how you feel," he said with sympathy. "It's been a good many +years since I visited India, and of course I then saw and heard little +of the darker side. Your people are brave enough, out there." + +"They are. I don't know about Government; but its servants are loyal +and devoted and unselfish and cheerful. And I don't at all understand," +she added in confusion, "why I should have decided to inflict upon you +my emotional hatred of the country. Your question gave me the opening, +and I forgot myself." + +"I assure you I was thoroughly shocked, Miss Farrell." + +"You should have been--surprised, at least. Why should I pour out my +woes to you--a man I've known not fifteen minutes?" + +"Why not, if you felt like it? After all, you know, we're both of us +merely making talk to--ah--to cover our interest in one another." + +She paused momentarily to laugh at his candour. "You are outspoken, Mr. +Amber! It's very pretty of you to assert an interest in me; but why +should you assume that I--" + +"You said so, didn't you?" + +"Wel-l ... yes, so I did." + +"You can change your mind, of course." + +"I shan't, honestly, until you turn stupid. And you can't do that until +you stop having strange adventures. Will you tell me something?" + +"If I can." + +"About the man who wouldn't acknowledge knowing you? You remember +saying three people had been mistaken about your identity this +afternoon." + +"No, only one--the babu. You're not mistaken--" + +"I knew you must be David Amber the moment I heard you speaking Urdu." + +"And the man at the station wasn't mistaken--unless I am. He knew me +perfectly, I believe, but for reasons of his own refused to recognise +me." + +"Yes--?" + +"He was an English servant named Doggott, who is--or once was--a valet +in the service of an old friend, a man named Rutton." + +She repeated the name: "Rutton? It seems to me I've heard of him." + +"You have?" + +"I don't remember," she confessed, knitting her level brows. "The name +has a familiar ring, somehow. But about the valet?" + +"Well, I was very intimate with his employer for a long time, though we +haven't met for several years. Rutton was a strange creature, a man of +extraordinary genius, who lived a friendless, solitary life--at least, +so far as I knew; I once lived with him in a little place he had in +Paris, for three months, and in all that time he never received a +letter or a caller. He was reticent about himself, and I never asked +any questions, of course, but in spite of the fact that he spoke +English like an Englishman and was a public school man, apparently, I +always believed he had a strain of Hungarian blood in him--or else +Italian or Spanish. I know that sounds pretty broad, but he was +enigmatic--a riddle I never managed to make much of. Aside from that he +was wonderful: a linguist, speaking a dozen European languages and more +Eastern tongues and dialects, I believe, than any other living man. We +met by accident in Berlin and were drawn together by our common +interest in Orientalism. Later, hearing I was in Paris, he hunted me up +and insisted that I stay with him there while finishing my big +book--the one whose title you know. His assistance to me then was +invaluable. After that I lost track of him." + +"And the valet?" + +"Oh, I'd forgotten Doggott. He was a Cockney, as silent and +self-contained as Rutton.... To get back to Nokomis: I met Doggott at +the station, called him by name, and he refused to admit knowing +me--said I must have mistaken him for his twin brother. I could tell by +his eyes that he lied, and it made me wonder. It's quite impossible +that Rutton should be in this neck of the woods; he was a man who +preferred to live a hermit in centres of civilisation.... Curious!" + +"I don't wonder you think so. Perhaps the man had been up to some +mischief.... But," said the girl with a note of regret, "we're almost +home!" + +They had come to the seaward verge of the woodland, where the trees and +scrub rose like a wild hedgerow on one side of a broad, well-metalled +highway. Before them stretched the eighth of a mile of neglected land +knee-deep with crisp, dry, brown stalks of weedy growths, beyond which +the bay smiled, a still lake of colour mirroring the intense +lapis-lazuli of the calm eastern skies of evening. Over across its +waters the sand dunes of a long island glowed like a bar of new red +gold, tinted by the transient scarlet and yellow glory of the +smouldering Autumnal sunset. Through the woods the level, brilliant, +warmthless rays ran like wild-fire, turning each dead, brilliant leaf +to a wisp of incandescent flame, and tingeing the air with an +evanescent ruby radiance against which the slim young boles stood black +and stark. + +To the right, on the other side of the road, a rustic fence enclosed +the trim, well-groomed plantations of Tanglewood Lodge; through the +dead limbs a window of the house winked in the sunset glow like an eye +of garnet. And as the two appeared a man came running up the road, +shouting. + +"That's Quain!" cried Amber; and sent a long cry of greeting toward +him. + +"Wait!" said the girl impulsively, putting out a detaining hand. "Let's +keep our secret," she begged, her eyes dancing--"just for the fun of +it!" + +"Our secret!" + +"About the babu and the Token; it's a bit of mystery and romance to +me--and we don't often find that in our lives, do we? Let us keep it +personal for a while--between ourselves; and you will promise to let me +know if anything unusual ever comes of it, after I've gone. We can say +that I was riding carelessly, which is quite true, and that the horse +shied and threw me, which again is true; but the rest for ourselves +only.... Please.... What do you say?" + +He was infected by her spirit of irresponsible mischief. "Why, yes--I +say yes," he replied; and then, more gravely: "I think it'll be very +pleasant to share a secret with you, Miss Farrell. I shant say a word +to any one, until I have to." + + * * * * * + +As events turned he had no need to mention the incident until the +morning of the seventh day following the girl's departure. In the +interim nothing happened, and he was able to enjoy some excellent +shooting with Quain, his thoughts undisturbed by any further appearance +of the babu. + +But on that seventh morning it became evident that a burglary had been +visited upon the home of his hosts. A window had been forced in the +rear of the house and a trail of burnt matches and candle-grease +between that entrance and the door of Amber's room, together with the +somewhat curious circumstance that nothing whatever was missing from +the personal effects of the Quains, forced him to make an explanation. +For his own belongings had been rifled and the bronze box alone +abstracted--still preserving its secret. + +In its place Amber found a soiled slip of note-paper inscribed with the +round, unformed handwriting of the babu: "Pardon, sahib. A mistake has +been made. I seek but to regain that which is not yours to possess. +There will be naught else taken. A thousand excuses from your hmbl. +obt. svt., Behari Lal Chatterji." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +MAROONED + + +A cry in the windy dusk; a sudden, hollow booming overhead; a vision of +countless wings in panic, sketched in black upon a background of dulled +silver; two heavy detonations and, with the least of intervals, a +third; three vivid flashes of crimson and gold stabbing the purple +twilight; and then the acrid reek of smokeless drifting into Amber's +face, while from the sky, where the V-shaped flock had been, two +stricken bundles of blood-stained feathers fell slowly, fluttering.... + +Honking madly, the unscathed brethren of the slain wheeled abruptly +and, lashed by the easterly gale, fled out over the open sea, +triangular formation dwindling rapidly in the clouded distances. + +Shot-gun poised abreast, his keen eyes marking down the fall of his +prey, Amber stood without moving, exultation battling with a vague +remorse in his bosom--as always when he killed. Quain, who had dropped +back a pace after firing but one shot and scoring an unqualified miss +at close range, now stood plucking clumsily, with half frozen fingers, +at an obstinate breech-lock. This latter resisting his every wile, his +temper presently slipped its leash; as violently as briefly he swore: +"Damn!" + +"Gladly," agreed Amber, without turning. "But what?" + +"This gun!" + +"Your gun?" + +"Of course." There were elaborations which would not lend themselves to +decorative effect upon a printed page. + +"Then damn it yourself, Quain; I'm sure you can do it ever so much more +thoroughly than I. But what's the matter?" + +"Rim-jammed cartridge," explained Quain between his teeth. The lock +just then yielding to his awkward manipulation, stock and barrel came +apart in his hands. "Just my beastly luck!" he added gratuitously. "It +wouldn't've been me if--! How many'd you pot, Davy?" + +"Only two," said Amber, lowering his weapon, extracting the spent +shells, and reloading. + +"Only _two!_" The information roused in Quain a demon of sarcasm. +Fumbling in his various pockets for a shell-extractor, he grunted his +disgust. "Here, lend us your thingumbob; I've lost mine. Thanky.... +Only two! How many'd you expect to drop, on a snapshot like that?" + +"Two," returned Amber so patiently that Quain requested him, +explosively, to go to the devil. "If you don't mind," he said, "I'll go +after my ducks instead. You'll follow? They're over there, on our way." +And accepting Quain's snort for an affirmative he strolled off in the +direction indicated, hugging his gun in the crook of his arm. + +Fifty yards or so away he found the ducks, side by side in a little +hollow. "Fine fat birds," he adjudged them sagely, weighing each in his +hand ere dropping it into his lean game-bag. "This makes up for a lot +of cold and waiting." + +Satisfaction glimmering in his grave dark eyes, he lingered in the +hollow, while the frosty air, whipping madly through the sand-hills, +stung his face till it glowed beneath the brown. But presently, like +the ghost of a forgotten kiss, something moist and chill touched gently +his cheek, and was gone. Startled, he glanced skywards, then extended +an arm, watching it curiously while the rough fabric of his sleeve was +salted generously with fine white flakes. Though to some extent +apprehended (they had been blind indeed to have ignored the menace of +the dour day just then dying) snow had figured in their calculations as +little as the scarcity of game. Amber wondered dimly if it would work a +change in their plans, prove an obstacle to their safe return across +the bay. + +The flurry thickening in the air, a shade of anxiety colored his mood. +"This'll never do!" he declared, and set himself to ascend a nearby +dune. For a moment he slipped and slid vainly, the dry sand treacherous +to his feet, the brittle grasses he clutched snapping off or coming +away altogether with their roots; but in time he found himself upon the +rounded summit, and stood erect, straining the bitter air into panting +lungs as he cast about for bearings. + +Behind him a meagre strip of sand held back a grim and angry sea; +before him lay an eighth of a mile of sand-locked desolation, and then +the weltering bay--a wide two miles of leaping, shouting waves, +slate-coloured but white of crests. Beyond, seen dimly as a wall +through driving sheets of snow, were the darkly wooded rises of the +mainland. In the west, to his left, the blank, impersonal eye of the +light-house, its pillar invisible, winked red, went out, and flashed up +white. Over all, beneath a low and lustreless sky as flat as a plate, +violet evening shadows were closing in like spectral skirts of the +imminent night. But, in the gloom, their little cat-boat lay occult to +his searching gaze. + +Quain's voice recalling him, he turned to discover his host stumbling +through a neighbouring vale, and obeying a peremptory wave of the elder +man's hand, descended, accompanied by an avalanche in miniature. + +"Better hurry," shouted Amber, as soon as he could make himself heard +above the screaming of the gale. "Wind's freshening; it looks like mean +weather." + +"Really?" Quain fell into step at his side. "You 'stonish me. But the +good Lord knows I'm willin'. Whereabout's the boat?" + +"Blessed if I know: over yonder somewhere," Amber told him, waving +toward the bay-shore an arm as vaguely helpful as his information. + +"Thank you so much. Guess I can find her all right. Hump yo'self, +Davy." + +They plodded on heavily, making fair progress in spite of the hindering +sand. Nevertheless it had grown sensibly darker ere they debouched upon +the frozen flats that bordered the bay; and now the wind bore down upon +them in full-winged fury, shrieking in their ears, searing their eyes, +tearing greedily at the very breath of their nostrils, and searching +out with impish ingenuity the more penetrable portions of their +clothing. + +For a moment Quain paused, irresolute, peering right and left, then +began to trudge eastwards, heavy boots crunching the thin sedge-ice. A +little later they came to the water's edge and proceeded steadily along +it, Quain leading confidently. Eventually he tripped over some +obstacle, stumbled and lurched forward and recovered his balance with +an effort, then remained with bowed head, staring down at his feet. + +"Hurt yourself, old man?" + +"No!" snapped Quain rudely. + +"Then what in--" + +"Eh?" Quain roused, but an instant longer looked him blankly in the +eye. "Oh," he added brightly--"oh, she's gone." + +"The boat----?" + +"The boat," affirmed Quain, too discouraged for the obvious retort +ungracious. He stooped and caught up a frayed end of rope, exhibiting +it in witness to his statement. "Ain't it hell?" he inquired +plaintively. + +Amber's gaze followed the rope, the further end of which was rove +through the ring of a small grapnel anchor half buried in the spongy +earth. "Gone!" he echoed dismally. + +"Gone away from here," said Quain deliberately, nodding at the rope's +end. "The tide floated her off, of course; but how this happened is +beyond me. I could kill Antone." He named the Portuguese labourer +charged with the care of the boats at Tanglewood. "It's his job to see +that these cables are replaced when they show signs of wear." He cast +the rope from him in disdain and wheeled to stare baywards. "There!" he +cried, levelling an arm to indicate a dark and fleeting shadow upon the +storm-whipped waters. "There she goes--not three hundred feet off. It +can't be five minutes since she worked loose. I don't see why...! If it +hadn't been for that damned cartridge...! It's the devil's own luck!" + +A blur of snow swept between boat and shore; when it had passed the +former was all but indistinguishable. From a full heart Quain +blasphemed fluently.... "But if she holds as she stands," he amended +quickly, his indomitable spirit fostering the forlorn hope, "she'll go +aground in another five minutes--and I know just where. I'll go after +her." + +"The deuce you will! How?" + +"There's an old skimmy up the shore a ways." Already Quain was moving +off in search of it. "Noticed her this morning. Daresay she leaks like +a sieve, but at worst the water's pretty shoal inshore, hereabouts." + +"Cold comfort in that." + +"Better than none, you amiable--" + +"Can you swim?" Amber demanded pointedly. + +"Like a fish. And you?" + +"Not like a fish." + +"Damn!" Quain brought up short with a shin barked against a thwart of +the rowboat he had been seeking, and in recognition of the mishap +liberally insulted his luck. + +Amber, knowing that his hurt was as inconsiderable as his ill-temper, +which was more than half-feigned to mask his anxiety, laughed quietly, +meanwhile inspecting their find with a critical eye. + +"You don't seriously mean to put off in this crazy hen-coop, do you?" +he asked. + +"Just precisely that. It's the only way." + +"It simple madness. I won't--" + +"You don't want to stay here all night, do you?" + +"No, but--" + +"Well, then, lend us a hand and don't stand there grumbling. Be +thankful for what you've got, which is me and my enterprise." + +"Oh, all right." + +Together they put their shoulders to the bows of the old, flat-bottomed +rowboat, with incredible exertions uprooting it from its ancient bed, +and at length had it afloat. + +Panting, Quain mopped his forehead with a handkerchief much the worse +for a day's association with gun-grease, and peered beneath his hand +into the murk that veiled the bay. + +"There she is," he declared confidently: "aground." He pointed. "I'll +fetch up with her in no time." + +But Amber could see nothing in the least resembling the catboat, and +said so with decision. + +"She's there, all right," insisted Quain. "'Tain't my fault if you're +blind. Here, hold this, will you, while I find me a pole of some sort." +He thrust into Amber's hand an end of rotten painter at which the +rowboat strained, and wandered off into the night, in the course of +time returning with an old eel-pot stake, flotsam of some summer storm. +"Pure, bull-headed luck!" he crowed, jubilant, brandishing his trophy; +and jumped into the boat. "Now sit tight till I come back?... +Huh--what?" + +"I'm coming, too," Amber repeated quietly. + +"The hell you are! D'you want to sink us? What do you think this is, +anyway--an excursion steamer? You stay where you are and--I say--take +care of this till I come back, like a good fellow." + +He thrust the butt of his shot-gun into Amber's face, and the latter, +seizing it, was rewarded by a vigorous push that sent him back half a +dozen feet. At the same time the painter slipped from his grasp and +Quain, lodging an end of the eel-pot stake on the hard sand bottom, put +his weight upon it. Before Amber could recover, the boat had slid off +and was melting swiftly into the shadows. + +After a bit Quain's voice came back: "Don't fret, Davy. I'm all right." + +Amber cupped hands to mouth and sent a cheerful hail ringing in +response. Simultaneously the last, least, indefinite blur that stood +for the boat in the darkness, vanished in a swirl of snow; and he was +alone with the storm and his misgivings. Upon these he put a +check--would not dwell upon them; but their influence none the less +proved strong enough to breed in him a resistless restlessness and keep +him tramping up and down a five-yard stretch of comparatively solid +earth: to and fro, stamping his feet to keep his blood circulating, +lugging both guns, one beneath either arm, hunching his shoulders up +about his ears in thankless attempt to prevent wet flakes from sifting +in between his neck and collar--thus, interminably it seemed, to and +fro, to and fro.... + +In the course of time this occupation defeated its purpose; the very +monotony of it sent his thoughts winging back to Quain; he worried more +than ever for his friend, reproaching himself unmercifully for that he +had suffered him to go alone--or at all. Quain had a wife and children; +that thought proved insupportable.... Had he missed the catboat +altogether? Or had he gained it only to find the motor disabled or the +propeller fouled with the wiry eel-grass that choked the shoals? In +either instance he would be at the mercy of the wind, for even with the +sail close-reefed he would have no choice other than to fly before the +fury. Or had the boat possibly gone aground so hard and fast that Quain +had found himself unable to push her off and doomed to lie in her, +helpless, against the fulling of the tide? Or (last and most grudged +guess of all) had the "skimmy" proved as unseaworthy as its dilapidated +appearance had proclaimed it? + +Twenty minutes wore wearily away. Falling ever more densely, the snow +drew an impenetrable wan curtain between Amber and the world of life +and light and warmth; while with each discordant blast the strength of +the gale seemed to wax, its high hysteric clamour at times drowning +even the incessant deep bellow of the ocean surf. Once Amber paused in +his patrol, having heard, or fancying he had heard, the staccato +_plut-plut-plut_ of a marine motor. On impulse, with a swelling heart, +he swung his gun skywards and pulled both triggers. The double report +rang in his ears loud as a thunderclap. + +In the moments that followed, while he stood listening, with every +fibre of his being keyed to attention, the sense of his utter isolation +chilled his heart as with cold steel. + +A little frantically he loaded and fired again; but what at first might +have been thought the faint far echo of a hail he in the end set down +reluctantly to a trick of the hag-ridden wind; to whose savage voice he +durst not listen long; in such a storm, on such a night, a man had but +to hearken with a credulous ear to hear strange and terrible voices +whispering, shrieking, gibbering, howling untold horrors.... + +An hour passed, punctuated at frequent intervals by gunshots. Though +they evoked no answer of any sort, hope for Quain died hard in Amber's +heart. With all his might he laboured to convince himself that his +friend must have overtaken the drifting boat, and, forced to relinquish +his efforts to regain the beach, have scudded across the bay to the +mainland and safety; but this seemed a surmise at best so far-fetched, +and one as well not overlong to be dwelt upon, lest by that very +insistence its tenuity be emphasised, that Amber resolutely turned from +it to a consideration of his own plight and problematic way of escape. + +His understanding of his situation was painfully accurate: he was +marooned upon what a flood tide made a desert island but which at the +ebb was a peninsula--a long and narrow strip of sand, bounded on the +west by the broad, shallow channel to the ocean, on the east connected +with the mainland by a sandbar which half the day lay submerged. + +He had, then, these alternatives: he might either compose himself to +hug the leeward side of a dune till daybreak (or till relief should +come) or else undertake a five-mile tramp on the desperate hope of +finding at the end of it the tide out and the sandbar a safe footway +from shore to shore. Between the two he vacillated not at all; anything +were preferable to a night in the dunes, beaten by the implacable +storm, haunted by the thought of Quain; and even though he were to find +the eastern causeway under water, at least the exercise would have +served to keep him from freezing. + +Ten minutes after his last cartridge had been fruitlessly discharged, +he set out for the ocean beach, pausing at the first dune he came upon +to scrape a shallow trench in the sand and cache therein both guns and +his game-bag. Marking the spot with a bit of driftwood stuck upright, +he pressed on, eventually pausing on the overhanging lip of a +twenty-foot bluff. To its foot the beach below was aswirl knee-deep +with the wash of breakers, broad patches of water black and glossy as +polished ebony alternating with vast expanses of foam and clotted +spume, all aglow with pale winter phosporescence. Momentarily, as he +watched, at once fascinated and appalled, mountainous ridges of +blackness heaved up out of the storm's grey heart, offshore, and, +curling crests edged with luminous white, swung in to crash and shatter +thunderously upon the sands. + +Awed and disappointed, Amber drew back. The beach was impassable; here +was no wide and easy road to the east, such as he had thought to find; +to gain the sandbar he had now to thread a tortuous and uncertain way +through the bewildering dunes. And the prospect was not a little +disconcerting; afraid neither of wind nor of cold, he was wretchedly +afraid of going astray in that uncertain, shifting labyrinth. To lose +oneself in that trackless wilderness...! + +A demon of anxiety prodded him on: he must learn Quain's fate, or go +mad. Once on the mainland it were a matter of facility to find his way +to the village of Shampton, telephone Tanglewood and charter a "team" +to convey him thither. He shut his teeth on his determination and set +his face to the east. + +Beset and roughly buffeted by the gale; the snow settling in rippling +drifts in the folds of his clothing and upon his shoulders clinging +like a cloth; his face cut by clouds of sand flung horizontally with +well-nigh the force of birdshot from a gun: he bowed to the blast and +plodded steadily on. + +Imperceptibly fatigue benumbed his senses, blunted the keen edge of his +emotions; even the care for Quain became a mere dull ache in the back +of his perceptions; of physical suffering he was unconscious. He fell a +prey to freakish fancies--could stand aside and watch himself, an atom +whirling in the mad dance of the tempest, as the snow-flakes whirled, +as little potent. He saw himself pitting his puny strength of mind and +body against the infinite force of the elements: saw himself fall and +rise and battle on, gaining nothing: an atom, sport of high gods! To +the flight of time he grew quite oblivious, his thoughts wandering in +the past, oddly afar to half-remembered scenes, to experiences more +than half-forgotten, both wholly irrelevant; picturesque and painful +memories cast up from the deeps of the subconsciousness by some +inexplicable convulsion of the imagination. For a long time he moved on +in stupid, wondering contemplation of a shining crescent of sand backed +by a green, steaming wall of jungle; there was a dense blue sky above, +and below, on the beach, dense blue waters curled lazily up the feet of +a little, naked, brown child that played contentedly with a shell of +rainbow hues. Again he saw a throng upon a pier-head, and in its +forefront an unknown woman, plainly dressed, with deep brown eyes +wherein Despair dwelt, tearless but white to the lips as she watched a +steamer draw away. And yet again, he seemed to stand with others upon +the threshold of the cardroom of a Hong-Kong club: in a glare of garish +light a man in evening dress lay prone across a table on whose +absorbent, green cloth a dark and ugly stain was widening slowly.... +But for the most part he fancied himself walking through scented, +autumnal woods, beside a woman whose eyes were kind and dear, whose +lips were sweet and tempting: a girl he had known not an hour but whom +already he loved, though he himself did not dream it nor discover it +till too late.... And with these many other visions formed and +dissolved in dream-like phantasmagoria; but of them all the strongest +and most recurrent was that of the girl in the black riding-habit, +walking by his side down the aisle of trees. So that presently the +tired and overwrought man believed himself talking with her, reasoning, +arguing, pleading desperately for his heart's desire;... and wakened +with a start, to hear the echo of her voice as though she had spoken +but the instant gone, to find his own lips framing the syllables of her +name--"Sophia!" + +Thus strangely he came to know that beyond question he loved. And he +stopped short and stood blinking blindly at nothing, a little +frightened by the depth and strength of this passion which had come to +him with such scant presage, realising for the first time that his need +for her was an insatiable hunger of the soul.... And she was lost to +him; half a world lay between them--or soon would. All his days he had +awaited, a little curiously, a little sceptical, the coming of the +thing men call Love; and when it had come to him he had not known it +nor guessed it until its cause had slipped away from him.... Beyond +recall? + +Abruptly he regained consciousness of his plight, and with an effort +shook his senses back into his head. It was not precisely a time when +he could afford to let his wits go wool-gathering. And he realised that +he had been, in a way, more than half-asleep as he walked; even now he +was drowsy, his eyes were heavy, his feet leaden--and numb with cold +besides. He had no least notion of what distance he might have +travelled or whether he had walked in a straight line or a circle; but +when he thought to glance over his shoulder--there was at the moment +perhaps more wind with less snow than there had been for some time--he +found the lighthouse watching him as it had from the first: as if he +had not won a step away from it for all his struggle and his pains. The +white, staring eye winked sardonically through a mist of flakes, was +blotted out and turned up a baleful red. It seemed to mock him, but +Amber nodded at it with no unfriendly feeling. It still might serve his +purpose very well, if his strength held, since he had merely to keep +his back to the light and the ocean beach upon his right to win to the +Shampton sandbar, whether soon or late. + +Inflexible of purpose in the face of all his weariness and +discouragement, he was on the point of resuming his march when he was +struck by the circumstance that the whitened shoulder of a dune, quite +near at hand, should seem as if frosted with light--coldly luminous. + +Staring, speculative, he hung in the wind--inquisitive as a cat but +loath to waste time in footless inquiry. The snow-fall, setting in with +augmented violence, decided him. Where light was, there should be man, +and where man, shelter. + +His third eager stride opened up a wide basin in the dunes, filled with +eddying veils of snow, and set, at some distance, with two brilliant +squares of light--windows in an invisible dwelling. In the space +between them, doubtless, there would be a door. But a second time he +paused, remembering that the island was said to be uninhabited. Only +yesterday he had asked and been so informed.... Odd! + +So passing strange he held it, indeed, that he was conscious of a +singular reluctance to question the phenomenon. That superstitious +dread of the unknown which lies dormant in us all, in Amber stirred and +awoke and held him back like a strong hand. Or, if there be such a +thing as a premonition of misfortune, he may be said to have +experienced it in that hour; certainly a presentiment of evil crawled +in his brain, and he hesitated at a time when he desired naught in the +world so much as that which the windows promised--light, heat and human +companionship. He had positively to force himself on to seek the door, +and even when he had stumbled against its step he twice lifted his hand +and let it fall without knocking. + +There was not a sound within that he could hear above the clamour of +the goblin night. + +In the end, however, he knocked stoutly enough. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE MAN PERDU + + +A shadow swept swiftly across one of the windows, and the stranger at +the door was aware of a slight jarring as though some more than +ordinarily brutal gust of wind had shaken the house upon its +foundation, or an inner door had been slammed violently. But otherwise +he had so little evidence that his summons had fallen on aught but +empty walls or deaf ears that he had begun to debate his right to enter +without permission, when a chain rattled, a bolt grated, and the door +swung wide. A flood of radiance together with a gust of heated air +struck him in the face. Dazzled, he reeled across the threshold. + +The door banged, and again the house in the dunes shuddered as the +storm fell upon it with momentarily trebled ferocity; as if, cheated of +its foreordained prey, it would rend apart his frail refuge to regain +him. + +Three paces within the room Amber paused, waiting for his eyes to +adjust themselves to the light. Vaguely conscious of a presence behind +him, he faced another--the slight, spare silhouette of a man's figure +between him and the lamp; and at the same time felt that he was being +subjected to a close scrutiny--both searching and, at its outset, the +reverse of hospitable. But he had no more than become sensitive to this +than the man before him stepped quickly forward and with two strong +hands clasped his shoulders. + +"David Amber!" he heard his name pronounced in a voice singularly +resonant and pleasant. "So you've run me to earth at last!" + +Amber's face was blank with incredulity as he recognised the speaker. +"Rutton!" he stammered. "Rutton--why--by all that's strange!" + +"Guilty," said the other with a quiet laugh. "But sit down." He swung +Amber about, gently guiding him to a chair. "You look pretty well done +up. How long have you been out in this infernal night? But never mind +answering; I can wait. Doggott!" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Take Mr. Amber's coat and boots and bring him my dressing-gown and +slippers." + +"Yes, sir." + +"And a hot toddy and something to eat--and be quick about it." + +"Very good, sir." + +Rutton's body-servant moved noiselessly to Amber's side, deftly helping +him remove his shooting-jacket, whereon snow had caked in thin and +brittle sheets. His eyes, grey and shallow, flickered recognition and +softened, but he did not speak in anticipation of Amber's kindly +"Good-evening, Doggott." To which he responded quietly: "Good-evening, +Mr. Amber. It's a pleasure to see you again. I trust you are well." + +"Quite, thank you. And you?" + +"I'm very fit, thank you sir." + +"And"--Amber sat down again, Doggott kneeling at his feet to unlace and +remove his heavy pigskin hunting-boots--"and your brother?" + +For a moment the man did not answer. His head was lowered so that his +features were invisible, but a dull, warm flush overspread his cheeks. + +"And your brother, Doggott?" + +"I'm sorry, sir, about that; but it was Mr. Rutton's order," muttered +the man. + +"You're talking of the day you met Doggott at Nokomis station?" +interposed his employer from the stand he had taken at one side of the +fireplace, his back to the broad hearth whereon blazed a grateful +driftwood fire. + +Amber looked up inquiringly, nodding an unspoken affirmative. + +"It was my fault that he--er--prevaricated, I'm afraid; as he says, it +was by my order." + +Rutton's expression was masked by the shadows; Amber could make nothing +of his curious reticence, and remained silent, waiting a further +explanation. It came, presently, with an effect of embarrassment. + +"I had--have peculiar reasons for not wishing my refuge here to be +discovered. I told Doggott to be careful, should he meet any one we +knew. Although, of course, neither of us anticipated...." + +"I don't think Doggott was any more dumfounded than I," said Amber. "I +couldn't believe he'd left you, yet it seemed impossible that you +should be here--of all places--in the neighbourhood of Nokomis, I mean. +As for that--" Amber shook his head expressively, glancing round the +mean room in which he had found this man of such extraordinary +qualities. "It's altogether inconceivable," he summed up his +bewilderment. + +"It does seem so--even to me, at times." + +"Then why--in Heaven's name--" + +By now Doggott had invested Amber in his master's dressing-gown and +slippers; rising he left them, passing out through an inner door which +led, evidently, to the only other room in the cottage. Rutton delayed +his reply until the man had shut the door behind him, then suddenly, +with the manner of one yielding to the inevitable, drew a chair up to +face Amber's and dropped into it. + +"I see I must tell you something--a little; as little as I can help--of +the truth." + +"I'm afraid you must; though I'm damned if I can detect a glimmer of +either rhyme or reason in this preposterous situation." + +Rutton laughed quietly, lounging in his armchair and lacing before him +the fingers of hands singularly small and delicate in view of their +very considerable strength--to which Amber's shoulder still bore aching +testimony. + +"In three words," he said deliberately: "I am hiding." + +"Hiding!" + +"Obviously." + +Amber bent forward, studying the elder man's face intently. Thin and +dark--not tanned like Amber's, but with a native darkness of skin like +that of the Spanish--it was strongly marked, its features at once +prominent and finely modelled. The hair intensely black, the eyes as +dark and of peculiar fire, the lips broad, full, and sympathetic, the +cheekbones high, the forehead high and something narrow: these combined +to form a strangely striking ensemble, and none the less striking for +its weird resemblance to Amber's own cast of countenance. + +Indeed, their likeness one to the other was nothing less than weird in +that it could be so superficially strong, yet so elusive. No two men +were ever more unalike than these save in this superficial accident of +facial contours and complexion. No one knowing Amber (let us say) could +ever have mistaken him for Rutton; and yet any one, strange to both, +armed with a description of Rutton, might pardonably have believed +Amber to be his man. Yet manifestly they were products of alien races, +even of different climes--their individualities as dissimilar as the +poles. Where in Rutton's bearing burned an inextinguishable, almost an +insolent pride, beneath an ice-like surface of self-constraint, in +Amber's one detected merely quiet consciousness of strength and +breeding--his inalienable heritage from many generations of Anglo-Saxon +forebears; and while Rutton continually betrayed, by look or tone or +gesture, a birthright of fierce passions savagely tamed, from Amber one +seldom obtained a hint of aught but the broad and humourous tolerance +of an American gentleman. + +But to-night the Virginian had undergone enough to have lost much of +his habitual poise. "Hiding!" he reiterated in a tone scarcely louder +than a whisper. + +"And you have found me out, my friend." + +"But--but I don't--" + +Rutton lifted a hand in deprecation; and as he did so the door in the +rear of the room opened and Doggott entered. Cat-like, passing behind +Amber, he placed upon the table a small tray, and from a steaming +pitcher poured him a glass of hot spiced wine. At a look from his +employer he filled a second. + +"There's sandwiches, sir," he said; "the best I could manage at short +notice, Mr. Amber. If you'll wait a bit I can fix you up something +'ot." + +"Thank you, Doggott, that won't be necessary; the sandwiches look +mighty good to me." + +"Thank you, sir. Will there be anything else, Mr. Rutton?" + +"If there is, I'll call you." + +"Yes, sir. Good-night, sir. Good-night, Mr. Amber." + +As Doggott shut himself out of the room, Amber lifted his fragrant +glass. "You're joining me, Rutton?" + +"With all my heart!" The man came forward to his glass. "For old sake's +sake, David. Shall we drink a toast?" He hesitated, with a marked air +of embarrassment, then impulsively swung his glass aloft. "Drink +standing!" he cried, he voice oddly vibrant. And Amber rose. "To the +King--the King, God bless him!" + +"To the King!" It was more an exclamation of surprise than an echo to +the toast; nevertheless Amber drained his drink to the final drop. As +he resumed his seat, the room rang with the crash of splintering glass; +Rutton had dashed his tumbler to atoms on the hearthstone. + +"Well!" commented Amber, lifting his brows questioningly. "You _are_ +sincere, Rutton. But who in blazes would ever have suspected you of +being a British subject?" + +"Why not?" + +"But it seems to me I should have known--" + +"What have you ever really known about me, David, save that I am +myself?" + +"Well--when you put it that way--little enough--nothing." Amber laughed +nervously, disconcerted. + +"And I? Who and what am I?" No answer was expected--so much was plain +from Rutton's tone; he was talking to himself more than addressing his +guest. His long brown fingers strayed to the box and conveyed a +cigarette to his lips; staring dreamily into the fire, he smoked a +little ere continuing. "What does it mean, this eternal 'I' round which +the world revolves?" His voice trailed off into silence. + +Amber snapped the tension with a chuckle. "You can search me," he said +irreverently. And his host returned his smile. "Now, will you please +pay attention to me, my friend? Or do you wish me to turn and rend +myself with curiosity--after I've attended to these excellent +sandwiches?... Seriously, I want to know several things. What have you +been doing with yourself these past three years?" + +Rutton shook his head gravely. "I can't say." + +"You mean you won't?" + +"If you will have it that way." + +"Well ... I give you up." + +"That's the most profitable thing you could do, David." + +"But, seriously now, this foolish talk about hiding is all a joke, +isn't it?" + +"No," said Rutton soberly; "no, it's no joke." He sighed profoundly. +"As for my recent whereabouts, I have been--ah--travelling +considerably; moving about from pillar to post." To this the man added +a single word, the more significant in that it embodied the nearest +approach to a confidence that Amber had ever known him to make: +"Hunted." + +"Hunted by whom?" + +"I beg your pardon." Rutton bent forward and pushed the cigarettes to +Amber's elbow. "I am--ah--so preoccupied with my own mean troubles, +David, that I had forgotten that you had nothing to smoke. Forgive me." + +"That's no matter, I--" + +Amber cut short his impatient catechism in deference to the other's +mute plea. And Rutton thanked him with a glance--one of those looks +which, between friends, are more eloquent than words. Sighing, he shook +his head, his eyes once more seeking the flames. And silently studying +his face--the play of light from lamp and hearth throwing its features +into salient relief--for the first time Amber, his wits warmed back to +activity from the stupor the bitter cold had put upon them, noticed how +time and care had worn upon the man since they had last parted. He had +never suspected Rutton to be his senior by more years than ten, at the +most; to-night, however, he might well be taken for fifty were his age +to be reckoned by its accepted signs--the hollowing of cheek and +temple, the sinking of eyes into their sockets, the deepening of the +maze of lines about the mouth and on the forehead. + +Impulsively the younger man sat up and put a hand upon the arm of +Rutton's chair. "What can I do?" he asked simply. + +Rutton roused, returning his regard with a smile slow, charming, +infinitely sad. "Nothing," he replied; "absolutely nothing." + +"But surely----!" + +"No man can do for me what I cannot do for myself. When the time +comes"--he lifted his shoulders lightly--"I will do what I can. Till +then...." He diverged at a tangent. "After all, the world is quite as +tiny as the worn-out aphorism has it. To think that you should find me +here! It's less than a week since Doggott and I hit upon this place and +settled down, quite convinced we had, at last, lost ourselves ... and +might have peace, for a little space at least!" + +Amber glanced curiously round the room; sparely furnished, bare, +unlovely, it seemed a most cheerless sort of spot to be considered a +haven of peace. + +"And now," concluded Rutton, "we have to move on." + +"Because I've found you here?" + +"Because you have found me." + +"I don't understand." + +"My dear boy, I never meant you should." + +"But if you're in any danger--" + +"I am not." + +"You're not! But you just said--" + +"I'm in no danger whatever; humanity is, if I'm found." + +"I don't follow you at all." + +Again Rutton smiled wearily. "I didn't expect you to, David. But this +misadventure makes it necessary that I should tell you something; you +must be made to believe in me. I beg you to; I'm neither mad nor making +game of you." There was no questioning the sane sincerity of the man. +He continued slowly. "It's a simple fact, incredible but absolute, +that, were my whereabouts to be made public, a great, a staggering blow +would be struck against the peace and security of the world.... Don't +laugh, David; I mean it." + +"I'm not laughing, Rutton; but you must know that's a pretty large +order. Most men would--" + +"Call me mad. Yes, I know," Rutton took up his words as Amber paused, +confused. "I can't expect you to understand me: you couldn't unless I +were to tell you what I may not. But you know me--better, perhaps, than +any living man save Doggott ... and one other. You know whether or not +I would seek to delude you, David. And, knowing that I could not, you +know why it seems to me imperative that, this hole being discovered, +Doggott and I must betake ourselves elsewhere. Surely there must be +solitudes----!" He rose with a gesture of impatience and began +restlessly to move to and fro. + +Amber started suddenly, flushing. "If you mean--" + +Rutton's kindly hand forced him back into his chair. "Sit down, David. +I never meant that--never for an instant dreamed you'd intentionally +betray my secret. It's enough that you should know it, should +occasionally think of me as being here, to bring misfortune down upon +me, to work an incalculable disaster to the progress of this +civilisation of ours." + +"You mean," Amber asked uncertainly, "thought transference?" + +"Something of the sort--yes." The man came to a pause beside Amber, +looking down almost pitifully into his face. "I daresay all this sounds +hopelessly melodramatic and neurotic and tommyrotic, David, but ... I +can tell you nothing more. I'm sorry." + +"But only let me help you--any way in my power, Rutton. There's nothing +I'd not do...." + +"I know, David, I know it. But my case is beyond human aid, since I am +powerless to apply a remedy myself." + +"And you _are_ powerless?" + +Rutton was silent a long moment. Then, "Time will tell," he said +quietly. "There is one way...." He resumed his monotonous round of the +room. + +Mechanically Amber began to smoke, trying hard to think, to penetrate +by reasoning or intuition the wall of mystery which, it seemed, Rutton +chose to set between himself and the world. The intense earnestness of +the man's hopeless confession had carried conviction. Amber believed +him, believed in the reality of his trouble; and, divining it dimly, a +monstrous, menacing shape in the vagueness of the unknown, was himself +dismayed and a little fearful. He owed much to this man, was bound to +him by ties not only of gratitude but of affection, yet, finding him +distressed, found himself simultaneously powerless to render aid. +Inwardly mutinous, he had to school himself to quiescence; lacking the +confidence which Rutton so steadfastly refused him, he was impotent. + +Presently he grew conscious that Rutton was standing as if listening, +his eyes averted to the windows. But when Amber looked they showed, +beneath their half-drawn muslin shades, naught save the grey horizontal +rush of snow beyond the panes. And he heard nothing save the endless +raving of the maniac wind. + +"What is it?" he inquired at length, unable longer to endure the +tensity of the pause. + +"Nothing. I beg your pardon, David." Rutton returned to his chair, +making a visible effort to shake off his preoccupation. "It's an ugly +night, out there. Lucky you blundered on this place. Tell me how it +happened. What became of the other man--your friend?" + +The thought of Quain stabbed Amber's consciousness with a mental pang +as keen as acute physical anguish. He jumped up in torment. "God!" he +cried chokingly. "I'd forgotten! He's out there on the bay, poor +devil!--freezing to death if not drowned. Our boat went adrift somehow; +Quain would insist on going after her in a leaky old skiff we found on +the shore ... and didn't come back. I waited till it was hopeless, then +concluded I'd make a try to cross to Shampton by way of the tidal bar. +And I must!" + +"It's impossible," Rutton told him with grave sympathy. + +"But I must; think of his wife and children, Rutton! There's a chance +yet--a bare chance; he may have reached the boat. If he did, every +minute I waste here is killing him by inches; he'll die of exposure! +But from Shampton we could send a boat--" + +"The tide fulls about midnight to-night," interrupted Rutton, +consulting his watch. "It's after nine,--and there's a heavy surf +breaking over the bar now. By ten it'll be impassable, and you couldn't +reach it before eleven. Be content, David; you're powerless." + +"You're right--I know that," groaned Amber, his head in his hands. "I +was afraid it was hopeless, but--but--" + +"I know, dear boy, I know!" + +With a gesture of despair Amber resumed his seat. For some time he +remained deep sunk in dejection. At length, mastering his emotion, he +looked up. "How did you know about Quain--that we were together?" he +asked. + +"Doggott saw you land this morning, and I've been watching you all day +with my field-glasses, prepared to take cover the minute you turned my +way. Don't be angry with me, David; it wasn't that I didn't yearn to +see you face to face again, but that ... I didn't dare." + +"Oh, that!" exclaimed Amber with an exasperated fling of his hand. +"Between the two of you--you and Quain--you'll drive me mad with +worry." + +"I'm sorry, David. I only wish I might say more. It hurts a bit to have +you doubt me." + +"I don't doubt," Amber declared in desperation; "at least, I mean I +won't if you'll be sensible and let me stand by and see you through +this trouble--whatever it is." + +Rutton turned to the fire, his head drooping despondently. "That may +not be," he said heavily. "The greatest service you can do me is to +forget my existence, now and henceforth, erase our friendship from the +tablets of your memory, pass me as a stranger should our ways ever +cross again." He flicked the stub of a cigarette into the flames. +"Kismet!... I mean that, David, from my heart. Won't you do this for +me--one last favour, old friend?" + +"I'll try; I'll even promise, on condition that you send me word if +ever you have need of me." + +"That will be never." + +"But if--" + +"I'll send for you if ever I may, David; I promise faithfully. And in +return I have your word?" + +Amber nodded. + +"Then...." Rutton attempted to divert the subject. "I think you said +Quain? Any relation to Quain's 'Aryan Invasion of India?" + +"The same man. He asked me down for the shooting--owns a country place +across the bay: Tanglewood." + +"A very able man; I wish I might have met him.... What of yourself? +What have you been doing these three years? Have you married?" + +"I've been too busy to think of that.... I mean, till lately." + +"Ah?" + +Amber flushed boyishly. "There was a girl at Quain's--a guest.... But +she left before I dared speak. Perhaps it was as well." + +"Why?" + +"Because she was too fine and sweet and good for me, Rutton." + +"Like every man's first love." + +The elder man's glance was keen--too keen for Amber to dissimulate +successfully under it. "You're right," he admitted ruefully. "It's the +first sure-enough trouble of the sort I ever experienced. And, of +course, it had to be hopeless." + +"Why?" persisted Rutton. + +"Because--I've half a notion there's a chap waiting for her at home." + +"At home?" + +"In England." The need for a confidant was suddenly imperative upon the +younger man. "She's an English girl--half English, that is; her mother +was an American, a schoolmate of Quain's wife; her father, an +Englishman in the Indian service." + +"Her name?" + +"Sophia Farrell." A peculiar quality, a certain tensity, in Rutton's +manner, forced itself upon Amber's attention. "Why?" he asked. "Do you +know the Farrells? What's the matter?" + +Rutton's eyes met his stonily; out of the ashen mask of his face, that +suddenly had whitened beneath the brown, they glared, afire but +unseeing. His hands writhed, the fingers twisting together with cruel +force, the knuckles grey. Abruptly, as if abandoning the attempt to +reassert his self-control, he jumped up and went quickly to a window, +there to stand, his back to Amber, staring fixedly out into the +storm-racked night. "I knew her father," he said at length, his tone +constrained and odd, "long ago, in India." + +"He's out there now--a Political, I believe they call him, or something +of the sort." + +"Yes." + +"She's going out to rejoin him." + +"What!" Rutton came swiftly back to Amber, his voice shaking. "What did +you say?" + +"Why, yes. She travels with friends by the western route to join +Colonel Farrell at Darjeeling, where he's stationed just now. Shortly +after I came down she left; Mrs. Quain had a wire a day or so ago, +saying she was on the point of sailing from San Francisco.... Good +Lord, Rutton! are you ill?" + +Something in the man's face had brought Amber to his feet, a prey to +inexpressible concern; it was as if a mask had dropped and he were +looking upon the soul of a man in mortal torture. + +"No," gasped Rutton, "I'm all right. Besides," he added beneath his +breath, so that Amber barely caught the syllables, "it's too late." + +As rapidly as he had lost he seemed to regain mastery of his +inexplicable emotion. His face became again composed, almost immobile, +and stepping to the table he selected a cigarette and rolled it gently +between his slim brown fingers. "I'm sorry to have alarmed you," he +said, his tone a bit too even not to breed a doubt in the mind of his +hearer. "It's nothing serious--a little trouble of the heart, of long +standing, incurable--I hope." + +Perplexed, yet hesitating to press him further, Amber watched him +furtively, instinctively assured that between this man and the Farrells +there existed some extraordinary bond; wondering how that could be, +convinced in his soul that somehow the entanglement involved the woman +he loved, he still feared to put his suspicions to the question, lest +he should learn that which he had no right to know ... and while he +watched was startled by the change that came over Rutton. At ease, one +moment, outwardly composed if absorbed in thought, the next he was +rigid, every muscle taut, every nerve tense as a steel spring, his +keen, thoughtful face hardening with a look of brutal hatred, his eyes +narrowing until no more than a glint of fire was visible between the +lashes, lips straining apart until they showed thin and bloodless, with +a gleam of white, set teeth between. His head jerked back suddenly, his +gaze fixing itself first upon the window, then shifting to the door. +And his fingers, contracting, tore the cigarette in half. + +"Rutton, what the deuce is the matter?" + +Rutton seemed not to hear; Amber got his answer from the door, which +was swung wide and slammed shut. A blast of frosty air and a flurry of +snow swept across the room. And against the door there leaned a man +puffing for breath and coughing spasmodically--a gross and monstrous +bulk of flesh, unclean and unwholesome to the eye, attired in an +extravagant array of coloured garments, tawdry silks and satins +clinging, sodden, to his ponderous and unwieldy limbs. + +"The babu!" cried Amber unconsciously; and was rewarded by a flash of +recognition from the coal-black, beady, evil eyes of the man. + +But for that involuntary exclamation the tableau held unbroken for a +space; Rutton standing transfixed, the torn halves of the cigarette +between his fingers, his head well up and back, his stare level, +direct, uncompromising, a steady challenge to the intruder; the babu +resting with one shoulder against the door, panting stertorously and +trembling with the cold and exposure he had undergone, yet with his +attention unflinchingly concentrated upon Rutton; and, finally, Amber, +a little out of the picture and quite unconsidered of the others, not +without a certain effect as of a supernumerary standing in the wings +and watching the development of the drama. + +Then, demanding Amber's silence with an imperative movement of his +hand, Rutton spoke. "Well, babu?" he said quietly, the shadow of a +bitter and weary smile curving his thin, hard lips. + +The Bengali moved a pace or two from the door, and plucked nervously at +the throat of his surtout, finally managing to insert one hand in the +folds of silk across his bosom. + +"I seek," he said distinctly in Urdu, and not without a definite note +of menace in his manner, "the man calling himself Rutton Sahib?" + +Very deliberately Rutton inclined his head. "I am he." + +"Hazoor!" The babu laboriously doubled up his enormous body in profound +obeisance. Having recovered, he nodded to Amber with the easy +familiarity of an old acquaintance. "To you, likewise, greeting, Amber +Sahib." + +"What!" Rutton swung sharply to Amber with an exclamation of amazement. +"You know this fellow, David?" + +The babu cut in hastily, stimulated by a pressing anxiety to clear +himself. "Hazoor, I did but err, being misled by his knowledge of our +tongue as well as by that pale look of you he wears. And, indeed, is it +strange that I should take him for you, who was told to seek you in +this wild land?" + +"Be silent!" Rutton told him angrily. + +"My lord's will is his slave's." Resignedly the babu folded his fat +arms. + +"Tell me about this," Rutton demanded of Amber. + +"The ass ran across me in the woods south of the station, the day I +came down," explained Amber, summarising the episode as succinctly as +he could. "He didn't call me by your name, but I've no doubt he's +telling the truth about mistaking me for you. At all events he +hazoor-ed me a number of times, talked a lot of rot about some silly +'Voice,' and finally made me a free gift of a nice little bronze box +that wouldn't open. After which he took to his heels, saying he'd call +later for my answer--whatever he meant by that. He did call by night +and stole the box. That's about all I know of him, thus far. But I'd +watch out for him, if I were you; if he isn't a raving lunatic, I miss +my guess." + +"Indeed, my lord, it is all quite as the sahib says," the babu admitted +graciously, his eyes gleaming with sardonic amusement. "Circumstances +conspired to mislead me; but that I was swift to discover. Nor did I +lose time in remedying the error, as you have heard. Moreover--" + +He shut up suddenly at a sign from Rutton, with a ludicrous shrug of +his huge shoulders disclaiming any ill-intent or wrong-doing; and while +Rutton remained deep in thought by the table, the babu held silence, +his gaze flickering suspiciously round the room, searching the shadows, +questioning the closed door behind which Doggott lay asleep (evidence +of which fact was not wanting in his snores), resting fleetingly on +Amber's face, returning to Rutton. His features were composed; his +face, indeed, might have been taken as a model for some weird mask of +unctuous depravity, but for his eyes, which betrayed a score of +differing phases of emotion. He was by turns apparently possessed by +fear, malice, distrust, a subtle sense of triumph, contempt for Amber, +deference to Rutton, and a feeling that he was master not alone of the +situation but of the man whom he professed to honor so extravagantly. + +At length Rutton looked up, suppressing a sigh. "Your errand, babu?" + +"Is it, then, your will that I should speak before this man?" The +Bengali nodded impudently at Amber. + +"It is my will." + +"Shabash! I bear a message, hazoor, from the Bell." + +"You are the Mouthpiece of the Voice?" + +"That honor is mine, hazoor. For the rest I am--" + +"Behari Lal Chatterji," interrupted Rutton impatiently; "solicitor of +the Inner Temple--disbarred; anointed thief, liar, jackal, lickspittle, +and perjurer--I know you." + +"My lord," said the man insolently, "omits from his catalogue of my +accomplishments my chiefest honour; he forgets that, with him, I am an +accepted Member of the Body." + +"The Body wears strange members that employs you, babu," commented +Rutton bitterly. "It has fallen upon evil days when such as you are +charged with a message of the Bell." + +"My lord is harsh to one who would be his slave in all things. +Fortunate indeed am I to own the protection of the Token." A slow leer +widened greasily upon his moon-like face. + +"Ah, the Token!" Rutton repeated tensely, beneath his breath. "It is +true that you have the Token?" "Aye; it is even here, my lord." The +heavy brown hand returned to the spot it had sought soon after the +babu's entrance, within the folds of silk across his bosom, and groped +therein for an instant. "Even here," he iterated with a maddening +manner of supreme self-complacency, producing the bronze box and +waddling over to drop it into Rutton's hand. "My lord is satisfied?" he +gurgled maliciously. + +Without answering Rutton turned the box over in his palm, his slender +fingers playing about the bosses of the relief work; there followed a +click and one side of it swung open. The Bengali fell back a pace with +a whisper of awe--real or affected: "The Token, hazoor!" Amber himself +gasped slightly. + +Unheeded, the box dropped to the floor. Between Rutton's thumb and +forefinger there blazed a great emerald set in a ring of red old gold. +He turned it this way and that, inspecting it critically; and the +lamplight, catching on the facets, struck from it blinding shafts of +intensely green radiance. Rutton nodded as if in recognition of the +stone and, turning, with an effect of carelessness, tossed it to Amber. + +"Keep that for me, David, please," he said. And Amber, catching it, +dropped the ring into his pocket. + +"My lord is satisfied with my credentials, then?" the babu persisted. + +"It is the Token," Rutton assented wearily. "Now, your message. Be +brief." + +"The utterances of the Voice be infrequent, hazoor, its words few--but +charged with meaning: as you know of old." The Bengali drew himself up, +holding up his head and rolling forth his phrases in a voice of great +resonance and depth. "These be the words of the Voice, hazoor: + +"'_To all my peoples: + +"'Even now the Gateway of Swords yawns wide, that he who is without +fear may pass within; to the end that the Body be purged of the Scarlet +Evil. + +"'The Elect are bidden to the Ordeal with no exception._'" + +The sonorous accents subsided, and a tense wait ensued, none speaking. +Rutton stood in stony apathy, his eyes lifted to a dim corner of the +ceiling, his gaze--like his thoughts--perhaps ranging far beyond the +dreary confines of the cabin in the dunes. Minute after minute passed, +he making no sign, the babu poised before him in inscrutable triumph, +watching him keenly with his black and evil eyes of a beast. Amber hung +breathless upon the issue, sensing a conflict of terrible forces in +Rutton's mind, but comprehending nothing of their natures. In the hush +within-doors he became acutely conscious of the war of elements +without: the mad elfin yammering of the gale tearing at the cabin as +though trying to seize it up bodily and whirl it off into the witches' +dance of the storm; the deep and awful booming of the breakers, whose +incessant impact upon the beach seemed to rock the very island on its +base. Somehow he divined a similitude between the struggle within and +the struggle without, seemed to see the contending elements personified +before his eyes--the spirit of evil incarnate in the Bengali, vast, +loathsome, terrible in his inflexibility of malign purpose; the force +of right symbolized in Rutton, frail of stature, fine of mould, strong +in his unbending loyalty to his conception of honour and duty. The +Virginian could have predicted the outcome confidently, believing as he +did in his friend. It came eventually on the heels of a movement of the +babu's; unable longer to hold his pose, he shifted slightly. And Rutton +awoke as from a sleep. + +"The Voice has spoken, babu," he said, not ungently, "and I have +heard." + +"And your answer, lord?" + +"There is no answer." + +"Hazoor!" + +"I have said," Rutton confirmed evenly, "there is no answer." + +"You will obey?" + +"That is between me and my God. Go back to the Hall of the Bell, Behari +Lal Chatterji, and deliver your report; say that you have seen me, that +I have listened to the words of the Voice, and that I sent no answer." + +"Hazoor, I may not. I am charged to return only with you." + +"Make your peace with the Bell in what manner you will, babu; it is no +concern of mine. Go, now, while yet time is granted you to avoid a +longer journey this night." + +"Hazoor!" + +"Go." Rutton pointed to the door, his voice imperative. + +Upon this the babu abandoned argument, realising that further +resistance were futile. And in a twinkling his dignity, his Urdu and +his cloak of mystery, were discarded, and he was merely an +over-educated and over-fed Bengali, jabbering babu-English. + +"Oah, as for thatt," he affirmed easily, with an oleaginous smirk, "I +daresay I shall be able to make adequate explanation. It shall be as +you say, sar. I confess to fright, however, because of storm." He +included Amber affably in his confidences. "By Gad, sar, thees climate +iss most trying to person of my habits. The journey hither _via_ +causeway from mainland was veree fearful. Thee sea is most agitated. +You observe my wetness from association with spray. I am of opinion if +I am not damn-careful I jolly well catch-my-death on return. But +_thatt_ is all in day's work." + +He rolled sluggishly toward the door, dragging his inadequate overcoat +across his barrel-like chest; and paused to cough affectingly, with one +hand on the knob. Rutton eyed him contemptuously. + +"If you care to run the risk," he said suddenly, "you may have a chair +by the fire till the storm breaks, babu." + +"Beg pardon?" The babu's eyes widened. "Oah, yess; I see. 'If I care to +run risk.' Veree considerate of you, I'm sure. But as we say in Bengal, +'thee favour of kings iss ass a sword of two edges.' Noah, thanks; the +servants of thee Bell do not linger by wayside, soa to speak. Besides, +I am in great hurree. Mister Amber, good night. Rutton Sahib"--with a +flash of his sinister humour--"_au revoir_; I mean to say, till we meet +in thee Hall of thee Bell. Good night." + +He nodded insolently to the man whom a little time since he had hailed +as "my lord," shrugged his coat collar up round his fat, dirty neck, +shivered in anticipation, jerked the door open and plunged ponderously +out. + +A second later Amber saw the confused mass of his turban glide past the +window. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE GOBLIN NIGHT + + +Amber whistled low. "Impossible!" he said thoughtfully. + +Rutton had crossed to and was bending over a small leather trunk that +stood in one corner of the room. In the act of opening it, he glanced +over his shoulder. "What?" he demanded sharply. + +"I was only thinking; there's something I can't see through in that +babu's willingness to go." + +"He was afraid to stay." + +"Why?" + +Rutton, rummaging in the trunk, made no reply. After a moment Amber +resumed. + +"You know what Bengalis are; that fellow'd do anything, brave any +ordinary danger, rather than try to cross that sandbar again--if he +really came that way; which I am inclined to doubt. On the other hand, +he's intelligent enough to know that a night like this in the dunes +would kill him. Well, what then?" + +Rutton was not listening. As Amber concluded he seemed to find what he +had been seeking, thrust it hurriedly into the breast-pocket of his +coat, and with a muttered word, unintelligible, dashed to the door and +flung it open and himself out. + +With a shriek of demoniac glee the wind entered into and took +possession of the room. A cloud of snow swept across the floor like a +veil. The door battered against the wall as if trying to break it down. +A pile of newspapers was swept from the table and scattered to the four +corners of the room. The rug lifted beneath the table and flapped +against it like a broken wing. The cheap tin kerosene lamp jumped as +though caught up by a hand; its flame leapt high and blue above the +chimney--and was not. In darkness but for the fitful flare of the fire +that had been dying in embers on the hearth, Amber, seeking the +doorway, fell over a chair, blundered flat into the wall, and stumbled +unexpectedly out of the house. + +His concern was all for Rutton; he had no other thought. He ran a +little way down the hollow, heartsick with horror and cold with dread. +Then he paused, bewildered. Other than the wan glimmer of the snow-clad +earth he had no light to guide him; with this poor aid he could see no +more than that the vale was deserted. Whither in that white whirling +world Rutton might have wandered, it was impossible to surmise. In +despair the Virginian turned back. + +When he had found his way to the door of the cabin, it was closed; as +he entered and shut it behind him, a match flared and expired in the +middle of the room, and a man cursed brokenly. + +"Rutton?" cried Amber in a flush of hope. + +"Is that you, Mr. Amber? Thank Gawd! Wyte a minute." + +A second match spluttered, its flame waxing in the pink cup of +Doggott's hands. The servant's head and shoulders stood out in dim +relief against the darkness. + +"I've burnt me 'and somethin' 'orrid on this damn' 'ot chimney," he +complained nervously. + +He succeeded in setting fire to the wick. The light showed him barefoot +and shivering in shirt and trousers. He lifted a bemused red face to +Amber, blinking and nursing his scorched hand. "For pity's syke, sir, +w'at's 'appened?" + +"It's hard to say," replied Amber vaguely, preoccupied. He went +immediately to a window and stood there, looking out. + +"But w'ere's Mr. Rutton, sir?" + +"Gone--out there--I don't know just where." Amber moved back to the +table. "You see, he had a caller." + +"A caller, sir--on a night like this?" + +"The man he came here to hide from," said Amber. + +"I knew 'e was tryin' to dodge somethin', sir; but 'e never told me +aught about it. What kind of a person was 'e, sir, and what made Mr. +Rutton go aw'y with 'im?" + +"He didn't; he went after him to...." Amber caught his tongue on the +verge of an indiscretion; no matter what his fears, they were not yet +become a suitable subject for discussion with Rutton's servant. "I +think," he amended lamely, "he had forgotten something." + +"And 'e's out there now! My Gawd, what a night!" He hung in hesitation +for a little. "Did 'e wear 'is topcoat and 'at, sir?" + +"No; he went suddenly. I don't think he intended to be gone long." + +"I'd better go after 'im, then. 'E'll 'ave pneumonia ... I'll just jump +into me clothes and--" He slipped into the back room, to reappear with +surprisingly little delay, fully dressed and buttoning a long ulster +round his throat. "You didn't 'appen to notice which w'y 'e went, sir?" + +"As well as I could judge, to the east." + +Doggott took down a second ulster and a cap from pegs in the wall. +"I'll do my best to find 'im; 'e might lose 'imself, you know, with no +light nor nothin'." + +"And you?" + +"I'll be all right; I'll follow 'is footprints in the snow. I've a +'andy little electric bull's-eye to 'elp me, in my pocket." + +"Are you armed, Doggott?" + +"By Mr. Rutton's orders, sir, I've carried a revolver for years. You +aren't thinkin' it's come to that, sir?" + +"I don't know.... If I was sure I wouldn't let you go alone," said +Amber, frowning. "It's only that Mr. Rutton may not want me about ... I +wish I knew!" + +"It'll be better, sir, for you to stay and keep the fire up--if you +don't mind my makin' so free as to advise--in case 'e's 'arf-froze when +'e gets back, as is likely. But I'd better 'urry, 'specially if...." +Doggott's color faded a little and his mouth tightened. "But I 'ope +you're mistyken, sir. Good-night." + +The door slammed behind him. + +Alone, and a prey to misgivings he scarce dared name to himself, Amber +from the window watched the blot of light from Doggott's handlamp fade +and vanish in the storm; then, becoming sensible to the cold, went to +the fireplace, kicked the embers together until they blazed, and piled +on more fuel. + +A cosy, crackling sound began to be audible in the room; sibilant jets +of flame, scarlet, yellow, violet, and green, spurted up from the +driftwood. Under the hypnotic influence of the comforting warmth, +weariness descended upon Amber like a burden; he was afraid to close +his eyes or to sit down, lest sleep should overcome him for all his +intense excitement and anxiety. He forced himself to move steadily +round the room, struggling against a feeling that all that he had +witnessed must have been untrue, an evil dream, akin to the waking +visions that had beset him between the loss of Quain and the finding of +Rutton. The very mediocrity of the surroundings seemed to discredit the +testimony of his wits. + +Unmistakably a camp erected for its owners' convenience during the +hunting season, alike in design and furnishing the cabin was almost +painfully crude and homely. The walls were of rough-hewn logs from +which the bark had not been removed; the interstices were stopped only +with coarse plaster; the partition dividing it into two rooms was of +pine, unpainted. In one corner near Rutton's trunk, a bed-hammock swung +from a beam. The few chairs were plain and rude. There were two deal +tables, a plate-rack nailed to the partition, and a wall-seat in the +chimney-corner. On the centre table, aside from the lamp, were a couple +of books, some out-of-date magazines, and a common tin alarm-clock +ticking stolidly. + +In a setting so hopelessly commonplace and everyday, one act of a drama +of blood and fire had been played; into these mean premises the breath +of the storm, as the babu entered, had blown Romance.... Incredible! + +And yet Amber's hand, dropping idly in his coat-pocket, encountered a +priceless witness to the reality of what had passed. Frowning, +troubled, he drew forth the ring and slipped it upon his finger; rays +of blinding emerald light coruscated from it, dazzling him. With a low +cry of wonder he took it to the lamplight. Never had he looked upon so +fine a stone, so strangely cut. + +It was set in ruddy soft gold, worked and graven with exquisite art in +the semblance of a two-headed cobra; inside the band was an inscription +so worn and faint that Amber experienced some difficulty in deciphering +the word RAO (king) in Devanagari, flanked by swastikas. Aside from the +stone entirely, he speculated, the value of the ring as an antique +would have proven inestimable. As for the emerald itself, in its +original state, before cutting, it must have been worth the ransom of +an emperor; much had certainly been sacrificed to fashion it in its +present form. The cunning of a jewel-cutter whose art was lost before +Tyre and Nineveh upreared their heads must have been taxed by the task. +Its innumerable facets reproduced with wonderful fidelity a human +eyeball, unwinking, sleepless. In the enigmatic heart of its +impenetrable iris cold fire lived, cold passionless flames leaped and +died and leaped again like the sorcerous fire of a pythoness. + +To gaze into its depths was like questioning the inscrutable green +heart of the sea. Fascinated, Amber felt his consciousness slip from +him as a mantle might slip from his shoulders; awake, staring wide-eyed +into the emerald eye, he forgot self, forgot the world, and dreamed, +dreamed curiously.... + +The crash of the door closing behind him brought him to the right-about +in a panic flutter. He glared stupidly for a time before comprehending +that Rutton and Doggott had returned. How long they had been absent he +had no means of reckoning; the interval might have been five minutes or +an hour in duration. The time since he had stooped to examine the ring +was as indefinite; but his back was aching and his thoughts were drowsy +and confused. He had a sensation as of being violently recalled to a +dull and colourless world from some far realm of barbaric enchantment. +His brain reeled and his vision was blurred as if by the flash and +glamour of many vivid colours. + +With an effort he managed to force himself to understand that Rutton +was back. After that he felt more normal. His thoughts slid back into +their accustomed grooves. + +If there were anything peculiar in his manner, Rutton did not remark +it. Indeed, he seemed unconscious, for a time, of the presence either +of Amber or of Doggott. The servant relieved him of his overcoat and +hat, and he strode directly to the fire, bending over to chafe and warm +his frost-nipped hands. Unquestionably he laboured under the influence +of an extraordinary agitation. His limbs twitched and jerked nervously; +his eyebrows were tensely elevated, his eyes blazing, his nostrils +dilated; his face was ashen grey. + +From across the room Doggott signalled silence to Amber, with a +forefinger to his lips; and with a discretion bred of long knowledge of +his master's temper, tiptoed through into the back room and shut the +door. + +Amber respected the admonition throughout a wait that seemed endless. + +The tin clock hammered off five minutes or more. Suddenly Rutton +started and wheeled round, every trace of excitement smoothed away. +Meeting Amber's gaze he nodded as if casually, and said, "Oh, Amber," +quietly, with an effect of faint surprise. Then he dropped heavily into +a chair by the table. + +"Well," he said slowly, "that is over." + +Amber, without speaking, went to his side and touched his shoulder with +that pitifully inadequate gesture of sympathy which men so frequently +employ. + +"I killed him," said Rutton dully. + +"Yes," replied Amber. He was not surprised; he had apprehended the +tragedy from the moment that Rutton had fled him, speechless; the +feeling of horror that he had at first experienced had ebbed, merged +into a sort of apathetic acknowledgment of the inevitable. + +After a bit Rutton turned to the table and drew an automatic pistol +from his pocket, opening the magazine. Five cartridges remained in the +clip, showing that two had been exploded. "I was not sure," he said +thoughtfully, "how many times I had fired." His curiosity satisfied, he +reloaded the weapon and returned it to his pocket. "He died like a +dog," he said, "whimpering and blaspheming in the face of eternity ... +out there in the cold and the night.... It was sickening--the sound of +the bullets tearing through his flesh...." + +He shuddered. + +"Didn't he resist?" Amber asked involuntarily. + +"He tried to. I let him pop away with his revolver until it was empty. +Then...." + +"What made you wait?" + +"I didn't care; it didn't matter. One of us had to die to-night; he +should have known that when I refused to accompany him back to ... I +was hungry for his bullet more than for his life; I gave him every +chance. But it had to be as it was. That was Fate. Now...." He paused +and after a little went on in a more controlled voice. "Quaintly +enough, if there's anything in the theory of heredity, David, my hands +have been stained with no man's blood before to-night. Yet my forebears +were a murderous lot.... Until this hour I never realised how swift and +uncontrollable could be the impulse to slay...." + +His voice trailed off into silence and he sat staring into the +flickering flames that played about the driftwood. Now and again his +lips moved noiselessly. + +With a wrench Amber pulled himself together. He had been mentally a +witness to the murder--had seen the Bengali, obese, monstrous, flabby, +his unclean carcass a gross casing for a dark spirit of iniquity and +treachery, writhing and whining in the throes of death.... "Rutton," he +demanded suddenly, without premeditation, "what are you going to do?" + +"Do?" Rutton looked up, his eyes perplexed. + +"Why, what is there to do? Get away as best I can, I presume--seek +another hole to hide in." + +"But how about the law?" + +"The law? Why need it ever be known--what has happened to-night? I can +count on your silence--I have no need to ask. Doggott would die rather +than betray me. He and I can dispose of--it. No one comes here at this +time of the year save hunting parties; and their eyes are not upon the +ground. You will go your way in the morning. We'll clear out +immediately after." + +"You'd better take no chances." + +Suddenly Rutton smote the table with his fist. "By Indur!" he swore +strangely, his voice quavering with joy; "I had not thought of that!" +He jumped up and began to move excitedly to and fro. "I am free! None +but you and I know of the passing of the Token and the delivery of the +message--none can possibly know for days, perhaps weeks. For so much +time at least I am in no danger of--" + +He shut his mouth like a trap on words that might have enlightened +Amber. + +"Of what?" + +"Let me see: there are still waste places in the world where a man may +lose himself. There's Canada--the Hudson Bay region, Labrador...." + +A discreet knock sounded on the door in the partition, and it was +opened gently. Doggott appeared on the threshold, pale and careworn. +Rutton paused, facing him. + +"Well?" + +"Any orders, sir?" + +"Yes; begin packing up. We leave to-morrow." + +"Very good, sir." + +"That is all to-night." + +"Yes, sir. Good-night. Good-night, Mr. Amber." The man retired and at +intervals thereafter Amber could hear him moving about, apparently +obeying orders. + +Rutton replenished the fire and stood with his back to it, smiling +almost happily. All evidence of remorse had disappeared. He seemed +momentarily almost light-hearted, certainly in better spirits than he +had been at any time that night. "Free!" he cried softly. "And by the +simplest of solutions. Strange that I should never have thought before +to-night of--" He glanced carelessly toward the window; and it was as +if his lips had been wiped clean of speech. + +Amber turned, thrilling, his flesh creeping with the horror that he had +divined in Rutton's transfixed gaze. + +Outside the glass, that was lightly silvered with frost, something +moved--the spectral shadow of a turbaned head--moved and was stationary +for the space of twenty heartbeats. Beneath the turban Amber seemed to +see two eyes, wide staring and terribly alight. + +"God!" cried Rutton thickly, jerking forth his pistol. + +The shadow vanished. + +With a single thought Amber sprang upon Rutton, snatched the weapon +from his nerveless fingers, and, leaping to the door, let himself out. + +The snow had ceased; only the wind raved with untempered force. +Overhead it was blowing clear; through rifts and rents in the +fast-moving cloud-rack pale turquoise patches of moonlit sky showed, +here and there inlaid with a far shining star. The dunes were coldly +a-glimmer with the meagre light that penetrated to the earth and was +cast back by its white and spotless shroud. + +But Amber, at pause a few paces beyond the doorstep, his forefinger +ready upon the trigger of the automatic pistol, was alone in the +hollow. + +Cautiously, and, to be frank, a bit dismayed, he made a reconnaissance, +circling the building, but discovered nothing to reward his pains. The +snow lay unbroken except in front of the cabin, where the traces of +feet existed in profuse confusion; Amber himself, Rutton, Doggott, the +babu, and perhaps another, had passed and repassed there; the trail +they had beaten streamed out of the vale, to the eastwards. Only, +before the window, through which he had seen the peering turbaned head, +he found the impressions of two feet, rather deep and definite, toes +pointing toward the house, as though some one had lingered there, +looking in. The sight of them reassured him ridiculously. + +"At least," he reflected, "disembodied spirits leave no footprints!" + +He found Rutton precisely as he had left him, his very attitude an +unuttered question. + +"No," Amber told him, "he'd made a quick getaway. The marks of his feet +were plain enough, outside the window, but he was gone, and ... somehow +I wasn't over-keen to follow him up." + +"Right," said the elder man dejectedly. "I might have known Chatterji +would not have come alone. So my crime was futile." He spoke without +spirit, as if completely fagged, and moved slowly to the door. "I don't +want another interruption to-night," he continued, shooting the bolts. +He turned to the windows, "Nor peeping Toms," he added, drawing the +shade of one down to the sill. + +Amber started for him in a panic. "Get away from that window, Rutton! +For the love of heaven don't be foolhardy!" + +Rutton drew the second shade deliberately. "Dear boy!" he said with his +slow, tired smile, "I'm in no danger personally. Not a hair of my head +will be touched until...." Again he left his thought half-expressed. + +"But if that fellow out there was Chatterji's companion----!" + +"He undoubtedly was. But you don't understand; my life is not +threatened--yet." + +"Chatterji fired at you," Amber argued stubbornly. + +"Only when he found it was his life or mine. I tell you, David, if our +enemy in the outer darkness were the babu's brother, he would not touch +a hair of my head unless in self-defense." + +"I don't understand. It's all so impossible!" Amber threw out his hands +helplessly, "Unbelievable! For God's sake wake me up and tell me I've +had a nightmare!" + +"I would that were so, David. But the end is not yet." + +"What do you mean by that?" demanded Amber, startled. + +"Simply, that we have more to endure, you and I. Consider the +limitations of the human understanding, David; a little while ago I +promised to ask your aid if ever the time should come when I might be +free to do so; I said, 'That hour will never strike.' Yet already it is +here; I need you. Will you help me?" + +"You know that." + +"I know.... One moment's patience, David." Rutton glanced at the clock. +"Time for my medicine," he said; "that heart trouble I mentioned...." + +He drew from a waistcoat pocket a small silver tube, or phial, and +uncorking this, measured out a certain number of drops into a silver +spoon. As he swallowed the dose the phial slipped from his fingers and +rang upon the hearthstone, spilling its contents in the ashes. A +pungent and heady odour flavoured the air. + +"No matter," said Rutton indifferently. "I shan't need it again for +some time." He picked up and restored the phial to his pocket. "Now let +me think a bit." He took a quick turn up the room and down again. Amber +remarked that the medicine was having its effect; though the brilliance +of Rutton's eyes seemed somewhat dimmed a dull flush had crept into his +dark cheeks, and when he spoke it was in stronger accents--with a +manner more assured, composed. + +"A mad dance," he observed thoughtfully: "this thing we call life. We +meet and whirl asunder--motes in a sunbeam. To-night Destiny chose to +throw us together for a little space; to-morrow we shall be irrevocably +parted, for all time." + +"Don't say that, Rutton." + +"It is so written, David." The man's smile was strangely placid. "After +this night, we'll never meet. In the morning Doggott will ferry you +over--" + +"Shan't we go together?" + +"No," said Rutton serenely; "I must leave before you." + +"Without Doggott?" + +"Without Doggott; I wish him to go with you." + +"Where?" + +"On the errand I am going to ask you to do for me. You are free to +leave this country for several months?" + +"Quite. I corrected the final galleys of my 'Analysis of Sanskrit +Literature' just before I came down. Now I've nothing on my mind--or +hands. Go on." + +"Wait." Rutton went a second time to the leather trunk, lifted the lid, +and came back with two small parcels. The one, which appeared to +contain documents of some sort, he cast negligently on the fire, with +the air of one who destroys that which is no longer of value to him. It +caught immediately and began to flame and smoke and smoulder. The other +was several inches square and flat, wrapped in plain paper, without a +superscription, and sealed with several heavy blobs of red wax. + +Rutton drew a chair close to Amber and sat down, breaking the seals +methodically. + +"You shall go a long journey, David," he said slowly--"a long journey, +to a far land, where you shall brave perils that I may not warn you +against. It will put your friendship to the test." + +"I'm ready." + +The elder man ripped the cover from the packet, exposing the back of +what seemed to be a photograph. Holding this to the light, its face +invisible to Amber, he studied it for several minutes, in silence, a +tender light kindling in his eyes to soften the almost ascetic +austerity of his expression. "In the end, if you live, you shall win a +rich reward," he said at length. He placed the photograph face down +upon the table. + +"How--a reward?" + +"The love of a woman worthy of you, David." + +"But----!" In consternation Amber rose, almost knocking over his chair. +"But--Great Scott, man!" + +"Bear with me, David, for yet a little while," Rutton begged. "Sit +down." + +"All right, but----!" Amber resumed his seat, staring. + +"You and Doggott are to seek her out, wherever she may be, and rescue +her from what may be worse than death. And it shall come to pass that +you shall love one another and marry and live happily ever after--just +as though you were a prince and she an enchanted princess in a fairy +tale, David." + +"I must say you seem pretty damn' sure about it!" + +"It must be so, David; it shall be so! I am an old man--older than you +think, perhaps--and with age there sometimes comes something strangely +akin to the gift of second-sight. So I know it will be so, though you +think me a madman." + +"I don't, indeed, but you.... Well! I give it up." Amber laughed +uneasily. "Go on. Where's this maiden in distress?" + +"In India--I'm not sure just where. You'll find her, however." + +"And then----?" + +"Then you are to bring her home with you, without delay." + +"But suppose--" + +"You must win her first; then she will come gladly." + +"But I've just told you I loved another woman, Rutton, and besides--" + +"You mean the Miss Farrell you mentioned?" + +"Yes. I--" + +"That will be no obstacle." + +"What! How in thunder d'you know it won't?" Amber expostulated. A faint +suspicion of the truth quickened his wits. "Who is this woman you want +me to marry?" + +"My daughter." + +"Your daughter!" + +"My only child, David." + +"Then why won't my--my love for Sophia Farrell interfere?" + +"Because," said Rutton slowly, "my daughter and Sophia Farrell are the +same.... No; listen to me; I'm not raving. Here is my proof--her latest +photograph." He put it into Amber's hands. + +Dazed, the younger man stared blankly at the likeness of the woman he +loved; it was unquestionably she. Fair, sweet, and imperious, her face +looked up to his from the bit of cardboard in his hands; the direct and +fearless eyes met his--eyes frank, virginal, and serene, beautiful with +the beauty of a soul as unsullied and untroubled as the soul of a +child. + +He gasped, trembling, astounded. "Sophia...!" he said thickly, +colouring hotly. He was conscious of a tightening of his throat +muscles, making speech a matter of difficulty. "But--but--" he +stammered. + +"Her mother," said Rutton softly, looking away, "was a Russian +noblewoman. Sophia is Farrell's daughter by adoption only. Farrell was +once my closest friend. When my wife died...." He covered his eyes with +his hand and remained silent for a few seconds. "When Sophia was left +motherless, an infant in arms, Farrell offered to adopt her. Because I +became, about that time, aware of this horror that has poisoned my +life--this thing of which you have seen something to-night--I accepted +on condition that the truth be never revealed to her. It cost me the +friendship of Farrell; he was then but lately married and--and I +thought it dangerous to be seen with him too much. I left England, +having settled upon my daughter the best part of my fortune, retaining +only enough for my needs. From that day I never saw her or heard from +Farrell. Yet I knew I could trust him. Last summer, when my daughter +was presented at Court, I was in London; I discovered the name of her +photographer and bribed him to sell me this." He indicated the +photograph. + +"And she doesn't know!" + +"She must never know." Rutton leaned forward and caught Amber's hand in +a compelling grasp. "Remember that. Whatever you do, my name must never +pass your lips--with reference to herself, at least. No one must even +suspect that you know me--Farrell least of all." + +"Sophia knows that now," said Amber. "Quain and I spoke of you one +night, but the name made no impression on her. I'm sure of that." + +"That is good; Farrell has been true. Now ... you will go to India?" + +"I will go," Amber promised. + +"You will be kind to her, and true, David? You'll love her faithfully +and make her love you?" + +"I'll do my best," said the young man humbly. + +"It must be so--she must be taught to love you. It is essential, +imperative, that she marry you and leave India with you without a day's +delay." + +Amber sat back in his chair, breathing quickly, his mouth tense. "I'll +do my best. But, Rutton, why? Won't you tell me? Shouldn't I know--I, +who am to be her husband, her protector?" + +"Not from me. I am bound by an oath, David. Some day it may be that you +will know. Perhaps not. You may guess what you will--you have much to +go on. But from me, nothing. Now, let us settle the details. I've very +little time." He glanced again at the shoddy tin clock, with a slight +but noticeable shiver. + +"How's that? It's hours till morning." + +"I shall never see the dawn, David," said Rutton quietly. + +"What--" + +"I have but ten minutes more of life.... If you must know--in a word: +poison.... That I be saved a blacker sin, David!" + +"You mean that medicine--the silver phial?" Amber stammered, sick with +horror. + +"Yes. Don't be alarmed; it's slow but sure and painless, dear boy. It +works infallibly within half an hour. There'll be no agony--merely the +drawing of the curtain. Best of all, it leaves no traces; a +diagnostician would call it heart-failure.... And thus I escape that." +He nodded coolly toward the door. + +"But this must not be, Rutton!" Amber rose suddenly, pushing back his +chair. "Something must be done. Doggott--" + +"Not so loud, please--you might alarm him. After it's all over, call +him. But now--it's useless; the thing is done; there's no known +antidote. Be kind to me, David, in this hour of mine extremity. There's +much still to be said between us ... and in seven minutes more...." + +Rutton retained his clutch upon Amber's hand; and his eyes, their +lustre dimmed, held Amber's, pitiful, passionate, inexorable in their +entreaty. Amber sat down, his soul shaken with the pity of it. + +"Ah-h!" sighed Rutton. Relieved, the tension relaxed; he released +Amber's hand; his body sank a little in the chair. Becoming conscious +of this, he pulled himself together.... "Enter India by way of +Calcutta," he said in a dull and heavy voice. "There, in the Machua +Bazaar, you will find a goldsmith and money-lender called Dhola Baksh. +Go to him secretly, show him the ring--the Token. He will understand +and do all in his power to aid you, should there be any trouble about +your leaving with Sophia. To no one else in India are you to mention my +name. Deny me, if taxed with knowing me. Do you understand?" + +"No. Why?" + +"Never mind--but remember these two things: you do not know me and you +must under no circumstances have anything to do with the police. They +could do nothing to help you; on the other hand, to be seen with them, +to have it known that you communicate with them, would be the +equivalent of a seal upon your death warrant. You remember the +money-lender's name?" + +"Dhola Baksh of the Machua Bazaar." + +"Trust him--and trust Doggott.... Four minutes more!" + +"Rutton!" cried Amber in a broken voice. Cold sweat broke out upon his +forehead. + +The man smiled fearlessly. "Believe me, this is the better way--the +only way.... Some day you may meet a little chap named Labertouche--a +queer fish I once knew in Calcutta. But I daresay he's dead by now. But +if you should meet him, tell him that you've seen his B-Formula work +flawlessly in one instance at least. You see, he dabbled in chemistry +and entomology and a lot of uncommon pursuits--a solicitor by +profession, he never seemed to have any practice to speak of--and he +invented this stuff and named it the B-Formula." Rutton tapped the +silver phial in his waistcoat pocket, smiling faintly. "He was a good +little man.... Two minutes. Strange how little one cares, when it's +inevitable...." + +He ceased to speak and closed his eyes. A great stillness made itself +felt within the room. In the other, Doggott was silent--probably +asleep. Amber noted the fact subconsciously, even as he was aware that +the high fury of the wind was moderating. But consciously he was bowed +down with sorrow, inexpressibly racked. + +In the hush the metallic hammering of the mean tin clock rang loud and +harsh; Amber's heart seemed to beat in funeral time to its steady, +unhurried, immutable ticking. + +It was close upon two in the morning. + +"Amber," said Rutton suddenly and very clearly, "you'll find a will in +my despatch box. Doggott is to have all I possess. The emerald +ring--the Token--I give to you." + +"Yes, I--I--" + +"Your hand.... Mine is cold? No? I fancied it was," said the man +drowsily. And later: "Sophia. You will be kind to her, David?" + +"On my faith!" + +Rutton's fingers tightened cruelly upon his, then relaxed suddenly. He +began to nod, his chin drooping toward his breast. + +"The Gateway ... the Bell...." + +The words were no more than whispers dying on lips that stilled as they +spoke. For a long time Amber sat unmoving, his fingers imprisoned in +that quiet, cooling grasp, his thoughts astray in a black mist of +mourning and bewilderment. + +Through the hush of death the tin clock ticked on, placidly, +monotonously, complacently. In the fireplace a charred log broke with a +crash and a shower of live cinders. + +Out of doors something made a circuit of the cabin, like a beast of the +night, stealthy footsteps muffled by the snow: _pad--pad--pad_.... + +In the emerald ring on Amber's finger the deathless fire leaped and +pulsed. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +RED DAWN + + +Presently Amber rose and quietly exchanged dressing-gown and slippers +for his own shooting-jacket and boots--which by now were dry, thanks to +Doggott's thoughtfulness in placing them near the fire. + +The shabby tin clock had droned through thirty minutes since Rutton had +spoken his last word. In that interval, sitting face to face, and for a +little time hand in hand, with the man to whom he had pledged his +honour, Amber had thought deeply, carefully weighing ways and means; +nor did he move until he believed his plans mature and definite. + +But before he could take one step toward redeeming his word to Rutton, +he had many cares to dispose of. In the hut, Rutton lay dead of poison; +somewhere amongst the dunes the babu lay in his blood, shot to +death--foully murdered, the world would say. Should these things become +known, he would be detained indefinitely in Nokomis as a witness--if, +indeed, he escaped a graver charge. + +It was, then, with a mind burdened with black anxiety that he went to +arouse Doggott. + +The rear room proved to be as cheerless as the other. Of approximately +the same dimensions, it too had been furnished with little regard for +anything but the barest conveniences of camp-life. It contained a small +sheet-iron stove for cooking, a table, a rack of shelves, two chairs, +and a rickety cot-bed in addition to another trunk. On the table a tin +kerosene-lamp had burned low, poisoning the air with its bitter reek. +On the cot Doggott sprawled in his clothing, his strained +position--half reclining, feet upon the floor--suggesting an +uncontemplated surrender to fatigue. His face was flushed and he was +breathing heavily. + +The Virginian stood over him for several minutes before he could bring +himself to the point of awakening the man to the news of Rutton's +death. Aware of that steadfast loyalty which Doggott had borne his +master through many years of service, he shrank with conceivable +reluctance from the duty. But necessity drove him with a taut rein; and +finally he bent over and shook the sleeper by the shoulder. + +With a jerk the man sat up and recognised Amber. + +"Beg pardon, sir," he muttered, lifting himself sluggishly; "I didn't +mean to fall asleep--I'd only sat down for a moment's rest. Has--has +anything gone bad, sir?" he added hastily, remarking with troubled eyes +the sympathy and concern in Amber's expression. + +Amber looked away. "Mr. Rutton is dead, Doggott," he managed to say +with some difficulty. + +Doggott exclaimed beneath his breath. "Dead!" he cried in a tone of +daze. In two strides he had left Amber and was kneeling by Rutton's +side. The most cursory examination, however, sufficed to resolve his +every doubt: the hanging head and arms, the livid face with its staring +yet sightless eyes, the shrunken figure seeming so pitifully slight and +unsubstantial in comparison with its accustomed strong and virile +poise, hopelessly confirmed Amber's statement. + +"Dead!" whispered the servant. He rose and stood swaying, his lips +a-tremble, his eyes blinking through a mist, his head bowed. "'E always +was uncommon' good to me, Mr. Amber," he said brokenly. "It's a bit +'ard, comin' this w'y. 'Ow--'ow did it--" He broke down completely for +a time, and staggered away to the wall, there to stand with his head +pillowed on his crossed forearms. + +When he had himself in more control Amber told him as briefly as +possible of the head at the window and of its sequel--Rutton's +despairing suicide. + +Doggott listened in silence, nodding his comprehension. "I've always +looked for it, sir," he commented. "'E'd warned me never to touch that +silver tube; 'e never said poison, but I suspected it, 'e being blue +and melancholy-like, by fits and turns--'e never told me why." + +Then, reverently, they took up the body and laid it out upon the +hammock-bed, Doggott arranging the limbs and closing the eyes before +spreading a sheet over the rigid form. + +"And now, what, Mr. Amber?" he asked. + +Amber had returned to the table. He pondered his problems for some time +before answering; a distasteful duty devolved upon him of questioning +the servant about his master's secrets, of delving into the mystery +which Rutton had chosen always to preserve about himself--which, +indeed, he had chosen to die without disclosing to the man whom he had +termed his sole intimate. Yet this task, too, must be gone through +with. + +"Mr. Rutton spoke of a despatch-box, Doggott. You know where to find +it?" + +"Yes, sir." + +The servant brought from Rutton's leather trunk a battered +black-japanned tin box, which, upon exploration, proved to contain +little that might not have been anticipated. A bankbook issued by the +house of Rothschild Frčres, Paris, showed a balance to the credit of +H.D. Rutton of something slightly under a million francs. There was +American money, chiefly in gold certificates of large denominations, to +the value of, roundly, twenty thousand dollars, together with a handful +of French, German and English bank-notes which might have brought in +exchange about two hundred and fifty dollars. In addition to these +there was merely a single envelope, superscribed: "To be opened in +event of my death only. H.D.R." + +Amber broke the seal and read the enclosures once to himself and a +second time aloud to Doggott. The date was barely a year old. + +"For reasons personal to myself and sufficient," Rutton had written, "I +choose not to make a formal will. I shall die, probably in the near +future, by my own hand, of poison. I wish to emphasise this statement +in event the circumstances surrounding my demise should appear to +attach suspicion of murder upon any person or persons whatever. I am a +widower and childless. What relations may survive me are distant and +will never appear to claim what estate I may leave--this I know. I +therefore desire that my body-servant, Henry Doggott, an English +citizen, shall inherit and appropriate to his own use all my property +and effects, providing he be in my service at the time of my death. To +facilitate his entering into possession of my means, whatever they may +be, without the necessity of legal procedure of any kind, I enclose a +cheque to his order upon my bankers, signed by myself and bearing the +date of this memorandum. He is to fill it in with the amount remaining +to my credit upon my bank-book. Should he have died or left me, +however, the disposition of my effects is a matter about which I am +wholly careless." + +The signature was unmistakably genuine--the formal "H.D. Rutton" with +which Amber was familiar. It was unwitnessed. + +The Virginian put aside the paper and offered Doggott the blank cheque +on Rothschilds'. "This," he said, "makes you pretty nearly +independently rich, Doggott." + +"Yes, sir." Doggott took the slip of paper in a hand that trembled even +as his voice, and eyed it incredulously. "I've never 'ad anything like +this before, sir; I 'ardly know what it means." + +"It means," explained Amber, "that, when you've filled in that blank +and had the money collected from the Rothschilds, you'll be worth--with +what cash is here--in the neighbourhood of forty five thousand pounds +sterling." + +Doggott gasped, temporarily inarticulate. "Forty-five thousand +pounds!... Mr. Amber," he declared earnestly, "I never looked for +nothin' like this I--I never--I--" Quite without warning he was quiet +and composed again. "Might I ask it of you as a favour, sir, to look +after this"--he offered to return the cheque--"for a while, till I can +myke up my mind what to do with it." + +"Certainly." Amber took the paper, folded it and placed it in his +card-case. "I'd suggest that you deposit it as soon as possible in a +New York bank for collection. In the meantime, these bills are yours; +you'd better take care of them yourself until you open the banking +account. I'll keep Mr. Rutton's bank-book with the cheque." He placed +the book in his pocket with the singular document Rutton had called his +"will," and motioned Doggott to possess himself of the money in the +despatch-box. + +"It'll keep as well in 'ere as anywheres," Doggott considered, +relocking the box. "I 'aven't 'ardly any use for money, except, of +course, to tide me over till I find another position." + +"What!" exclaimed Amber in amaze. + +"Yes, sir," affirmed Doggott respectfully. "I'm a bit too old to chynge +my w'ys; a valet I've been all my life and a valet I'll die, sir. It's +too lyte to think of anything else." + +"But with this money, Doggott--" + +"Beg pardon, sir, but I know; I could live easy like a gentleman if I +liked--but I wouldn't be a gentleman, so what's the use of that? I +could go 'ome and buy me a public-'ouse; but that wouldn't do neither. +I'd not be 'appy; if you'll pardon my s'ying so, I've associated too +long with gentlemen and gentlemen's gentlemen to feel at ease, so to +speak, with the kind that 'angs round publics. So the w'y I look at it, +there's naught for me but go on valeting until I'm too old; after that +the money'll be a comfort, I dares'y.... Don't you think so, sir?" "I +believe you're right, Doggott; only, your common-sense surprises me. +But it makes it easier in a way...." Amber fell thoughtful again. + +"'Ow's that, sir--if I m'y ask?" + +"This way," said Amber: "Before he died, Mr. Rutton asked me to do him +a service. I agreed. He suggested that I take you with me." + +"I'm ready, sir," interrupted Doggott eagerly. "There's no gentleman +I'd like to valet for better than yourself." + +"But there will be dangers, Doggott--I don't know precisely what. +That's the rub: we'll have to travel half-way round the world and face +unknown perils. If Mr. Rutton were right about it, we'll be lucky to +get away with our lives." + +"I'll go, sir; it was 'is wish. I'll go with you to India, Mr. Amber." + +"Very well...." Amber spoke abstractedly, reviewing his plans. "But," +he enquired suddenly, "I didn't mention India. How did you know----?" + +"Why--I suppose I must 'ave guessed it, sir. It seemed so likely, +knowing what I do about Mr. Rutton." + +Amber sat silent, unable to bring himself to put a single question in +regard to the dead man's antecedents. But after a pause the servant +continued voluntarily. + +"He always 'ad a deal to do with persons who came from +India--niggers--I mean, natives. It didn't much matter where we'd +be--London or Paris or Berlin or Rome--they'd 'unt 'im up; some 'e'd +give money to and they'd go aw'y; others 'e'd be locked up with in 'is +study for hours, talking, talking. They'd 'ardly ever come the same one +twice. 'E 'ated 'em all, Mr. Rutton did. And yet, sir, I always 'ad a +suspicion--" + +Doggott hesitated, lowering his voice, his gaze shifting uneasily to +the still, shrouded figure in the corner. + +"What?" demanded Amber tensely. + +"I alw'ys thought per'aps 'e was what we call in England a man of +colour, 'imself, sir." + +"Doggott!" + +"I don't mean no 'arm, sir; it was just their 'ounding him, like, and +'is being a dark-complected man the syme as them, and speakin' their +language so ready, that made me think it. At least 'e might 'ave 'ad a +little of their blood in 'im, sir. Things 'd seem unaccountable +otherwise," concluded Doggott vaguely. + +"It's impossible!" cried Amber. + +"Yes, sir; at least, I mean I 'ope so, sir. Not that it'd myke any +difference to me, the w'y I felt towards 'im. 'E was a gentleman, white +or black. I'd've died for 'im any d'y." + +"Doggott!" The Virginian had risen and was pacing excitedly to and fro. +"Doggott! don't ever repeat one word of this to man or woman--while +you're faithful to the memory of Mr. Rutton." + +The servant stared, visibly impressed. "Very good, Mr. Amber. I'll +remember, sir. I don't ordinarily gossip, sir; but you and him being so +thick, and everything 'appening to-night so 'orrible, I forgot myself. +I 'ope you'll excuse me, sir." + +"God in Heaven!" cried the young man hoarsely. "It can't be true!" He +flung himself into his chair, burying his face in his hands. "It +can't!" + +Yet irresistibly the conviction was being forced upon him that Doggott +had surmised aright. Circumstance backed up circumstance within his +knowledge of or his experience with the man, all seeming to prove +incontestably the truth of what at the first blush had seemed so +incredible. What did he, Amber, know of Rutton's parentage or history +that would refute the calm belief of the body-servant of the dead man? +Rutton himself had consistently kept sealed lips upon the subject of +his antecedents; in Amber's intercourse with him the understanding that +what had passed was a closed book had been implicit. But it had never +occurred to Amber to question the man's title to the blood of the +Caucasian peoples. Not that the mystery with which Rutton had ever +shrouded his identity had not inevitably of itself been a provocation +to Amber's imagination; he had hazarded many an idle, secret guess at +the riddle that was Rutton. Who or what the man was or might have been +was ever a field of fascinating speculation to the American, but his +wildest conjecture had never travelled east of Italy or Hungary. He had +always fancied that one, at least, of Rutton's parents had been a +native of the European Continent. He had even, at a certain time when +his imagination had been stimulated by the witchery of "Lavengro" and +"The Romany Rye," gone so far as to wonder if, perchance, Rutton were +not descended from Gipsy stock--a fancy which he was quick to dismiss +as absurd. Yet now it seemed as if he had not been far wrong; if +Doggott were right--and Amber had come to believe that the valet was +right--it was no far cry from the Hindu to the Romany, both offshoots +of the Aryan root. + +And then Amber's intelligence was smitten by a thought as by a club; +and he began to tremble violently, uncontrollably, being weakened by +fatigue and the strain of that endless, terrible night. A strangled cry +escaped him without his knowledge: "Sophia!" + +Sophia Farrell, the woman he had promised to wed, nay even the woman he +loved with all his being--a half-breed, a mulatto! His mind sickened +with the horror of that thought. All the inbred contempt of the +Southerner for the servile races surged up to overwhelm his passion, to +make it seem more than impossible, revolting, that the mistress of his +dreams should be a creature tainted by the blood of a brown-skinned +people. Though her mother had been of noble Russian family, as her +father had declared; though her secret were contained in his knowledge +and Farrell's alone, and though it were to be preserved by them ever +inviolate--could he, David Amber, ever forget it? Could he make her his +bride and take her home to his mother and his sisters in +Virginia--offer them as daughter and sister a woman who, though she +were fairer than the dawn, was in part a product of intermarriage +between white and black? + +His very soul seemed to shudder and his reason cried out that the thing +could never be.... Yet in his heart of hearts still he loved her, still +desired her with all his strength and will; in his heart there was no +wavering. Whatever Rutton had been, whatever his daughter might be, he +loved her. And more, the honour of the Ambers was in pledge, holding +him steadfast to his purpose to seek her out in India or wherever she +might be and to bear her away from the unnamed danger that threatened +her--even to marry her, if she would have him. He had promised; his +word had passed; there could now be no withdrawal.... + +An hour elapsed, its passing raucously emphasised by the tin clock. +Amber remained at the table, his head upon it, his face hidden by his +arms, so still that Doggott would have thought him sleeping but for his +uneven breathing. + +On tiptoe the man-servant moved in and out of the room, making ready +for the day, mechanically carrying out his dead master's last +instructions, to pack up against an early departing. His face was grave +and sorrowful and now and again he paused in the midst of his +preparations to watch for an instant the sheeted form upon the +hammock-bed, his head bowed, his eyes filling; or to cast a sympathetic +glance at the back and shoulders of the living, his new employer. In +his day Doggott had known trouble; he was ignorant of the cause, but +now intuitively he divined that Amber was suffering mental torment +indescribable and beyond his power to assuage. + +At length the young man called him and Doggott found him sitting up, +with a haggard and careworn face but with the sane light of a mind +composed in his eyes. + +"Doggott," he asked in an even, toneless voice, "have you ever +mentioned to anybody your suspicion about Mr. Rutton's race?" + +"Only to you, sir." + +"That's good. And you won't?" + +"No, sir." + +"Have you," continued Amber, looking away and speaking slowly, "ever +heard him mention his marriage?" + +"Never, sir. 'E says in that paper 'e was a widower; I fancy the lady +must have died before I entered 'is service. 'E was always a lonely +man, all the fifteen year I've been with 'im, keepin' very much to +'imself, sir." + +"He never spoke of a--daughter?" + +"No, sir. Didn't 'e say 'e was childless?" + +"Yes. I merely wondered.... Tell me, now, do you know of any letters or +papers of his that we should destroy? If there are any, he would wish +us to." + +"'E never 'ad many, sir. What letters 'e got 'e answered right away and +destroyed 'em. There was a little packet in 'is trunk, but I see that's +gone." + +"He burned it himself this evening. There's nothing else?" + +"Nothing whatever, sir." + +"That's all right, then. We have nothing to do but ... see that he's +decently buried and get away as soon as we can. There's no time to +lose. It's after four, now, and as soon as it's daylight----You must +have a boat somewhere about?" + +"Yes, sir. Mr. Rutton 'ad me 'ire a little power launch before 'e came +down. It's down by the bayside, 'alf a mile aw'y." + +"Very well. The wind is dying down and by sunrise the bay will be safe +to cross--if it isn't now. These shallow waters smoothe out very +quickly. We'll--" + +He cut his words short and got up abruptly with a sharp exclamation: +"What's that?" + +Doggott, too, had heard and been startled. "It sounded like a gun-shot, +sir, and a man shouting," he said, moving toward the door. + +But Amber anticipated him there. + +As he stepped out into the bitter-cold air of early morning, he +received an impression that a shadow in the hollow had been alarmed by +his sudden appearance and had flitted silently and swiftly out upon the +beaten eastward path. But of this he could not be sure. + +He stood shivering and staring, waiting with attentive senses for a +repetition of the sound. The wind had indeed fallen, and the world was +very still--a hush that overspread and lay unbroken upon the deep, +ceaseless growling of the sea, like oil on water. The moon had set and +the darkness was but faintly tempered by the starlight on the snow--or +was it the first wan promise of the dawn that seemed to quiver in the +formless void between earth and sky? + +In the doorway Doggott grew impatient. "You don't 'ear anything, sir?" + +"Not a sound." + +"It's cruel cold, Mr. Amber. 'Adn't you better come inside, sir?" + +"I suppose so." He abandoned hope disconsolately and returned to the +hut, his teeth inclined to chatter and his stomach assailed by +qualms--premonitions of exhaustion in a body insufficiently nourished. + +Doggott, himself similarly affected, perhaps, was quick to recognise +the symptoms. "I'll get a bite of breakfast, sir," he suggested; "you +'aven't 'ad enough to eat, and 'unger's tyking 'old of you. If you'll +pardon my saying so, you look a bit sickly; but a cup of hot coffee'll +set that right in a jiffy." + +"Thank you, Doggott; I believe you're right. Though disappointment has +a good deal to do with the way I look. I'd hoped it might be Mr. Quain +come to look for me." + +Doggott disappeared to prepare the meal, but within five minutes a +second gun-shot sounded startlingly near at hand. The Virginian's +appearance at the door was coincident with a clear hail of "Aho-oy, +Amber!"--unmistakably Quain's voice, raised at a distance of not over +two hundred yards. + +Amber's answering cry quavered with joy. And with a bear-like rush +Quain topped the nearest dune, dropped down into the hollow, and was +upon him. + +"By the Lord Harry!" he cried, almost embracing Amber in his excitement +and relief; "I'd almost given you up for good and all!" + +"And I you," said Amber, watching curiously and somewhat distrustfully +a second man follow Quain into the vale. "Who's that?" he demanded. + +"Only Antone. We've him to thank. He remembered this old camp here--I'd +completely forgotten it--and was sure you'd taken refuge in it. Come +inside." He dragged Amber in, the Portuguese following. "Let's have a +look at you by the light. Lord! you seem to be pretty comfortable--and +I've been worrying myself sick for fear you--" He swept the room with +an approving glance which passed over Doggott and became transfixed as +it rested upon the hammock-bed with its burden; and his jaw fell. +"What's this? What's this?" He swung upon Amber, appraising with +relentless eyes the havoc his night's experience had wrought upon the +man. "You look like hell!" he exploded. "What's up here? Eh?" + +Amber turned to Doggott. "Take Antone out there with you and keep him +until I call, please. This is Mr. Quain; I want to talk with him +undisturbed.... But you can bring us coffee when it's ready." + +Quain motioned to Antone; the Portuguese disappeared into the back room +with Doggott, who closed the communicating door. + +"You first," said Amber. "If you've fretted about me, I've been crazy +about you--what time I've had to think." + +Quain deferred to his insistence. "It was simple enough--and damned +hard," he explained. "I caught the _Echo_ by the skin of my teeth, the +skimmy almost sinking under me. She was hard and fast aground, but I +managed to get the motor going and backed her off. As soon as that was +all right we got a wave aboard that soused the motor--like a fool I'd +left the hatch off--and short-circuited the coil. After that there was +hell to pay. I worked for half an hour reefing, and meanwhile we went +aground again. The oar broke and I had to go overboard and get wet to +my waist before I got her off. By that time it was blowing great guns +and dead from the beach. I had to stand off and make for the +mainland--nothing else to do. We beached about a mile below the +lighthouse and I had the four-mile tramp home. Then after I'd thawed +out and had a drink and a change of clothes, we had to wait two hours +for the sea to go down enough to make a crossing in the launch +practicable. That's all for mine. Now you? What's that there?" + +"A suicide; a friend of mine--the man Rutton whom we were discussing +the night I came down. And that's not half. There's a man out there +somewhere, shot to death by Rutton--a Bengali babu.... Quain, I've +lived in Purgatory ever since we parted and now ... I'm about done." + +He was; the coming of Quain with the ease of mind it brought had +snapped the high nervous tension which had sustained Amber. He was now +on the edge of collapse and showed it plainly. But two circumstances +aided him to recover his grip upon himself: Quain's compassionate +consideration in forbearing to press his story from him, and Doggott's +opportune appearance with a pot of coffee, steaming and black. Two cups +of this restored Amber to a condition somewhat approaching the normal. +He lit a cigarette and began to talk. + +For all his affection for and confidence in his friend, there were +things he might not tell Quain; wherefore he couched his narrative in +the fewest possible words and was miserly of detail. Of the coming of +the babu and his going Amber was fairly free to speak; he suppressed +little if any of that episode. Moreover he had forgotten to remove the +Token from his finger, and Quain instantly remarked it and demanded an +explanation. But of the nature of the errand on which he was to go, +Amber said nothing; it was, he averred, Rutton's private business. Nor +did he touch upon the question of Rutton's nationality. Sophia Farrell +he never mentioned. + +Nevertheless, he said enough to render Quain thoughtful.... "You're set +on this thing, I suppose?" he asked some time after Amber had +concluded. + +"Set upon it, dear man? I've no choice. I must go--I promised." + +"Of course. That's you, all over. Personally, I think it'll turn out a +fool's errand. But there's something you haven't told me--I'm not ass +enough to have missed that and no doubt that influences you." + +"I've told you everything that, in honor, I could." + +"Hmm--yes; I dare say...." Quain scowled over the problem for some +time. "It's plain enough," he asserted forcibly: "that man was involved +in some infernal secret society. Just how and why's the question. Think +I'll have a look at him." + +Amber would have protested, but thought better of it and held his peace +while Quain went to the hammock-bed, turned back the sheet, and for +several minutes lingered there, scrutinising the stony, upturned face. + +"So!" he said, coming back. "Here's news that'll help you some. You +were blind not to see it yourself. That man's--was, I should say--a +Rajput." He waited for the comment which did not come. "You knew it?" + +"I ... suspected, to-night." + +"It's as plain as print; the mark of his caste is all over him. But +perhaps he was able to disguise it a little with his manner--alive; +undoubtedly, I'd say. He was a genius of his kind--a prodigy; a mental +giant. That translation of the 'Tantras'----! Wonderful!... Well, he's +gone his own way: God be with him.... When do you want to start?" + +"As soon as possible--sooner. I've not a day to lose--not an hour." + +"Urgent as that, eh?" Quain peered keenly into his face. "I wish I knew +what you know. I wish to Heaven I might go with you. But I'm married +now--and respectable. If I ''ear the East a-callin'' and daren't +answer, it's my own fault for ever being fool enough to have heard it. +Well...." He proceeded to take charge of the situation with his +masterful habit. "The morning train leaves Nokomis at seven-thirty. You +can make that, if you must. But you need sleep--rest." + +"I'll get that on the train." + +"'Knew you'd say that. Very well. This is Tuesday. The _Mauretania_--or +the _Lusitania_, I don't know which--sails to-morrow. You can catch +that, too. It's the quickest route, eastwards--" + +"But I've decided to go west." + +"That means a week more, and you said you were in a hurry." + +"I am; but by going westwards it's barely possible I may be able to +transact or wind up the business on the way." + +As a matter of fact Amber was hoping the Rolands, with Sophia Farrell, +might linger somewhere _en route_, remembering that the girl had +discussed a tentative project to stop over between steamers at +Yokohama. + +"Very well," Quain gave in; "you're the doctor. Now as for things here, +make your mind easy. I'll take charge and keep the affair quiet. +There's no reason I can see for its ever getting out. I can answer for +myself and Antone; and the two of us can wind things up. That man +Rutton is at peace now--'chances are he'd prefer a quiet grave here on +the island. Then that devilish babu--he doesn't count; Antone and I'll +get him under the ground in a jiffy. No one ever gets over here but me, +now; come summer and there'll be a few wanderers, but by that time.... +The dunes'll hold their secrets fast: be sure of that. Finally, if any +one round here knows about this place being occupied, your departure'll +be public enough to make them think it's being abandoned again. Keep +your hat-brim down and your coat-collar up at the station; and they'll +never know you aren't Rutton himself; and you'll have Doggott to back +up the deception. So there'll be no questions asked.... Get ready now +to trot along, and I'll take care of everything." + +"There's no way of thanking you." + +"That's a comfort. Call Doggott now and tell him to get ready. You +haven't much time to lose. I'd land at the lighthouse dock, if I were +you, and take the short-cut up to the station by the wood road. If you +land at Tanglewood, Madge'll hold you up for a hot breakfast and make +you miss your train. I'll cook up some yarn to account for your +defection; and when you get back with your blooming bride you can tell +her the whole story, by way of amends." + +Amber wheeled upon him, colouring to the brows. "My bride! What do you +mean by that? I said nothing--" + +Quain rubbed his big hands, chuckling. "Of course you didn't. But I'm +wise enough to know there's bound to be a woman in this case. Besides, +it's Romance--and what's a romance without a woman?" + +"Oh, go to thunder," said Amber good-naturedly, and went to give +Doggott his orders. + +While they waited for the servant to pack his handbag--it being obvious +that to take the trunks with them was not feasible; while Quain was to +care for Amber's things at Tanglewood until his return from +India--Quain was possessed by an idea which he was pleased to christen +an inspiration. + +"It's this," he explained: "what do you know about Calcutta?" + +"Little or nothing. I've been there--that's about all." + +"Precisely. Now _I_ know the place, and I know you'll never find this +goldsmith in the Machua Bazaar without a guide. The ordinary, +common-or-garden guide is out of the question, of course. But I happen +to know an Englishman there who knows more about the dark side of India +than any other ten men in the world. He'll be invaluable to you, and +you can trust him as you would Doggott. Go to him in my name--you'll +need no other introduction--and tell him what you've told me." + +"That's impossible. Rutton expressly prohibited my mentioning his name +to any one in India." + +"Oh, very well. You haven't, have you? And you won't have to. I'll take +care of that, when I write and tell Labertouche you're coming." + +"What name?" + +"Labertouche. Why? You don't know him." + +"No; but Rutton did. Rutton got that poison from him." + +Quain whistled, his eyes round. "Did, eh? So much the better; he'll +probably know all about Rutton and'll take a keener interest." + +"But you forget--" + +"Hang your promise. I'm not bound by it and this is business--blacker +business than you seem to realise, Davy. You're bent on jumping +blindfold and with your hands tied into the seething pool of infamy and +intrigue that is India. And I won't stand for it. Don't think for an +instant that I'm going to let you go without doing everything I can to +make things as pleasant as possible for you.... No; Labertouche is your +man." + +And to this Quain held inflexibly; so that, in the end, Amber, unable +to move him, was obliged to leave the matter in his hands. + +A sullen and portentous dawn hung in the sky when the little party left +the cabin. In the east the entire firmament was ensanguined with +sinister crimson and barred with long reefs of purple-black clouds in +motionless suspense. Upon the earth the red glare fell ominously; the +eastern faces of the snow-clad dunes shone like rubies; westward the +shadows streamed long and dense and violet. The stillness was intense. + +A little awed, it may be, and certainly more than a little depressed, +they left the hollow by the beaten way, the Portuguese Antone leading +with a pick and spade, Amber and Quain following side by side, Doggott +with his valise bringing up the rear. Beyond the hollow the tracks +diverged toward the bay shore; and presently they came to the scene of +the tragedy. + +Between two sandhills the Bengali lay supine, a huddled heap of garish +colour--scarlet, yellow, tan--against the cold bluish-grey of snow. A +veil of unmelted flakes blurred his heavy, contorted features and his +small, black eyes--eyes as evil now, staring glassily up to the zenith, +as when quickened by his malign intelligence. About him were many +footprints, some recently made--presumably by his companion. The +latter, however, kept himself discreetly invisible. + +At a word from Quain the Portuguese paused and began to dig. Quain, +Amber, and Doggott went on a little distance, then, by mutual consent, +halted within sight of Antone. + +"I wouldn't leave him if I were you," Amber told Quain, nodding back at +the Portuguese. "It mightn't be safe, with that other devil skulking +round--Heaven knows where." + +"Right-O!" agreed Quain. His hand sought Amber's. "Good-bye, and God be +with you," he said huskily. + +Amber tightened his clasp upon the man's fingers. "I can't improve on +that, Tony," said he with a feeble smile. "Good-bye, and God be with +you." He dropped his hand and turned away. "Come along, Doggott." + +The servant led the way baywards. Behind them the angry morning blazed +brighter in the sky. + +In the sedge of the shore they found a rowboat and, launching it, +embarked for the power-boat, which swung at her mooring in deeper +water. When they were aboard the latter, Doggott took charge of the +motor, leaving to Amber the wheel, and with little delay they were in +motion. + +As their distance from the shore increased Amber glanced back. The +island rested low against the flaming sky, a shape of empurpled +shadows, scarcely more substantial to the vision than the rack of cloud +above. In the dark sedges the pools, here and there, caught the light +from above and shone blood-red. And suddenly the attention of the +Virginian was arrested by the discovery of a human figure--a man +standing upon a dune-top some distance inland, and staring steadfastly +after the boat. He seemed of extraordinary height and very thin; upon +his head there was a turban; his arms were folded. While Amber watched +he held his pose, a living menace--like some fantastic statue bulking +black against the grim red dawn. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MASKS AND FACES + + +Like many a wiser and a better man, Amber was able upon occasion to +change his mind without entertaining serious misgivings as to his +stability of purpose. Therefore, on second thought, he elected to +journey India-wards _via_ the Suez Canal rather than by the western +route. As he understood the situation, he had no time to waste; the +quicker way to his destination was the eastern way; and, viewed +soberly, the chance upon which he had speculated, that of overtaking +the girl's party somewhere _en route_, appeared a long one--a gambler's +risk, and far too risky if he did not exaggerate the urgency of his +errand. Rutton's instructions had, moreover, been explicit upon one +point: Amber was to enter India only by the port of Calcutta. In +deferring to this the Virginian lost several days waiting in London for +the fortnightly P. & O. boat for Calcutta: a delay which might have +been obviated by taking the overland route to Brindisi, connecting +there with the weekly P. & O. boat for Bombay, from which latter point +Calcutta could have been quickly reached by rail across the Indian +Peninsula. + +Now Quain's letter to Labertouche went by this quicker route and so +anticipated Amber's arrival at the capital of India by about a week; +during all of which time it languished unread. + +A nice young English boy in Mr. Labertouche's employ received and +stamped it with the date of delivery and put it away with the rest of +the incoming correspondence in a substantial-looking safe. After which +he returned to his desk in the ante-room and resumed his study of the +law; which he pursued comfortably enough with a cigarette in his mouth, +his chair tilted back, and his feet gently but firmly implanted upon +the fair printed pages of an open volume of Blackstone. His official +duties, otherwise, seemed to consist solely in imparting to all and +sundry the information that Mr. Labertouche was "somewhere up in the +Mofussil, hunting bugs--I don't know exactly where." + +This was, broadly speaking, perfectly true, within the limitations of +the youth's personal knowledge. He was a pleasant-mannered boy of +twenty or thereabouts, with an engaging air of candour which +successfully masked a close-mouthed reticence, even as his ostensibly +heedless, happy-go-lucky ways disguised a habit of extreme caution and +keen and particular observation: qualities which caused him to be +considered an invaluable office-assistant to a solicitor without any +clientele worth mentioning, and who chose to spend most of his time +somewhere up in the Mofussil hunting bugs. + +The Mofussil, by the way, is an extremely elastic term, standing as it +does in the vocabulary of the resident Calcutta-man, for the Empire of +India outside the seat of its Government. + +Precisely why Mr. Labertouche maintained his office was a matter for +casual conjecture to his wide circle of acquaintances; although it's +not unlikely that, were he the subject of discussion, the bulk of the +wonder expressed would be inspired by his unreasonable preference for +Calcutta as a place of residence. The Anglo-Indian imagination is +incapable of comprehending the frame of mind which holds existence in +Calcutta tolerable when one has the rest of India--including +Simla--open to one. And Labertouche was unmarried, unconnected with the +Government, and independent of his profession; certainly it would seem +that the slender stream of clients which trickled in and out of the +little offices on Dhurrumtollah Street, near the Maidan, could hardly +have provided him with a practice lucrative enough to be a +consideration. On the other hand it had to be admitted that the man +kept up his establishment in Calcutta rather than lived there; for he +was given to unexpected and extended absences from home, and was +frequently reported as having been seen poking sedulously over this +plain or through that jungle, with a butterfly net, a bottle of +chloroform, and an air of abstraction. In view of all of which he was +set down as an original and wholly irresponsible. The first of which he +was and the second of which he emphatically was not. + +Henry Charles Beresford Labertouche was, in person, a quiet and +unassuming body, with nothing particularly remarkable about him save +his preference for boot-heels nearly three inches high and a habit of +dying his hair--naturally greyish--a jet-black. Inasmuch as he was +quite brazen about these matters and would cheerfully discuss with +comparative strangers the contrasted merits of this hair-dye and that +and the obvious advantages of being five feet nine and one-half inches +in height instead of five feet seven, his idiosyncrasies were not held +against him. Otherwise he was a man strikingly inconspicuous; his eyes +were a very dark brown, which is nothing remarkable, and his features +were almost exasperatingly indefinite. You would have found him hard to +recall to memory, visually, aside from the boot-heels, which might +easily have been overlooked, and the black hair, which was, when all's +said, rather becoming than otherwise. Living with two native servants +in a modest bungalow somewhere between Chitpur and Barrackpur, he went +to and from his office, or didn't, at his whim, with entire lack of +ostentation. Soft-spoken and gifted with a distinct sense of the +humorous, he would converse agreeably and intelligently upon any +impersonal topic for hours at a time, when the spirit so moved him. As +an entomologist his attainments were said to be remarkable; he was +admittedly an interested student of ethnology; and he filled in his +spare time compounding unholy smells in a little laboratory connected +with his suburban home. This latter proceeding earned him the wholesome +fear and respect of the native population, who firmly believed him an +intimate of many devils. + +Such, at least, was the superficial man. + +Now upon the morning of the day that found the steamship _Poonah_ +nuzzling up the Hooghly's dirty yellow flood, Mr. Labertouche's clerk +arrived at the Dhurrumtollah Street office at the usual hour; which, in +the absence of his employer, was generally between eleven o'clock and +noon. Having assorted and disposed of the morning's mail, he donned his +office-coat, sat down, thumbed through Blackstone until he found two +perfectly clean pages, opened the volume at that place, tipped back his +chair, and with every indication of an untroubled conscience imposed +his feet upon the book and began the day's labours with a cigarette. + +The window at his right was open, affording an excellent view, from an +elevation of one storey, of the tide of traffic ebbing and flowing in +Dhurrumtollah Street. The clerk watched it sleepily, between +half-closed eyelids. Presently he became aware that an especially dirty +and travel-worn Attit mendicant had squatted down across the way, in +the full glare of sunlight, and was composing himself for one of those +apparently purposeless and interminable vigils peculiar to his +vocation. Beneath their drooping lashes the eyes of the clerk +brightened. But he did not move. Neither did the Attit mendicant. + +In the course of the next half-hour the clerk consumed two cigarettes +and entertained a visitor in the person of a dapper little Greek +curio-dealer from the Lal Bazaar, who left behind him an invitation to +Mr. Labertouche to call and inspect some scarabs in which he had +professed an interest. It was quite a fresh importation, averred the +Greek; the clerk was to be careful to remember that. + +When he had gone the clerk made a note of it. Then, glancing out the +window, he became aware that the Attit mendicant, for some reason +dissatisfied, was preparing to move on. Yawning, the clerk resumed his +street coat, and went out to lunch, carelessly leaving the door +unlocked, and the memorandum of the Greek's invitation exposed upon his +blotter. When he returned at three o'clock, the door of Mr. +Labertouche's private office was ajar and that gentleman was at his +desk. The memorandum was, however, gone. + +Mr. Labertouche was in the process of opening and reading a ten-days' +accumulation of correspondence, an occupation which he suspended +temporarily to call his clerk in and receive his report. This proved to +be a tolerably lengthy session, for the clerk, whose name appeared to +be Frank, demonstrated his command of a surprising memory. Without +notes he enumerated the callers at the office day by day from the time +when Labertouche had left for the Mofussil with his specimen-box and +the rest of his bug-hunting paraphernalia; naming those known to his +employer, minutely describing all others, even repeating their words +with almost phonographic fidelity. + +Labertouche listened intently, without interrupting, abstractedly +tapping his desk with a paper-cutter. At the end he said "Thank you," +with a dry, preoccupied air; and resumed consideration of his letters. +These seemed to interest him little; one after the other he gave to his +clerk, saying "File that," or "Answer that so-and-thusly." Two he set +aside for his personal disposition, and these he took up again after +the clerk had been dismissed. The first he read and reconsidered for a +long time; then crumpled it up and, drawing to him a small tray of +hammered brass, dropped the wadded paper upon it and touched a match to +it, thoughtfully poking the blazing sheets with his paper-cutter until +they were altogether reduced to ashes. + +Quain's was the second letter. Having merely glanced at the heading and +signature, Labertouche had reserved the rather formidable document--for +Quain had written fully--as probably of scant importance, to be dealt +with at his absolute leisure. But as he read his expression grew more +and more serious and perturbed. Finishing the last page he turned back +to the first and went over it a second time with much deliberation and +frequent pauses, apparently memorising portions of its contents. +Finally he said, "Hum-m!" inscrutably and rang for Frank. + +"He left New York by the _Lusitania_, eh?" said Mr. Labertouche aloud. +The clerk entering interrupted his soliloquy. "Bring me, please," he +said, "Bradshaw, the _News_--and the latest P. & O. schedule." And when +Frank had returned with these articles, he desired him to go at once +and enquire at Government House the whereabouts of Colonel Dominick +James Farrell, and further to search the hotels of Calcutta for a Miss +Farrell, or for information concerning her. "Have this for me +to-night--come to the bungalow at seven," he said. "And ... I shall +probably not be at the office again for several days." + +"Insects?" enquired the clerk. + +"Insects," affirmed Mr. Labertouche gravely. + +"In the Mofussil?" + +"There or thereabouts, Frank." + +"Yes, sir. I presume you don't feel the need of a capable assistant +yet?" + +"Not yet, Frank," said Labertouche kindly. "Be patient. Your time will +come; you're doing famously now." + +"Thank you." + +"Good-afternoon. Lock the door as you leave." + +Immediately that he found himself alone, Labertouche made of Quain's +letter a second burnt offering to prejudice upon the tray of hammered +brass. He was possessed of an incurable aversion to waste-paper baskets +and other receptacles from which the curious might fish out torn bits +of paper and, with patience, piece together and reconstruct documents +of whose import he preferred the world at large to remain unadvised. +Hence the tray of brass--a fixture among the furnishings of his desk. + +This matter attended to, he lost himself in Bradshaw and the Peninsular +& Oriental Steamship Company's list of sailings; from which he derived +enlightenment. "He was to come direct," mused Labertouche. "In that +case he'll have waited over in London for the _Poonah_." He turned to +the copy of the _Indian Daily News_ which lay at his elbow, somewhat +anxiously consulting its shipping news. Under the heading of "Due this +Day" he discovered the words: "_Poonah_, London--Calcutta--Straits +Settlements." And his face lengthened with concern. + +"That's short notice," he said. "Lucky I got back to-day--uncommon +lucky!... Still I may be mistaken." But the surmise failed to comfort +him. + +He drew a sheet of paper on which there was no letter-head to him and +began to write, composing deliberately and with great care. + +The building in which his offices were located stood upon a corner; at +either end of the long corridor on the upper floor, upon which the +various offices opened, were stairways, one descending to Dhurrumtollah +Street, the other to a side street little better than an alley. It may +be considered significant that, whereas Labertouche himself was not +seen either to enter or to leave the building at any time that day, an +Attit mendicant did enter from Dhurrumtollah Street shortly after Frank +had gone to lunch--and disappeared forthwith; while, in the dusk of +evening, a slim Eurasian boy with a clerkly air left by the stairs to +the alley. I say a boy, but he may have been thirty; he was carefully +attired in clothing of the mode affected by the Anglo-Indian, but wore +shoes that were almost heelless. His height may have been five-feet +seven inches, but he carried himself with a slight, studious rounding +of the shoulders that assorted well with the effect of his large +gold-rimmed spectacles. + +He stumbled out of the alley into Free School Street and set his face +to the Maidan, shuffling along slowly with a peering air, his +spectacles catching the light from the shop-windows and glaring +glassily through the shadows. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +FIRST STEPS + + +Forward on the promenade deck of the _Poonah,_ in the shadow of the +bridge, Amber stood with both elbows on the rail, dividing his somewhat +perturbed attention between a noisy lot of lascar stewards, deckhands, +and native third-class passengers in the bows below, and the long lines +of Saugor Island, just then slipping past on the starboard beam. + +On either hand, ahead, the low, livid green banks of the Hooghly were +closing in, imperceptibly constricting the narrow channel through which +the tawny tide swirled down to the sea at the full force of its ebb. +Struggling under this handicap, the _Poonah_ trembled from stem to +stern with the heavy labouring of the screw, straining forward like a +thoroughbred, its strength almost spent, with the end of the race in +sight. Across the white gleaming decks, as the bows swung from port to +starboard and back again, following the channel, purple-black shadows +slipped like oil. A languid land-wind blew fitfully down the estuary, +in warm puffs dense with sickly-sweet jungle reek. The day was hot and +sticky with humidity; a haze like a wall of dust coloured the skies +almost to the zenith. + +It was ten o'clock in the morning; Calcutta lay a hundred miles up the +river, approximately. By evenfall Amber expected to be in the city, +whether he stuck by the steamer until she docked in the port, or left +her at Diamond Harbour, sixty miles upstream, and finished his journey +by rail. At the present moment he hardly knew which to do; in the +ordinary course of events he would have gone ashore at Diamond Harbour, +thereby gaining an hour or two in the city. But within the last +eighteen hours events had been diverted from their normal course; and +Amber was deeply troubled with misgivings. + +Up to the day that the Poonah had sailed from Tilbury Dock, London, +from the time he had left Quain among the sand-dunes of Long Island, he +had not been conscious of any sort of espionage upon his movements. +That gaunt and threatening figure which he had seen silhouetted against +the angry dawn had not again appeared to disturb or trouble him. His +journey across the Atlantic had been uneventful; he had personally +investigated the saloon passenger lists, the second and third cabins +and the steerage of the _Lusitania,_ not forgetting the crew, only to +be reassured by the absence of anybody aboard who even remotely +suggested an Indian spy. But from the hour that the _Poonah_ with its +miscellaneous ship's company, white, yellow, brown, and black, had +warped out into the Thames, he had felt he was being watched--had +realised it instinctively, having nothing definite whereon to base his +feeling. He was neither timorous nor given to conjuring up shapes of +terror from the depths of a nervous imagination; the sensation of being +under the surveillance of unseen, prying eyes is unmistakable. Yet he +had tried to reason himself out of the belief--after taking all +sensible precautions, such as never letting the photograph of Sophia +Farrell out of his possession and keeping the Token next his skin, in a +chamois bag that nestled beneath his arm, swinging from a leather cord +round his neck. And as day blended into eventless day, he had lulled +himself into an uneasy indifference. What if he were watched? What +could it profit any one to know what he did or how he did it, day by +day? And with increasing infrequency he had come to question himself as +to the reason for the spying on his movements. + +Possibly the fruitlessness of any such speculation had much to do with +his gradual cessation of interest in the enigma. He was not credulous +of the power of divination popularly ascribed to the Oriental; he was +little inclined to believe that the nature of his errand to India had +been guessed, or that any native intelligence in India knew or +suspected the secret of Sophia Farrell's parentage--Rutton's solicitude +to the contrary notwithstanding. The theory that he most favoured in +explanation of the interest in him was that it had somehow become known +that he bore with him the emerald. It was quite conceivable that that +jewel, intrinsically invaluable, was badly wanted by its former +possessors, whether for the simple worth of it or because it played an +important part in the intrigue, or whatever it was, that had resulted +in Rutton's suicide. For his own part, Amber cared nothing for it; he +had christened it, mentally, the Evil Eye--with a smile to himself; +nonetheless he half-seriously suspected it of malign properties. He was +imaginative enough for that--or superstitious, if you prefer. + +He would, however, gladly have surrendered the jewel to those who +coveted it, in exchange for a promise of immunity from assassination, +had he known whom to approach with the offer and been free to make it. +But he must first show it to Dhola Baksh of the Machua Bazaar. After +that, when its usefulness had been discharged, he would be glad of the +chance to strike such a bargain.... + +Such, in short, had been his frame of mind up to eight o'clock of the +previous evening. At that hour he had made a discovery which had +diverted the entire trend of his thoughts. + +Doggott, ever a poor sailor, had been feeling ill and Amber had excused +him early in the afternoon. About six o'clock he had gone to his +stateroom and dressed for dinner, unattended. Absorbed in anticipations +of the morrow, when first he should set foot in Calcutta and take the +first step in pursuit of Sophia Farrell, he had absent-mindedly +neglected to empty the pockets of his discarded clothing. At seven he +had gone to dinner, leaving his stateroom door open, as was his +habit--a not unusual one with first-cabin passengers on long +voyages--and his flannels swinging from hooks in the wall. About eight, +discovering his oversight through the absence of his cigarette-case, he +had hurried back to the stateroom to discover that he had been +curiously robbed. + +His watch, his keys, his small change and his sovereign purse, his +silver cigarette-case--all the articles, in fact, that he was +accustomed to stuff into his pockets--with one exception, were where he +had left them. But the leather envelope containing the portrait of +Sophia Farrell was missing from the breast-pocket of his coat. + +From the hour in which he had obtained it he had never but this once +let it out of his personal possession. The envelope he had caused to be +constructed for its safe-keeping during his enforced inaction in +London. He had never once looked at it save in strict privacy, secure +even from the eyes of Doggott; and the latter did not know what the +leather case contained. + +Thus his preconceived and self-constructed theory as to the extent of +The Enemy's knowledge, was in an instant overthrown. "They" had seized +the very first relaxation of his vigilance to rob him of that which he +valued most. And in his heart he feared and believed that the incident +indicated "their" intimacy not alone with his secret but with that +which he shared with Colonel Farrell. + +Since then his every move toward regaining the photograph had been +fruitless. His stateroom steward, a sleek, soft Bengali boy who had +attended him all through the voyage with every indication of eagerness +to oblige him, professed entire ignorance of the theft. That was only +to be expected. But when Amber went to the purser and the latter +cross-examined the steward in his presence, the Bengali stuck to his +protestations of innocence without the tremor of an eyelash. In fact, +he established an alibi by the testimony of his fellow-stewards. +Further, when Amber publicly offered a reward of five guineas "and no +questions asked" and in private tempted the Bengali with much larger +amounts, he accomplished nothing. + +In the end, and in despair, Amber posted a notice on the ship's +bulletin-board, offering fifty guineas reward for the return of the +photograph to him either before landing or at the Great Eastern Hotel, +Calcutta, and having thereby established his reputation as a mild +lunatic, sat down to twirl his thumbs and await the outcome, +confidently anticipating there would be none. "They" had outwitted him +and not five hundred guineas would tempt "them," he believed. It +remained only to contrive a triumph in despite of this setback. + +But how to set about it? How might he plan against forces of whose very +nature he was ignorant--save that he guessed them to be evil? How could +he look ahead and scheme to circumvent the unguessable machinations of +the unknown?... His wits, like wild things in a cage, battered +themselves to exhaustion against the implacable bars of his +understanding. + +For the thousand-and-first time he reviewed the maddeningly scanty +store of facts at his command, turning them over and over in his mind, +vainly hopeful of inferring a clue. But, as always, he found his +thoughts circling a beaten track of conjecture.... What dread power had +hounded Rutton, forth from the haunts of his kind, from pillar to post +of the world (as he had said) to his death among the desolate dunes of +Long Island? What "staggering blow against the peace and security of +the world" could that or any power possibly strike, with Rutton for its +tool, once it had caught and bent him to its will? What fear had set +upon his lips a seal so awful that even in the shadow of death he had +not dared speak, though to speak were to save the one being to whom his +heart turned in the end? To save his daughter from what, had he +voluntarily renounced her, giving her into another's care, forswearing +his paternal title to her love, refusing himself even the cold comfort +of seeing her attain to the flower of her womanly beauty as another's +child? What--finally--was the ordeal of the Gateway of Swords, and what +could it be that made the Gateway of Death seem preferable to it? + +For the thousand-and-first time Amber abandoned his efforts to divine +the inscrutable, to overcome the insurmountable, to attain to the +inaccessible, but abandoned them grudgingly, grimly denying the +possibility of ultimate failure. Though he were never to know the dark +heart of the mystery, yet would he snatch from its pythonic coils the +woman he had sworn to save, the woman he loved! + +And while the black steamer with the buff super-structure toiled on, +cleaving its arduous way through the turbulent yellow flood between the +contracting shores of the Sunderbunds, while the offshore wind buffeted +Amber's cheeks with the hot panting breath of Bengal, his eyes, dimmed +with dreaming, saw only Her face. + +So often of late had he in solitude pondered her photograph, striving +to solve the puzzle of her heart that was to him a mystery as +unfathomable as that which threatened her, that he had merely to think +of her to bring her picture vividly before him. He could close his eyes +(he closed them now, shutting out the moving panorama of the river) and +see the girl that he had known in those few dear hours: the girl with +eyes as brown as sepia but illumined by traces of gold in the +irides--eyes that could smile and frown and be sweetly grave, all in +the time that a man needs to catch his breath; the girl with the +immaculate, silken skin, milk-white, with the rose-blush of young blood +beneath; with lips softly crimson as satin petals of a flower, that +could smile a man into slavery; the girl to contemplate whose adorably +modelled chin and firm, round, young neck would soften the austerity of +an anchorite; in whose hair was blended every deep shade of bronze and +gold.... + +Something clutched at his heart as with a hand of ice. He could never +forget, dared not remember what he could not believe yet dared not +deny. To him, reared as he had been, the barrier of mixed blood rose +between them, a thing surmountable only at the cost of caste; the +shadow of that horror lay upon his soul like ink--as black as the +silhouetted rails and masts and rigging of the _Poonah_ on her dead +white decks. He could win her heart only to lose his world. And still +he loved, still pursued his steadfast way toward her, knowing that, +were he to find her and his passion to be returned, death alone could +avert their union in marriage. He might not forget but ... he loved. +With him the high wind of Romance was a living gale, levelling every +obstacle between him and the desire of his heart. + +This is to be borne in mind: it was the man's first love. Theretofore +the habits of a thinker had set his feet in paths apart from those of +other men. Pretty women he had always admired--from a discreet +distance; that distance abridged, he had always found himself a little +afraid of and dismayed by them. They were the world's disturbing +element; they took men's lives in the rosy hollows of their palms and +moulded them as they would. While Amber had desired to mould his own +life. The theme of love that runs a golden thread through the drab +fabric of existence had to him been an illusion--a hallucination to +which others were subject, from which he was happily, if unaccountably, +exempt. But that had been yesterday; to-day.... + +In the afternoon the _Poonah_ touched at Diamond Harbour, landing the +majority of her passengers. Amber was among those few who remained +aboard. + +When the steamer swung off from the jetty and, now aided by a +favourable tide, resumed her progress up the river, he replaced his +notice on the bulletin-board with one offering a hundred guineas for +the return of the photograph before they docked in the port of +Calcutta; the offer of fifty guineas for its return to the Great +Eastern Hotel remained unaltered. + +His anticipations were not disappointed; positively nothing came of it. +All afternoon the _Poonah_ plodded steadily on toward the pall of smoke +that hemmed the northern horizon. The reedy river banks narrowed and +receded, gorgeous with colour, unvaryingly monotonous, revealing +nothing. Behind walls of rank foliage, dense green curtains almost +impenetrable even to light, the flat and spongy delta of the Ganges lay +decorously screened. If now and again the hangings parted they +disclosed nothing more than a brief vista of half-stagnant water or a +little clearing, half-overgrown, with the crumbling red brick walls of +some roofless and abandoned dwelling. + +In the lavender and gold and scarlet of a windless sunset, Calcutta +lifted suddenly up before them, a fairy city, mystic and unreal with +its spires and domes and minarets a-glare with hot colour behind a +hedge of etched black masts and funnels--all dimmed and made indefinite +by a heavy dun haze of smoke: lifted up in glory against the evening +sky and was blotted out as if by magic by the swooping night; then +lived again in a myriad lights pin-pricked upon the dense +bluish-blackness. + +The _Poonah_ slipped in to her dock under cover of darkness. Amber, +disembarking with Doggott, climbed into an open ghari on the landing +stage and was driven swiftly to his hotel. + +As he alighted and, leaving Doggott to settle with the ghariwallah, +crossed the sidewalk to the hotel entrance, a beggar slipped through +the throng of wayfarers, whining at his elbow: + +"Give, O give, Protector of the Poor!" + +Preoccupied, Amber hardly heard, and passed on; but the native stuck +leech-like to his side. + +"Give, hazoor--and the mercy of God shall be upon the Heaven-born for +ten-thousand years!" + +Now "Heaven-born" is flattery properly reserved for those who sit in +high places. Amber turned and eyed the man curiously, at the same time +dropping into the filthy, importunate palm a few annas. + +"May the shadow of the Heaven-born be long upon the land, when he shall +have passed through the Gateway of Swords!" + +And like a flash the man was gone--dodging nimbly round the ghari and +across Old Court House Street, losing himself almost instantly in the +press of early evening traffic. + +"The devil!" said Amber thoughtfully. "Why should it be assumed that I +have any shadow of an intention of entering that damnable Gateway of +Swords?" + +An incident at the desk, while he was arranging for his room, further +mystified him. He had given his name to the clerk, who looked up, +smiling. + +"Mr. David Amber?" he said. + +"Why, yes--" + +"We were expecting you, sir. You came by the _Poonah_?" + +"Yes, but--" + +"There's a note for you." The man turned to a rack, sorting out a small +square envelope from others pigeon-holed under "A." + +Could it be possible that Sophia Farrell had been advised of his +coming? Amber's hand trembled slightly with eagerness and excitement as +he took the missive. + +"An Eurasian boy left it for you half an hour ago," said the clerk. + +"Thank you," returned Amber, controlling himself sufficiently to wait +until he should be conducted to his room before opening the note. + +It was not, he observed later, superscribed in a feminine hand. Could +it be from Quain's friend Labertouche? Who else?... Amber lifted his +shoulders resignedly. "I wish Quain had minded his own business," he +said ungratefully; "I can take care of myself. This Labertouche'll +probably make life a misery for me." + +There was a quality in the note, however, to make him forget his +resentment of Quain's well-meant interference. + +"My dear Sir," it began formally: "Quain's letter did not reach me +until this afternoon; a circumstance which I regret. Otherwise I should +be better prepared to assist you. I have, on the other hand, set afoot +enquiries which may shortly result in some interesting information +bearing upon the matters which engage you. I expect to have news of the +Fs. to-night, and shall be glad to communicate it to you at once. I am +presuming that you purpose losing no time in attending to the affair of +the goldsmith, but I take the liberty of advising you that to attempt +to find him without proper guidance or preparation would be an +undertaking hazardous in the extreme. May I offer you my services? If +you decide to accept them, be good enough to come before ten to-night +to the sailors' lodging house known as 'Honest George's,' back of the +Lal Bazaar, and ask for Honest George himself, refraining from +mentioning my name. Dress yourself in your oldest and shabbiest +clothing; you cannot overdo this, since the neighbourhood is +questionable and a well-dressed man would immediately become an object +of suspicion. Do not wear the ring; keep it about you, out of sight. +Should this fail to reach you in time, try to-morrow night between +eight and ten. You would serve us both well by _burning_ this +immediately. Pray believe me yours to command in all respects." + +There was no signature. + +Amber frowned and whistled over this. "Undoubtedly from Labertouche," +he considered. "But why this flavour of intrigue? Does he know anything +more than I do? I presume he must. It'd be a great comfort if.... Hold +on. 'News of the Fs.' That spells the Farrells. How in blazes does he +know anything about the Farrells? I told Quain nothing.... Can it be a +trap? Is it possible that the chap who took that photograph +recognised...?" + +The problem held him in perplexity throughout the evening meal. He +turned it over this way and that without being able to arrive at any +comforting solution. Impulse in the end decided him--impulse and a +glance at his watch which told him that the time grew short. "I'll go," +he declared, "no matter what. It's nearly nine, but the Lal Bazaar's +not far." + +In the face of Doggott's unbending disapproval he left the hotel some +twenty minutes later, having levied on Doggott's wardrobe for suitable +clothing. Dressed in an old suit of soft grey serge, somewhat too large +for him, and wearing a grey felt hat with the brim pulled down over his +eyes, he felt that he was not easily to be identified with his +every-day self--the David Amber whose exacting yet conservative +"correctness" had become a by-word with his friends. + +Once away from the Great Eastern he quietly insinuated himself into the +tide of the city's night life that tirelessly ebbs and flows north of +Dalhousie Square--the restless currents of native life that move +ceaselessly in obedience to impulses so meaningless and strange to the +Occidental understanding. Before he realised it he had left +civilisation behind him and was breathing the atmosphere, heady and +weird, of the Thousand-and-One Nights. The Lal Bazaar seethed round him +noisily, with a roaring not unlike that of a surf in the hearing of him +who had so long lived separate from such scenes. But gradually the +strangeness of it passed away and he began to feel at home. And ere +long he passed in a single stride from the glare of many lights and the +tumult of a hundred tongues to the dark and the quiet hush of an alley +that wormed a sinuous way through the hinterland of the bazaar. Here +the air hung close and still and gravid with the odour of the East, +half stench, half perfume, wholly individual and indescribable; here +black shadows clung jealously to black and slimy walls, while lighter +ones but vaguely suggestive of robed figures glided silently hither and +yon; and odd noises, whispers, sobs, sounds of laughter and of rage, +assailed the ear and excited the imagination.... + +At a corner where there was more light he came upon a policeman whose +tunic, helmet, and truncheon were so closely patterned after those of +the London Bobby that the simple sight of them was calculated to revive +confidence in the security of one's person. He inspected Amber shrewdly +while the latter was asking his way to Honest George's, and in response +jerked a white-gloved thumb down the wide thoroughfare. + +"You carn't miss it, sir--s'ylors' boardin'-'ouse, all lit up and +likely with a row on at the bar. Mind your eye, guv'nor. It ayn't a +plyce you'd ought to visit on your lone." + +"Thanks; I've business there. I reckon to take care of myself." + +Nevertheless it was with a mind preyed upon by forebodings that Amber +stumbled down the cobbled way, reeking with filth, toward the +establishment of Honest George. Why on earth should Labertouche make an +appointment in so unholy a spot? Amber's doubts revived and he became +more than half persuaded that this must be a snare devised by those +acute intelligences which had instigated both the theft of the +photograph and that snarled mock-benediction of the mendicant. + +"I don't like it," he admitted ruefully; "it's so canny." + +He stopped in front of a building whose squat brick facade was lettered +with the reassuring sobriquet of its proprietor. A bench, running the +width of the structure, was thick with sprawling loafers, who smoked +and spat and spoke a jargon of the seas, the chief part of which was +blasphemy. Within, visible through windows never closed, was a crowded +barroom ablaze with flaring gas-jets, uproarious with voices thick with +drink. + +One needed courage of no common order to run the gauntlet of that rowdy +room and brave the more secret dangers of the infamous den. "You've got +to have your nerve with you," Amber put it. "But I suppose it's all in +the game. Let's chance it." And he entered. + +Compared with the atmosphere of that public-room a blast from Hell were +sweet and cooling, thought Amber; the first whiff he had of it all but +staggered him; and he found himself gasping, perspiration starting from +every pore. Faint with disgust he elbowed his way through the mob to +the bar, thankful that those about him, absorbed in the engrossing +occupation of getting drunk, paid him not the least heed. Flattening +himself against the rail he cast about for the proprietor. A blowsy, +sweating barmaid caught his eye and without a word slapped down upon +the sloppy counter before him a glass four fingers deep with +unspeakable whiskey. And he realised that he would have to drink it; to +refuse would be to attract attention, perhaps with unpleasant +consequences. "It's more than I bargained for," he grumbled, making a +pretence of swallowing the dose, and to his huge relief managing to +spill two-thirds of it down the front of his coat. What he swallowed +bit like an acid. Tears came to his eyes, but he choked down the cough, +and as soon as he could speak paid the girl. "Where's the boss?" he +asked. + +"Who?" Her glance was penetrating. "Oh, he's wytin' for you." She +nodded, lifting a shrill voice. "Garge, O Garge! 'Ere's that Yankee." +With a bare red elbow she indicated the further end of the room. +"You'll find 'im down there," she said, her look not unkindly. + +Amber thanked her quietly and, extricating himself from the press round +the bar, made his way in the direction indicated. A couple of billiard +tables with a small mob of onlookers hindered him, but by main strength +and diplomacy he wormed his way past and reached the rear of the room. +There were fewer loafers here and he had little hesitation about +selecting from an attendant circle of sycophants the genius of the +dive--Honest George himself, a fat and burly ruffian who filled to +overflowing the inadequate accommodation of an armchair. Sitting thus +enthroned in his shirt-sleeves, his greasy and unshaven red face +irradiating a sort of low good-humour that was belied by the cold +cunning of his little eyes, he fulfilled admirably the requirements of +the role he played self-cast. + +"'Ere, you!" he hailed Amber brusquely. "You're a 'ell of a job-'unter, +ain't you? Mister Abercrombie's been wytin' for you this hour gone. +'Know the w'y upstairs?" + +His tone was boisterous enough to fix upon Amber the attention of the +knot of loafers round the arm-chair. Amber felt himself under the +particular regard of a dozen pair of eyes, felt that his measure was +taken and his identification complete. Displeased, he answered curtly: +"No." + +"This w'y, then." Honest George hoisted himself ponderously out of his +arm-chair and lumbered heavily across the room, shouldering the crowd +aside with a high-handed contempt for the pack of them. Jerking open a +small door in the side wall, he beckoned Amber on with a backward nod +of his heavy head. "Be a bit lively, carn't you?" he growled; and +Amber, in despite of qualms of distrust, followed the fellow into a +small and noisome hallway lighted by a single gas-jet. On the one hand +a flight of rickety steps ran up into repellent obscurity; on the other +a low door stood open to the night. + +The crimp lowered his voice. "Your friend's this w'y." He waved his fat +red hand toward the door. "Them fools back there 'll think you're +tryin' for a berth with Abercrombie, the ship-master. I 'opes you'll +not tyke offense at the w'y I 'ad to rag you back there, sir." + +"No," said Amber, and Honest George led the way out into a small, +flagged well between towering black walls and left him at the threshold +of a second doorway. "Two flights up, the door at the top," he said; +"knock twice and then twice." And without waiting for an answer he +lurched heavily back to his own establishment. + +Amber watched his broad back fill the dimly-lighted doorway opposite +and disappear, of two minds whether or not to turn tail and run. +Suspicious enough in the beginning, the affair had now an exceeding +evil smell--as repulsive figuratively as was the actual effluvium of +the premises. He hung hesitant in doubt, with a heart oppressed by +those grim and silent walls of blackness that loomed above him. With +feet slipping on slimy flags he might be pardoned for harbouring +suspicions of some fouler treachery. The yawning mouth of the narrow +doorway, with the blackness of Erebus within, was deterring at its +best; in such a hole a man might be snared and slain and his screams, +though they rang to high Heaven, would fall meaningless on mundane +ears. Honest George's with its flare of lights and its crowd had been +questionable enough.... + +With a shrug, at length, he took his courage in his hands--and his +life, too, for all he knew to the contrary--and moved on into the +blackness, groping his way cautiously down a short corridor, his +fingers on either side brushing walls of rotten plaster. He had +absolutely nothing to guide him beyond the crimp's terse instructions. +Underfoot the flooring seemed to sag ominously; it creaked hideously. +Abruptly he stumbled against an obstruction, halted, and lighted a +match. + +The insignificant flame showed him a flight of stairs, leading up to +darkness. With a drumming heart he began to ascend, counting twenty-one +steps ere his feet failed to find another. Then groping again, one hand +encountered a baluster-rail; with this for guide he turned and followed +it until it began to slant upwards. This time he counted sixteen steps +before his eyes, rising above the level of the upper floor, discovered +to him a thin line of light, bright along the threshold of a door. He +began to breathe more freely, yet apprehension kept him strung up to a +high tension of nerves. + +He knuckled the door loudly--one double knock followed by another. + +From within a voice called cheerfully, in English: "Come in." + +He fumbled for the knob, found and turned it, and entered a small, +low-ceiled chamber, very cosy with lamplight, and simply furnished with +a single chair, a charpoy, a water-jug, a large mirror, and beneath the +latter a dressing-table littered with a collection of toilet gear, +cosmetics and bottles, which would have done credit to an actress. + +There was but a single person in the room and he occupied the chair +before the dressing-table. As Amber came in, he rose; a middle-aged +babu in a suit of pink satin, very dirty. In one hand something caught +the light, glittering. + +"Oah, Mister Amber, I believe?" he gurgled, oily and affable. "Believe +me most charmed to make acquaintance." And he laughed agreeably. + +But Amber's face had darkened. With an oath he sprang back, threw his +weight against the door, and with his left hand shot the bolt, while +his right whipped from his pocket Rutton's automatic pistol. + +"Drop that gun, you monkey!" he cried sharply. "I was afraid of this, +but I think you and I'll have an accounting before any one else gets in +here." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +PINK SATIN + + +Shaking with rage, Amber stood for a long moment with pistol poised and +eyes wary; then, bewildered, he slowly lowered the weapon. "Well," he +observed reflectively, "I'm damned." For the glittering thing he had +mistaken for a revolver lay at his feet; and it was nothing more nor +less than a shoehorn. While as for the babu, he had dropped back into +the chair and given way to a rude but reassuring paroxysm of gusty, +silent laughter. + +"I'm a fool," said Amber; "and if I'm not mistaken you're Labertouche." + +With a struggle the babu overcame his emotion. "I am, my dear fellow, I +am," he gasped. "And I owe you an apology. Upon my word, I'd forgotten; +one grows so accustomed to living the parts in these masquerades, after +a time, that one forgets. Forgive me." He offered a hand which Amber +grasped warmly in his unutterable relief. "I'm really delighted to meet +you," continued Labertouche seriously. "Any man who knows India can't +help being glad to meet the author of 'The Peoples of the Hindu Kush.'" + +"You did frighten me," Amber confessed, smiling. "I didn't know what to +expect--or suspect. Certainly,"--with a glance round the incongruously +furnished room--"I never looked forward to anything like this--or you, +in that get-up." + +"You wouldn't, you know," Labertouche admitted gravely. "I might have +warned you in my note; but that was a risky thing, at best. I feared to +go into detail--it might have fallen into the wrong hands." + +"Whose?" demanded Amber. + +"That, my dear man, is what we're here to find out--if we can. But sit +down; we shall have to have quite a bit of talk." He scraped a heap of +gaily-coloured native garments off one end of the charpoy and motioned +Amber to the chair. At the same time he fished a cigar-case out of some +recess in his clothing. "These are good," he remarked, opening the case +and offering it to Amber; "I daren't smoke anything half so good when +at work. The native tobacco is abominable, you know--_quite_ +three-fourths filth." + +"At work?" questioned Amber, clipping the end of his cigar and lighting +it. "You don't mean to say you travel round in those clothes?" + +"But I do. It's business with me--though few people know it. Quain +didn't; only I had a chance, one day, to tell him some rather startling +facts about native life. This sort of thing, done properly, gives a man +insight into a lot of unusual things." + +Labertouche puffed his cigar into a glow and leaned back, clasping one +knee with two brown hands and squinting up at the low, discoloured +ceiling. And Amber, looking him over, was amazed by the absolute +fidelity of his make-up; the brownish stain on face and hands, the +high-cut patent-leather boots, the open-work socks through which his +tinted calves showed grossly, his shapeless, baggy, soiled +garments--all were hopelessly babu-ish. + +"And if it isn't done properly?" + +"Oh, then----!" Labertouche laughed, lifting his shoulders +expressively. "No Englishman incapable of living up to a disguise has +ever tried it more than once in India; few, very few, have lived to +tell of the experiment." + +"You're connected with the police?" Amber's brows contracted as he +remembered Rutton's emphatic prohibition. + +But Quain had not failed to mention that. "Officially, no," said +Labertouche readily. "Now and again, of course, I run across a bit of +valuable information; and then, somehow, indirectly, the police get +wind of it. But this going _fantee_ in an amateur way is simply my +hobby; I've been at it for years--and very successfully, too. Of +course, it'll have its end. One's bound to slip up eventually. You can +train yourself to live the life of the native, but you can't train your +mind to think as he thinks. That's how the missteps happen. Some +day...." He sighed, not in the least unhappily.... "Some day I'll dodge +into this hole, or another that I know of, put on somebody else's +rags--say, these I'm wearing--and inconspicuously become a mysterious +disappearance. That's how it is with all of us who go in for this sort +of thing. But it's like opium, you know; you try it the first time for +the lark of it; the end is tragedy." + +Amber drew a long breath, his eyes glistening with wonder and +admiration of the man. "You don't mean to tell me you run such risks +for the pure love of it?" + +"Well ... perhaps not altogether. But we needn't go into details, need +we?" Labertouche's smile robbed the rebuke of its sting. "The opium +simile is a very good one, though I say it who shouldn't. One acquires +a taste for the forbidden, and one hires a little room like this from +an unprincipled blackguard like Honest George, and insensibly one goes +deeper and deeper until one gets beyond one's depth. That is all. It +explains me sufficiently. And," he chuckled, "you'd never have known it +if your case hadn't been exceptional." + +"It is, I think." Amber's expression became anxious. "I want to know +what you think of it--now Quain's told you. And, I say, what did you +mean by 'news of the Fs.'?" + +"News of the Farrells--father and daughter, of course." Labertouche's +eyes twinkled. + +"But how in the name of all that's strange--!" + +"Did I connect the affair Rutton with the Farrells? At first by simple +inference. You were charged with a secret errand, demanding the utmost +haste, by Rutton; your first thought was to travel by the longer +route--which, as it happens, Miss Farrell had started upon a little +while before. You had recently met her, and I've heard she's rather a +striking young woman. You see?" + +"Yes," admitted Amber sheepishly. "But--" + +"And then I remembered something," interrupted Labertouche. "I recalled +Rutton. I knew him years ago, when he was a young man.... You know the +yarn about him?" + +"A little--mighty little. I know now that he was a Rajput--though he +never told me that; I know that he married a Russian noblewoman"--Amber +hesitated imperceptibly--"that she died soon after, that he chose to +live out of India and to die rather than return to it." + +"He was," said Labertouche, "a singular man, an exotic result of the +unnatural conditions we English have brought about in India. The word +renegade describes him aptly, I think: he was born and bred a Brahmin, +a Rajput, of the hottest and bluest blood in Rajputana; he died to all +intents and purposes a European--with an English heart. He is--was--by +rights Maharana of Khandawar. As the young Maharaj he was sent to +England to be educated. I'm told his record at Oxford was a brilliant +one. He became a convert to Christianity--that was predestined--was +admitted to the Church of England, a communicant. When his father died +and he was summoned to take his place, Rutton at first refused. +Pressure was brought to bear upon him by the English Government and he +returned, was enthroned, and for a little time ruled Khandawar. It was +then that I knew him. He was continually dissatisfied, however, and +after a year or two disappeared. It was rumoured that he'd struck a +bargain with his prime-minister, one Salig Singh. At all events Salig +Singh contrived to usurp the throne, Government offering no objection. +Rutton turned up eventually in Russia and married a woman there who +died in childbirth--twenty years ago, perhaps. The child did not +survive its mother...." Labertouche paused deliberately, his glance +searching Amber's face. "So the report ran, at least," he concluded +quietly. + +"How do you know all this?" Amber countered evasively. + +"Government watches its wards very tenderly," said Labertouche with a +grin. "Besides, India's a great place for gossip.... And then," he +pursued tenaciously, "I remembered something else. I recalled that +Rutton had one very close friend, an Englishman named Farrell--" + +"Oh, what's the use?" Amber cut in nervously. "You understand the +situation too well. It's no good my trying to keep anything from you." + +"Such as the fact that Colonel Farrell adopted Rutton's daughter, who, +as it happens, did survive her mother? Yes; I knew that--or, rather, +part I knew and part I guessed. But don't worry, Mr. Amber; I'll keep +the secret." + +"For the girl's sake," said Amber, twisting his hands together. + +"For her sake. I pledge you my word." + +"Thank you." + +"And now ... for what purpose did Rutton ask you to come to India? +Wasn't it to get Miss Farrell out of the country?" + +"I think you're the devil himself," said Amber. + +"I'm not," confessed Labertouche; "but I am a member of the Indian +Secret Service--not officially connected with the police, observe!--and +I know a deal that you don't. I think, in short, I can place my finger +on the reason why Rutton was so concerned to get his daughter out of +the country." + +Amber looked his question. + +"You read the papers, don't you, in America?" + +"Rather." Amber smiled. + +"You've surely not been so blind as to miss the occasional reports that +leak out about native unrest in India?" + +"Surely you don't mean----" + +"I assuredly do mean that the Second Mutiny impends," declared +Labertouche solemnly. "Such, at least, is my belief, and such is the +belief of every thinking man in India who is at all informed. The +entire country is undermined with conspiracy and sedition; day after +day a vast, silent, underground movement goes on, fomenting rebellion +against the English rule. The worst of it is, there's no stopping it, +no way of scotching the serpent; its heads are myriad, seemingly. And +yet--I don't know--since yesterday I have hoped that through you we +might eventually strike to the heart of the movement." + +"Through me!" cried Amber, startled. + +Labertouche nodded. "Just so. The information you have already brought +us is invaluable. Have you thought of the significance of Chatterji's +'Message of the Bell'?" + +"'_Even now,_'" Amber quoted mechanically, "'_The Gateway of Swords +yawns wide, that he who is without fear may pass within; to the end +that the Body be purged of the Scarlet Evil._'" He shook his head +mystified. "No; I don't understand." + +"It's so simple," urged Labertouche; "all but the Gateway of Swords. I +don't place that--yet.... But the 'Body'--plainly that is India; the +'Scarlet Evil'--could anything more fittingly describe English rule +from the native point of view?" + +Amber felt of his head solicitously. "And yet," he averred plaintively, +"it doesn't _feel_ like wood." + +Labertouche laughed gently. "Now to-night you will learn something from +this Dhola Baksh--something important, undoubtedly. May I see this +ring--this Token?" + +Unbuttoning his shirt, Amber produced the Eye from the chamois bag. +Labertouche studied it for a long time in silence, returning it with an +air of deep perturbation. + +"The thing is strange to me," he said. "For the present we may dismiss +it as simply what it pretends to be--a token, a sign by which one man +shall know another.... Wear it but turn the stone in; and keep your +hands in your pockets when we're outside." + +Amber obeyed. "We'll be going, now?" + +"Yes." Labertouche rose, throwing away his cigar and stamping out its +fire. + +"But the Farrells?" + +"Forgive me; I had forgotten. The Farrells are at Darjeeling, where the +Colonel is stationed just now--happily for him." + +"Then," said Amber, with decision, "I leave for Darjeeling to-morrow +morning." + +"I know no reason why you shouldn't," agreed Labertouche. "If anything +turns up I'll contrive to let you know." He looked Amber up and down +with a glance that took in every detail. "I'm sorry," he observed, "you +couldn't have managed to look a trace shabbier. Still, with a touch +here and there, you'll do excellently well as a sailor on a spree." + +"As bad as that?" + +"Oah, my dear fallow!"--it was now the babu speaking, while he hopped +around Amber with his head critically to one side, like an inquisitive +jackdaw, now and again darting forward to peck at him with hands that +nervously but deftly arranged details of his attire to please a taste +fastidious and exacting in such matters--"Oah, my dear fallow, surely +you appreciate danger of venturing into nateeve quarters in European +dress? As regular-out-and-out sahib, I am meaning, of course. It is +permeesible for riff-raff, sailors and Tommies from the Fort, and soa +on, to indulge in debauchery among nateeves, but first-class +sahib--Oah, noah! You would be mobbed in no-time-at-all, where we are +going." + +"All right; I guess I can play the part, babu. At least, I've plenty of +atmosphere," Amber laughed, mentioning the incident of the peg he had +not consumed over Honest George's bar. + +"I had noticed that; a happy accident, indeed. I think"--Labertouche +stepped back to look Amber over again--"I think you will almost do. One +moment." + +He seized Amber's hat and, dashing it violently to the floor, +deliberately stamped it out of shape; when restored to its owner it had +aged five years in less than half as many minutes. Amber laughed, +putting it on. "Surely you couldn't ask me to look more disreputable," +he said with a dubious survey of himself in the mirror. + +His collar had been confiscated with his tie; his coat collar was +partially turned up in the back; what was visible of his shirt was +indecently dirty. His polished shoes had been deprived of their +pristine lustre by means of a damp rag, vigorously applied, and then +rubbed with dust. An artistic stain had been added to one of his +sleeves by the simple device of smudging it with the blacking from his +shoes. As for his hat, with the brim pulled down in front, it was +nothing more nor less than shocking. + +"You'll do," chuckled Labertouche approvingly. "Just ram your hands +into your trouser pockets without unbuttoning your coat, and shuffle +along as if nocturnal rambles in the slums of Calcutta were an everyday +thing to you. If you're spoken to, don't betray too much familiarity +with the vernacular. You know about the limit of the average Tommy's +vocabulary; don't go beyond it." He unbolted and locked the door by +which Amber had entered, putting the key in his pocket, and turned to a +second door across the room. "We'll leave this way; I chose this place +because it's a regular rabbit warren, with half a dozen entrances and +exits. I'll leave you in a passage leading to the bazaar. Wait in the +doorway until you see me stroll past; give me thirty yards lead and +follow. Keep in the middle of the way, avoid a crowd as the plague, and +don't lose sight of me. I'll stop in front of Dohla Baksh's shop long +enough to light a cheroot and go on without looking back. When you come +out I'll be waiting for you. If we lose one another, get back to your +hotel as quickly as possible. I may send you word. If I don't, I shall +understand you've taken the first morning train to Darjeeling. I think +that's all." + +As Amber left the room Labertouche extinguished the lamp, shut and +locked the door, and followed, catching Amber by the arm and guiding +him through pitch darkness to the head of the stairs. "Don't talk," he +whispered; "trust me." They descended an interminable flight of steps, +passed down a long, echoing corridor, and again descended. From the +foot of the second flight Labertouche shunted Amber round through what +seemed a veritable maze of passages--in which, however, he was +evidently quite at home. At length, "_Now go ahead!_" was breathed at +Amber's ear and at the same time his arm was released. + +He obeyed blindly, stumbling down a reeking corridor, and in a minute +more, to his unutterable relief, was in the open air of the bazaar. + +Blinking with the abrupt transition from absolute night to garish +light, he skulked in the shadow of the doorway, waiting. Beneath his +gaze Calcutta paraded its congress of peoples--a comprehensive +collection of specimens of every tribe in Hindustan and of nearly every +other race in the world besides: red-bearded Delhi Pathans, towering +Sikhs, lean sinewy Rajputs with bound jaws, swart agile Bhils, Tommies +in their scarlet tunics, Japanese and Chinese in their distinctive +dress, short and sturdy Gurkhas, yellow Saddhus, Jats stalking proudly, +brawling knots of sailormen from the Port, sleek Mahrattas, polluted +Sansis, Punjabis, Bengalis, priests, beggars, dancing girls; a blaze of +colour ever shifting, a Babel of tongues never stilled, a seething scum +on a witch's brew of humanity.... + +Like a fat, tawdry moth in his garments of soiled pink, a babu loitered +past, with never a sidelong glance for the loaferish figure in the +shadowed doorway; and the latter seemed himself absorbed in the family +of Eurasians who were shrilly squabbling with the keeper of a +vegetable-stall adjacent. But presently he wearied of their noise, +yawned, thrust both hands deep in his pockets, and stumbled away. The +bazaar accepted him as a brother, unquestioning, and he picked his way +through it with an ease that argued nothing but absolute familiarity +with his surroundings. But always you may be sure, he had the gleam of +pink satin in the corner of his eye. + +Before long Pink Satin diverged into the Chitpur Road, with Amber a +discreet shadow. So far the latter had been treading known ground, but +a little later, when Pink Satin dived abruptly into a darksome alleyway +to the right, drawing Amber after him as a child drags a toy on a +string, the Virginian lost his bearings utterly and was thereafter +helplessly dependent upon the flutter of Pink Satin, and unworried only +so long as he could see him, in a fidget of anxiety whenever the +labyrinth shut Labertouche from his sight for a moment or two. + +It was quiet enough away from the main thoroughfare, but with a +sinister quiet. Tall dwellings marched shoulder to shoulder along the +ways, shuttered, dark, grim, with an effect of conspirators, their +heads together in lawless conference. The streets were intolerably +narrow, the paving a farce; pools of stagnant water stood in the +depressions, piles of refuse banked the walls. The fetid air hung +motionless but sibilant with stealthy footsteps and whisperings.... +Preferable to this seemed even the infinitely more dangerous and +odorous Coolootollah purlieus into which they presently passed--nesting +place though it were for the city's most evil and desperate classes. + +In time broad Machua Bazaar Street received them--Pink Satin and the +sailorman out for a night of it. And now Pink Satin began to stroll +more sedately, manifesting a livelier interest in the sights of the +wayside. Amber's impatience--for he guessed that they neared the +goldsmith's stall--increased prodigiously; the shops, the stalls, the +thatched dance-halls in which arose the hideous music of the nautch, +had no lure for him, though they illustrated all that was most evil and +most depraved in the second city of the Empire. He was only eager to +have done with this unsavoury adventure, to know again the clean walls +of his room in the Great Eastern, to taste again the purer air of the +Maidan. + +Without warning Pink Satin pulled up, extracted from the recesses of +his costume a long, black and vindictive-looking native cigar, and +lighted it, thoughtfully exhaling the smoke through his nose while he +stared covetously at the display of a slipper-merchant whose stand was +over across from the stall of a goldsmith. + +With true Oriental deliberation Pink Satin finally made up his mind to +move on; and Amber lurched heavily into the premises occupied by one +Dhola Baksh, a goldsmith. + +A customer, a slim, handsome Malayan youth, for the moment held the +attention of the proprietor. The two were haggling with characteristic +enjoyment over a transaction which seemed to involve less than twenty +rupees. Amber waited, knowing that patience must be his portion until +the bargain should be struck. Dhola Baksh himself, a lean, +sharp-featured Mahratta grey with age, appraised with a single look the +new customer, and returned his interest to the Malay. But Amber +garnered from that glance a sensation of recognition. He wondered +dimly, why; could the goldsmith have been warned of his coming? + +Two or three more putative customers idled into the shop. Beyond its +threshold the stream of native life rolled on, ceaselessly fluent; a +pageant of the Middle Ages had been no more fantastic and unreal to +Western eyes. Now and again a wayfarer paused, his interest attracted +by the goldsmith's rush of business. + +Unexpectedly the proprietor made a substantial concession. Money passed +upon the instant, sealing the bargain. The Malay rose to go. Dhola +Baksh lifted a stony stare to Amber. + +"Your, pleasure, sahib?" he enquired with a thinly-veiled sneer. What +need to show deference to a down-at-the-heel sailor from the Port? + +"I want money--I want to borrow," said Amber promptly. + +"On your word, sahib?" + +"On security." + +"What manner of security can you offer?" + +"A ring--an emerald ring." + +Dhola Baksh shrugged. His eyes shifted from Amber to the encircling +faces of the bystanders. "I am a poor man," he whined. "How should I +have money to lend? Come to me on the morrow; then mayhap I may have a +few rupees. To-night I have neither cash nor time." + +The hint was lost upon Amber. "A stone of price----" he persisted. + +With a disturbed and apprehensive look, the money-lender rose. "Come, +then," he grumbled, "if you must----" + +A voice cried out behind Amber--"_Heh_!"----more a squeal than a cry. +Intuitively, as at a signal of danger, he leaped aside. Simultaneously +something like a beam of light sped past his head. The goldsmith +uttered one dreadful, choking scream, and went to his knees. For as +many as three seconds he swayed back and forth, his features terribly +contorted, his thin old hands plucking feebly at the handle of a +broadbladed dagger which had transfixed his throat. Then he tumbled +forward on his face, kicking. + +There followed a single instant of suspense and horror, then a mad rush +of feet as the street stampeded into the shop. Voices clamoured to the +skies. Somehow the lights went out. + +Amber started to fight his way out. As he struggled on, making little +headway through the press, a hand grasped his arm and drew him another +way. + +"Make haste, hazoor!" cried the owner of the hand, in Hindustani. "Make +haste, lest they seek to fasten this crime upon your head." + + + + +CHAPTER X + +MAHARANA OF KHANDAWAR + + +Both hand and voice might well have been Labertouche's; Amber believed +they were. And the darkness rendered visual identification impossible. +No shadow of doubt troubled him as he yielded to the urgent hand, and +permitted himself to be dragged, more than led, through the reeking, +milling mob, whose numbers seemed each instant augmented. He had +thought, dully, to find it a difficult matter to worm through and +escape, but somehow his guide seemed to have little trouble. Others, +likewise, evidently wished to get out of sight before the arrival of +the police, and in the wake of a little knot of these Amber felt +himself drawn along until, within less than two minutes, they were on +the outskirts of the crowd. + +He drew a long breath of relief. Ever since that knife had flown +whining past his cheek, his instinct of self-preservation had been +dominated by a serene confidence that Pink Satin was at hand to steer +him in safety away from the brawl. For his own part he was troubled by +a feeling of helplessness and dependence unusual with him, who was of a +self-reliant habit, accustomed to shift for himself whatever the +emergency. But this was something vastly different from the run of +experiences that had theretofore fallen to his lot. In. the foulest +stews of a vast city, with no least notion of how to win his way back +to the security of the Chowringhee quarter; in the heart of a howling +native rabble stimulated to a pitch of frenzy by the only things that +ever seem really to rouse the Oriental from his apathy--the scent and +sight of human blood; and with a sense of terror chilling him as he +realised the truth at which his guide had hinted--that the actual +assassin would not hesitate an instant to cry the murder upon the head +of one of the Sahib-logue: Amber felt as little confidence in his +ability to work out his salvation as though he had been a child. He +thanked his stars for Labertouche--for the hand that clasped his arm +and the voice that spoke guardedly in his ear. + +And then, by the light of the street, he discovered that his gratitude +had been premature and misplaced. His guide had fallen a pace behind +and was shouldering him along with almost frantic energy; but a glance +aside showed Amber, in Labertouche's stead, a chunky little Gurkha in +the fatigue uniform of his regiment of the British Army in India. Pink +Satin was nowhere in sight and it was immediately apparent that an +attempt to find him among the teeming hundreds before the goldsmith's +stall would be as futile as foolish--if not fatal. Yet Amber's impulse +was to wait, and he faltered--something which seemed to exasperate the +Gurkha, who fairly danced with excitement and impatience. + +"Hasten, hazoor!" he cried. "Is this a time to loiter? Hasten ere they +charge you with this spilling of blood. The gods lend wings to our feet +this night!" + +"But who are you?" demanded Amber. + +"What matter is that? Is it not enough that I am here and well disposed +toward you, that I risk my skin to save yours?" He cannoned suddenly +against Amber, shunting him unceremoniously out of the bazaar road and +into a narrow black alley. + +Simultaneously Amber heard a cry go up, shrill above the clamour of the +mob, screaming that a white sailor had knifed the goldsmith. And he +turned pale beneath his tan. + +"You hear, hazoor? They are naming you to the police-wallahs. Come!" + +"You're right." Amber fell into a long, free stride that threatened +quickly to distance the Gurka's short, sturdy legs. "Yet why do you +take this trouble for me?" + +"Why ask?" panted the Gurkha. "Did I not stand behind you and see that +you did not throw the knife? Am I a dog to stand by and see an innocent +man yoked to a crime?" He laughed shortly. "Am I a fool to forget how +great is the generosity of Kings? This way, hazoor!" + +"Why call me King?" Amber hurdled a heap of offal and picked up his +pace again. "Yet you will find me generous, though but a sahib." + +"The sahibs are very generous." Again the Gurkha laughed briefly and +unpleasantly. "But this is no time for words. Save your breath, for now +we must run." + +He broke into a springy lope, with his chin up, elbows in and chest +distended, his quick small feet slopping regardlessly through the +viscous mud of the unpaved byway. "Hear that!" he cried, as a series of +short, sharp yells rose in the bazaar behind them. "The dogs have found +the scent!" And for a time terror winged their flight. Eastern mobs are +hard to handle; if overtaken the chances were anything-you-please to +one that the fugitives would be torn to pieces as by wild animals ere +the police could interfere. + +They struck through stranger and more awful quarters than Amber had +believed could be tolerated, even in India. For if there were a better +way of escape they had no time to pause and choose it. From the racket +in their rear the pursuit was hot upon their trail, and with every +stride, well-nigh, they were passing those who would mark them down +and, when the rabble came up, cry it on with explicit directions. + +And so Amber found himself pounding along at the heels of his Gurkha, +threading acres of flimsy huts huddled together in meaningless +confusion--frail boxes of bamboo, mud, and wattles thrown roughly +together upon corrupt, naked earth that reeked of the drainage of +uncounted generations. Whence they passed through long, brilliant, +silent streets lined with open hovels wherein Vice and Crime bred +cheek-by-jowl, the haunts of Shame, painted and unabashed, sickening in +the very crudity of its nakedness.... There is no bottom to the Pit +wherein the native sinks.... And on, panting, with labouring chests and +aching limbs, into the abandoned desolation of the Chinese quarter, and +back through the still, deadly ways which Amber had threaded in the +footsteps of Pink Satin--where the houses towered high and were +ornamented with dingy, crumbling stucco and rusty, empty, treacherous +balconies of iron, and the air hung in stagnation as if the very winds +here halted to eavesdrop upon the iniquities that were housed behind +the jealous, rotting blinds of wood and iron. + +By now the voice of the chase had subsided to a dull and distant +muttering far behind them, and the way was clear. Beyond its age-old, +ineradicable atmosphere of secret infamy there was nothing threatening +in the aspect of the neighbourhood. And the Gurkha pulled up, breathing +like a wind-broken horse. + +"Easily, hazoor!" he gasped. "There is time for rest." + +Willingly Amber dropped into a wavering stride, so nearly exhausted +that his legs shook under him and he reeled drunkenly; and, fighting +for breath, they stumbled on, side by side, in the shadow of the +overhanging walls, until as they neared a corner the Gurkha stopped and +halted Amber with an imperative gesture. + +"The police, sahib, the police!" he breathed, with an expressive sweep +of his hand toward the cross street. "Let us wait here till they pass." +And in evident panic he crowded Amber into the deep and gloomy recess +afforded by a door overhung by a balcony. + +Taken off his guard, but with growing doubt, Amber was on the point of +remonstrating. Why should the police concern themselves with peaceful +wayfarers? They could not yet have heard of the crime in the Bazaar, +miles distant. But as he opened his lips he heard the latch click +behind him, and before he could lift a finger, the Gurkha had flung +himself bodily upon him, fairly lifting the American across the +threshold. + +They went down together, the Gurkha on top. And the door crashed to +with a rattle of bolts, leaving Amber on his back, in total darkness, +betrayed, lost, and alone with his enemies.... + +Now take a man--a white man--an American by preference--such an one as +David Amber--who has led an active if thoughtful life and lived much +out of doors, roughing it cheerfully in out-of-the-way corners of the +world, and who has been careful to maintain his physical condition at +something above par; bedevil him with a series of mysterious +circumstances for a couple of months, send him on a long journey, +entangle him in a passably hopeless love affair, work his expectations +up to a high pitch of impatience, exasperate him with disappointment, +and finally cause him to be tripped up by treachery and thrust into a +pitch-black room in an unknown house in one of the vilest quarters of +Calcutta: treat him in such a manner and what may you expect of him? +Not discretion, at least. + +Amber went temporarily mad with rage. He was no stranger to fear--no +man with an imagination is; but for the time being he was utterly +foolhardy. He forgot his exhaustion, forgot the hopelessness of his +plight, forgot everything save his insatiable thirst for vengeance. He +was, in our homely idiom, fighting-mad. + +One instant overpowered by and supine beneath the Gurkha, the next he +had flung the man off and bounded to his feet. There was the automatic +pistol in his coat-pocket, but he, conscious that many hands were +reaching out in the darkness to drag him down again, found no time to +draw it. He seemed to feel the presence of the nearest antagonist, whom +he could by no means see; for he struck out with both bare, clenched +fists, one after the other, with his weight behind each, and both blows +landed. The sounds of their impact rang like pistol-shots, and beneath +his knuckles he felt naked flesh crack and give. Something fell away +from him with a grunt like a poled ox. And then, in an instant, before +he could recover his poise, even before he knew that the turned-in +stone of the emerald ring had bitten deep into his palm, he was the +axis of a vortex of humanity. And he fought like a devil unchained. +Those who had thrown themselves upon him, clutching desperately at his +arms and legs and hanging upon his body, seemed to be thrown off like +chips from a lathe--for a time. In two short minutes he performed +prodigies of valour; his arms wrought like piston-rods, his fists flew +like flails; and such was the press round him that he struck no blow +that failed to find a mark. The room rang with the sounds of the +struggle, the shuffle, thud, and scrape of feet both booted and bare, +the hoarse, harsh breathing of the combatants, their groans, their +whispers, their low tense cries.... + +And abruptly it was over. He was borne down by sheer weight of numbers. +Though he fought with the insanity of despair they were too many for +him. He went a second time to the floor, beneath a dozen half-nude +bodies. Below him lay another, with an arm encircling his throat, the +elbow beneath his chin compressing his windpipe. Powerless to move hand +or foot, he gave up ... and wondered dully why it was that a knife had +not yet slipped between his ribs--between the fifth and sixth--or in +his back, beneath the left shoulder-blade, and why his gullet remained +unslit. + +Gradually it was forced upon him that his captors meant him no bodily +harm, for the present at least. His wrath subsided and gave place to +curiosity while he rested, regaining his wind, and the natives squirmed +away from him, leaving one man kneeling upon his chest and four others +each pinioning a limb. + +There followed a wait, while some several persons indulged in a +whispered confabulation at a distance from him too great for their +words to be articulate. Then came a croaking laugh out of the darkness +and words intended for his ear. + +"By Malang Shah! but my lord doth fight like a Rajput!" + +Amber caught his breath and exploded. "Half a chance, you damned thugs, +and I'd show you how an American can fight!" + +But he had spoken in English, and his hearers gathered the import of +his words only from his tone, apparently. He who had addressed him +laughed applausively. + +"It was a gallant fight," he commented, "but like all good things hath +had its end. My lord is overcome. Is my lord still minded for battle or +for peace? Dare I, his servant, give orders for his release, or----" + +Here Amber interrupted; stung by the bitter irony, he told the speaker +in fluent idiomatic Hindustani precisely what he might expect if his +"lord" ever got the shadow of a chance to lay hands upon him. + +The grim cackling laugh followed his words, a mocking echo, and was his +only answer. But for all his defiance, he presently heard orders issued +to take him up and bear him to another chamber. Promptly the man on his +chest moved away, and his fellows lifted and carried Amber, gently and +with puzzling consideration, some considerable distance through what he +surmised to be an underground corridor. He suffered this passively, +realising his impotence, and somewhat comforted if perplexed by the +tenderness accorded him in return for his savage fight for freedom. + +Unexpectedly he was let down upon the floor and released. Bare feet +scurried away in the darkness and a door closed with a resounding bang. +He was alone, for all he could say to the contrary--alone and unharmed. +He was more: he was astonished; he had not been disarmed. He got up and +felt of himself, marvelling that his pocket still sagged with the +weight of the pistol as much as at the circumstance that, aside from +the inevitable damage to his clothing--a coat-sleeve ripped from the +arm-hole, several buttons missing, suspenders broken--he had come out +of the melee unhurt, not even bruised, save for the hand that had been +cut by the emerald. He wrapped a handkerchief about this wound, and +took the pistol out, deriving a great deal of comfort from the way it +balanced, its roughened grip nestling snugly in his palm. + +He fairly itched to use the thing, but lacking an excuse, had time to +take more rational counsel of himself. It were certainly unwise to +presume upon the patience of his captors; though he had battered some +of them pretty brutally and himself escaped reprisals, the part of +wisdom would seem to be to save his ammunition. + +With this running through his mind, the room was suddenly revealed to +his eyes, that had so long strained fruitlessly to see. A flood of +lamplight leaped through some opening behind him and showed him his +shadow, long and gigantic upon a floor of earth and a wall of stone. He +wheeled about, alert as a cat; and the sight of his pistol hung steady +between the eyes of one who stood at ease, with folded arms, in an open +doorway. Over his shoulder was visible the bare brown poll of an +attendant whose lank brown arm held aloft the lamp. + +One does not shoot down in cold blood a man who makes no aggressive +move, and he who stood in the doorway endured impassively the mute +threat of the pistol. Above its sight his eyes met Amber's with a level +and unwavering glance, shining out of a dark, set face cast in a mould +of insolence and pride. A bushy black beard was parted at his chin and +brushed stiffly back. Between his thin hard lips, parted in a shadowy +smile, his teeth gleamed white. Standing a head taller than Amber and +very gracefully erect in clothing of a semi-military cut and of regal +magnificence, every inch of his pose bespoke power, position, and the +habit of authority. His head was bound with a turban of spotless white +from whose clasp, a single splendid emerald, a jewelled aigret nodded; +the bosom of his dark-green tunic blazed with orders and decorations; +at his side swung a sabre with richly jewelled hilt. Heavy white +gauntlets hid his hands, top-boots of patent leather his legs and feet. + +At once impressed and irritated by his attitude, Amber lowered his +weapon. "Well?" he demanded querulously. "What do you want? What's your +part in this infamous outrage?" + +On the other's face the faint smile became more definite. He nodded +nonchalantly at Amber's pistol. "My lord intends to shoot?" he enquired +in English, his tone courteous and suave. + +"That's as may be," retorted Amber defiantly. "I'm going to have +satisfaction for this outrage if I die getting it. You may count on +that, first and last." + +The man lifted his eyebrows and his shoulders in deprecation; then +turned to his attendant. "Put down the light and leave us," he said +curtly in Hindustani. + +Bowing obsequiously, the servant entered and departed, leaving the lamp +upon a wooden shelf braced against one side of the four-square, +stone-walled dungeon. As he went out he closed the door, and Amber +noted that it was a heavy sheet of iron or steel, very substantial. His +face darkened. + +"I presume you know what that means," he said, with a significant jerk +of his head toward the door. "It'll never be shut on me alone. We'll +leave together, you and I, if we both go out feet first." He lifted the +pistol and took the measure of the man, not in any spirit of bravado +but with absolute sincerity. "I trust I make my meaning plain?" + +"Most clear, hazoor." The other showed his teeth in an appreciative +smile. "And yet"--with an expressive outward movement of both +hands--"what is the need of all this?" + +"What!" Amber choked with resentment. "What was the need of setting +your thugs upon me--of kidnapping me?" + +"That, my lord, was an error of judgment on the part of one who shall +pay for it full measure. I trust you were not rudely treated." + +"I'd like to know what in blazes you call it," snapped Amber. "I'm +dogged by your spies--Heaven knows why!--lured to this place, butted +bodily into the arms of a gang of ruffians to be manhandled, and +finally locked up in a dark cell. I don't suppose you've got the nerve +to call that courteous treatment." + +He had an advantage, and knowing it, was pushing it to the limit; for +all his nonchalance the black man was not unconscious of the pistol; +his eye never forgot it. And Amber's eyes left his not an instant. +Despite that the fellow's next move was a distinct surprise. + +Suddenly and with superb grace, he stepped forward and dropped to one +knee at Amber's feet, bowing his head and offering the hilt of his +sword to the American. + +"My lord," he said swiftly in Hindustani, "if I have misjudged thee, if +I have earned thy displeasure, upon my head be it. See, I give my life +into thy hands; but a little quiver of thy forefinger and I am as +dust.... An ill report of thee was brought to me, and I did err in +crediting it. It is true that I set this trap for thee; but see, my +lord! though I did so, it was with no evil intent. I thought but to +make sure of thee and bid thee welcome, as a faithful steward should, +to thy motherland.... Maha Rao Rana, Har Dyal Rutton Bahadur, +Heaven-born, King of Kings, Chosen of the Voice, Cherished of the Eye, +Beloved of the Heart, bone of the bone and flesh of the flesh of the +Body, Guardian of the Gateway of Swords!... I, thy servant, Salig +Singh, bid thee welcome to Bharuta!" + +Sonorous and not unpleasing, his voice trembled with intense and +unquestionable earnestness; and when it ceased he remained motionless +in his attitude of humility. Amber, hardly able to credit his hearing, +stared down at the man stupidly, his head awhirl with curiously +commingled sensations of amazement and enlightenment. Presently he +laughed shortly. + +"Get up," he said; "get up and stand over there by the wall and don't +be a silly ass." + +"Hazoor!" There was reproach in Salig Singh's accents; but he obeyed, +rising and retreating to the further wall, there to hold himself at +attention. + +"Now see here," began Amber, designedly continuing his half of the +conversation in English--far too much misunderstanding had already been +brought about by his too-ready familiarity with Urdu. He paused a +little to collect his thoughts, then resumed: "Now see here, you're +Salig Singh, Maharana of Khandawar?" This much he recalled from his +conversation with Labertouche a couple of hours gone. + +"Hazoor, why dost thou need ask? Thou dost know." The Rajput, on his +part, steadfastly refused to return to English. + +"But you are, aren't you?" + +"By thy favour, it is even so." + +"And you think I'm Rutton--Har Dyal Rutton, as you call him, the former +Maharana who abdicated in your favour?" + +The Rajput shrugged expressively, an angry light in his dark, bold +eyes. "It pleases my lord to jest," he complained; "but am I a child, +to be played with?" + +"I'm not joking, Salig Singh, and this business is no joke at all. What +I'm trying to drive into your head is the fact that you've made the +mistake of your life. I'm not Rutton and I'm nothing like Rutton; I am +an American citizen and----" + +"Pardon, hazoor, but is this worth thy while? I am no child; what I +know I know. If thou art indeed not Har Dyal Rutton, how is it that +thou dost wear upon thy finger the signet of thy house"--Salig Singh +indicated the emerald which Amber had forgotten--"the Token sent thee +by the Bell? If thou are not my lord the rightful Maharana of +Khandawar, how is it that thou hast answered the summons of the Bell? +Are the servants of the Body fools who have followed the hither, losing +trace of thee no single instant since thou didst slay the Bengali who +bore the Token to thee? Am I blind--I, Salig Singh, thy childhood's +playmate, the Grand Vizier of thy too-brief rule, to whom thou didst +surrender the reins of government of Khandawar? I know thee; thou canst +not deceive me. True it is that thou art changed--sadly changed, my +lord; and the years have not worn upon thee as they might--I had +thought to find thee an older man and, by thy grace, a wiser. But even +as I am Salig Singh, thou art none other than my lord, Har Dyal +Rutton." + +Salig Singh put his shoulders against the wall and, leaning so with +arms folded, regarded Amber with a triumph not unmixed with contempt. +It was plain that he considered his argument final, his case complete, +the verdict his. While Amber found no words with which to combat his +false impression, and could only stare, open-mouthed and fascinated. +But at length he recollected himself and called his wits together. + +"That's all very pretty," he admitted fairly, "but it won't hold water. +I don't suppose these faithful servants of the Bell you mentioned +happened to tell you that Chatterji himself mistook me for Rutton, to +begin with, and just found out his mistake in time to recover the +Token. Did they?" + +The man shook his head wearily. "Nothing to that import hath come to +mine ears," he said. + +"All right. And of course they didn't tell you that Rutton committed +suicide down there on Long Island, just after he had killed the babu?" + +Again Salig Singh replied by a negative movement of his head. + +"Well, all I've got to say is that your infernal 'Body' employs a giddy +lot of incompetents to run its errands." + +Salig Singh said nothing, and Amber pondered the situation briefly. He +understood now how the babu's companion had fallen into error: how +Chatterji, possessing sufficient intelligence to recognise his initial +mistake, had, having rectified it, saved his face by saying nothing to +his companion of the incident; and how the latter had remained in +ignorance of Rutton's death after the slaying of Chatterji, and had +pardonably mistaken Amber for the man he had been sent to spy upon. The +prologue was plain enough, but how to deal with this its sequel was a +problem that taxed his ingenuity. A single solution seemed practicable, +of the many he debated: to get in touch with Labertouche and leave the +rest to him. + +He stood for so long in meditation that the Rajput began to show traces +of impatience. He moved restlessly, yawned, and at length spoke. + +"Is not my lord content? Can he not see, the dice are cast? What profit +can he think to win through furtherance of this farce?" + +"Well," curiosity prompted Amber to ask, "what do you want of me, +then?" + +"Is there need to ask? Through the Mouthpiece, the Bengali, Behari Lai +Chatterji, whom thou didst slay, the message of the Bell was brought to +thee. Thou hast been called; it is for thee to answer." + +"Called----?" + +"To the Gateway of Swords, hazoor." + +"Oh, yes; to be sure. But where in thunderation is it?" + +"That my lord doth know." + +"You think so? Well, have it your own way. But suppose I decline the +invitation?" + +Salig Singh looked bored. "Since thou hast come so far," he said, "thou +wilt go farther, hazoor." + +"Meaning--by force?" + +"Of thine own will. Those whom the Voice calleth are not led to the +Gateway by their noses." + +"But," Amber persisted, "suppose they won't go?" + +"Then, hazoor, doth the Council of the Hand sit in judgment upon them." + +The significance was savagely obvious, but Amber merely laughed. "And +the Hand strikes, I presume?" Salig Singh nodded. "Bless your heart, +I'm not afraid of your 'Hand'! But am I to understand that compulsion +is not to be used in order to get me to the Gateway--wherever that is? +I mean, I'm free to exercise my judgment, whether or not I shall +go--free to leave this place and return to my hotel?" + +Gravely the Rajput inclined his head. "Even so," he assented. "I caused +thee to be brought hither solely to make certain what thou hast out of +thine own mouth confirmed--the report that thou hadst become altogether +traitor to the Bell. So be it. There remains but the warning that for +four days more, and four days only, the Gateway remains open to those +summoned. On the fifth it closes." + +"And to those who remain in the outer darkness on that fifth day, Salig +Singh----?" + +"God is merciful," said the Rajput piously. + +"Very well. If that is all, I think I will now leave you, Salig Singh," +said Amber, fondling his pistol meaningly. + +"One word more," Salig Singh interposed, very much alive to Amber's +attitude: "I were unfaithful to the trust thou didst once repose in me +were I not to warn thee that whither thou goest, the Mind will know; +what thou dost, the Eye will see; the words thou shalt utter, the Ear +will hear. To all things there is an end, also--even to the patience of +the Body. Shabash!" + +"Thank you 'most to death, Salig Singh. Now will you be good enough to +order a ghari to take me back to the Great Eastern?" + +"My lord's will is his servant's." Salig Singh started for the door the +least trace too eagerly. + +"One moment," said Amber sharply. "Not so fast, my friend." He tapped +his palm with the barrel of the pistol to add weight to his peremptory +manner. "I think if you will lift your voice and call, some one will +answer. I've taken a great fancy to you, if you don't know it, and I +don't purpose letting you out of my sight until I'm safely out of this +house." + +With a sullen air the Rajput yielded. From his expression Amber would +have wagered much that there was a bad quarter of an hour in store for +those who had neglected to disarm him when the opportunity was theirs. + +"As you will," conceded Salig Singh; and he clapped his hands smartly, +crying: "Ohe, Moto!" + +Almost instantly the iron door swung open and the lamp-bearer appeared, +salaaming. + +"Tell him," ordered Amber, "to bring me a cloak of some sort--not too +conspicuous. I've no fancy to kick up a scandal at the hotel by +returning with these duds visible. You can charge it up to profit and +loss; if it hadn't been for the tender treatment your assassins gave +me, I'd be less disreputable." + +A faint smile flickered in Salig Singh's eyes--a look that was not +wholly devoid of admiration for the man who had turned the tables on +him with such ease. "Indeed," he said, "I were lacking in courtesy did +I refuse thee that." And turning to the servant he issued instructions +in accordance with Amber's demands, adding gratuitously an order that +the way of exit should be kept clear. + +As the man bowed and withdrew Amber grinned cheerfully. "It wasn't a +bad afterthought, Salig Singh," he observed; "precautions like that +relieve the mind wonderfully sometimes." + +But the humour of the situation seemed to be lost upon the Rajput. + +In the brief wait that followed Amber shifted his position to one +wherefrom he could command both the doorway and Salig Singh; his +solicitude, however, was without apparent warrant; nothing happened to +justify him of his vigilance. Without undue delay the servant returned +with a light cloak and the announcement that the ghari was in waiting. + +His offer to help the American don the garment was graciously declined. +"I've a fancy to have my arms free for the present," Amber explained; +"I can get it on by myself in the ghari." He took the cloak over his +left arm. "I'm ready; lead on!" he said, and with a graceful wave of +the pistol bowed Salig Singh out of the cellar. + +Moto leading with the light, they proceeded in silence down a musty but +deserted passage, Amber bringing up the rear with his heart in his +mouth and his finger nervous upon the trigger. After a little the +passage turned and discovered a door open to the street. Beyond this a +ghari could be seen. + +Amber civilly insisted that both the servant and his master leave the +house before him, but, once outside, he made a wary detour and got +between them and the waiting conveyance. Then, "It's kind of you, Salig +Singh," he said; "I'm properly grateful. I'll say this for you: you +play the game fairly when anybody calls your attention to the rules. +Good-night to you--and, I say, be kind enough to shut the door as you +go in. I'll just wait until you do." + +The Rajput found no answer; conceivably, his chagrin was intense. With +a curt nod he turned and reentered the house, Moto following. The door +closed and Amber jumped briskly into the ghari. + +"Home, James," he told the ghariwallah, in great conceit with himself. +"I mean, the Great Eastern Hotel--and _juldee jao_!" + +The driver wrapped a whiplash round the corrugated flanks of his horse +and the ghari turned the corner with gratifying speed. In half a minute +they were in the Chitpur Road. In fifteen they drew up before the +hotel. + +It was after midnight and the city had begun to quiet down, but Old +Court House Street was still populous with carriages and pedestrians, +black and tan and white. There was a Viceregal function of some sort +towards in the Government House, and broughams and victorias, coaches, +hansoms, and coupes, with lamps alight and liveried coachmen--turn-outs +groomed to the last degree of smartness--crowded the thoroughfare to +the peril and discomfort of the casual ghari. The scene was +unbelievably brilliant. Amber felt like rubbing his eyes. Here were +sidewalks, pavements, throbbing electric arcs, Englishmen in evening +dress, fair Englishwomen in dainty gowns and pretty wraps, the hum of +English voices, the very smell of civilisation. And back there, just +across the border he had so recently crossed, still reigned the +midnight of the Orient, glamorous with the glamour of the Arabian +Nights, dreadful with its dumb menace, its atmosphere of plot and +counterplot, mutiny, treason, intrigue, and death. Here, a little +island of life and light and gay, heedless laughter; there, all round +it, pressing close, silence and impenetrable darkness, like some dark +sea of death lapping its shores.... + +In a cold sweat of horror Amber got out of the vehicle and paid his +fare. As he turned he discovered an uniformed policeman stalking to and +fro before the hotel, symbol of the sane power that ruled the land. +Amber was torn by an impulse to throw himself upon the man and shriek +aloud his tale of terror--to turn and scream warning in the ears of +those who lived so lightly on the lip of Hell.... + +A Bengali drifted listlessly past, a bored and blase babu in a suit of +pink satin, wandering home and interested in nothing save his own bland +self and the native cigarette that drooped languidly from his lips. He +passed within a foot of Amber, and from somewhere a voice spoke--the +Virginian could have taken an oath that the babu's lips did not +move--in a clear yet discreet whisper. + +"To-morrow," it said; "Darjeeling." + +Amber hitched his cloak round him and entered the hotel. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE TONGA + + +"Badshah Junction, Mr. Amber ... Badshah Junction ... We'll be there in +'alf an hour ..." + +Inexorably the voice droned on, repeating the admonition over and over. + +Mutinous, Amber stirred and grumbled in his sleep; stirred and, +grumbling, wakened to another day. Doggott stood over him, doggedly +insistent. + +"Not much time to dress, sir; we're due in less than 'alf an hour." + +"Oh, _all_ right." Drowsy, stiff and sore in bone and muscle, Amber sat +up on the edge of the leather-padded bunk and stared out of the window, +wondering. With thundering flanges the train fled from east to west +across a landscape that still slept wrapped in purple shadows. Far in +the north the higher peaks of a long, low range of treeless hills were +burning with a pale, cold light. A few stars glimmered in the cloudless +vault--glimmered wan, doomed to sudden, swift extinction. Beside the +railroad a procession of telegraph poles marched with dipping loops of +wire between. There was nothing else to see. None the less the young +man, now fully alive to the business of the day, said "Thank God!" in +all sincerity. + +"Even a tonga will be a relief after three days of this, Doggott," he +observed, surrendering himself to the ministrations of the servant. + +It was the third morning succeeding that on which he had risen from his +bed in the Great Eastern Hotel in Calcutta, possessed by a wild anxiety +to find his way with the least possible delay to Darjeeling and Sophia +Farrell--a journey which he was destined never to make. For while he +breakfasted a telegram had been brought to him. + +"_Your train for Benares_," he read, "_leaves Howrah at nine-thirty. +Imperative_." It was signed: "_Pink Satin_." + +He acted upon it without thought of disobedience; he was in the hands +of Labertouche, and Labertouche knew best. Between the lines he read +that the Englishman considered it unwise to attempt further +communication in Calcutta. Something had happened to eliminate the trip +to Darjeeling. Labertouche would undoubtedly contrive to meet and +enlighten him, either on the way or in Benares itself. + +In the long, tiresome, eventless journey that followed his faith was +sorely tried; nor was it justified until the train paused some time +after midnight at Mogul Serai. There, before Amber and Doggott could +alight to change for Benares, their compartment was invaded by an +unmistakable loafer, very drunk. Tall and burly; with red-rimmed eyes +in a pasty pockmarked face, dirty and rusty with a week-old growth of +beard; clothed with sublime contempt for the mode and exalted beyond +reason with liquor--a typical loafer of the Indian railways--he flung +the door open and himself into Amber's arms, almost knocking the latter +down; and resented the accident at the top of his lungs. + +"You miserable, misbegotten blighter of a wall-eyed American----" At +this point he became unprintably profane, and Doggott fell upon him +with the laudable intention of throwing him out. In the struggle Amber +caught his eye, and it was bright with meaning. "Pink Satin!" he +hissed. "He's gone ahead.... You're to keep on to Agra.... Change for +Badshah Junction, Rajputana Route.... Then tonga to Kuttarpur.... +Farrell's there and his daughter.... That's right, my man, throw me +out!..." + +His downfall was spectacular. In his enthusiasm for the part he played, +he had erred to the extent of delivering a blow in Doggott's face more +forcible, probably, than he had intended it to be. Promptly he landed +sprawling on the station platform and, in the sight of a multitude of +natives, but the moment gone by his shrieks roused from their sleep in +orderly ranks upon the floor, was gathered into the arms of the +stationmaster and had the seriousness of his mistake pointed out to him +forthwith and without regard to the sensitiveness of human anatomy. + +And the train continued on its appointed way, bearing both Amber and +the injured Doggott. + +Thus they had come to the heart of Rajputana. + +In the chill of dawn they were deposited at Badshah Junction. A scanty +length of rude platform received them and their two small travelling +bags. + +On their left the Haiderabad express roared away, following the night, +its course upon the parallel ribbons of shining steel marked by a +towering pillar of dust. On their right, beyond the sharp-cut edge of +the world, the sun had kindled a mighty conflagration in the skies. On +every hand, behind and before them, the desert lay in ebbing shadows, a +rolling waste seared by arid nullahs--the bone-dry beds of +long-forgotten streams. Off in the north the hills cropped up and stole +purposelessly away over the horizon. + +They stood, then, forlorn in a howling desolation. For signs of life +they had the station, a flimsy shelter roofed with corrugated iron, a +beaten track that wandered off northwards and disappeared over a +grassless swell, a handful of mud huts at a distance, and the +ticket-agent. The latter a sleepy, surly Eurasian in pyjamas, surveyed +them listlessly from the threshold of the station, and without a sign +either of interest or contempt turned and locked himself in. + +Amber sat down on his upturned suit-case and laughed and lit a +cigarette. Doggott growled. The noise of the train died to silence in +the distance, and a hyena came out of nowhere, exhibited himself upon +the ridge of a dry desert swell, and mocked them sardonically. Then he, +like the ticket-agent, went away, leaving an oppressive silence. + +Presently the sun rose in glory and sent its burning level rays to cast +a shadow several rods long of an enraged American beating frantically +with clenched fists upon the door of an unresponsive railway station. + +He hammered until he was a-weary, then deputised his task to Doggott, +who resourcefully found him a stone of size and proceeded to make dents +in the door. This method elicited the Eurasian. He came out, listened +attentively to abuse and languidly to their demands for a tonga to bear +them to Kuttarpur, and observed that the mail tonga left once a day--at +three in the afternoon. Doggott caught him as he was on the point of +returning to his interrupted repose and called his attention to the +unwisdom of his ways. + +Apparently convinced, this ticket-agent announced his intention of +endeavouring to find a tonga for the sahib. Besides, he was not +unwilling to acquire rupees. He scowled thoughtfully at Amber, +ferociously at Doggott, went back into the station, gossipped casually +with the telegraph sounder for a quarter of an hour, and finally +reappearing, without a word or a nod left the platform for the road and +walked and walked and walked and walked. Within thirty yards his figure +was blurred by the dance of new-born heat devils. Within a hundred he +disappeared; the desert swallowed him up. + +An hour passed as three. The heat became terrific; not a breath of wind +stirred. The face of the world lost its contours in wavering mirage. +The travellers found lukewarm water in the station and breakfasted +sparingly from their own stores of biscuit and tinned things. Then, in +the shadow of the station, they settled down to wait, bored to +extinction. Lulled by the hushed chatter of the telegraph sounder, +Doggott nodded and slept audibly; Amber nodded, felt himself going, +roused with a struggle, and lapsed into a dreary mid-world of +semi-stupor. + +In the simple fulness of Asiatic time a tonga came from Heaven knew +where and roused him by rattling up beside the platform. He got up and +looked it over with a just eye and a temper none the sweeter for his +experience. It was a brute of a tonga, a patched and ramshackle wreck +of what had once been a real tonga, with no top to protect the +travellers from the sun, and accommodation only for three, including +the driver. + +The Eurasian ticket-agent alighted and solicited rupees. He got them +and with them Amber's unvarnished opinion of the tonga; something which +was not received with civility by the driver. + +He remained in his seat--a short, swart native with an evil countenance +and, across his knees, a sheathed tulwar--arguing with Amber in broken +English and, abusing him scandalously in impurest Hindi, flinging at +him in silken tones untranslatable scraps of bazaar Billingsgate. For, +as he explained in an audible aside to the ticket-agent, this sahib was +an outlander and, being as ignorant as most sahibs, could not +understand Hindi. At this the Eurasian turned away to hide a grin of +delight and the driver winked deliberately at Amber the while he +broadly sketched for him his ancestry and the manner of his life at +home and abroad. + +Thunderstruck, Amber caught himself just as he was on the point of +attempting to drag the driver from his seat and beat him into a more +endurable frame of mind. He swallowed the hint and gave up the contest. + +"Oh, very well," he conceded. "I presume you're trying to say there +isn't another tonga to be had and it can't be helped; but I don't like +your tone. However, there doesn't seem to be anything to do but take +you. How much for the two of us?" + +"Your servant, sahib? He cannot ride in this tonga," asserted the +driver impassively. + +"He can't! Why not?" + +"You can see there is room for but two, and I have yet another +passenger." + +"Where?" + +"At the first dak-bungalow, Sahib, where the mail-tonga broke down last +night. This tonga, which I say is an excellent tonga, an _aram_ tonga, +a tonga for ease, is sent to take its place. More than this, I am +bidden to go in haste; therefore there is little time for you to decide +whether or not you will go with me alone. As for your servant, he can +follow by this afternoon's mail tonga." + +Upon this ultimatum he stood, immovable; neither threats nor bribery +availed. It was an order, he said: he had no choice other than to obey. +Shabash! Would the sahib be pleased to make up his mind quickly? + +Perforce, the sahib yielded. "It'll be Labertouche; he's arranged +this," he told himself. "That loafer said he'd gone on ahead of us." +And comforted he issued his orders to Doggott, who received and acceded +to them with all the ill-grace imaginable. He was to remain and follow +to Kuttarpur by the afternoon's tonga. He forthwith sulked--and Amber, +looking round upon the little Tephet that was Badshah Junction, had not +the heart to reprove the man. + +"It's all very well, sir," said Doggott. "I carn't s'y anything, I +know. But, mark my words, sir--beggin' your pardon--there'll be trouble +come of this. That driver's as ill-favoured a scoundrel as ever I see. +And as for this 'ere ape, if 'e smiles at me just once more, I'll give +'im what-for." And he scowled so blackly upon the Eurasian that that +individual hastily sought the seclusion which the station granted. + +Amber left him, then, with a travelling-bag and a revolver for company, +and the ticket-agent and his bad temper to occupy his mind. + +Climbing aboard, the Virginian settled himself against the endless +discomforts of the ride which he foresaw; the tonga was anything but +"an _aram_ tonga--a tonga for ease," there was no shade and no breeze, +and the face of the land crawled with heat-bred haze. + +To a crisp crackling of the whip-lash over the backs of the two sturdy, +shaggy, flea-bitten ponies, the tonga swept away from the station, +swift as a hunted fox with a dusty plume. The station dropped out of +sight and the desert took them to its sterile heart. + +On every hand the long swales rolled away, sunbaked, rocky, innocent of +any sign of life other than the trooping telegraph poles in the south, +destitute of any sort of vegetation other than the inevitable ak and +gos. Wherever the eye wandered the prospect was the same--limitless +expanses of raw blistering ochres, salmon-pinks, and dry faded reds, +under a sky of brass and fire. + +Amber leaned forward, watching the driver's face. "Your name, +tonga-wallah?" he enquired. + +"Ram Nath, sahib." The man spoke without moving his head, attending +diligently to the management of his ponies. + +"And this other passenger, who awaits us at the dak-bungalow, Ram +Nath--is he, perchance, one known both to you and to me?" + +Ram Nath flicked the flagging ponies. "How should I know?" he returned +brusquely. + +"One," persisted Amber, "who might be known by such a name as, say, +Pink Satin?" + +"What manner of talk is this?" demanded Ram Nath. "I am no child to be +amused by a riddle. I know naught of your 'Pink Satin.'" He bent +forward, shortening his grasp upon the reins, as if to signify that the +interview was at an end. + +Amber sat back, annoyed by the fellow's impudence yet sensitive to a +suspicion that Ram Nath was playing his part better than his passenger, +that the rebuke was merited by one who had ventured to speak of secret +things in a land whose very stones have ears. For all that he could say +their every move was watched by invisible spies, of whom the +rock-strewn waste through which they sped might well harbour a hidden +legion.... But perhaps, after all, Ram Nath had nothing whatever to do +with Labertouche. Undeniable as had been his wink, it might well have +been nothing more than an impertinence. At the thought Amber's eyes +darkened and hardened and he swore bitterly beneath his breath. If that +were so, he vowed, the tonga-wallah would pay dearly for the +indiscretion. He set his wits to contrive a way to satisfy his doubts. + +Meanwhile the tonga rocked and bounded fiendishly over an infamous +parody of a road, turning and twisting between huge boulders and in and +out of pebbly nullahs, Ram Nath tooling it along with the hand of a +master. But all his attention was of necessity centred upon the ponies, +and presently his tulwar slipped from his knees and clattered upon the +floor of the tonga. Amber saw his chance and put his foot upon it. + +"Ram Nath," he asked gently, "have you no other arms?" + +"I were a fool had I not." The man did not deign to glance round. "He +hath need of weapons who doth traffick with the Chosen of the Voice, +sahib." + +"Ah, that Voice!" cried Amber in exasperation. "I grow weary of the +word, am Nath." + +"That may well be," returned the man, imperturbable. "None the less it +were well for you to have a care how you fondle the revolver in your +pocket, sahib. Should it by any chance go off and the bullet find +lodgment in your tonga-wallah, you are like to hear more of that Voice, +and from less friendly lips." + +"I think you have eyes in the back of your head, Ram Nath." Amber +withdrew his hand from his coat pocket and laughed shortly as he spoke. + +"There is a saying in this country, sahib, that even the stones in the +desert have ears to hear and eyes to see and tongues withal to tell +what they have seen and heard." + +"Ah-h!... That is a wise saying, Ram Nath." + +"There be those I could name who would do well to lay that saying to +heart, sahib." + +"You are right, indeed.... Now if there be aught of truth in that +saying, and if one were unwisely to speak a certain name, even +here----" + +"The echo of that name might be heard beyond the threshold of a certain +Gateway, sahib." + +Amber grunted and said no more, contented now with the assurance that +he was in truth in touch with Labertouche, that this Ram Nath was an +employee of the I.S.S. The wink was now explained away with all the +rest of the tonga-wallah's churlishness. Since there was a purpose +behind it all, the Virginian was satisfied to contain his curiosity. +Nevertheless he could not help thinking that there must be some +fantastic exaggeration in the excessive degree of caution that was thus +tacitly imposed upon him. + +He looked round him, narrowing his eyes against the sun-glare; and the +desert showed itself to his eyes a desert waste and nothing more. The +day lay stark upon its lifeless face and it seemed as if, within the +wide rim of the horizon, no thing moved save the tonga. They were then +passing rapidly over higher ground and seemed to have drawn a shade +nearer to the raw red northern hills. Amber would have said that they +could never have found a solitude more absolute. + +The thought was still in his mind when the tonga dipped unexpectedly +over another ridge, began to descend another long grade of dead, +parched earth, and discovered some distance ahead of them on the +wagontrack a cloud of dust like a tinted veil, so dense, opaque, and +wide and high that its cause was altogether concealed in its reddish, +glittering convolutions. But the Virginian knew the land well enough to +recognise the phenomenon and surmise its cause, even before his ears +began to be assailed by the hideous rasping screech of wheels of solid +wood revolving reluctantly on rough-hewn axles guiltless of grease. And +as the tonga swiftly lessened the distance, his gaze, penetrating the +thinning folds, discerned the contours of a cotton-wain drawn by twin +stunted bullocks, patient noses to the ground, tails a-switch. Beside +his cattle the driver plodded, goad in hand, a naked sword upon his +hip. Within his reach, between the rude bales of the loaded cart, the +butt of a brass-bound musket protruded significantly.... All men went +armed in that wild land: to do as much is one of the boons attendant +upon citizenship in an unprogressive, independent native State. + +Deliberately enough the carter swerved his beasts aside to make way for +the tonga, lest by undue haste he should make himself seem other than +what he was--a free man and a Rajput. But when his fierce, hawk-like +eyes encountered those of the dak traveller, his attitude changed +curiously and completely. Recognition and reverence fought with +surprise in his expression, and as Ram Nath swung the tonga past the +man salaamed profoundly. His voice, as he rose, came after them, +resonant and clear: + +"_Hail, thou Chosen of the Gateway! Hail_!" + +Amber neither turned to look nor replied. But his frown deepened. The +incident passed into his history, marked only by the terse comment it +educed from Ram Nath--words which were flung curtly over the +tonga-wallah's shoulder: "Eyes to see and ears to hear and a tongue +withal ... sahib!" + +The Virginian said nothing. But it was in his mind that he had indeed +thrust his head into the lion's mouth by thus adventuring into the +territory which every instinct of caution and common-sense proclaimed +taboo to him--the erstwhile kingdom of the Maharana Har Dyal Rutton. It +was, in a word, foolhardy--nothing less. But for his pledged word it +had been so easy to order Ram Nath to convey him back to Badshah +Junction to order and to enforce obedience at the pistol's point, if +needs be! Honour held him helpless, bound upon the Wheel of his +Destiny: he must and would go on.... + +He sat in silent gloom while sixty minutes were drummed out by the +flying hoofs. The hills folded in about the way, diverting it hither +and yon with raw, seamed spurs, whose flanks flung back harsh and heavy +echoes of the tonga's flight through riven gulch and scrub-grown +valley. And then it was that Ram Nath proved his mettle. Hardened +himself, he showed no mercy to his passenger, and never once drew rein, +though the tonga danced from rock to ridge and ridge to rut and back +again, like a tin can on the tail of an astonished dog. As for Amber, +he wedged his feet and held on with both hands, grimly, groaning in +spirit when he did not in the flesh, foreseeing as he did nine hours +more of this heroic torture punctuated only by brief respites at the +end of each stage. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE LONG DAY + + +One travels dak by relays casually disposed along the route at the whim +of the native contractor. Between Badshah Junction and Kuttarpur there +were ten stages, of which the conclusion of the first was at +hand--Amber having all but abandoned belief in its existence. + +Slamming recklessly down the bed of an ancient watercourse, the tonga +spun suddenly upon one wheel round a shoulder of the banks and dashed +out upon a rolling plain, across which the trail snaked to other +farther hills that lay dim and low, a wavy line of blue, upon the +horizon--the hills in whose heart Kuttarpur itself lay occult. And, by +the roadside, in a compound fenced with camel-thorn, sat an aged and +indigent dak-bungalow, marking the end of the first stage, the +beginning of the second. + +It wore a look of Heaven to the traveller. In the shade of its veranda +he read an urgent invitation to rest and surcease of sunlight. He +approved it thoroughly; the ramshackle rest-house itself, the sheds in +the rear for the accommodation of relays, the syce squatting asleep in +the sunshine, the few scrawny chickens squabbling and scratching over +their precarious sustenance in the deep hot dust of the compound, even +the broken tonga reposing with its shafts uplifted at a piteous angle +of decrepitude--all these Amber surveyed with a kindly eye. + +Ram Nath reined in with a flourish and lifted a raucous voice, hailing +the syce, while Amber, painfully disengaging his cramped limbs, climbed +down and stumbled toward the veranda. The abrupt transition from +violent and erratic motion to a solid and substantial footing affected +him unpleasantly, with an undeniable qualm; the earth seemed to rock +and flow beneath him as if under the influence of an antic earthquake. +He was for some seconds occupied with the problem of regaining his +poise, and it was not until he heard an Englishwoman's voice uplifted +in accents of anger, that he remembered the other wayfarer with whom he +was to share his tonga, or associated the white-clad figure in the dark +doorway of the bungalow with anything but the khansamah, coming to +greet and cheat the chance-brought guest. + +"Where is that tonga-wallah who deserted me here last night?" the woman +was demanding of Ram Nath, too preoccupied with her resentment to have +eyes for the other traveller, who at sight of her had stopped and +removed his pith helmet and now stood staring as if he had come from a +land in which there were no women. "Where," she continued, with an +imperative stamp of a daintily-shod foot, "is that wretched +tonga-wallah?" + +"Sahiba," protested Ram Nath, with a great show of deference, "how +should I know? Belike he is in Badshah Junction, whither ha returned +very late last night, being travel-worn and weary, and where I left +him, being sent with this excellent tonga to take his place." + +"You were? And why have I been detained here, alone and unprotected, +this long night? Simply because that other tonga-wallah was a fool, am +I to be imposed upon in this fashion?" + +"What am I," whimpered Ram Nath, "to endure the wrath of the sahiba for +a fault that is none of mine?" + +"I beg your pardon, sir," said the girl, turning to Amber, "but it is +very annoying." She looked him over, first with abstraction, then with +a puzzled gathering of her brows, for he was far from her thoughts--the +last person she would have expected to meet in that place, and very +effectually disguised in dust and dirt besides, "The tire came off the +wheel just as we got here, late yesterday evening, and in trying, or +pretending to try, to fit it on again, that block-head of a +tonga-wallah hammered the rim with a rock as big as his head and +naturally smashed it to kindling-wood. Then, before I could stop him, +he flung himself on the back of a pony and went away, saying that it +was the will of God that he should return to Badshah for a better +tonga. Since when I have had for company one stable-syce, one +deaf-and-dumb patriarch of a khansamah and ... the usual dak-bungalow +discomforts--insects, bad food, and a terrible fear of dacoits." + +"I am so sorry, Miss Farrell," Amber put in. "If I had only been +here...." + +The girl gave a little gasp and sat down abruptly in one of the veranda +chairs, thereby threatening it with instant demolition and herself with +a bad spill; for the chair was feeble with the burden of its many +years, and she was a quite substantial young person. Indeed, so loudly +did it croak a protest and a warning that she immediately arose in +alarm. + +"Mr. Amber!" she said; and, "Well ...!" + +"You'll forgive me the surprise?" he begged, going up on the veranda to +her. "I myself had no hope of finding you here." + +"But," she protested, with a pretty flush of colour--"but I left you in +the States such a little while ago!" + +"Yes?" he said gravely. "It seems so long to me.... And when you had +gone, Long Island was a very lonely place indeed," he added, with +calculated impudence. + +Her colour deepened and she sought another chair, seating herself with +gingerly decision. "I'm sure you don't mean me to assume that you've +followed me half round the world?" + +"Why not?" He brought another chair to face her. "Besides, I haven't +seen anything of ... India for a good many years." + +"Mr. Amber!" + +"Ma'am?" he countered with affected humility. + +"You're spoiling it all. I was so glad to see you--I'd have been glad +to see any white man, of course----" + +"Much obliged, I'm sure." + +"And now you're actually flirting with me--or pretending to." + +"I'm not," he declared soberly. "As a matter of solemn fact, I had to +come to India." + +"You _had_ to?" + +"On a matter of serious business. Please don't ask me what, just yet; +but it's very serious, to my way of thinking. This happy accident--I +count myself a very happy man to have been so fortunate--only makes my +errand the more pleasant." + +She regarded him intently, chin in hand, her brown eyes sedate with +speculation, for some time. "I believe you've been speaking in +parables," she asserted, at length. "If I'm unjust, bear with me; +appearances are against you. There isn't any reason I know of why you +should tell me what brought you here----" + +"There's every reason, in point of fact, Miss Farrell; only ... I can't +explain just now." + +"Very well," she agreed briskly; "let's be content with that. I am glad +to see you again, truly; and--we're to travel on to Kuttarpur in the +same tonga?" + +"If you'll permit----" + +"After what I've endured, this awful night, I wouldn't willingly let +you out of my sight." + +"Or any other white man?" + +She laughed, pleased. "I presume you're wondering what I'm doing here?" + +"You were to join your father in Darjeeling, I believe?" he countered, +cautious. + +"But I found he'd been transferred unexpectedly to Kuttarpur. So, of +course, I had to follow. I telegraphed him day before yesterday when I +was to arrive at Badshah Junction, and naturally expected he'd come in +person or have some one meet me, but I presume the message must have +gone astray. At all events there was no one there for me and I had to +come on alone. It's hardly been a pleasant experience; that incompetent +tonga-wallah behaved precisely as though he had deliberately made up +his mind to delay me.... And the tonga's nearly ready; I must lock my +kit-bag." + +She went into the bungalow, leaving him thoughtful, for perhaps.... But +the back of Ram Nath, as that worthy busied himself superintending the +harnessing in of fresh ponies, conveyed to him no support for his +half-credited hypothesis that this "accident" had been carefully +planned by Labertouche for Amber's especial benefit. + +He vexed himself with vain speculations, for it was perfectly certain +that he would get nothing in the way of either denial or confirmation +out of Ram Nath; and, presently, acknowledging this, he called the +khansamah and ordered a peg for the sake of the dust in his throat. + +The girl joined him on the veranda in due course, very demure and sweet +to look upon in her travelling-dress of light pongee and her pith +helmet, whose green under-brim and puggaree served very handsomely to +set off her fair colouring. If she overlooked the adoration of his +eyes, she was rather less than woman; for it was in them, plain to be +seen for the looking. The khansamah followed her from the bungalow, +staggering under the weight of her box and kit-bag, and with Ram Nath's +surly assistance made them fast to the front seat. While Amber gave the +girl his hand to help her to her place, and lifted himself to her side +in a mute glow of ecstasy. Fate, he thought with reason, was most kind +to him. + +They rattled headlong from the compound, making for the distant hills +of blue. The girl drew down her puggaree, with its soft, thin folds +sheltering the pure contours of her face from the dust and burning +sun-glare. He watched her hungrily, holding his breath as the thought +came to him that he was seated elbow to elbow with the woman who was to +be his wife, his hand still a-tingle with the reminiscence of her +gloved fingers that had touched it so transiently. She caught his +intent look and smiled, her eyes lustrous through the veiling. + +She was very tired after her night-long vigil, and after a few words of +commonplace as they drew away from the station, he forebore to weary +her with talk, and a silence as sweet as communion lengthened between +them as the stage lengthened. He was very intent upon her presence; the +consciousness of her there beside him seemed, at times, almost +suffocating. He could by no means forget that she had in a curious way +been assigned to him--set aside to be his wife, the partner of all his +days; and she tolerated him kindly, all unsuspicious of the +significance of his advent into her life.... If she were made to +suspect, to understand, what effect would it have upon their relations, +slight and but lately established as they were? Would she shrink from +or encourage him? + +His wife! He wagged his head in solemn stupefaction, trying to +appreciate the intangible, the chimerical dream of yesterday resolved +into the actuality of to-day; realising that, even when most intrigued +by the adventure of which she was at once the cause and the prize, even +though he had met and been charmed by her before becoming enmeshed in +its web of incident, he had thought of her with a faint trace of +incredulity, as though she had been a thing of fable, trapped with all +the fanciful charms of beleaguered fairy princesses, rather than a +living woman of flesh and fire and blood--such as she proved to be who +rode with him, her thoughts drowsily astray in the vastnesses of her +inscrutable, virginal moods. + +To think that she was foreordained to be his wife was not more +unbelievable than the consciousness that he, her undeclared lover, her +predestined mate and protector, was listlessly permitting her to delve +further into the black heart of a land out of which he had promised to +convey her with all possible speed, for the salvation of her body and +soul.... Yet what could he do, save be passive for the time, and wait +upon the turn of events? He could not, dared not seize her in his arms +and insist that she love him, marry him, fly with him--all within the +compass of an hour or even of a day. For words of love came haltingly +to his unskilled tongue, though they came from a surcharged heart, and +to him the strategy of love was as a sealed book, at whose contents he +could but guess, and that with a diffidence and distrust sadly +handicapping to one who had urgent need of expedition in his courting. + +With a rueful smile and a perturbed heart he pondered his problem. The +second stage wore away without a dozen words passing between them; so +also the third. The pauses were brief enough, the ponies being +exchanged with gratifying despatch. The tonga would pull up, Ram Nath +would jump down ... and in a brace of minutes or little more the +vehicle would be _en route_ again, Amber engaged with the infinite +ramifications of this labyrinthal riddle of his, and the girl +insensibly yielding to the need of sleep. She passed, at length, into +sound unconsciousness. + +Thus the morning stages flowed beneath the tonga, personified in a +winding ribbon of roadway, narrow, deep-rutted, inexpressibly dusty, +lined uncertainly over a scrubby, sun-scorched waste. Sophia napped +uneasily by fits and starts, waking now and again with a sleepy smile +and a fragmentary, murmured apology. She roused finally very much +refreshed for the midday halt for rest and tiffin, which they passed at +one of the conventional bungalows, in nothing particularly unlike its +fellows unless it were that they enjoyed, before tiffin, the gorgeous +luxury of plenty of clean water, cooled in porous earthen jars. Amber, +overwhelmed by the discovery of this abundance, promptly went to the +extreme of calling in the khansamah to sluice him down with jar after +jar, and felt like himself for the first time in five days when, shaved +and dressed, he returned to the common living-room of the resthouse. + +The girl kept him waiting but a little while. Lacking the attentions of +an ayah she had probably been unable to bathe so extensively as he, but +eventually she appeared in an immeasurably more happy state of body and +mind, calling up to him the simile, stronger than any other, of a tall, +fair lily after a morning shower. And she was in a bewitching humour, +one that ingenuously enough succeeded in entangling him more thoroughly +than ever before in the web of her fascinations. Over an execrable +curry of stringy fowl and questionable rice, eked out with tea and +tinned delicacies of their own, their chatter, at the beginning +sufficiently gay and inconsequent, drifted by imperceptible and +unsuspected gradations perilously close to the shoals of intimacy. And +subsequently, when they had packed themselves back into the narrow +tonga-seat and Again were being bounced and juggled breathlessly over +shocking roads, the exchange of confidences continued with unabated +interest. Amber on his part was led to talk of his life and work, of +his adventures in the name of Science, of his ambitions and +achievements. In return he received a vivid impression of the lives of +those women who share with their men the burden of official life in +British India: of serene days in the brisk, invigorating, clear +atmosphere of hill stations; of sunsmitten days and steaming nights in +the Deccan; of the uncertain, anchorless existences of those who know +not from one day to another when they may be whisked half across an +Empire at the whim of that awful force simply nominated Government.... + +For all the taint upon her pedigree, she proved herself to Amber at +heart a simple, lonely Englishwoman--a stranger in a sullen and +suspicious land, desiring nothing better than to return to the England +she had seen and learned to love, the England of ample lawns, of +box-hedges, and lanes, of travelled highways, pavements and gaslights, +of shops and theatres, of home and family ties.... + +But India she knew. "I sometimes fancy," she told him with the +conscious laugh that deprecates a confessed superstition, "that I must +have lived here in some past incarnation." She paused, but he did not +speak. "Do you believe in reincarnation?" Again he had no answer for +her, though temporarily he saw the daylight as darkness. "It's hard to +live here for long and resist belief in it.... But as a matter of fact +I seem to understand these people better than they're understood by +most of _my_ people. Don't you think it curious? Perhaps it's merely +intuition----" + +"That's the birthright of your sex," he said, rousing. "On the other +hand, you have to remember that your father is one of a family that for +generations has served the Empire. And your mother?" + +"She, too, came of an Anglo-Indian family. Indeed, they met and courted +here, though they were married in England.... So you think my insight +into native character a sort of birthright--a sense inherited?" + +"Perhaps--something of the sort." + +"You may be right. We'll never know. At all events, I seem to have a +more--more painful comprehension of the native than most of the English +in this country have; I seem to feel, to sense their motives, their +desires, aspirations, even sometimes their untranslatable thoughts. I +believe I understand perfectly their feeling toward us, the governing +race." + +"Then," said Amber, "you know something his Highness the Viceroy +himself would give his ears to be sure of." + +"I know that; but I do." + +"And that feeling is----?" + +"Not love, Mr. Amber." + +"Much to the contrary----?" + +"Very much," she affirmed with deep conviction. + +"This 'Indian unrest' one reads of in the papers is not mere gossip, +then?" + +"Anything but that; it's the hidden fire stirring within the volcano we +told ourselves was dead. The quiet of the last fifty years has been not +content but slumber; deep down there has always been the fire, slow, +deadly, smouldering beneath the ashes. The Mutiny still lives in +spirit; some day it will break out afresh. You must believe me--I +_know_. The more we English give our lives to educate the natives, the +further we spread the propaganda of discontent; day by day we're +teaching them to understand that we are no better than they, no more +fit to rule; they are beginning to look up and to see over the rim of +the world--and we have opened their eyes. They have learned that +Japanese can defeat Caucasians, that China turns in its sleep, that +England is no more omnipotent than omniscient. They've heard of anarchy +and socialism and have learned to throw bombs. Only the other day a +justice in Bengal was killed by a bomb.... I fancy I talk," the girl +broke off with her clear laugh, "precisely like my father, who talks +precisely as a political pamphleteer writes. You'll see when you meet +him." + +"Do you take much interest in politics?" + +"No more than the every-day Englishwoman; it's one of our staples of +conversation, when we've exhausted the weather, you know. But I'm not +in the least advanced, if that's what you mean; I hunger after +fashion-papers and spend more time than I ought, devouring home-made +trash imported in paper-covers. I only feel what I feel by instinct--as +I said awhile ago." + +Perhaps if he had known less about the girl, he would have attached +less importance to her statements. As it was, she impressed him +profoundly. He pondered her words deeply, storing them in his memory, +remembering that another had spoken in the same manner--one for whose +insight into the ways of the native he had intense respect. + +As the slow afternoon dragged out its blazing hours, their spirits +languished, and they fell silent, full weary and listless. Towards the +last quarter of the journey their road forsook the spacious, haggard +plain and again entered a hilly country, but this time one wherein +there was no lack either of water or of life: a green and fertile land +parcelled into farms and dotted with villages. + +Night overtook the tonga when it was close upon Kuttarpur, swooping +down upon the world like a blanket of darkness, at the moment that the +final relay of ponies was being hitched in. The sun dipped behind the +encircling hills; the west blazed with the lambent flame of fire-opal; +the wonderful translucent blue of the sky shaded suddenly to deep +purple lanced by great shafts of mauve and amethyst light, and in the +east stars popped out; the hills shone like huge, crude gems--sapphire, +jade, jasper, malachite, chalcedony--their valleys swimming with mists +of mother-of-pearl.... And it was night, the hills dark and still, the +sky a deeper purple and opaque, the ruddy fires of wayfarers on the +roadside leaping clear and bright. + +With fresh ponies the tonga took the road with a wild initial rush soon +to be moderated, when it began to climb the last steep grade to the +pass that gives access to Kuttarpur from the south. For an hour the +road toiled up and ever upward; steep cliffs of rock crowded it, +threatening to push it over into black abysses, or to choke it off +between towering, formidable walls. It swerved suddenly into a broad, +clear space. The tonga paused. Voluntarily Ram Nath spoke for almost +the first time since morning. + +"Kuttarpur," he said, with a wave of his whip. + +Aloof, austere and haughty, the City of Swords sits in the mouth of a +ravine so narrow that a wall no more than a hundred yards in length is +sufficient to seal its southerly approach. Beneath this wall, to one +side of the city gate, a river flows from the lake that is Kuttarpur's +chiefest beauty. Within, a multitude of dwellings huddles, all +interpenetrated by streets and backways so straitened and sinuous as +scarcely to permit the passage of an elephant from the Maharana's herd; +congested in the bottom of the valley, the houses climb tier upon tier +the flanking hillsides, until their topmost roofs threaten even the +supremacy of that miracle in white marble, the Raj Mahal. + +Northwards the palace of Khandawar's kings stands, exquisite, rare, and +marvellous, unlike any other building in the world. White, all white, +from the lake that washes its lowest walls to the crenellated rim of +its highest roof, it sweeps upward in breath-taking steps and wide +terraces to the crest of the western hill, into which it burrows, from +which it springs; a vast enigma propounded in white marble without a +note of colour save where the foliage of a hidden garden peeps over the +edge of a jealous screen--a hundred imposing mansions merged into one +monstrous and imperial maze. + +Impregnable in the old days, before cannon were brought to India, +Kuttarpur lives to-day remote, unfriendly, inhospitable. Within its +walls there is no room for many visitors; they who come in numbers, +therefore, must perforce camp down before the gates. + +Now figure the city to yourself, seeing it as Sophia was later to see +it in the light of day; then drench it with blue Indian night and stud +it with a myriad eyes of fire--lamps, torches, candles, blue-white +electric arcs, lights running up and down both hillsides and fringing +the very star-sheeted skies, clustering and diverging in vast, +bewildering, inconsequent designs, picking out the walls and main +thoroughfares, shining through coloured globes upon the palace +terraces, glimmering mysteriously from isolate windows and balconies; +and add to these the softly illuminated walls of a hundred silken state +marquees and a thousand meaner canvas tents arrayed south of the +city.... And that is Kuttarpur as it first revealed itself to Amber and +Sophia Farrell. + +But for a moment were they permitted to gaze in wonderment; Ram Nath +had little patience. When he chose to, he applied his whip, and the +ponies stretched out, the tonga plunging on their heels down the steep +hillside, like an ungoverned, ungovernable thing, maddened. Within a +quarter of an hour they were careering through the city of tents on the +parked plain before the southern wall. In five minutes more they drew +up at the main city gate to parley with the Quarter Guard. + +Here they suffered an exasperating delay. It appeared that the gates +were shut at sundown, in deference to custom immemorial. Between that +hour and sunrise none were permitted to pass either in or out without +the express sanction of the State. The commander of the guard +instituted an impudent catechism, in response to which Ram Nath +discovered the several identities and estates of his charges. The +commander received the information with impartial equanimity and +retired within the city to confer with his superiors. After some time a +trooper was sent to advise the travellers that the tonga would be +permitted to enter with the understanding that the unaccredited +Englishman (meaning Amber) would consent to lodge for the night in no +other spot than the State rest-house beyond the northern limits of the +city. + +Amber agreed. The trooper saluted with much deference and withdrew. And +for a long time nothing happened; the gates remained shut, the postern +of the Quarter Guard irresponsive to Ram Nath's repeated summons. His +passengers endured with what patience they could command; they were +aware that it was necessary to obtain from some quarter official +sanction for the opening of the gates, but they had understood that it +had already been obtained. + +Abruptly the peace of the night was shattered, and the hum of the +encampment behind them with the roar of the city before them was +dwarfed, by a dull and thunderous detonation of cannon from a terrace +of the palace. The tonga ponies, reared and plunged, Ram Nath mastering +them with much difficulty. Sophia was startled, and Amber himself +stirred uneasily on his perch. + +"What now?" he grumbled. "You'd think we were visitors of state and had +to be durbarred!" + +Far up on the heights a second red flame stabbed the night, and again +the thunder pealed. Thereafter gun after gun bellowed at imperative, +stately intervals. + +"Fifteen," Amber announced after a time. "Isn't this something +extraordinary, Miss Farrell?" + +"Perhaps," she suggested, "there's a native potentate arriving at the +northern gate. They're very punctilious about their salutes, you know." + +Another crash silenced her. Amber continued to count. "Twenty-one," he +said when it seemed that there was to be no more cannonading. "Isn't +that a royal salute?" + +"Yes," said the girl; "four more guns than the Maharana of Khandawar +himself is entitled to." + +"How do you explain it?" + +"I don't," she replied simply. "Can you?" + +He was dumb. Could it be possible that this imperial greeting was +intended for the man supposed to be the Maharana of Khandawar--Har Dyal +Rutton? He glanced sharply at the girl, but her face was shadowed; and +he believed she suspected nothing. + +A great hush had fallen, replacing the rolling thunder of the State +ordnance. Even the voice of the city seemed moderate, subdued. In +silence the massive gates studded with sharp-toothed elephant-spikes +swung open. + +With a grunt, Ram Nath cracked his whiplash and the tonga sped into the +city. Amber bent forward. + +"What's the name of that gate, Ram Nath--if you happen to know?" + +"That," said the tonga-wallah in a level voice, "is known as the +Gateway of Swords, sahib." He added in his own good time: "But not +_the_ Gateway of Swords." + +Amber failed to educe from him any satisfactory explanation of this +orphic utterance. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE PHOTOGRAPH + + +That same night Amber dined at the Residency, on the invitation of +Raikes, the local representative of Government, seconded by the +insistence of Colonel Farrell. It developed that Sophia's telegram had +somehow been lost in transit, and Farrell's surprise and pleasure at +sight of her were tempered only by his keen appreciation of Amber's +adventitious services, slight though they had been. He was urged to +stay the evening out, before proceeding to his designated quarters, and +the reluctance with which he acceded to this arrangement which worked +so happily with his desires, may be imagined. + +Their arrival coincided with the dinner-hour; the meal was held half an +hour to permit them to dress. Raikes put a room at Amber's disposal, +and the Virginian contrived to bathe and get into his evening clothes +within less time than had been allowed him. Sophia, contrary to the +habit of her sex, was little tardier. At thirty minutes past eight they +sat down to dine, at a table in the garden of the Residency. + +Ease of anxiety was more than food and drink to Amber; his feeling of +relief, to have convoyed Sophia to the company and protection of +Anglo-Saxons like himself, was intense. Yet he swallowed his +preliminary brandy-peg in a distinctly uncomfortable frame of mind, +strangely troubled by the reflection that round that lone white table +was gathered together the known white population of the State; a census +of which accounted for just five souls. + +In the encompassing, exotic gloom of that blue Indian night--the kind +of night that never seems friendly to the Occidental but forever teems +with hints of tragic mystery--the cloth, lighted by shaded candles, +shone as immaculate and lustrous as an island of snow in a sea of +ink--as a good deed in a naughty world. Its punctilious array of +crystal and silver was no more foreign to the setting than were the men +who sat round it, stiff in that black-and-white armour of civilisation, +impregnable against the insidious ease of the East, in which your +expatriate Englishman nightly encases himself wherever he may be, as +loath to forego the ceremony of "dressing for dinner" as he would be to +dispense with letters from Home. + +Raikes presided, a heavy man with the flaming red face of one who +constitutionally is unable to tan; of middle-age, good-natured, mellow, +adroit of manner. On his one hand sat Amber, over across from Sophia. +Next to Amber sat Farrell, tall and lean, sad of eye and slow of +speech, his sun-faded hair and moustache streaked with grey setting off +a dark complexion and thin, fine features. He wore the habit of +authority equally with the irascibility of one who temporizes with his +liver. Opposite him was a young, mild-eyed missionary, too new in the +land to have lost his illusions or have blunted the keen edge of his +enthusiasms; a colourless person with a finical way of handling his +knife and fork, who darted continually shy, sidelong glances at Sophia, +or interpolated eager, undigested comments, nervously into the +conversation. + +The table-talk was inconsequent; Amber took a courteous and easy part +in it without feeling that any strain was being put upon his +intelligence. His attention was centred upon the woman who faced him, +flushed with gaiety and pleasure, not alone because she was once more +with her father, but also because she unexpectedly was looking her +best. If she had been well suited in her tidy pongee travelling +costume, she found her evening gown no less becoming. It was a black +affair, very simple and individual; her shoulders rose from it with +intensified purity of tone, like fair white ivory gleaming with a +suggestion of the sleek sheen of satin; their strong, clean lines +rounded bewitchingly into the fair, slender neck upholding the young +head with its deftly coiffed crown of bronze and gold.... + +Tall, well-trained, silent servants moved like white-robed wraiths +behind the guests; the dishes of the many courses disappeared and were +replaced in a twinkling, as if by slight of hand. They were over +plentiful; Amber was relieved when at length the meal was over, and +Miss Farrell having withdrawn in conformance with inviolable custom, +the cloth was deftly whisked away and cigars, cigarettes, liqueurs, +whiskey and soda were served. + +Amber took unto himself a cigar and utilised an observation of the +Political's as a lever to swing the conversation to a plane more likely +to inform him. Farrell had grumbled about the exactions of his position +as particularly instanced by the necessity of his attending tedious and +tiresome native ceremonies in connection with the _tamasha_. + +"What's, precisely, the nature of this _tamasha_, Colonel Farrell?" + +"Why, my dear young man, I thought you knew. Isn't it what you came to +see?" + +"No," Amber admitted cautiously; "I merely heard a rumour that there +was something uncommon afoot. Is it really anything worth while?" + +"Rather," Raikes interjected drily; "the present ruler's abdicating in +favour of his son, a child of twelve. That puts the business in a class +by itself." + +"There's been one precedent, hasn't there?" said the missionary, +pretending to be at ease with a cigarette. "The Holkar of Indore?" + +"Yes," agreed Farrell; "a similar case, to be sure." + +"But why should a prince hand over the reins of government to a child +of twelve? There must be some reason for it. Isn't it known?" asked +Amber. + +"Who can fathom a Hindu's mind?" grunted Farrell. "I daresay there's +some scandalous native intrigue at the bottom of it. Eh, Raikes?" + +The Resident shook his head. "Don't come to this shop for information +about what goes on in Khandawar. I doubt if there's another Resident in +India who knows as little of the underhand devilment in his State as I +do. His Majesty the Rana loves me as a cheetah loves his trainer. He's +an intractable rascal." + +"They grease the wheels of the independent native States with +intrigue," Farrell explained. "I know from sore experience. And your +Rajput is the deepest of the lot. I don't envy Raikes, here." + +"The man who can guess what a Rajput intends to do next is entitled to +give himself a deal of credit," commented the Resident, with a short +laugh. + +"I've travelled a bit," continued Farrell, "and have seen something of +the courts of Europe, but I've yet to meet a diplomat who's peer to the +Rajput. You hear a great deal about the astuteness of the Russians and +the yellow races, and a Greek or Turk can lie with a fairly straight +face when he sees a profit in deception, but none of them is to be +classed with these people. If we English ever decide to let India rule +herself, her diplomatic corps will be recruited exclusively from the +flower of Rajputana's chivalry." + +"I'll back Salig Singh against the field," said Raikes grimly; "he'll +be dean of the corps, when that time comes. He'd rather conspire than +fight, and the Rajputs--of course you know--are a warrior caste. I've a +notion"--the Resident leaned back and searched the shadows for an +eavesdropper--"I've a notion," he continued, lowering his voice, "that +the Rana has got himself in rather deep in some rascality or other, and +wants to get out before he's put out. There's bazaar gossip.... Hmm! Do +you speak French, Mr. Amber?" + +"A little," said Amber in that tongue. "And I," nodded the missionary. +The talk continued in the language of diplomacy. + +"Bazaar gossip----?" Farrell repeated enquiringly. + +"There have been a number of deaths from cholera in the Palace lately, +the grand vizier's amongst them." + +"White arsenic cholera?" + +"That, and the hemp poison kind." + +"Refractory vizier?" questioned Farrell. "The kind that wants to +retrench and institute reforms--railways and metalled roads and so +forth?" + +"No; he was quite suited to his master. But the bazaar says Naraini +took a dislike to him for one reason or another." + +"Naraini?" queried Amber. + +"The genius of the place." Raikes nodded toward the Raj Mahal, shining +like a pearl through the darkness on the hill-side over against the +Residency. "She's Salig's head queen. At least that's about as near to +her status as one can get. She's not actually his queen, but some sort +of a heritage from the Rutton dynasty--I hardly know what or why. Salig +never married her, but she lives in the Palace, and for several +years--ever since she first began to be talked about--she's ruled from +behind the screen with a high hand and an out-stretched arm. So the +bazaar says." + +"I've heard she was beautiful," Farrell observed. + +"As beautiful as a peri, according to rumour. You never can tell; very +likely she's a withered old hag; nine out of ten native women are, by +the time they're thirty." Raikes jerked the glowing end of his cigar +into the shrubbery and reverted to English. "Shall we join Miss +Farrell?" + +They arose and left the table to the servants, the Resident with Amber +following Farrell and young Clarkson. + +"Old women we are, forever talking scandal," said Raikes, with a +chuckle. "Oh, well! it's shop with us, you know." + +"Of course.... Then I understand that the _tamasha_ is the reason for +the encampment beyond the walls?" + +"Yes; they've been coming in for a week. By to-morrow night, I daresay, +every rajah, prince, thakur, baron, fief, and lord in Rajputana, each +with his 'tail,' horse and foot, will be camped down before the walls +of Kuttarpur. You've chosen an interesting time for your visit. It'll +be a sight worth seeing, when they begin to make a show. My troubles +begin with a State banquet to-morrow that I'd give much to miss; +however, I'll have Farrell for company." + +"I'm glad to be here," said Amber thoughtfully. Could it be possible +that the proposed abdication of Salig Singh in favour of his son were +merely a cloak to a conspiracy to restore to power the house of Rutton? +Or had the _tamasha_ been arranged in order to gather together all the +rulers in Rajputana without exciting suspicion, that they might agree +upon a concerted plan of mutiny against the Sirkar? This state affair +of surpassing importance had been arranged for the last day of grace +allotted the Prince of the house of Rutton. What had it to do with the +Gateway of Swords, the Voice, the Mind, the Eye, the Body, the Bell? + +"By the way, Mr. Raikes," said the Virginian suddenly, "what do they +call the gate by which we entered the city--the southern gate?" + +"The Gateway of Swords, I believe." + +Farrell, on the point of entering the house, overheard and turned. "Is +that so? Why, I thought _that_ gateway was in Kathiapur." + +"I've heard of a Gateway of Swords in Kathiapur," Raikes admitted. +"Never been there, myself." + +"Kathiapur?" + +"A dead city, Mr. Amber, not far away--originally the capital of +Khandawar. It's over there in the hills to the north, somewhere. Old +Rao Rutton, founder of the old dynasty, got tired of the place and +caused it to be depopulated, building Kuttarpur in its stead--I +believe, to commemorate some victory or other. That sort of thing used +to be quite the fashion in India, before we came." Raikes fell back, +giving Amber precedence as they entered the Residency. "By the way, +remind me, if you think of it, Colonel Farrell, to get after the +telegraph-clerk to-morrow. There's a new man in charge--a Bengali +babu--and I presume he's about as worthless as the run of his kind." + +Amber made a careful note of this information; he was curious about +that babu. + +In the drawing-room Raikes and Farrell impressed Clarkson for +three-handed Bridge. Sophia did not care to play and Amber was ignorant +of the game--a defect in his social education which he found no cause +to regret, since it left him in undisputed attendance upon the girl. + +She had seated herself at a warped and discouraged piano, for which +Raikes had already apologised; it was, he said, a legacy from a former +Resident. For years its yellow keys had not known a woman's touch such +as that to which they now responded with thin, cracked voices; the +girl's fine, slender fingers wrung from them a plaintive, pathetic +parody of melody. Amber stood over her with his arms folded on the top +of the instrument, comfortably unconscious that his pose was copied +from any number of sentimental photogravures and "art photographs." His +temper was sentimental enough, for that matter; the woman was very +sweet and beautiful in his eyes as she sat with her white, round arms +flashing over the keyboard, her head bowed and her face a little +averted, the long lashes low upon her cheeks and tremulous with a +fathomless emotion. It was his thought that his time was momentarily +becoming shorter, and that just now, more than ever, she was very +distant from his arms, something inaccessible, too rare and delicate +and fine for the rude possession of him who sighed for his own +unworthiness. + +Abruptly she brought both hands down upon the keys, educing a jangled, +startled crash from the tortured wires, and swinging round, glanced up +at Amber with quaint mirth trembling behind the veil of moisture in her +misty eyes. + +"India!" she cried, with a broken laugh: "India epitomised: a homesick, +exiled woman trying to drag a song of Home from the broken heart of a +crippled piano! That is an Englishwoman's India: it's our life, ever to +strive and struggle and contrive to piece together out of makeshift +odds and ends the atmosphere of Home!... It's suffocating in here. +Come." She rose with a quick shrug of impatience, and led the way back +to the gardens. + +The table had been removed together with the chairs and candles; +nothing remained to remind them of the hour just gone. The walks were +clear of servants. Their only light came from the high arch of stars +smitten to its zenith with pale, quivering waves of light from the moon +invisible behind the hills. Below them the city hummed like a disturbed +beehive. Somewhere afar a gentle hand was sweeping the strings of a +_zitar_, sounding weird, sad chords. The perfumed languor of the night +weighed heavily upon the senses, like the woven witchery of some +age-old enchantment.... + +Pensive, the girl trained her long skirts heedlessly over the +dew-drenched grasses, Amber at her side, himself speechless with an +intangible, ineluctable, unreasoning sense of expectancy. Never, he +told himself, had a lover's hour been more auspiciously timed or +staged; and this was his hour, altogether his!... If only he might find +the words of wooing to which his lips were strange! He dared not delay; +to-morrow it might be too late; in the womb of the morrow a world of +chances stirred--contingencies that might in a breath set them a world +apart. + +They found seats in the shadow of a pepul. + +"You must be tired, Mr. Amber," she said. "Why don't you smoke?" + +"I hadn't thought of it, and hadn't asked permission." + +"Please do. I like it." + +He found his cigarette-case and struck a match, Sophia watching +intently his face in the rosy glow of the little, flickering flame. + +"Are you in the habit of indulging in protracted silences?" she rallied +him gently. "Between friends of old standing they're permissible, I +believe, but----" + +"A day's journey by tonga matures acquaintanceships wonderfully," he +observed abstrusely. + +"Indeed?" She laughed. + +"At least, I hope so." + +He felt that he must be making progress; thus far he had been no less +inane than any average lover of the stage or fiction. And he wondered: +was she laughing at him, softly, there in the shadows? + +"You see," she said, amused at his relapse into reverie, "you're +incurable and ungrateful. I'm trying my best to be attractive and +interesting, and you won't pay me any attention whatever. There must be +something on your mind. Is it this mysterious errand that brings you so +unexpectedly to India--to Kuttarpur, Mr. Amber?" + +"Yes," he answered truthfully. + +"And you won't tell me?" + +"I think I must," he said, bending forward. + +There sounded a stealthy rustling in the shrubbery. The girl drew away +and rose with a startled exclamation. With a bound, a man in native +dress sped from the shadows and paused before them, panting. + +Amber jumped up, overturning his chair, and instinctively feeling for +the pistol that was with his travelling things, upstairs in the +Residency. + +The native reassured him with a swift, obsequious gesture. "Pardon, +sahib, and yours, sahiba, if I have alarmed you, but I am come on an +errand of haste, seeking him who is known as the Sahib David Amber." + +"I am he. What do you want with me?" + +"It is only this, that I have been commissioned to bear to you, sahib." + +The man fumbled hurriedly in the folds of his surtout, darting quick +glances of apprehension round the garden. Amber looked him over as +closely as he could in the dim light, but found him wholly a +stranger--merely a low-caste Hindu, counterpart of a million others to +be encountered daily in the highways and bazaars of India. The +Virginian's rising hope that he might prove to be Labertouche failed +for want of encouragement; the intruder was of a stature the Englishman +could by no means have counterfeited. + +"From whom come you?" he demanded in the vernacular. + +"Nay, a name that is unspoken harms none, sahib." The native produced a +small, thin, flat package and thrust it into Amber's hands. "With +permission, I go, sahib; it were unwise to linger----" + +"There is no answer?" + +"None, sahib." The man salaamed and strode away, seeming to melt +soundlessly into the foliage. + +For a minute Amber remained astare. The girl's voice alone roused him. + +"I think you are a very interesting person, Mr. Amber," she said, +resuming her chair. + +"Well!... _I_ begin to think this a most uncommonly interesting +country." He laughed uncertainly, turning the package over and over. +"Upon my word----! I haven't the least notion what this can be!" + +"Why not bring it to the light, and find out?" + +He assented meekly, having been perfectly candid in his assertion that +he had no suspicion of what the packet might contain, and a moment +later they stood beneath the window of the Residency, from which a +broad shaft of light streamed out like vaporised gold. + +Amber held the packet to the light; it was oblong, thin, stiff, covered +with common paper, guiltless of superscription, and sealed with +mucilage. He tore the covering, withdrew the enclosure, and heard the +girl gasp with surprise. For himself, he was transfixed with +consternation. His look wavered in dismay between the girl and the +photograph in his hand--_her_ photograph, which had been stolen from +him aboard the _Poonah_. + +She extended her hand imperiously. "Give that to me, please, Mr. +Amber," she insisted. He surrendered it without a word. "Mr. Amber!" +she cried in a voice that quivered with wonder and resentment. + +He faced her with a hang-dog air, feeling that now indeed had his case +been made hopeless by this contretemps. "Confound Labertouche!" he +cried in his ungrateful heart. "Confound his meddling mystery-mongering +and hokus-pokus!" + +"Well?" enquired the girl sharply. + +"Yes, Miss Farrell." He could invent nothing else to say. + +"You--you are going to explain, I presume." + +He shook his head in despair. "No-o...." + +"What!" + +"I've no explanation whatever to make--that'd be adequate, I mean." + +He saw that she was shaken by impatience. "I think," said she +evenly--"I think you will find it best to let me judge of that. This is +my photograph. How do you come to have it? What right have you to it?" + +"I ... ah...." He stammered and paused, acutely conscious of the voices +of the Englishmen, Farrell, Raikes, and young Clarkson, drifting out +through the open window of the drawing-room. "If you'll be kind enough +to return to our chairs," he said, "I'll try to make a satisfactory +explanation. I'd rather not be overheard." + +The girl doubted, was strongly inclined to refuse him; then, perhaps +moved to compassion by his abject attitude, she relented and agreed. +"Very well," she said, and retaining the picture moved swiftly before +him into the shadowed garden. He lagged after her, inventing a hundred +impracticable yarns. She found her chair and sat down with a manner of +hauteur moderated by expectancy. He took his place beside her. + +"Who sent you this photograph of me?" she began to cross-examine him. + +"A friend." + +"His name?" + +"I'm sorry I can't tell you just now." + +"Oh!... Why did he send it?" + +"Because...." In his desperation it occurred to him to tell the +truth--as much of it, at least, as his word to Rutton would permit. +"Because it's mine. My friend knew I had lost it." + +"How could it have been yours? It was taken in London a year ago. I +sent copies only to personal friends who, I know, would not give them +away." She thought it over and added: "The Quains had no copy; it's +quite impossible that one should have got to America." + +"None the less," he maintained stubbornly, "it's mine, and I got it in +America." + +"I can hardly be expected to believe that." + +"I'm sorry." + +"You persist in saying that you got it in America?" + +"I must." + +"When?" + +"After you left the Quains." + +"How?" she propounded triumphantly. + +"I can't tell you, except vaguely. If you'll be content with the +substance of the story, lacking details, for the present----" + +"For the present? You mean you'll tell me the whole truth--?" + +"Sometime, yes. But now, I may not.... A dear friend of mine owned the +photograph. He gave it me at my request. I came to India, and on the +steamer lost it; in spite of my offer of a reward, I was obliged to +leave the boat without it, when we got to Calcutta. My friend here knew +how highly I valued it----" + +"Why?" + +"Because I'd told him." + +"I don't mean that. Why do you value it so highly?" + +"Because of its original." He took heart of despair and plunged boldly. + +She looked him over calmly. "Do you mean me to understand that you told +this friend you had followed me to India because you were in love with +me?" + +"Precisely.... Thank you." + +She laughed a little, mockingly. "Are you, Mr. Amber?" + +"In love with you?... Yes." + +"Oh!" She maintained her impartial and judicial attitude admirably. +"But even were I inclined to believe that, your whole story is +discredited by the simple fact that through no combination of +circumstances could this picture have come into your possession in +America." + +"I give you my word of honor, Miss Farrell." + +"I wish you wouldn't. If you are perfectly sincere in asserting that, +you force me to think you----" + +"Mad? I'm not, really," he argued earnestly. "It's quite true." + +"No." She shook her head positively. "You say you obtained it from a +man, which can't be so. There were only a dozen prints made; four I +gave to women friends in England and seven I sent to people out here. +The other one I have." + +"I can only repeat what I have already told you. There are gaps in the +story, I know--incredible gaps; they can't be bridged, just now. I beg +you to believe me." + +"And how soon will you be free to tell me the whole truth?" + +"Only after ... we're married." + +She laughed adorably. "Mr. Amber," she protested, "you are +dangerous--you are delightful! Do you really believe I shall ever marry +you?" + +"I hope so. I came to India to ask you--to use every means in my power +to make you marry me. You see, I love you." + +"And ... and when is this to happen, please--in the name of impudence?" + +"As soon as I can persuade you--to-night, if you will." + +"Oh!" + +He was obliged to laugh with her at the absurdity of the suggestion. +"Or to-morrow morning, at the very latest," he amended seriously. "I +don't think we dare wait longer." + +"Why is that?" + +"Delays are perilous. There might be another chap." + +"How can you be sure there isn't already?" + +He fell sober enough at this. "But there isn't, is there, really?" + +She delayed her reply provokingly. At length, "I don't see why I should +say," she observed, "but I don't mind telling you--no, there +isn't--yet." And as she spoke, Farrell called "Sophia?" from the window +of the drawing-room. She stood up, answering clearly with the assurance +that she was coming, and began deliberately to move toward the house. + +Amber followed, deeply anxious. "I've not offended you?" + +"No," she told him gravely, "but you have both puzzled and mystified +me. I shall have to sleep on this before I can make up my mind whether +or not to be offended." + +"And ... will you marry me?" + +"Oh, dear! How do I know?" she laughed. + +"You won't give me a hint as to the complexion of my chances?" + +She paused, turning. "The chances, Mr. Amber," she said without +affection or coquetry, "are all in your favour ... _if_ you can prove +your case. I do like you very much, and you have been successful in +rousing my interest in you to an astonishing degree.... But I shall +have to think it over; you must allow me at least twelve hours' grace." + +"You'll let me know to-morrow morning?" + +"Yes." + +"Early?" + +"You've already been bidden to breakfast by Mr. Raikes." + +"Meanwhile, may I have my photograph?" + +"Mine, if you please!... I think not; if my decision is favourable, you +shall have it back--after breakfast." + +"Thank you," he said meekly. And as they were entering the Residency he +hung back. "I'm going now," he said; "it's good-night. Will you +remember you've not refused me the privilege of hoping?" + +"I've told you I like you, Mr. Amber." Impulsively she extended her +hand. "Good-night." + +He bowed and put his lips to it; and she did not resist. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +OVER THE WATER + + +Ram Nath, patient and impassive as ever, had the tonga waiting for +Amber before the Residency. Exalted beyond words, the American +permitted himself to be driven off through Kuttarpur's intricate +network of streets and backways, toward a destination of which he knew +as little as he cared. He was a guest of the State, officially +domiciled at the designated house of hospitality; without especial +permission, obtained through the efforts of the Resident, he could +sleep in no other spot in the city or its purlieus. He was indifferent, +absolutely; the matter interested him as scantily--which is to say not +at all--as did the fact that an escort of troopers of the State, very +well accoutred and disciplined, followed the tonga with a great +jangling of steel and tumult of hoofs. + +He was in that condition of semi-daze which is the not extraordinary +portion of a declared lover revelling in the memory of his mistress's +eyes, whose parting look has not been unkind. Upon that glance of +secret understanding, signalled to him from eyes as brown as beautiful, +he was building him a palace of dreams so strange, so sweet, that the +mere contemplation of its unsubstantial loveliness filled him with an +exquisite agony of hope, a poignant ecstasy of despair. It was too much +to hope for, that she should smile upon him in the morning.... Yet he +hoped. + +Unconscious of the passage of time, he was roused only by the pausing +of the tonga and its escort before the Gateway of the Elephants--the +main octroi gate in the northern wall of the city. There ensued a brief +interchange of formalities between the sergeant of his escort and the +captain of the Quarter Guard. Then the tonga was permitted to pass out, +and for five minutes rattled and clattered along the border of the +lake, stopping finally at the rest-house. + +Alighting in the compound, Amber disbursed a few rupees to the +troopers, paid off Ram Nath--who was swift to drive off city-wards, in +mad haste lest the gates be shut upon him for the night--and entered +the bungalow. An aged, talkative, and amiable khansamah met him at the +threshold with expressions of exaggerated respect, no doubt genuine +enough, and followed him, a mumbling shadow, as the Virginian made a +brief round of inspection. + +Standing between the road and the water, the rest-house proved to be +moderately spacious and clean; on the lake-front it opened upon a +marble bund, or landing-stage, its lip lapped by whispering ripples of +the lake. Amber went out upon this to discover, separated from him by +little more than half a mile of black water, the ghostly white walls of +the Raj Mahal climbing in dim majesty to the stars. A single line of +white lights outlined the topmost parapet; at the water's edge a single +marble entrance was aglow; between the two, towers and terraces, +hanging gardens and white scarp-like walls rose in darkened confusion +unimaginable--or, rather, fell like a cascade of architecture, down the +hillside to the lake. A dark hive teeming with the occult life of +unnumbered men and women--Salig Singh the inscrutable and strong, +Naraini the mysterious, whose loveliness lived a fable in the land, and +how many thousand others--living and dying, working and idling, in joy +and sadness, in hatred and love, weaving forever that myriad-stranded +web of intrigue which is the life of native palaces ... + +The Virginian remained long in rapt wondering contemplation of it, +until the wind blowing across the waters had chilled him to the point +of shivering; when he turned indoors to his bed. But he was to have +little rest that night. The khansamah who attended him had hardly +turned low his light when Amber was disturbed by the noise of an angry +altercation in the compound. He arose and in dressing-gown and slippers +went to investigate, and found Ram Nath in violent dispute with the +sergeant of the escort--which, it appeared, had builded a fire and +camped round it in the compound: a circumstance which furnished food +for thought. + +Amber began to suspect that the troops had been furnished as a guard +less of honour than of espionage, less in formal courtesy than in +demonstration of the unsleeping vigilance of the Eye--kindly assisted +by the Maharana of Khandawar. + +A man who, warmed by the ardour of his first love, feels suddenly the +shadow of death falling cold upon him, is apt to neglect nothing. Amber +considered that he had given Ram Nath no commission of any sort, and +bent an attentive ear to the communication which the tonga-wallah +insisted upon making to him. + +Ram Nath had returned, he asserted, solely for the purpose of informing +Amber in accordance with his desires. "The telegraph-office for which +you enquired, sahib, stands just within the Gateway of the Elephants," +he announced. "The telegraph-babu will be on duty very early in the +morning, should you desire still to send the message." + +"Oh, yes," said Amber indifferently. "I'd forgotten. Thanks." + +He returned to his charpoy with spirits considerably higher. Ram Nath +had not winked this time, but the fact was indisputable that Amber had +_not_ expressed any interest whatever in the location of the +telegraph-office. + +Wondering if the telegraph-babu by any chance wore pink satin, he dozed +off on the decision that he would need to send a message the first +thing in the morning. + +Some time later he was a second time awakened by further disputation in +the compound. The troopers were squabbling amongst themselves; he was +able to make this much out in spite of the fact that the sepoys, +recruited exclusively from the native population of Khandawar, spoke a +patois of Hindi so corrupt that even an expert in Oriental languages +would experience difficulty in trying to interpret it. Amber did not +weary himself with the task, but presently lifted up his voice and +demanded silence, desiring to be informed if his sleep was to be +continually broken by the bickerings of sons of mothers without noses. +There followed instantaneous silence, broken by a chuckle and an +applausive "Shabash!" and nothing more. + +Amber snuggled down again upon his pillow and soothed himself with the +feel of the pistol that his fingers grasped beneath the clothes. + +A bar of moonlight slipped through the blinds and fell athwart his +eyes. He cursed it bitterly and got up and moved his charpoy into +shadow. The sibilant lisping of the wavelets against the bund sang him +softly toward oblivion ... and a convention of water-fowl went into +stormy executive session out in the middle of the lake. This had to be +endured, and in time Amber's senses grew numb to the racket and he +dropped off into a fitful doze.... + +Footfalls and hushed voices in the bungalow were responsible for the +next interruption. Amber came to with a start and found himself sitting +up on the edge of the charpoy, with a dreamy impression that two people +had been standing over him and had just left the room, escaping by way +of the khansamah's quarters. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and went +out to remonstrate vigorously with the khansamah. The latter naturally +professed complete ignorance of the visitation and dwelt with such +insistence upon the plausibility of dreams that Amber lost patience and +kicked him grievously, so that he complained with a loud voice and cast +himself at the sahib's feet, declaring that he was but as the dust +beneath them and that Amber was his father and mother and the light of +the Universe besides. In short, he raised such a rumpus that some of +the sepoys came in to investigate and--went out again, hastily, to +testify to their fellows that the hazoor was a man of fluent wrath, +surprisingly versed in the art and practice of abuse. + +Somewhat mollified and reflecting, at the same time, that this was all +but a part of the game, to be expected by those who patronise +rest-houses off the beaten roads of travel, the Virginian returned to +his charpoy and immediately lapsed into a singularly disquieting +dream.... He was strolling by the border of the lake when a coot swam +in and hailed him in English; and when he stopped to look the coot +lifted an A.D.T. messenger-boy's cap and pleaded with him to sign his +name in a little black book, promising that, if he did so, it would be +free to doff its disguise and be Labertouche again. So Amber signed +"Pink Satin" in the book and the coot stood up and said, "I'm not +Labertouche at all, but Ram Nath, and Ram Nath is only another name for +Har Dyal Rutton, and besides you had better come away at once, for the +Eye thou dost wear upon thy finger never sleeps and it's only a paste +Token anyway." Hearing which, Amber caught the coot by the leg and +found that he had grasped the arm of Salig Singh, whose eyes were both +monstrous emeralds without any whites whatever. And Salig Singh tapped +him on the shoulder and began to say over and over again in a whisper... + +But here Amber another time found himself wide awake and sitting up, +his left hand gripping the wrist of a native and his right holding his +pistol steadily levelled at the native's breast. While the voice he +heard was real and no figment of a dream-mused imagination; for the man +was whispering earnestly and repeatedly: + +"_Hasten, hazoor, for the night doth wane and the hour is at hand_." + +"What deviltry's this?" Amber demanded sharply, with a threatening +gesture. + +But the native neither attempted to free himself nor to evade the +pistol's mouth. "Have patience, hazoor," he begged earnestly, "and make +no disturbance. It is late and the sepoys sleep; if you will be +circumspect and are not afraid--" + +"Who are you?" + +"I was to say, '_I come from you know whom_,' hazoor." + +"That all?" + +"In the matter of a certain photograph, hazoor." + +"By thunder!" Labertouche's name was on Amber's lips, but he repressed +it. "Wait a bit." He gulped down the last dregs of sleep. "Let me think +and--see." + +This last was an afterthought. As it came to him he dropped the pistol +by his side and felt for matches in the pocket of his coat, which hung +over the back of a bedside chair. Finding one, he struck it noiselessly +and, as the tiny flame broadened, drew his captive nearer. + +It was a fat, mean, wicked face that stood out against the darkness: an +ochre-tinted face with a wide, loose-lipped mouth and protruding eyes +that blinked nervously into his. But he had never seen it before. + +"Who are you?" He cast away the match as its flame died and snatched up +his weapon. + +"I was to say--" + +"I heard that once. What's your name?" + +"Dulla Dad, hazoor." + +"And who are you from?" + +"Hazoor, I was not to say." + +"I think you'd better," suggested Amber, with grim significance. + +"I am the hazoor's slave. I dare not say." + +"Now look here--" + +"Hazoor, it was charged upon me to say, _'I come from you know whom.'_" + +"The devil it was.... Well, what do you want?" + +"I was to say, '_Hasten, hazoor, for the night--_" + +"I've heard that, too. You mean you're to lead me to somebody, +somewhere--you can't say where?" + +"Aye, hazoor, even so." + +"Get over there, in the corner, while I think this over--and don't move +or I'll make you a present of a nice young bullet, Dulla Dad." + +"That is as Allah wills; only remember, hazoor, the injunction for +haste." + +The man, a small stunted Mohammedan, sidled fearsomely over to the spot +indicated and waited there, cringing and supplicating Amber with +eloquent gestures. The Virginian watched him closely until comforted by +the reflection that, had murder been the object, he had been a dead man +long since. Then he put aside the revolver and began to dress. + +"Only Labertouche would have to communicate with me by such stealth," +he considered. "Besides, that reference to the photograph--" + +He slipped hurriedly into his clothing and ostentatiously dropped the +pistol into his right-hand coat-pocket. "I'm ready," he told the man. +"Lead the way; and remember, if there's any treachery afoot, you'll be +the first to suffer for it, Dulla Dad." + +The Mohammedan bowed submissively. "Be it so, my lord," he said in +Hindi, and, moving noiselessly with unshod feet, glided through the +door which opened upon the bund, Amber close behind him. + +That it was indeed late was shown by the position of the moon; and the +sweet freshness of early morning was strong in the keen air. The wind +had failed and the lake stretched flawless from shore to shore, a sheet +of untarnished silver. Over against them the palace slept, or seemed to +sleep, in its miraculous beauty, glacier-like with its shining surfaces +and deep, purple-shadowed crevasses. There were few lights visible in +the city, and the quiet of it was notable; so likewise with the wards +outside the walls and the lakeside palaces and villas. Only in a +distant temple a drum was throbbing, throbbing. + +In the water at their feet a light boat was gently nosing the marble +bund. Dulla Dad, squatting, drew it broadside to the steps and motioned +Amber to enter. The Virginian boarded it gingerly, seating himself at +the stern. Dulla Dad dropped in forward and pushed off. The boat moved +out upon the bosom of the lake with scarce a sound, and the native, +grasping a double-bladed paddle, dipped it gently and sent the frail +craft flying onward with long, swift, and powerful strokes, guiding it +directly toward the walls of the Raj Mahal. + +Two-thirds of the way across the Virginian surrendered to his mistrust +and drew his pistol. "Dulla Dad," he said gently; and the man ceased +paddling with a shudder--"Dulla Dad, you're taking me to the palace." + +"Yea, hazoor; that is true," the native answered, his voice quavering. + +"Who awaits me there? Answer quickly!" + +"Hazoor, it is not wise to speak a name upon the water, where voices +travel far." + +"Dulla Dad!" + +"Hazoor, I may not say!" + +"I think, Dulla Dad, you'd better. If I lose patience--" + +"Upon my head be your safety, hazoor! See, you can fire, and thereafter +naught can trouble me. But I, with a single sweep of this paddle, can +overturn us. Be content, hazoor, for a little time; then shall you see +that naught of harm is intended. My life be forfeit if I speak not +truth, hazoor!" + +"You have said it," said Amber grimly, "Row on." After all, he +considered, it might still be Labertouche. At first blush it had seemed +hardly credible that the Englishman could have gained a footing in that +vast pile; and yet, it would be like him to seek precisely such a +spot--the very heart of the conspiracy of the Gateway, if they guessed +aright. + +The boat surged swiftly on, while again and again Amber's finger +trembled on the trigger. Though already the white gleaming walls +towered above him, it was not yet too late--not too late; but should he +withdraw, force Dulla Dad to return, he might miss ... what? He did +nothing save resign himself to the issue. As they drew nearer the +moonlit walls he looked in vain for sign of a landing-stage, and +wondered, the lighted bund that he had seen from over the water being +invisible to him round an angle of the building. But Dulla Dad held on +without a pause until the moment when it seemed that he intended to +dash the boat bows first against the stone; then, with a final dextrous +twist of the paddle, he swung at a sharp angle and simultaneously +checked the speed. Under scant momentum they slid from moonlight and +the clean air of night into a close well between two walls, and then +suddenly beneath an arch and into a cavernous chamber filled with the +soft murmuring of water--and with darkness. + +Here the air was sluggish and heavy and dank with the odour of slime. +Breathing it, seeing nothing save the spectral gleam of moonlight +reflected inwards, hearing nothing save the uncanny lapping and purring +of the ripples, it was not easy to forget the tales men told of palace +corruption and crime--of lovers who had stolen thus secretly to meet +their mistresses, and who had met, instead, Death; of assassins who had +skulked by such stealthy ways to earn blood-money; of spies, of a +treacherous legion who had gained entry to the palace by such ways as +this--perhaps had accomplished their intent and returned to tell the +tale, perhaps had been found in the dawn-light, floating out there on +the lake with drawn, wan faces upturned to the pallid skies.... + +"Hazoor!" + +It was Dulla Dad's voice, sleek with fawning. For all the repulsiveness +of the accents, Amber was not sorry to hear them. At least the native +was human and ... this experience wasn't, hardly.... He leaned toward +the man, eyes aching with the futile strain of striving to penetrate +the blackness. He could see nothing more definite than shadows. The +boat was resting motionless on the tide, as if suspended in an abyss of +night, fathomless and empty. + +"Well, what now?" he demanded harshly. "Be careful, Dulla Dad!" + +"Still my lord distrusts me? There is naught to fear, none here to lift +hand against you. Your servant lives but to serve you in all loyalty." + +"Indeed?" + +"My lord may trust me." + +"It seems to me I have--too far." + +"My lord will not forget?" + +"Be sure of that, Dulla Dad.... Well, what are you waiting for?" + +"We are arrived, hazoor," said the native calmly. "If you will be +pleased to step ashore, having care lest you overturn the boat, the +steps are on your left." + +"Where?... Oh!" Amber's tentative hand, groping in obscurity, fell upon +a slab of stone, smooth and slippery, but solid. "You mean here?" + +"Aye, hazoor." + +"And what next?" + +"I am to wait to conduct you back to your place of rest." + +"Um-m. You are, eh?" Amber, doubtful, tried the stone again; it was +substantial enough; only the boat rocked. He struck a match; the +short-lived flame afforded him a feeble, unsatisfactory impression of a +long, narrow, vaulted chamber, whereof the floor was half water, half +stone. There was a landing to the left, a rather narrow ledge, with a +low, heavy door, bossed with iron, in the wall beyond. + +Shaking his head, he lifted himself cautiously out of the boat. "You +stay right there, Dulla Dad," he warned the native, "until I see what +happens. If I catch you trying to get away--the boat'll show up nicely +against the opening, you know--I'll give you cause for repentance." + +"I am here, hazoor. Turn you and knock upon the door thus"--rapping the +gunwale of the boat--"thrice." + +Amber obeyed, wrought up now to so high a pitch of excitement and +suspense that he could hardly have withdrawn had he wished to and been +able to force Dulla Dad to heed him. As he knuckled the third signal, +the door swung slowly inward, disclosing, in a dim glow of light, stone +walls--a bare stone chamber illumined by a single iron lamp hanging in +chains from the ceiling. Across the room a dark entry opened upon a +passageway equally dark. + +By the door a servant stood, his attitude deferential. As the +Virginian's gaze fell upon him he salaamed respectfully. + +Amber entered, his eyes quick, his right hand in his pocket and +grateful for the cold caress of nickelled steel, his body poised +lightly and tensely upon the balls of his feet--in a word, ready. +Prepared against the worst he was hopeful of the best: apprehensive, he +reminded himself that he had first met Labertouche under auspices +hardly more prepossessing than these. + +The clang of the door closing behind him rang hollowly in the +stillness. The warder moved past him to the entrance of the corridor. +Amber held him with a sharp question. + +"Am I to wait here?" + +"For a moment, Heaven-born!" He disappeared. + +Without a sound a door at Amber's elbow that had escaped his cursory +notice, so cunningly was it fitted in the wall, swung open, and a +remembered voice boomed in his ears, not without a certain sardonic +inflection: "Welcome, my lord, welcome to Khandawar!" + +Amber swung upon the speaker with a snarl. "Salig Singh!" + +"Thy steward bids thee welcome to thy kingdom, hazoor!" + +Dominating the scene with his imposing presence--a figure regal in the +regimentals of his native army--the Rajput humbled himself before the +Virginian, dropping to his knee and offering his jewelled sword-hilt in +token of his fealty. + +"Oh, get up!" snapped Amber impatiently. "I'm sick of all this damned +tomfoolery. Get up, d'you hear?--unless you want me to take that pretty +sword of yours and spank you with it!" + +A quiver, as of self-repression, moved the body of the man at his feet; +then, with a jangle of spurs, Salig Singh leaped up and stood at a +distance of two paces, his head high, his black eyes glittering +ominously with well-nigh the sinister brilliance of his vibrating +emerald aigrette. + +"My lord!" he cried angrily. "Are these words to use to one who offers +thee his heart and hand? Is this insolence to be suffered by a Rajput, +a son of Kings?" + +"As for that," returned Amber steadily, giving him look for look, "your +grandfather was a _bunia_ and you know it. Whether or not you're going +to 'suffer' what you call my insolence, I don't know, and I don't much +care. You've made a fool of me twice, now, and I'm tired of it. I give +you my word I don't understand why I don't shoot you down here and now, +for I believe in my heart you're the unholiest scoundrel unhung. Is +that language plain enough for you?" + +For an instant longer they faced one another offensively, Amber cool +enough outwardly and inwardly boiling with rage that he should have +walked into the trap with his eyes open, Salig Singh trembling with +resentment but holding himself in with splendid restraint. + +"As for me," continued Amber, "I suspect I'm the most hopeless ass in +the three Presidencies, if that's any comfort to you, Salig Singh. Now +what d'you want with me?" + +A shadowy smile softened the blackness of the Rajput's wrath. He +shrugged and moved his hands slightly, exposing their palms, subtly +signifying his submission. + +"Thou art my overlord," he said quietly, with a silky deference. "In +time thou wilt see how thou hast wronged me. For the present, I remain +thy servant. I harbour no resentment, I owe thee naught but loyalty. I +await thy commands." + +"The dickens you do!" Amber whistled inaudibly, his eyes narrowing as +he pondered the man. "You protest a lot, Salig Singh. If you're so much +at my service ... why, prove it." + +By way of reply Salig Singh lifted his sword in its scabbard from its +fastenings at his side and, with a magnificent gesture, cast it +clanking to the floor between them. A heavy English army-pattern +revolver followed it. The Rajput spread out his hands. "Thou art armed, +my lord," he said, "I, at thy mercy. If thou dost misjudge my purpose +in causing thee to be brought hither, my life is in thy hands." + +"Oh, yes." Amber nodded. "That's very pretty. But presuming I chose to +take it?" + +"Thou art free as the winds of the morning. See, then." Salig Singh +strode to the outer door and threw it open. "The way of escape is +clear--not even locked." + +The lamplight fell across the stone landing and made visible the +waiting boat with Dulla Dad sitting patiently at the oar. + +"I see," assented Amber. "Well?" + +Salig Singh shut the door gently. "Is there more to say?" he enquired. +"I have shown thee that thou art free." + +"Oh, so far as that goes, you've demonstrated pretty clearly that +you're not afraid of me. Of course I know as well as you do that at the +first shot Dulla Dad would slip out to the lake and leave me here to +die like a rat in a corner." + +"Thou knowest, lord, that no man in Khandawar would do thee any hurt. +Thy person is sacred--" + +"That's all bosh. You don't expect me to believe that you still stick +to that absurd fiction of yours--that I'm Rutton?" + +"Then mine eyes have played me false, hazoor. Shabash!" Salig Singh +bowed resignedly. + +"Well, then, what do you want? Why have you brought me here?" + +"Why didst thou come? There was no force used: thou didst come of thine +own will--thine own will, which is the will of the Body, hazoor!" + +"Oh, damnation! Why d'you insist on beating round the bush forever? You +know well why I came. Now, what do you want?" + +"My lord, I move, it seems, in the ways of error. A little time ago the +words of the Voice were made known to thee in a far land; thou didst +answer, coming to this country. A few days agone I myself did repeat to +you the message of the Bell; thou didst swear thou wouldst not answer, +yet art thou here in Kuttarpur. Am I to be blamed for taking this for a +sign of thy repentance?... Hazoor, the Body is patient, the Will +benignant and long-suffering. Still is the Gateway open." + +"Is that what you wanted to tell me, Salig Singh?" + +"What else? Am I to believe thee a madman, weary of life, that thou +shouldst venture hither with a heart hardened against the Will of the +Body? I seek but to serve thee in thus daring thy displeasure. Why +shouldst thou come to Bharuta [Footnote: India.] at all if thou dost +not intend to undergo the Ordeal of the Gateway? Am I a fool or--I say +it in all respect, my lord--art thou?" + +"From the look of things, I fancy the epithet fits us both, Salig +Singh. You refuse to take my word for it that I know nothing of your +infamous Gateway and have no intention of ever approaching it, that I +have not a drop of Indian blood in me and am in no way related to or +connected with Har Dyal Rutton, who is dead--" + +"I may not believe what I know to be untrue." + +"You'll have to learn to recognise the truth, I'm afraid. For the final +time I tell you that I am David Amber, a citizen of the United States +of America, travelling in India on purely personal business." + +The Rajput inclined his head submissively. "Then is my duty all but +done, hazoor. Thrice hath the warning been given thee. There be still +four-and-twenty hours in which, it may be, thou shalt learn to see +clearly. My lord, I ask of thee a single favour. Wilt thou follow me?" +He motioned toward the arched entrance to the passageway. + +"Follow thee?" Amber at length dropped into Urdu, unconsciously +adopting the easier form of communication now that, he felt, the issue +between them was plain, that the Rajput laboured under no further +misunderstanding as to the reason of his presence in Khandawar. +"Whither?" + +"There is that which I must show thee." + +"What?" + +"My life be forfeit if thou dost not return unharmed to the rest-house +ere sunrise. Wilt thou come?" + +"To what end, Salig Singh?" + +"Furthermore," the Rajput persisted stubbornly, his head lifted in +pride and his nostrils dilated a little with scorn--"furthermore I +offer thee the word of a Rajput. Thou are my guest, since thou wilt +have it so. No harm shall come to thee, upon my honour." + +Curiosity triumphed. Amber knew that he had exacted the most honoured +pledge known in Rajputana. His apprehensions were at rest; nothing +could touch him now--_until_ he had returned to the bungalow. Then, he +divined, it was to be open war--himself and Labertouche pitted against +the strength of the greatest conspiracy known in India since the days +of '57. But for the present, no pledge of any sort had been exacted of +him. + +"So be it," he assented on impulse. "I follow." + +With no other word Salig Singh turned and strode down the corridor. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +FROM A HIGH PLACE + + +The passageway was long and dark and given to sudden curves and angles, +penetrating, it seemed, the very bowels of the Raj Mahal. It ended +unexpectedly in a low arch through which the two men passed into an +open courtyard, apparently given over entirely to stables. Despite the +lateness of the hour it was tenanted by several wideawake syces, +dancing attendance upon a pair of blooded stallions of the stud royal, +who, saddled, bridled and hooded, pawed and champed impatiently in the +centre of the yard, making it echo with the ringing of iron on stone +and the jingling of their silver curb-chains. + +Salig Singh paused, with a wave of his hand calling Amber's attention +to the superb brutes. + +"Thou canst see, hazoor, that all is prepared!" + +"For what?" + +But Salig Singh merely smiled enigmatically, and shaking a patient +head, passed on. + +A second arch gave upon a corridor which led upwards and presently +changed into a steep flight of steps, of ancient stone worn smooth and +grooved with the traffic of generations of naked feet. At the top they +turned aside and passed through a deserted hanging garden, and then, +through a heavy door which Salig Singh unlocked with a private key, +into a vast, vacant room, with a lofty ceiling supported by huge, +unwieldy pillars of stone, sculptured with all the loves and wars of +Hindu mythology. At one end the fitful, eerie flare of a great bronze +brazier revealed the huge proportions of an ivory throne, gorgeous with +gems and cloth of gold, standing upon a daďs and flanked by two +motionless figures which at first sight Amber took to be pieces of +statuary. But they quickened, saluting with a single movement and a +flash of steel, as the Maharana drew nearer, and so proved themselves +troopers of the State, standing guard with naked swords. + +"There is no need, perhaps, to tell thee, hazoor," Salig Singh +muttered, bending to Amber's ear, "that sitting upon this throne, in +this Hall of Audience, for generations thy forefathers ruled this land, +making and administering its laws, meting out justice, honoured of all +men--and served, my lord, for generations by my forebears, the faithful +stewards of thy House; even as I would prove faithful...." + +"Interesting," Amber interrupted brusquely, "if true. Is this what you +wanted to show me?" + +"Nay, hazoor, not this alone. Come." + +The Rajput led him out of the hall by way of a small doorway behind the +throne, and after a little turning and twisting through tortuous +passages they began to ascend again, and so went on up, ever upwards, +the flights of steps broken by other corridors, other apartments, other +galleries and gardens, until at length they emerged into a garden laid +out in the very topmost court of all--the loftiest spot in all +Kuttarpur. + +It was a very wonderful garden, a jungle of exotic plants and shrubs +threaded by narrow walks that led to secluded nooks and unsuspected +pleasaunces, and lighted by low-swung festoons of dim lamps, +many-coloured. A banian grew curiously in its midst, and there also +they found a great tank of crystal water with a bed of brilliant +pebbles over which small golden gleaming fish flashed and loitered. +Here, where the walls of acacia, orange, thuia and pepal shut out every +breath of wind, the air was dense with the cloying sweetness of +jasmine, musk and marigold.... + +"My lord," said the Maharana, pausing, "if thou wilt wait here for a +little, permitting me to excuse myself--?" + +"All right," Amber told him tolerantly. "Run along." + +Salig Singh quietly effaced himself, and the American watched him go +with an inward chuckle. "I presume I'll have to pay for my impudence in +the end," he thought; "but it's costing Salig Singh a good deal to hold +himself in." He was for the time being not ill-pleased with this phase +of his adventure; he had a notion that this must be a sort of very +private pleasure-ground of the rulers of Khandawar, and that very few, +if any, white people had ever been permitted to inspect it. What the +Maharana's next move would be he had not the least suspicion; but since +he must be content and abide the developments as they came, he was +minded to amuse himself. He moved away from the cistern, idling down a +path in a direction opposite that taken by Salig Singh. + +An abrupt turn brought him to the outer wall, and he stopped to gaze, +leaning upon the low marble balustrade. + +From his feet the wall fell away sheer, precipitous, a hundred feet or +more, to another hanging garden like that which lay behind him. From +this there was another stupendous drop. On all sides the marble walls +spread over the hillsides, descending it in great strides broken by +terraces, gardens, paved courts, all white and silver and deep violet +shadow, with here and there a window glowing softly yellow or a web of +saffron rays peeping through the intricacies of a carved stone lattice. +Far below, on the one hand, the lake lay like a sheet of steel; on the +other the city stretched, a huddle of flat roofs not unlike an armful +of child's building blocks. At that great height the effect was that of +peering over the upper lip of an avalanche of masonry on the point of +tumbling headlong down a mountainside to crush all beneath it. + +In the hush there rose to Amber a muted confusion of sounds--the +blended voices of the multitude that inhabited the hidden chambers of +the palace: the pawing and shrill neighing of the stallions in the +lower courtyard, a shivering clash of steel against steel, somewhere +the tinkle of a stringed instrument and a soft voice singing, a man's +accents weighty with authority, the ripple of a woman's laugh--all +relieved against an undertone like a profound sigh, waning and waxing: +the breathing of the Raj Mahal ... + +Amber turned away to rejoin Salig Singh by the cistern. But the Rajput +was not there; and, presently, another path tempting him to unlawful +exploration, he yielded and sauntered aimlessly away. A sudden corner +cloaked with foliage brought him to a little open space, a patch of +lawn over which a canopy had been raised. Beneath this, a woman sat +alone. He halted, thunderstruck. + +Simultaneously, with a soft swish of draperies, a clash of jewelled +bracelets, dull and musical, and a flash of coruscating colour, the +woman stood before him, young, slender, graceful, garbed in +indescribable splendour--and veiled. + +For the space of three long breaths the Virginian hesitated, +unspeakably amazed. Though she were veiled, it were deep dishonour for +a woman of a Rajput's household to be seen by a stranger. It seemed +inexplicable that Salig Singh should have wittingly left him in any +place where he might encounter an inmate of the zenana. Yet the +Maharana must have known.... Amber made an irresolute movement, as if +to go. But it was too late. + +With a murmur, inaudible, and a swift, infinitely alluring gesture, the +woman swept the veil away from her face, and looked him squarely in the +eyes. She moved toward him slowly, swaying, as graceful as a fawn, more +beautiful than any woman he had ever known. His breath caught in his +throat, for sheer wonder at this incomparable loveliness. + +Her face was oval without a flaw, and pale as newly-minted gold, with a +flush of red where the blood ran warm beneath the skin. Her hair was +black as ebony and finer than the finest silk, rich and lustrous; her +jet-black eyebrows formed a perfect arch. Her mouth was like a +passion-flower, but small and sweet, with lips full and firm and +scarlet. Her eyes were twin pools of darkness lighted with ardent inner +fire. They held him speechless and motionless with the beauty of their +unuttered desire, and before he could collect his wits she had made him +captive--had without warning cast herself upon her knees before him and +imprisoned both his hands, burying her face in their palms. He felt her +lips hot upon his flesh, and then--wonder of wonders!--tears from those +divine eyes streaming through his fingers. + +The shock of it brought him to his senses. Pitiful, dumfounded, +horrified, he glared wildly about him, seeking some avenue of escape. +There was no one watching: he thanked Heaven for that, while the cold +sweat started out upon his forehead. But still at his feet the woman +rocked, softly sobbing, her fair shoulders gently agitated, and still +she defied his gentle efforts to free his hands, holding them in a +grasp he might not break without hurting her. He found his tongue +eventually. + +"Don't!" he pleaded desperately. "My dear, you mustn't. For pity's sake +don't sob like that! What under the sun's the trouble? Don't, +please!... Good Lord! what am I to do with this lovely lunatic?" Then +he remembered that he had spoken in English and thoughtfully translated +the gist of his remonstrances, with as little effect as if he had +spoken to the empty air. + +Though in time the fiercest paroxysm of her passion passed and her sobs +diminished in violence, she clung heavily to him and made no resistance +when he lifted her in his arms. The error was fatal; he had designed to +get her on her feet and then stand away. But no sooner had he raised +her and succeeded in disengaging his hands, than soft round arms were +clasped tightly about his neck and her face--if possible, more +ravishing in tears than when first he had seen it--pillowed on his +breast. And for the first time she spoke coherently. + +"_Aie_!" she wailed tremulously. "_Aie_! Now is the cup of my happiness +full to brimming, now that thou hast returned to me at last, O my lord! +Well-nigh had I ceased to hope for thee, O Beloved; well-nigh had this +heart of mine grown cold within my bosom, that had no nourishment save +hope, save hope! Day and night I have watched for thy coming for many +years, praying that thou shouldst return to me ere this frail +prettiness of mine, that made thee love me long ago, should wane and +fade, so that thy heart should turn to other women, O my husband!" + +"Husband! Great--Heavens! Look here, my dear, hadn't you better come to +your senses and let me go before--" + +"Let thee go, _Lalji_, ere what? Ere any come to disturb us? Nay, but +who should come between husband and wife in the first hour of their +reunion after many years of separation? Is it not known--does not all +Khandawar know how I have waited for thee, almost thy widow ere thy +wife, all this weary time?... Or is it that thy heart hath forgotten +thy child-bride? Am I scorned, O my Lord--I, Naraini? Is there no love +in thy bosom to leap in response to the love of thee that is my life?" + +She released him and whirled a pace or two away, draperies swirling, +jewels scintillating cold fire in hopeless emulation of the radiance of +her tear-gemmed eyes. + +"Naraini?" stammered Amber, recalling what he had heard of the woman. +"Naraini!" + +"Aye, my lord, Naraini, thy wedded wife!" The rounded little chin went +up a trifle and her eyes gleamed angrily. "Am I no longer thy Naraini, +then? Or wouldst thou deny that thou art Har Dyal, my king and my +beloved? Hast thou indeed forgotten the child that was given thee for +wife when thy father reigned in Khandawar and thou wert but a boy--a +boy of ten, the Maharaj Har Dyal? Hast thou forgotten the little maid +they brought thee from the north, _Lalji_--the maiden who had grown to +womanhood ere thy return from thy travels to take up thy father's +crown?... _Aie_! Thou canst never forget, Beloved; though years and the +multitude of faces have come between us as a veil, thou dost +remember--even as thou didst remember when the message of the Bell came +to thee across the great black waters, and thou didst learn that the +days of thy exile were numbered, that the hour approached when again +thou shouldst sit in the place of thy fathers and rule the world as +once they ruled it." + +A denial stuck in Amber's throat. The words would not come, nor would +they, he believed, have served his purpose could he have commanded +them. If he had found no argument wherewith to persuade Salig Singh, he +found none wherewith to refute the claim of this golden-faced woman who +recognised him for her husband. He was wholly dismayed and aghast. But +while he lingered in indecision, staring in the woman's face, her look +of petulance was replaced by one of divine forgiveness and compassion. +And she gave him no time to think or to avoid her; in a twinkling she +had thrown herself upon him again, was in his arms and crushing her +lips upon his. + +"Nay," she murmured, "but I did wrong thee, Beloved! Perchance," she +told him archly, "thou didst not think to see me so soon, or in this +garden? Perchance surprise hath robbed thee of thy wits--and thy tongue +as well, O wordless one? Or thou art overcome with joy, as I am +overcome, and smitten dumb by it, as I am not? _Aho, Lalji!_ was ever a +woman at loss for words to voice her happiness?" And nestling to him +she laughed quietly, with a note as tender and sweet as the cooing of a +wood-dove to its mate. + +"Nay, but there is a mistake." He recovered the power of speech +tardily, and would have put her from him; but she held tight to him. "I +am not thy husband, nor yet a Rajput. I come from America, the far land +where thy husband died.... Nay, it doth pain me to hurt thee so, Ranee, +but the mistake is not of my making, and it hath been carried too far. +Thy husband died in my presence--" + +"It is so, then!" she cut him short. And his arms were suddenly empty, +to his huge relief. "Indeed they had warned me that thou wouldst tell +this story and deny me--why, I know not, unless it be that thou art +unworthy of thy lineage, a coward and a weakling!" Her small foot +stamped angrily and on every limb of her round body bracelets and +anklets clashed and shimmered. "And so thou hast returned only to +forswear me and thy kingdom, O thou of little spirit!" The scarlet lips +curled and the eyes grew cold and hard with contempt. "If that be so, +tell me, why hast thou returned at all? To die? For that thou must +surely come to, if it be in thy mind to defy the behests of the Voice, +thou king without a kingdom!... Why, then, art thou here, rather than +running to hide in some far place, thinking to escape with thy +worthless life--worthless even to thee, who art too craven to make a +man's use of it--from the Vengeance of the Body?... Dost think I am to +be tricked and hoodwinked--I, in whose heart thine image hath been +enshrined these many weary years?" + +"I neither think, nor know, nor greatly care, Ranee," Amber interposed +wearily. "Doubtless I deserve thine anger and thy scorn, since I am not +he who thou wouldst have me be. If death must be my portion for this +offence, for that I resemble Har Dyal Rutton ... then it is written +that I am to die. My business here in Khandawar hath concern neither +with thee, nor with the State, not yet with the Gateway of Swords--of +the very name of which I am weary.... Now," and his mouth settled in +lines of unmistakable resolve, "I will go; nor do I think that there be +any here to stop me." + +He wheeled about, prepared to fight his way out of the palace, if need +be. Indeed, it was in his mind that a death there were as easy as one +an hour after sunrise; for he had little doubt but that he was to die +if he remained obdurate, and the hospitality of the Rajput would cease +to protect him the moment he set foot upon the marble bund of his +bungalow. + +But the woman sprang after him and caught his arm. "Of thy pity," she +begged breathlessly, "hold for a space until I have taken thought.... +Thou knowest that if what thou hast told me be the truth, then am I +widow before my time--widowed and doomed!" + +"Doomed?" + +"Aye!" And there was real terror in her eyes and voice. "Doomed to +_sati_. For, since I am a widow--since thou dost maintain thou art not +my husband--then my face hath been looked upon by a man not of mine own +people, and I am dishonoured. Fire alone can cleanse me of that +defilement--the pyre and the death by flame!" + +"Good God! you don't mean that! Surely that custom has perished!" + +"Thou shouldst know that it dieth not. What to us women in whose bodies +runs the blood of royalty, is an edict of your English Government? +What, the Sirkar itself to us in Khandawar?" She laughed bitterly. "I +am a Rohilla, a daughter of kings: my dishonour may be purged only by +flame. _Arre_! that I should live to meet with such fate--I, Naraini, +to perish in the flower of my beauty.... For I am beautiful, am I not?" +She dropped the veil which instinctively she had caught across her +face, and met his gaze with childish coquetry, torn though she seemed +to be by fear and disappointment. + +"Thou art assuredly most beautiful, Ranee," Amber told her, with a +break in his voice, very compassionate. And he spoke simple truth. "Of +thy kind there is none more lovely in the world ..." + +"There was tenderness then in your tone, my lord!" she caught him up +quickly. "Is there no mercy in thy heart for me?... Who is this woman +across the seas who hath won thy love?... Aye, even that I know--that +thou dost love this fair daughter of the English. Didst thou not lose +the picture of her that was taken with the magic-box of the sahibs?... +Is it for her sake that thou dost deny me, O my husband? Is she more +fair than I, are her lips more sweet?" + +"I am not thy husband," he declared vehemently, appalled by her +reversion to that delusion. "Till this hour I have never seen thee; nor +is the sahiba of any concern to thee. Let me go, please." + +But she had him fast and he could not have shaken her off but with +violence. He had been a strong man indeed who had not been melted to +tenderness by her beauty and her distress. She lifted her glorious face +to him, pleading, insistent, and played upon him with her voice of +gold. "Yet a moment gone thou didst tell me I was greatly gifted with +beauty. Have I changed in thine eyes, O my king? Canst thou look upon +this poor beauty and hear me tell thee of my love--and indeed I am +altogether thine, _Lalji_!--and harden thy heart against me?... What +though it be as thou hast said? What though thou art of a truth not of +the house of Rutton, nor yet a Rajput? Let us say that this is so, +however hard it be to credit: even so, am _I_ not reward enough for thy +renunciation?" + +"I know not thy meaning, Ranee, I--" + +"Come, then, and I will show thee, my king. Come thou with me.... Nay, +why shouldst thou falter? There is naught for thee to fear--save me." +She tugged at his hand and laughed low, in a voice that sang like +smitten glasses. "Come, Beloved!" + +Unwillingly, he humoured her. This could not last long.... The woman +half led, half dragged him to the northern boundary of the garden, +where they entered a little turret builded out from the walls over an +abyss fully three-hundred feet in depth. And here, standing upon the +verge of the parapet, with naught but a foot high coping between her +and the frightful fall, utterly fearless and unutterably lovely, +Naraini flung out a bare, jewelled arm in an eloquent gesture. + +"See, my king!" she cried, her voice vibrant, her eyes kindling as they +met his. "Look down upon thy kingdom. North, south, east, west--look!" +she commanded. "Wherever thine eyes may turn, and farther than they can +see upon the clearest day, this land is all thine ... for the taking. +Look and tell me thou hast strength to renounce it ... and me, +Beloved!" + +A little giddy with the consciousness of their perilous height, his +breath coming harshly, he looked--first down to the lake that shone +like a silver dollar set in velvet, then up the misty distances of the +widening valley through which ran the stream that fed the lake, and out +to the hills that closed it in, miles away, and then farther yet over +the silvered summits of the great, rough hills that rolled away +endlessly, like a sea frozen in its fury. + +"There lies thy kingdom, O my king!" The bewitching voice cooed +seduction at his shoulder. "There and ... here." She sought his hand +and placed it firmly upon her bosom, holding it there with gentle +pressure until he felt the thumping of her heart and the warm flesh +that heaved beneath a shred of half-transparent lace. + +Reddening and a little shaken, he snatched his hand away. And she +laughed chidingly. + +"From the railway in the north to the railway in the south, all the +land is Khandawar, Beloved: thine inheritance--thine for the taking ... +even as I am thine, if thou wilt take me.... Look upon it, thy father's +kingdom, then upon me, thy queen.... Yea!" she cried, throwing back her +head and meeting his gaze with eye languorous beneath their heavy +silken lashes. "Yea, I am altogether thine, my king! Wilt thou cast me +aside, then, who am faint with love for thee?... Never hast thou +dreamed of love such as the love that I bear for thee. How could it be +otherwise, when thou hast passed thy days in the chill exile of the +North? O my husband, turn not from me--" + +He pulled himself together and stood away. "Madam," he said with an +absurdly formal bow, "I am not your husband." + +She opened her arms with infinite allure. "It is so little that is +asked of thee--only to ascend thy father's throne and be honoured of +all Bharuta, only to wield the sceptre that is thine by right, only to +reign an undisputed king in two kingdoms--Khandawar and thy Naraini's +heart!" + +"I am very sorry," he returned with the same preciseness. "It is quite +impossible. Besides, it seems that you leave the Sirkar altogether out +of your calculations. It may not have occurred to you that the Supreme +Government of India may have something to say about the contemplated +change." + +He saw her bite her lips with chagrin, and the look she flashed to his +face was anything but kind and tender. "_Arre!_" she laughed +derisively. "And of what account is this frail, tottering Sirkar's will +besides the Will of the Body? Of what avail its dicta against the +rulings of the Bell? Thou knowest--" + +"Pardon, I know nothing. I have told thee, Ranee, that I am not Har +Dyal Rutton." + +She was mistress of a thousand artifices. Brought to a standstill on +the one line of attack, she diverged to another without the quiver of +an eyelash to betray her discomfiture. + +"Yea, thou hast told me," she purred. "But I, Naraini, _I_ know what I +know. Thou dost deny thyself even as thou dost deny me, but ... art +thou willing to be put to the proof, my king?" + +"If you've any means of proving my identity, I would thank you for +making use of it, Ranee." + +"There is the test of the Token, _Lalji_." + +"I am not aware of it." + +"The test of the Token--the ring that was brought to thee, the signet +of thy House. Surely thou hast it with thee?" + +Since that night in Calcutta Amber had resumed his habit of carrying +the Token in the chamois bag. Now, on the reflection that it had been +given him for a special purpose, which had been frustrated by the death +of Dhola Baksh, so that he had no further use for it, he decided +against the counsels of prudence. "What's the odds," he asked himself, +"if I do lose it? I don't want the damn' thing--it's brought me nothing +but trouble, thus far." And he thrust a hand within his shirt and +brought forth the emerald. "Here it is," he told the woman cheerfully. +"Now this test?" "Place it upon thy finger--so, even upon thy little +finger, as was thy father's wont with it. Now lift up thine arm, so, +and turn the stone to the west, toward Kathiapur." + +Without comprehension he yielded to this whim, folding up his right arm +and turning the emerald to the quarter indicated by Naraini. + +The hour had drawn close upon dawn. A cold air breathed down the valley +and was chill to them in that lofty eyrie. The moon, dipping towards +the rim of the world, was poised, a globe of dull silver, upon the +ridge of a far, dark hill. As they watched it dropped out of sight and +everything was suddenly very bleak and black. + +And a curious thing happened. + +Naraini cried out sharply--"_Aho_!"--as if unable to contain her +excitement. + +Somewhere in the palace behind them a great gong boomed like thunder. + +A pause ensued, disturbed only by the fluttering of the woman's breath: +for the space of thirty pulse-beats nothing happened. Then Naraini's +fingers closed like bands of steel about Amber's left wrist. + +"See!" she cried in a voice of awe, while the bracelets shivered and +clashed upon her outstretched arm, "The Eye, my king, the Eye!" + +Amber shut his teeth upon an exclamation of amaze. For just above the +far, dark mountain ridge, uncannily brilliant in the void of the pale, +moonlit firmament, a light had blazed out; a vivid emerald light, +winking and stabbing the darkness with shafts of seemingly supernatural +radiance. + +"And thy ring, lord--look! The Token!" + +The great emerald seemed to have caught and to be answering the light +Naraini called the Eye; in the stone's depths an infernal fire leaped +and died and leaped again, now luridly blazing, now fitfully a-quiver +as though about to vanish, again strong and steady: even as the light +of the strange emerald star above the mountains ebbed and flowed +through the night. + +Naraini shuddered and cried out guardedly for very fear. "By Indur, it +is even as the Voice foretold! Nay, Heaven-born"--she caught his sleeve +and forcibly pulled down his hand--"tempt not the Unseen further. And +put away this Token, lest a more terrible thing befall us. There be +mysteries that even we of the initiate may not comprehend, my lord. It +is not well to meddle with the unknown." + +The ring was off his finger now and the woman was cramming it into his +coat-pocket with tremulous hands. And where the Eye had shone, the sky +was blank. They stood in darkness, Amber mute with perplexity, Naraini +clinging to his arm and shaking like a reed in the wind. + +"Now am I frightened, lord of my heart! Lead me back to the garden, for +I am but a woman and afraid. Who am I, Naraini, to see the Eye? What am +I, a weak woman, to trespass upon the Mysteries? I am very much afraid. +Do thou take me hence and comfort me, my king!" She drew his arm about +her waist, firm, round, and slender, and held it so, her body yielding +subtly to his, her head drooping wearily upon his shoulder. + +They moved slowly from the turret and back along the lighted walks of +the garden, the woman apparently content, Amber preoccupied--to tell +the truth, more troubled than he would have been willing to confess. As +for the intimacy of their attitude, he was temporarily careless of it; +it meant less to him than the woman guessed. It seems likely that she +inferred a conquest from his indifference, for when they had come back +to the tank of the gold-fish beneath the banian she slipped from his +embrace and confronted him with a face afire with elation. + +"See now how thou art altogether controverted, _Lalji!_" she cried +joyfully. "No longer canst thou persist that thou art other than thy +true self, the lord of Naraini's heart, the king returned to his +kingdom.... For who would dare give the lie to the Eye?... Indeed," she +continued with a low, sighing laugh, "I myself had begun to doubt, my +faith borne down and overcome by thy repeated denials; but now I know +thee. Did not the Bell foretell that the Eye should be seen of men only +when Har Dyal Rutton had returned to his kingdom, and then only when he +wore the Token? Even as it was said, so has it been.... And now art +thou prepared to go?" + +"Whither?" + +"To Kathiawar--even to the threshold of the Gateway?... There is yet +time, before the dawn, and it were wise to go quickly, my king; but for +one night more is the Gateway open to receive thee. Thou didst see the +saddled stallions in the courtyard? They wait there for thee, to bear +thee to Kathiawar.... Nay, it were better that thou shouldst wait, +mayhap, for the hours be few before the rising of the sun. Go then to +thy rest, heart of my heart, since thou must leave me; and this night +we shall ride, thou and I, together to the Gateway." + +"So be it," he assented, with a grave inclination of his head. +Convinced of the thanklessness of any further attempt to convince the +woman against her will, he gave it up, and was grateful for the respite +promised him. In twelve or eighteen hours he might accomplish +much--with the aid of Labertouche. At worst he would find some means to +communicate with the Farrells and then seek safety for himself in +flight or hiding until what he had come to term "that damned +Gateway-thing" should be closed and he be free to resume his strange +wooing. Some way, somehow, he could contrive to extricate himself and +his beloved. + +Therefore he told the woman: "Be it so, O Queen! Now, I go." + +"And leave me," she pouted prettily, "with no word but that, my king? +Am I not worth a caress--not even when I beg for it?" + +He smiled down at her, tolerant and amused, and impulsively caught her +to him. "The point's well taken," he said. "Decidedly you're worth it, +Naraini. And if you were not, the show was!" + +And he kissed and left her, all in a breath. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +SUNRISE FOR TWO + + +I + +Amber found his way out of the garden without difficulty; at the +doorway an eunuch waited. The Maharana himself, perhaps in deference to +the dictates of discretion, did not reappear, and Amber had no desire +to see him again. He was eager only to get away, to find a place and +time to think, and to get into communication with Labertouche. + +The eunuch bowed submissively to his demand to be shown out, and +silently led him down through the echoing marble corridors and +galleries of the many-tiered palace. They took a different way from +that by which Amber had ascended; had his life depended on it, he could +not have found his way back to the garden of Naraini, but by accident. + +As they passed through the lower court of stables he remarked the fact +that the stallions were being led away to their stalls. The +circumstances confirmed Naraini's statement; the hour of their +usefulness was ended for the day--or, rather, for the night. + +The Virginian wondered dully if ever he would find himself astride one +of the superb animals. After what he had witnessed and been a part of +there was for him no longer any circumscribing horizon to the world of +possibility. For him the improbable no longer existed. He had met the +incredible face to face and found it real. + +In the cavern-like chamber at the water-level Dulla Dad had the boat in +readiness. Amber embarked, not without a sigh of relief, and the +Mohammedan with his double-bladed paddle drove the boat out of the +secret entrance, in an impassive silence. In the stern Amber watched +the indefinite grey light of dawn wavering over the face of the waters +and wondered ... + +The boat swung in gently to the marble steps of the bund. Amber rose +and stepped ashore, very tired and very much inclined to believe he +would presently wake up to a sane and normal world. + +"Hazoor," the voice of Dulla Dad hailed him. He turned. "Hazoor, I was +to say that at the third hour after sunset to-night this boat will be +in waiting here. You are to call me by name, and I will put in for you, +hazoor." + +"What's that? I don't understand.... Oh, very well." + +"And I was to say further, my lord, these words: 'You shall find but +one way to Kathiapur.'" + +Amber shook his head, smiling. "If you don't mind getting yourself +disliked on my account, Dulla Dad, you may take back to the author of +that epigram this answer: 'You shall find but one way to Jehannum, and +that right speedily.' Good-morning, Dulla Dad." + +"The peace of God abide always with the Heaven-born!" + +With a single, strong stroke the creature of the palace sent the boat +skimming far out from the bund, and, turning, headed for the palace. + +Amber entered the bungalow, to find the khansamah already awake and +moving about. At the Virginian's request he shuffled off to prepare +coffee--much coffee, very strong and black and hot, Amber stipulated. +He needed the stimulant badly. He was sleepy and his head was in a +whirl. + +He sat lost in thought until the khansamah brought the decoction, then +roused and drank it as it came from the pot, without sugar, gulping +down huge bitter mouthfuls of the scalding black fluid. But the effect +that he expected and desired was strangely long in making itself felt. +He marvelled at his drowsiness, nodding and blinking over his empty +cup. Out of doors the skies were hot and blue--white with forerunners +of the sun, and the world of men was stirring and making preparation +against the business of the day; but Amber, who had a work so serious +and so instant to his hand, sat on in dreamy lethargy, musing.... + +The faces of two women stood out vividly against the misty formless +void before his eyes: the face of Naraini and that of Sophia Farrell. +He looked from one to the other, stupidly contrasting them, trying to +determine which was the lovelier, until their features blurred and ran +together and the two became as one and ... + +The khansamah tiptoed cautiously into the room and found the Virginian +sleeping like a log, his head upon the table. His face was deeply +coloured with crimson, as if a fever burned him, and his breathing was +loud and stertorous. + +Pausing, the native beckoned to one who skulked without, and the latter +entering, the two laid hold of the unconscious man and bore him to the +charpoy. The second native slipped silver money into the khansamah's +palm. + +"He will sleep till evening," he said. "If any come asking for him, say +that he has gone abroad, leaving no word. More than this you do not +know. The sepoys have an order to prevent all from entrance." + +The khansamah touched his forehead respectfully. "It is an order. +Shabash!" he muttered. + +A shaft of sunlight struck in through the window and lay stark upon the +sleeper's face. He did not move. The khansamah drew close the shades, +and with the other left the room in semi-dusk. + + +II + +Beneath the spreading banian, by the cistern of the goldfish, Naraini +with smouldering eyes watched Amber disappear in the wilderness of +shrubbery. He walked as a man with a set purpose, never glancing back. +She laughed uneasily but waited motionless where he had left her, until +the echo of his boot-heels on the marble slabs had ceased to ring in +the neighbouring corridor. Then, lifting a flower-like hand to her +mouth, she touched her lips gently and with an air of curiosity. The +resentment in her eyes gave place to an emotion less superficial. "By +Indur and by Har!" she swore softly. "In one thing at least he is like +a Rajput: he kisses as a man kisses." + +She moved indolently along the walk to the rug beneath the canopy where +he had found her, her lithe, languid, round body in its gorgeous +draperies no whit less insolent than the flaming bougainvillea whose +glowing magenta blossoms she touched with idle fingers as she passed. + +The east was grey with dusk of dawn--a light that grew apace, making +garish the illumination of the flickering, smoking, many-coloured lamps +in the garden. Naraini clapped her hands. Soft footsteps sounded in the +gallery and one of her handmaidens threaded the shrubbery to her side. + +"The lamps, Unda," said the queen; "their light, I think, little +becomes me. Put them out." And when this was done, she composedly +ordered her pipe and threw herself lazily at length upon a pile of +kincob cushions, her posture the more careless since she knew herself +secure from observation; the garden being private to her use. + +When the tire-woman had departed, leaving at Naraini's side a small +silver _huqa_ loaded with fine-cut Lucknow weed, a live ember of +charcoal in the middle of the bowl, she sat up and began to smoke, her +face of surpassing loveliness quaintly thoughtful as she sucked at the +little mouthpiece of chased silver and exhaled faint clouds of aromatic +vapour. From time to time she smiled pensively and put aside the tube +while she played with the rings upon her slender, petal-like fingers; +five rings there were to each hand, from the heavy thumb circlet that +might possibly fit a man's little finger to the tiny band that was on +her own, all linked together by light strands of gold radiating from +the big, gem-encrusted boss of ruddy gold midway between her slim round +waist and dimpled knuckles.... + +The tread of boots with jingling spurs sounded in the gallery, warning +her. She sighed, smiled dangerously to herself, and carelessly adjusted +her veil, leaving rather more than half her face bare. Salig Singh +entered the garden and found his way to her, towering over her beneath +the canopy, brave in his green and tinsel uniform. She looked up with a +listless hauteur that expressed her attitude toward the man. + +"_Achcha_!" she said sharply. "Thou art tardy, Heaven-born. Yet have I +waited for thee this half-hour gone, heavy with sleep though I +be--waited to know the pleasure of my lord." + +There was a mockery but faintly disguised in her tone. The Maharana +seemed to find it not unpleasant, for he smiled grimly beneath his +moustache. + +"There was work to be done," he said briefly--"for the Cause. And +thou--how hast thou wrought, O Breaker of Hearts?" + +The woman cast the silver mouthpiece from her and clasped her hands +behind her head. "Am I not Naraini?" + +"The man is ours?" + +"Mine," she corrected amiably. His face darkened with a scowl of +jealousy and she laughed in open derision. "Were I Naraini could I not +divine the heart of a man?" + +"By what means?" + +"What is that to thee, O Heaven-born?" She snuggled her body +complacently into the luxurious pile of cushions. "If I have +accomplished the task thou didst set for me, what concern hast thou +with the means I did employ? Thou art only Salig Singh, Maharana of +Khandawar, but I am Naraini, a free woman." + +"Thou--!" Rage choked the Rajput. "Thou," he sputtered--"thou art--" + +"Softly, Heaven-born, softly--lest I loose a thunderbolt for thy +destruction. Is it wise to forget that Naraini holds thy fate in the +hollow of her hands?" She sat forward, speaking swiftly and with +malice. "Thou art pledged to produce Har Dyal Rutton in the Hall of the +Bell before another sunrise, and none but Naraini knows to what a +perilous resort thou art driven to redeem thy word." + +"I was lied to," he argued sullenly. "A false tale was brought me--by +one who hath repented of his error! If I was told that Har Dyal Rutton +would be in India upon such-and-such a day, am I to blame that I did +promise to bring him to the Gateway?" + +"And seeing that the man is dead, art thou to blame for bringing in his +place a substitute, even so poor a changeling as this man Amber? Nay, +be not angry; do I blame thee? Have I done aught but serve thee to the +end thou dost desire?... Thou shouldst be grateful to me, rather than +menace me with thine anger.... And," she added sweetly, "it were well +for thee that thou shouldst bear always in mind my intimacy with thy +secret. If thou art king, then am I more than queen, in Khandawar." + +"I am not angry, Naraini," he told her humbly, "but mad with love for +thee--" + +"And lust, my lord, for--power," she interpolated. + +"But if what thou hast said be true--" + +"'Who lies to the King, is already a dead man.' Why should I trouble to +deceive thee, Heaven-born? I tell thee, the man is won. The day shall +declare it: this night will he ride with me to Kathiapur. Why didst +thou not tarry to eavesdrop? Indeed thou hast lost an opportunity that +may never a second time be thine--to learn of the wiles of woman." + +"There was work to be done," he repeated. "I went to take measures +against thy failure." + +"O thou of little faith!" + +"Nay, why should I neglect proper precautions? Whether thy confidence +be justified or no, this night will Har Dyal Rutton--or one like +him--endure the Ordeal of the Gateway." + +"So I have told thee," she assented equably. "He will come, because +Naraini bids him." + +"It may be so. If not, another lure shall draw him." + +She started with annoyance. "The Englishwoman of the picture?" + +"Have I named her?" He lifted his heavy brows in affected surprise. + +"Nay, but--" + +"Secret for secret," he offered: "mine for thine. Is it a bargain, O +Pearl of Khandawar?" + +"Keep thy silly secret, then, as I will keep mine own counsel," she +said, with assumed disdain. It was no part of wisdom, in her +understanding, to tell him of her interview with Amber. A man's +jealousy is a potent weapon in a woman's hands, but must be wielded +with discretion. + +He was persistent: "I will back my plan against thine, Ranee." + +"So be it," she said shortly. "Whichever wins, the stake is won for +both. What doth it matter?" + +She rose and moved impatiently down the walk and back again, bangles +tinkling, jewels radiant on wrist and brow, ankle and bosom. The man +watched her with sulky eyes until she turned, then bent his head and +stood glowering at the earth and twisting his moustache. She paused +before him, hands on hips, and raised her eyes in silent inquiry. He +pretended not to notice her. She sighed with a pretence of humility +thinly disguised. "Thy trouble, my lord?" she rallied him. + +"I have wondered," he said heavily: "will he pass?" + +"If not, it were well for thee to die this night, O Heaven-born." + +"That was my thought." + +"Thou hast little need to worry, lord." Woman-like she shifted to suit +his humour. "He is a man: I answer for that, though ... he is no fool. +Still, when the hour strikes, what he must, that will he endure for the +sake of that which Naraini hath promised him." + +"Or for another," Salig Singh growled into his beard. + +"I did not hear." + +"I said naught. I am distraught." + +"Be of good heart," she comforted him still further. "If he doth fail +to survive the Ordeal--Har Dyal Rutton hath died. If he doth survive--" + +"Har Dyal Rutton shall die within the hour," Salig Singh concluded +grimly. "But ... I am troubled. I cannot but ask myself continually: +Were it not wiser to confess failure and abide the outcome?" + +"How long wouldst thou abide the outcome, my king, after thou hadst +informed the Council of this deception to which thou hast been too +willing and ready a party?... He who misled you died a dog's death. But +thou--art thou in love with death?" + +"Unless thy other name be Death, Naraini ..." + +"Or if the Council should spare thee--as is unlikely? The patience of +the Body is as the patience of Kings--scant; and its mercy is like unto +its patience.... But say thou art spared: what then? How long art thou +prepared to wait until the Members of the Body shall again be in such +complete accord as now? When again shall all Hindustan be ripe for +revolt?... _Aho!_ Thou wouldst have sweet patience in the waiting, +Salig Singh!... Let matters rest as they be, my lord"--this a trace +imperiously. "Leave the man to me: I stand sponsor for him until the +Gateway shall have received him and--and perhaps for a little +afterwards." + +"Thou art right as ever." He lifted his gaze to meet hers and his eyes +flamed. "I leave my life on your knees, Naraini. I love thee and ... by +all the gods, thou art altogether a woman!" + +"And thou ... a man, your Highness?" she countered provokingly. "Nay!" +she continued, evading him with a supple squirm, "be content until this +affair be consummated. Wait until the time when an empress shall reign +over all Bharuta and thou, my lord, shall be her Minister of State." + +The man's voice shook. "That hour is not far off, my queen. Thou wilt +not keep me waiting longer?" + +She gave him the quick promise of her eyes. "Thou shouldst know--thou +of all men, my lord.... But see!" It was necessary to distract him and +she seized hastily upon the first pretext. "The last day of the old +order dawns ... and the dawn is crimson, my lord, as with blood!" Her +soft scarlet lips curled thirstily and showed her teeth, small, sharp +and white as pearls. "I think," she added with somber conviction, "this +omen is propitious!" + +She swept away from him, toward the parapet. He took a single step in +pursuit and halted, following her with a glance that was at once a +caress and a threat. + +She paused only when she could go no further, and stood in silent +waiting. + +Deep down in the valley the city was stirring from its sleep; the dull +and peaceful humming of its hived hordes rose to her, pulsating in the +still air. Above the eastern ridge the sky was hot and angry, banded +with magenta, scarlet, and cadmium, and shot with expanding shafts of +fierce radiance, like ribs of a fan of fire. In a long and breathless +instant of suspense the hilltops blushed with the glare and threw down +the light to the night mists swimming in the valley, rendering them +opalescent, as with a heart of flame. + +With eyes half-veiled by long languorous lashes the woman threw back +her head until her swelling throat was tense. She raised her arms and +stretched them wide. The sun, soaring suddenly, a crimson disk above +the ridge, seemed to strike fire from her strange, savage beauty as +from a jewel. Bathed in its ruddy glare she seemed to embody in her +frail, slight form all that was singular to that cruel, passionate land +of fire and steel. Her face became suffused, her blood leaping in +response to the ardour of the sun. + +Her parted lips moved, but the man, who had drawn near enough to hear, +caught two words only. + +"_Naraini!... Empress!_" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE WAY TO KATHIAPUR + + +Gall and wormwood in his mouth, more bitter than remorse, Amber became +conscious. Or perhaps it were more true to say that he struggled out of +unconsciousness, dragging his ego back by main will-power from the deep +oblivion of drugged slumber. One by one his faculties fought their way +past the barrier, until he was fully sentient, save that his memory +drowsed. His head was hot and heavy, his eyes burned in their sockets +like balls of live charcoal, a dulled buzzing sounded in his ears, his +very heart felt sore and numb; he was as one who wakes from evil dreams +to the blackness of foreknown despair. + +He lay for a time without moving. Because it was dark and his memory +not working properly, time had ceased to be for him, and to-day was as +yesterday and to-morrow. The ceiling-cloth above him was blood-red with +light from the sepoys' fire in the compound, and all was as it had been +when he had first lain down the night before. And yet.... + +Suddenly he raised himself upon the charpoy and called huskily for the +khansamah. Promptly the squat white figure that he remembered appeared +in the doorway. "Bring lights," Amber ordered, peremptory. + +"Bring lights quickly--and water." And when the man had returned with a +lamp, which he put on the table, Amber seized the red earthenware +water-jug and drained it greedily. Returning it, empty, to the brown +hands, he motioned to the man to wait, while he consulted his watch. It +had run down. He thrust it back into his pocket and enquired: "What's +o'clock?" + +"Eight of the evening, sahib." + +Amber gasped and stared. "Eight of the ... Let me think. Go and bring +me food and a brandy-peg--or, hold on! Bring a bottle of soda-water and +a glass only." + +The khansamah withdrew. Amber fell back with his shoulders to the wall +and stared unwinking at the lamp. He distinctly remembered undressing +before going to bed; he now found himself fully clothed. He felt of his +pocket, and found the emerald ring there, instead of in its chamois +case. Then it had not been a nightmare! + +He had a bottle of brandy which had never been uncorked, in his +travelling-kit. Rising, he found it and inspected the cork narrowly to +make sure it had not been tampered with; then he drew it. + +The khansamah returned with the glass and an unopened bottle of +Schweppe's, and prepared the drink under eyes that watched him +narrowly. While Amber drank he laid a place for him at the table. When +he left the room a second time the Virginian produced his automatic +pistol and satisfied himself that it remained loaded and in good +working order. + +In the course of a few minutes the native reappeared with a tray of +food and pot of coffee. These arranged, he stood by the chair, ready to +serve the guest. Then he found himself looking into the muzzle of +Amber's weapon, and became apparently rigid with terror. + +"Sahib--!" + +"Make no outcry, dog, and tell me no lies, if you value your +contemptible life. Why did you drug me--at whose instance?" + +"Sahib!..." + +"Answer me quickly, son of vipers!" + +"By Dhola Baksh, hazoor, I am innocent! Another has done these +things--he who served you last night, belike, and whose place I have +taken." + +Now the oaths of India are many and various, so that a new specimen +need not be held wonderful. But Amber sat bolt upright, his eyes +widening and his jaw dropping. "Dhola--!" he said, and brought his +teeth together with an audible click, staring at the khansamah as if he +were a recrudescence of a prehistoric mammal. He caught a motion of the +head and a wave of the hand toward the window, warning him that there +might be an eavesdropper lurking without, and rose admirably to the +emergency. + +"That is a lie, misbegotten son of an one-eyed woman of shame! By the +Gateway at Kathiapur, that is a lie! Speak, brother of jackals and +father of swine, lest my temper overcome me and I make carrion of you!" + +"My lord, hear me!" protested the man in an extremity of fright. "These +be the words of truth. If otherwise, let my head be forfeit.... Early +in the morning you returned from the lake, heavy with sleep, and so +soundly have you slept since that hour that no effort of mine could +rouse you, though many came to the door, making inquiry. I am Ram Lal, +a true man, and no trafficker in drugs and potions." + +"Even so!" said Amber, ironic. "But if, on taking thought, I find +you've lied to me ... Go now and hold yourself fortunate in this, that +I am not a man of hasty judgment." + +"Hazoor!" Like a shadow harried by a wind of night, the khansamah +scurried from the room. But on the threshold he paused long enough to +lay a significant finger upon his lips and nod toward the table. + +Amber put away his pistol, sighed from the bottom of his soul, and, +seating himself, without the least misgiving, broke his long fast with +ravenous appetite, clearing every dish and emptying the coffee pot of +all save dregs. Then, with a long yawn of satisfaction, repletion, and +relief, he lighted a cigarette and stretched himself, happily conscious +of returning strength and sanity. + +From the khansamah's quarters came an occasional clash of crockery and +pattering of naked feet. Outside, in the compound, the sepoys were +chattering volubly; their words were indistinguishable, but from their +constantly increasing animation Amber inferred that they were keenly +relishing the topic of discussion. He became sure of this when, at +length, his curiosity roused, he went to the window and peered out +between the wooden slats of the blind. The little company was squatting +in a circle round the fire, and a bottle was passing from hand to hand. + +He turned back, puzzled, to find the khansamah calmly seated at the +table and enjoying one of Amber's choicest cigarettes. + +"Thank God," he said, with profound emotion, "for a civilised smoke!" + +"Labertouche!" cried Amber. + +The pseudo-khansamah rose, bowed formally, and shook hands with +considerable cordiality. "It's good to see you whole and sound," he +said. "I had to wait until Ram Nath's work began to show results. He's +out there, you know, keeping the bottle moving. I don't believe those +damned sepoys will bother us much, now, but we've got no time at all to +spare. Now tell me what you have to tell, omitting nothing of the +slightest consequence." + +Amber dropped into a chair, and the Englishman sat near to him. "I say, +thank God for you, Labertouche! You don't know how I've needed you." + +"I can fancy. I've had a ripping time of it myself. Sorry I couldn't +communicate with you safely before you left Calcutta. But we've not a +minute to waste. Get into your yarn, please; explanations later, if we +can afford 'em." + +Inhaling with deep enjoyment, he narrowed his dark eyes, listening +intently to Amber's concise narrative of his experiences since their +parting before the stall of Dhola Baksh in the Machua Bazaar. Not once +was he interrupted by word or sign from Labertouche; and even when the +tale was told the latter said nothing, but dropped his gaze +abstractedly to the smouldering stump of his cigarette. + +"And you?" demanded the Virginian. "Have pity, Labertouche! Can't you +see I'm being eaten alive by curiosity?" + +Labertouche eyed him blankly for an instant. "Oh!" he said, with an +effort freeing his mind from an intense concentration of thought. "I? +What's there to tell? I've been at work. That's all.... I was jostled +off to one side when the row started in the bazaar, and so lost you. +There was then nothing to do but strike back to the hotel and wait for +a clue. You can figure my relief when you dropped out of that +ticca-ghari! I gave you the word to go on to Darjeeling, intending to +join you _en route_. But you know why that jaunt never came off. I +found out my mistake before morning, wired you, and left Calcutta +before you, by the same train that conveyed his Majesty the Maharana of +Khandawar. Fortunately enough we had Ram Nath already on the ground, +working up another case--I'll tell you about it some time. He's one of +our best men--a native, but loyal to the core, and wrapped up in his +work. He'd contrived to get a billet as tonga-wallah to the Kuttarpur +_bunia_ who has the dâk-service contract. I myself had arranged to have +the telegraph-babu here transferred, and myself appointed in his place. +So I was able to attach myself to the 'tail' of the Maharana without +exciting comment. Miss Farrell came by the same train, but Salig Singh +was in too great a hurry to get home to pay any attention to her, and +I, knowing you'd be along, arranged that tonga accident with Ram Nath. +He bribed his brother tonga-wallah to bring it about." + +"Thank you," said Amber from his heart. + +Labertouche impatiently waved the interruption aside. "I looked for you +at the telegraph office this morning, but of course when you didn't +appear I knew something was up. So I concocted a message to you for an +excuse, came down, engaged the khansamah in conversation (I think he +had some idea I was an agent of the other side) and ... he is an old +man, not very strong. Once indoors, I had little trouble with him. He's +now enjoying perfect peace, with a gag to insure it, beneath his own +charpoy. Ram Nath happened along opportunely and created a diversion +with his gin-bottle. That seems to be all, and I'm afraid we mayn't +talk much longer. I must be going--and so must you." + +He glanced anxiously at his watch--a cheap and showy thing, such as +natives delight in. Both men rose. + +"You return to the telegraph station, I presume?" said Amber. + +"Not at all. It wouldn't be worth my while." + +"How's that?" + +"The wires haven't been working since ten this morning," said +Labertouche quietly. Amber steadied himself with the back of his chair. +"You mean they've been cut?" + +"Something of the sort." + +"And that means--" + +"That this infernal conspiracy is scheduled to come to a head +to-night--as you must have inferred, my dear fellow: this is the last +night of your probation. The cutting off of Khandawar from all British +India is a bold move and shows Salig Singh's confidence. It means +simply: 'Governmental interference not desired. Hands off.' He knows +well that we've spies here, that enough has leaked out, unavoidably, to +bring an army corps down on his back within twenty-four hours, if he +permitted even the most innocent-seeming message to get out of the +city." + +Amber whistled with dismay. "And you--" + +"I'm going to find out for myself what's towards in Kathiapur." + +"You're going there--alone?" + +"Not exactly; I shall have company. A gentleman of the Mohammedan +persuasion is going to change places with me for the night. No; he +doesn't know it yet, but I have reason to believe that he got an +R.S.V.P. for the festive occasion and intends to put in a midnight +appearance. So I purpose saving him the trouble. It's only a two-hour +ride." + +"But the risk!" + +Labertouche chuckled grimly. "It's the day's work, my boy. I'm not sure +I shan't enjoy it. Besides, I mayn't hang back where my subordinates +have not feared to go. We've had a man in Kathiapur since day before +yesterday." + +"And I? What am I to do?" + +"Your place is at Miss Farrell's side. No; you'd be only a hindrance to +me. Get that out of your thoughts. Three years ago I found time to make +a pretty thorough exploration of Kathiapur, and, being blessed with an +excellent memory, I shall be quite at home." + +Amber made a gesture of surrender. "Of course you're right," he said. +"You're always right, confound you!" + +"Exactly," agreed Labertouche, smiling. "I'm only here to help you +escape to the Residency. Raikes and Colonel Farrell have already been +advised to make preparations for a siege or for instant flight, if I +give the word. They need you far more than I shall. It would be simple +madness for you to venture to Kathiapur to-night. The case is clear +enough for you to see the folly of doing anything of the sort." + +"It may be clear to you...." + +"See here," said Labertouche, with pardonable impatience; "I'm +presuming that you know enough of Indian history to be aware that the +Rutton dynasty in Khandawar is the proudest and noblest in India; it +has descended in right line from the Sun. There's not a living Hindu +but will acknowledge its supremacy, be he however ambitious. That makes +it plain, or ought to, why Har Dyal Rutton, the last male of his line, +was--and is--considered the natural, the inevitable, leader of the +Second Mutiny. It devolved upon Salig Singh to produce him; Salig Singh +promised and--is on the point of failure. I can't say precisely what +penalty he'll be called upon to pay, but it's safe to assume that it'll +be something everlastingly unpleasant. So he's desperate. I can't +believe he has deceived himself into taking you for Rutton, but whether +or no he intends by hook or crook to get you through this Gateway +affair to-night. He's got to. Now you are--or Rutton is--known to be +disloyal to the scheme. Inevitably, then, the man who passes through +that Gateway in his name is to be quietly eliminated before he can +betray anything--in other words, as soon as he has been put through the +'Ordeal,' as they call it, for the sake of appearances and the moral +effect upon the Hindu race at large. Now I think you understand." + +"I think I do, thanks," Amber returned drily. "You're quite right, as I +said before. So I'm off to the Residency. But how to get through that +guard out there?" + +He received no response. In as little time as it took him to step +backwards from Amber, Labertouche had resumed his temporarily discarded +masquerade. Instantaneously it was the khansamah who confronted the +Virginian--the native with head and shoulders submissively bended, as +one who awaits an order. + +Amber, surprised, stared, started to speak, received a sign, and was +silent, the excuse for Labertouche's sudden change of attitude being +sufficiently apparent in an uproar which had been raised without the +least warning in the compound. The advent of a running horse seemed to +have been responsible for it, for the clatter of hoofs as the animal +was checked abruptly in mid-stride was followed by a clamour of drunken +cries, shrieks of alarm, and protests on the part of the sepoys +disturbed in the midst of their carouse. Over all this there rang the +voice of an Englishman swearing good, round, honest British oaths. + +"Stand aside, you hounds!" + +Amber turned pale. "That's Farrell's voice!" he cried, guessing at the +truth. + +Labertouche made no answer, but edged toward the khansamah's quarters. + +The din subsided as Farrell gained the veranda. His feet rang heavily +on the boards, and a second later he thrust the door violently open and +slammed breathlessly into the room, booted, spurred, his keen old face +livid, a riding-whip dangling from one wrist, a revolver in the other +hand. + +He wheeled on the threshold and lifted his weapon, then, with a gasp of +amazement, dropped it. "By Heaven, sir!" he cried, "that's odd! Those +damned sepoys tried to prevent my seeing you and now they've cleared +out, every mother's son of them!" + +Amber stepped to his side; to his own bewilderment, the compound was +deserted; there was not a sepoy in sight. + +"So much the better," he said quickly, the first to recover. "What's +wrong, sir?" + +"Wrong!" Farrell stumbled over to the table and into a chair, panting. +"Everything's wrong! What's gone wrong with you, that we haven't been +able to find you all day?" + +"I've been lying there," Amber told him, nodding to the charpoy, +"drugged. What's happened? Is Miss Farrell--?" + +"Sophia!" The Political lifted his hand to his eyes and let it fall, +with an effect of confusion. "In the name of charity tell me you know +where she is!" + +"You don't mean--" + +"She's gone, Amber--gone! She's disappeared, vanished, been spirited +away! Don't you understand me? She's been kidnapped!" + +In dumb torment, Amber heard a swift, sharp hiss of breath as pregnant +with meaning as a spoken word, and turned to meet Labertouche's eyes, +and to see that the same thought was in both their minds. Salig Singh +had found the way to lure Amber to Kathiapur. + +No spoken word was needed; their understanding was implicit on the +instant. Indeed the secret-agent dared not speak, lest he be overheard +by an eavesdropper and so be the cause of his own betrayal. With a +flutter of white garments he slipped noiselessly from the room, and +Amber knew instinctively that if they were to meet again that night it +would be upon the farther side of the Gateway of Swords. For himself, +his path of duty lay clear to the Virginian's vision; like +Labertouche's, it was the road to Kathiapur. He had no more doubt that +Sophia had been conveyed thither than he had of Farrell's presence +before him. And in his heart he cursed, not Naraini, not Salig Singh, +but himself for his inept folly in bringing to India the photograph +which had been stolen from him and so had discovered to the +conspirators his interest in the girl. + +He thought swiftly of Dulla Dad's parting admonition: "_You shall find +but one way to Kathiapur_." + +"Well, sir? Well?" Exasperated by his silence the Political sprang to +his feet and brought the riding-crop against his leg with a smack like +a gun-shot. "Have you nothing to say? Don't you realise what it means +when a white woman disappears in this land of devils? Good God! you +stand there, doing nothing, saying nothing, like a man with a heart of +stone!" + +"Speak French," Amber interposed quietly. He continued in that tongue, +his tone so steady and imperative that it brought the half-frantic +Englishman to his senses. "Speak French. You must know that we're spied +upon every instant; every word we speak is overheard, probably. Tell me +what happened--how it happened--and keep cool!" + +"You're right; I beg your pardon." Farrell collected himself. "There's +little enough to go on.... You disappointed us this morning. During the +day we got word from a secret but trustworthy source to look out for +trouble from the native side. Nevertheless, Raikes and I were obliged, +by reason of our position, representing Government, to attend the +banquet in honor of the coronation to-morrow. We called in young +Clarkson--the missionary, you know--to stay in the house during our +absence. When we returned the Residency was deserted--only we found +Clarkson bound, gagged, and nearly dead of suffocation in a closet. He +could tell us nothing--had been set upon from behind. Not a servant +remained.... But, by the way, your man Doggott came in by the evening +dâk-tonga." + +"Where's Raikes?" + +"Gone to the palace to threaten Salig Singh with an army corps." + +"You know the telegraph wires are cut?" + +"Yes, but how--" + +"Never mind how I know--the story's too long. The thing to do is to get +troops here without a day's delay." + +"But how?" + +"Take Raikes, Clarkson, and Doggott and ride like hell to Badshah +Junction. Telegraph from there. The four of you ought to be able to +fight your way through." + +"But, man, my daughter!" + +"I know where to find her--or think I do. No matter which, I'll find +her and bring her back to you safely, or die trying. You spoke just now +of a secret but trustworthy source of information: I work with it this +night. I can't mention names--you know why; but that source was in this +room ten minutes ago. He's gone after your daughter now. I follow. +No--I go alone. It's the only way. I know how you feel about it, but +believe me, the thing for you to do is to find some way to summon +British troops. Now the quicker you go, the quicker I'm off. I +can't--daren't move while you're here." + +Farrell eyed him strangely. "I'll go," he said after a pause. "But ... +why can't I--" + +"There are just two white men living, Colonel Farrell, who can go where +I am going to look for your daughter to-night. I'm one of them. The +other is--you know who." + +"One of us is mad," said Farrell with conviction. "I think you are." + +"Or else I know what I'm talking about. In either event you only hinder +me now. Please go." + +His manner impressed the man; for a moment Farrell lingered, doubting, +then impetuously offered his hand. "I'm hanged if I understand why," he +said, "but somehow I believe you know what you're about. Good-night +and--and God be with you, Amber." + +The Virginian followed him to the doorway. Farrell's horse, a docile, +well-trained animal, had come to the edge of the veranda to wait for +his master. Otherwise the compound was as empty as the night was quiet. +Mounting, the Political waved a silent farewell and spurred off toward +the city. Amber passed back through the bungalow to the bund. + +It was a wonderful blue night of clear moonlight, quickened by a rowdy +wind that rioted down the valley from the north. The roughened surface +of the lake was dark save where the moon had blazed its trail of +shimmering golden scales. There was no boat visible, and for the first +time Amber's heart misgave him and he doubted whether it were not best +to seek a mount from the stables of the Residency and try to reach +Kathiapur on his own initiative. But his ignorance of the neighbouring +topography was too great a handicap to be overcome; and now that +Labertouche had gone, he was without a friendly, guiding hand. He could +but deliver himself into the hands of the enemy and do what he might +thereafter. + +He lifted his voice and called: "_Ohé_, Dulla Dad!" + +There came a soft shuffle of feet on the stones behind him, and the +stunted, white-clad figure of Dulla Dad stood at his side, making +respectful obeisance. "Hazoor!" + +"You damned spying scoundrel!" Amber cried, enraged. "You've been +waiting there by the window, listening!" + +"Hazoor," the native quavered in fright, "it was cold upon the water +and you kept me waiting over-long. I landed, seeking shelter from the +wind. If your talk was not for mine ears, remember that you used a +tongue I did not know." + +"So you were listening!" Amber calmed himself. "Never mind. Where's +your boat?" + +"I thought to hide it in the rushes. If the hazoor will be patient for +a little moment ..." The native dropped down from the bund and +disappeared into the reedy tangle of the lake shore. A minute or so +later Amber saw the boat shoot out from the shore and swing in a long, +graceful curve to the steps of the bund. + +"Make haste," he ordered, as he jumped in and took his place. "If I +have kept you waiting, as you say, then I am late." + +"Nay, there is time to spare." Dulla Dad spun the boat round and away. +"I did but think to anticipate your impatience, knowing that you would +assuredly come." + +"Ah, you knew that, Dulla Dad? How did you know?" + +The man giggled softly, plying a busy paddle. "Am I not of the palace, +hazoor? What are secrets in the house of kings? Gossip of herders and +bazaar-women!" + +"And how much more do you know, Dulla Dad?" Amber's tone was ominous. + +"I, hazoor? Who am I to know aught?... Nay, this have I heard"--he +paused cunningly: "'_You shall find but one way to Kathiapur_.'" + +Amber, realising that he had invited this insolence, was fair enough +not to resent it, and held his peace until he could no longer be blind +to the fact that the native was shaping a course almost exactly away +from the Raj Mahal. "What treachery is this, dog?" he demanded. "This +is not the way--" + +"Be not mistrustful of your slave, hazoor," whined the native. "I do +the bidding of those before whose will I am as a leaf in the wind. It +is an order that I land you on the bund of the royal summer pavilion, +by the northern shore of the lake. There will you find one waiting for +you, my lord." + +Amber contented himself with a fresh examination of his pistol; it was +all one to him, whatever the route by which he was to reach Kathiapur, +so long as the change involved no delay. But this way across the water +was so much longer than that which he had anticipated that he had time +to work himself into a state of fuming impatience before the boat +finally ranged alongside a pretentious marble bund backed by ragged +plantations of palms and bananas. To the left the white-columned facade +of the Maharana's stately pleasure-house glimmered spectral in the +moonlight. It showed no lights, and Amber very naturally concluded that +it was unoccupied. + +He landed on the steps of the bund and waited for Dulla Dad to join +him; but when, hearing a splash of the paddle, he looked round, it was +to find that the native had already put a considerable distance between +himself and the shore. Amber called after him angrily, and Dulla Dad +rested upon his paddle. + +"Nay, Heaven-born!" he replied. "Here doth my responsibility end. +Another will presently appear to be your guide. Go you up to the jungly +path leading from the bund." + +The Virginian lifted his shoulders indifferently, and ascended to +discover a wide footpath running inland between dark walls of +shrubbery, but quite deserted. He stopped with a whistle of vexation, +peering to right and left. "What the deuce!" he said aloud. "Is this +another of their confounded tricks?" + +A low and marvellously sweet laugh sounded at his elbow, and he turned +with a start and a flutter of his pulses. "Naraini!" he cried. + +It had been impossible to mistake the gracious lines of that slight, +round figure, cloaked though it was in many thicknesses of white +veiling. She had stolen upon him without a sound, and seemed pleased +with the completeness of his surprise, for she laughed again before he +spoke. + +"Tell me not thou art disappointed, O my king!" she said, placing a +soft hand firmly upon his arm. "Didst thou hope to meet another here?" + +"Nay, how should I expect thee?" His voice was gentle though he steeled +his heart against her fascinations; for now he had a use for her. "Had +Dulla Dad conveyed me to the palace, then I should have remembered thy +promise to ride with me to Kathiapur. But, being brought to this place..." + +"Then thou didst wish to ride with me?" She nodded approval and +satisfaction. "That is altogether as I would have it be, Lord of my +Heart. By this have I proven thee, for thou hast consented to approach +the Gateway, not altogether because the Voice hath summoned thee, but +likewise, I think, because thine own heart urged thee. Nay, but tell +me, King of my Soul, did it not leap a little at the thought of meeting +me?" + +With a quick gesture she threw her veil aside and lifted her +incomparably fair face to his, and he was conscious that he trembled a +little, and that his voice shook as he answered evasively: "Thou +shouldst know, Ranee." + +"_Ahi!_ Then am I a happy woman, to think that, though thou wert in +open mutiny against the Voice, when I called, thou didst yield.... And +thou art ready?" + +"Am I not here?" + +"Now of a verity do I know that thou art a man, my king!--a Rajput, a +son of kings, and ... my husband!" Pitched to a minor, thrilling key, +her accents were as musical as the singing of a 'cello. "For thou dost +know what thou must dare this night of nights, and he is a brave man +who can dare so much, unfaltering. Tell me thou art not afraid, my +king?" + +"Why should I be?" + +"Thou wilt not draw back in the end?" Her arms clipped him softly about +the neck and drew his head down so that her breath was fragrant in his +face, her lips a sweet peril beneath his own. "Thou wilt brave whatever +may be prepared for thy testing, for the sake of Naraini, who awaits +thee beyond the Gateway; O my Beloved?" + +"I shall not be found wanting." + +Lithe as a snake, she slipped from his arms. "Nay, I trust thee not!" +she laughed, a quiver of tenderness in her merriment. "Let my lips be +mine alone until thou hast proven thyself worthy of them." She raised +her voice, calling: "_Ohé_, Runjit Singh!" + +The cry rang bell-clear in the stillness, and its silver echo had not +died before it was answered by one who stepped out from the black +shadow of a spreading banian, some distance away, and came toward them, +leading three horses. As the moonlight fell upon him, Amber recognised +the uniform the man wore as that of the Imperial Household Guard of +Khandawar, while the horses seemed to be the stallions he had seen in +the palace yard, with another but little their inferior in mettle or +beauty. + +"Now," announced the woman in tones of deep contentment, "we will +ride!" + +She turned to Amber, who took her up in his arms and set her in the +saddle of one of the stallions; who, his bridle being released by the +trooper, promptly leaped away and danced a spirited saraband with his +shadow, until Naraini, with a strength that seemed incredible when one +recalled the slightness of her wrists, curbed him in and taught him +sobriety. + +"By Har!" she panted, "but I think he must know that he carries +to-night the destinies of empire! Mount, mount, my lord, and bear me +company if this son of Eblis tries to run away with me!" + +The sowar surrendered to Amber the reins of the other stallion, and +stepped hastily aside. The Virginian took the saddle with a flying +leap, and a thought later was digging his knees into the brute's sleek +flanks and sawing on the bits, while the path flowed beneath him, +dappled with moonlight and shadow, like a ribbon of grey-green silk, +and trees and shrubbery streaked back on either hand in a rush of +melting blacks and greys. + +Swerving acutely, the path ran into the dusty high-road. Amber heard a +rush of hoofs behind him, and then slowly the gauze-wrapped figure of +the queen drew alongside. + +"_Maro!_ Let him run, my king! The way is not far for such as he. Have +no fear lest he tire!" + +But Amber set his teeth and wrought with the reins until his mount +comprehended the fact that he had met a master, and, moderating his +first furious burst of speed, settled down into a league-devouring +stride, crest low, limbs gathering and stretching with the elegant +precision of clockwork. His rider, regaining his poise, found time to +look about him and began to enjoy, for all his cares, this wild race +through the blue-white night. + +Behind them, carbine on saddle-bow, the sowar thundered in pursuit, at +an interval of about a hundred yards--often greater, when the stallions +would have it so and spent their temper in brief, brisk contests for +the leadership. On Amber's left the woman rode as one to the saddle +born, her face turned eagerly to the open road, smiling a little with +excitement beneath the tissue of thin veiling which the speed-bred +breeze moulded cunningly to the contour of her flawless features. The +fire in her blood shone lambent in the eyes that now and again met +Amber's. More than once he heard her laugh low, with a lilt of +happiness. + +For himself he was drunk with the spirit of adventure. Bred of the +moonlit sky and the far shy stars, of the flooding moonlight breaking +crisply against impenetrable shadows like surf against black rocks, of +the tune of hoofs, of the singing wind and sighing waters, a wild and +reckless humor possessed him, ran molten in his veins, swam in his +brain like fumes of wine. + +As the tale of miles increased, the valley opened out, and presently +they swung to the west from the northerly track, branching off into a +rougher way through a wilder countryside. Rugged hilltops marched +beside them, looming stark black against the silvered purple of the +sky. They met no one, their road winding through a land whose grandeur +was enhanced by its positive desolation--a land tenanted only by a +million devils of loneliness with naught to do save to fling back +mocking echoes of the road-song of the flying hoofs.... + +Toward the close of the second hour the valleys began to widen, the +hills to be less lofty and precipitous. The horses swung up gentler +ascents, down slopes less sharp. The road ran for a time along the bank +of a broad and placid river, then crossed it by a massive arch of +masonry as old as history. They circled finally a great, round, +grassless hillside, and pulled rein in the notch of a gigantic V formed +by two long, prow-like spurs running out upon a plain whose sole, vague +boundary was the vast arc of the horizon. + +Before them loomed dead Kathiapur, an island of stone girdled by the +shallow silver river. Like the rugged pedestal of some mammoth column, +its cliffs rose sheer threescore feet from the water's edge to the foot +of the outermost of its triple walls. From the notch in the hills a +great stone causeway climbed with a long and easy grade to the level of +the first great gate, spanning the chasm over the river by means of a +crazy wooden bridge. + +Above the broken rim of the three-fold walls the moon's unearthly +splendor made visible a vast confusion of crumbling cornices, blank +walls, turrets, domes, and towers, the gnarled limbs of dead trees, the +luxuriant dark foliage of banian and pepal, palm and acacia. But +nothing moved and there was not a light to be seen. These things with +the silence told the tale of death. With the cessation of the ringing +hoofbeats the stillness had closed down upon the riders like a spell to +break the which were to invite the wrath of the undying gods +themselves. Other than the silken breathing of the horses, an +occasional muffled thud or the jingle of a bridle-chain as one pawed +the earth or tossed his head, they heard no sound. The unending hum of +a living city was not there. Sister of Babylon, Nineveh and Tyre, kin +to Chitor and that proud city of the plains that Jai Singh abandoned +when he built him his City of Victory, Kathiapur is as Tadmor--dead. +The shell remains; the soul has flown. + +A gasp from the woman and an oath from the sowar startled Amber out of +somber apprehensions into which he had been plunged by contemplation of +this impregnable fortress of desolation. Gone was his lust for peril, +gone his high, heedless joy of adventure, gone the intoxication which +had been his who had drunk deep of the cup of Romance; there remained +only the knowledge that he, alone and single-handed, was to pit his +wits against the invisible and mighty forces that lurked in hiding +within those walls, to seem to submit to their designs and so find his +way to the woman of his love, tear her from the grasp of the unseen, +and with her escape... + +Naraini had, indeed, no need to cry aloud or clutch his hand in order +to apprise him that the Eye was vigilant. He himself had seen it break +forth, a lurid star of emerald light suspended high above the dark +heart of the city--high in the air where the moment gone there had been +nothing; so powerful that it shaded with sickly pallor the face of the +woman, who clung shuddering to Amber; so unpresaged its appearance and +so malign its augury that it shook even the skepticism of him whose +reason had been nourished by the materialism of the Occident. + +Slowly, while they watched, the star descended, foot by foot dropping +until the topmost pinnacle of a hidden temple seemed to support it; and +there it rested, throbbing with light, now bright, now dull. + +Amber shook himself impatiently. "Silly charlatanry!" he muttered, +irritated by his own susceptibility to its sinister suggestion.... "I'd +like to know how they manage it, though; the light itself's +comprehensible enough, but their control of it.... If there were enough +wind, I'd suspect a kite...." + +"Thou art not dismayed, my king?" + +He laughed, not quite as successfully as he could have wished, and, +"Not I, Naraini," he returned in English: a tongue which seemed somehow +better suited for service in combating the esoteric influences at work +upon his mind. "What's the next turn on the programme?" + +"I like not that tone, nor yet that tongue." The woman shivered. "Even +as the Eye seeth, my lord, so doth the Ear hear. Is it meet and wise to +speak with levity of that in whose power thou shalt shortly be?" + +"Perhaps not," he admitted, thoughtful. "'In whose power I shall +shortly be.' ... Well, of course!" + +"And thou wilt go on? Thou art not minded to withdraw thy hand?" + +"Not so that you'd notice it, Naraini." + +"For the sake of the reward Naraini offers thee?" she persisted +dangerously. + +"I don't mind telling you that you'd turn 'most any man's head, my +dear," he said cheerfully, and let her interpret the words as she +pleased. + +She was not pleased, for her acquaintance with English was more +intimate than she had chosen to admit; but if she felt any chagrin she +dissimulated with her never-failing art. "Then bid me farewell, O my +soul, and go!" + +"Up there?" he enquired, lifting his brows. + +"Aye, up the causeway and over the bridge, into the city of death." + +"Alone?" + +"Aye, alone and afoot, my king." + +"Pleasant prospect, thanks." Amber whistled, a trifle dashed. "And +then, when I get up there--?" + +"One will meet thee. Go with him, fearing naught." + +"And what will you do, meanwhile?" + +"When thou shalt have passed the Gateway, my lord, Naraini will be +waiting for thee." + +"Very well." Amber threw a leg over the crupper, handed the stallion's +reins to the sowar, who had dismounted and drawn near, and dropped upon +his feet. + +Naraini nodded to the sowar, who led the animal away. When he was out +of earshot the woman leaned from the saddle, her glorious eyes to +Amber's. "My king!" she breathed intensely. + +But the thought of Sophia Farrell and what she might be suffering at +that very moment was uppermost--obtruded itself like a wall between +himself and the woman. He had no further inclination for make-believe, +and he saw Naraini with eyes that nothing illuded. Quite as casually as +though she had been no more to him than a chance acquaintance, he +reached up, took her hand, and gave it a perfunctory shake. + +"Good-night, my dear," he said amiably; and, turning, made off toward +the foot of the causeway. + +When he had gained it, he looked back to see her riding off at a wide +angle from the causeway, heading out into the plain. When he looked +again, some two or three minutes later, Naraini, the sowar, and the +horses had vanished as completely as if the earth had opened to receive +them. He rubbed his eyes, stared, and gave it up. + +So he was alone!... With a shrug, he plodded on. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE HOODED DEATH + + +The causeway down which the horsemen of forgotten kings of Khandawar +had clattered forth to war, in its age-old desuetude had come to decay. +Between its great paving blocks grass sprouted, and here and there +creepers and even trees had taken root and in the slow immutable +process of their growth had displaced considerable masses of stone; so +that there were pitfalls to be avoided. Otherwise a litter of rubble +made the walking anything but good. Amber picked his way with caution, +grumbling. + +The grade was rather more steep than it had seemed to be from the +plain. Now and then he stopped to regain his breath and scrub a +handkerchief over his forehead, on which sweat had started despite the +cold. At such times his gaze would seek inevitably and involuntarily, +the lotus-pointed pinnacle whereon the Eye was poised, blazing. Its +baleful emerald glare coloured his mood unpleasantly. He had a fancy +that the thing was actually watching him. The sensation was creepy. + +For that matter, nothing that met his eye was calculated to instil +cheer into his heart. Desolation worked with silence sensibly upon his +thoughts, so that he presently made the alarming discovery that the +bottom had dropped completely out of his stock of scepticism, leaving +him seriously in danger of becoming afraid of the dark. Scowling over +this, he stumbled on, telling himself that he was a fool: a conclusion +so patent that neither then nor thereafter at any time did he find +reason to dispute it. + +After some three-quarters of an hour of hard climbing he came to the +wooden bridge, and halted, surveying it with mistrust. Doubtless in the +olden time a substantial but movable structure, strong enough to +sustain a troop of warriors but light enough to be easily drawn up, had +extended across the chasm, rendering the city impregnable from capture +by assault. If so, it had long since been replaced by an airy and +well-ventilated latticework of boards and timbers, none of which seemed +to the wary eye any too sound. Amber selected the most solid-looking of +the lot and gingerly advanced a pace or two along it. With a soft +crackling a portion of the timber crumbled to dust beneath his feet. He +retreated hastily to the causeway, and swore, and noticed that the Eye +was watching him with malevolent interest, and swore some more. +Entirely on impulse he heaved a bit of rock, possibly twenty pounds in +weight, to the middle of the structure. There followed a splintering +crash and the contraption dissolved like a magic-lantern effect, +leaving a solitary beam about a foot in width and six or eight inches +thick, spanning a flight of twenty and a drop of sixty feet. The river +received the rubbish with several successive splashes, distinctly +disconcerting, and Amber sat down on a boulder to think it over. + +"Clever invention," he mused; "one'd think that, after taking all this +trouble to get me here, they'd changed their minds about wanting me. +I've a notion to change mine." He looked up at the cusped and +battlemented gateway opposite him, shifted his regard to the Eye, and +shook his fist vindictively at the latter. "If ever I get hold of the +chap that invented you...!" An ingenious imagination failing to suggest +any form of torture commensurate with the crime, he relapsed into +gloomy meditation. + +There seemed to be no possibility of turning back at that stage, +however. Kuttarpur was rather far away, and, moreover, he doubted if he +would be permitted to return. Having come thus far, he must go on. +Moreover, Sophia Farrell was on the other side of that Swordwide +Bridge, and such being the case, cross it he would though he were to +find the next world at its end. Finally he considered that he was +presently to undergo an Ordeal of some unknown nature, probably +extremely unpleasant, and that this matter of the vanishing bridge must +have been arranged in order to put him in a properly subdued and +tractable frame of mind. + +He got up and tested the remaining girder with circumspection and +incredulity; but it seemed firm enough, solidly embedded in the +stonework of the causeway and immovable at the city end. So he +straddled it and, averting his eyes from the scenery beneath him, +hitched ingloriously across, collecting splinters and a very distinct +impression that, as a vocation, knight-errantry was not without its +drawbacks. + +When again he stood on his feet he was in the shadow of the outer +gateway, the curtain of the second wall confronting him. The stillness +remained unbroken but the moonlight illuminated with startling +distinctness the frescoes, half obliterated by time, and they were +monstrous, revolting and obscene, from a Western point of view. A +bastion of the third wall hid the Eye, however; he was grateful for +that. + +Casting about, he discovered the second gateway at some distance to the +left, and started toward it, forcing a way through a tangle of scrubby +undergrowth, weeds, and thorny acacia, but had taken few steps ere a +heavy splash in the river below brought him up standing, with a +thumping heart. After an irresolute moment he turned back to see for +himself, and found his apprehension only too well grounded; the +Swordwide Bridge was gone, displaced by an agency which had been prompt +to seek cover--though he confessed himself unable to suggest where that +cover had been found. There was no one visible on the causeway, and +nobody skulked in the shadows of the bastions of the main gate. +Furthermore it seemed hardly possible that in so scant a space of time +human hands could have worked that heavy beam out of its sockets. And +if the hands had been human (of course any other hypothesis were +ridiculous) what had become of their owners? + +He gave it up, considering that it were futile to badger his wits for +the how and the wherefore. The important fact remained that he was a +prisoner in dead Kathiapur, his retreat cut off, and--Here he made a +second discovery, infinitely more shocking: his pistol was gone. + +Amber remembered distinctly examining the weapon in Dulla Dad's boat, +since when he had found no occasion to think of it. Now either it had +jolted out of his pocket in that wild ride from Kuttarpur, or else +Naraini had managed deftly to abstract it while in his arms by the +summer palace, or when, later, she had shrunk against him in real or +affected terror of the Eye. Of the two explanations his reason favoured +the second. But he made no audible comment, though his thoughts were as +black as his brow and as grimly fashioned as the set of his jaw. + +Turning back at length he made his way to the second gateway and from +it to the third, under the lewdly sculptured arch of which he stopped +and gasped, forgetting himself as for the first time Kathiapur the +Fallen was revealed to him in all the awful beauty of its naked +desolation. + +A wide and stately avenue stretched away from the portals, between rows +of dwellings, palaces of marble and stone, tombs and mausoleums, with +meaner houses of sun-dried brick and rubble, roofless all and +disintegrating in the slow, terrible process of the years. Here a wall +had caved in, there an arch had fallen out. The thoroughfare was strewn +with fallen lintels, broken marble screens, blocks of red sandstone, +bricks, and in between them the fig and pipal nourished with the +bebel-thorn, the ak, the mimosa, the insidious convolvulus twining +everywhere. At the far end of the street a yawning black arch rose in +the white, beautiful façade of a marble temple on whose uppermost +pinnacle the Eye hovered, staring horridly. + +As Amber moved forward small, alert ghosts rose from the undergrowth +and scurried silently thence: a circumstance which made him very +unhappy. Even a brilliant chorus of sharp barks from an adjacent street +failed to convince him that he had merely disturbed a pack of jackals, +after all, and not the disconsolate brooding wraiths of those who had +died and been buried in the imposing ruined tombs, what time Kathiapur +boasted ten thousand swords and elephants by the herd. + +The way was difficult and Amber tired. After a while, having seen +nothing but the jackals, an owl or two, several thousand bats and a +crawling thing which had lurched along in the shadow of a wall some +distance away, giving an admirable imitation of a badly wounded man +pulling himself over the ground, and making strange gutteral +noises--Amber concluded to wait for the guide Naraini had promised him. +He turned aside and seated himself upon the edge of a broken sandstone +tomb. The silence was appalling and for relief he took refuge in cheap +irreverence. "Home," he observed aloud, "never was like this." + +A heart-rending sigh from the tomb behind him was followed by a rattle +of dislodged rubbish. Amber found himself unexpectedly in the middle of +the street and, without stopping to debate the method of his getting +there with such unprecedented rapidity, looked back hopefully to the +tomb. At the same moment a black-shrouded figure swept out of it and +moved a few paces down the street, then paused and beckoned him with a +gaunt arm. "I wish," said Amber earnestly, "I had that gun." + +The figure was apparently that of a native swathed in black from his +head to his heels and seemed the more strikingly peculiar in view of +the fact that, as far as Amber could determine, he had neither eyes nor +features although his head was without any sort of covering. He gulped +over the proposition for an instant, then stepped forward. + +"Evidently my appointed cicerone," he considered. "Unquestionably this +ghost-dance is excellently stage-managed.... Though, of course, I _had_ +to pick out that particular tomb." + +He followed in the wake of the figure, which sped on with a singular +motion, something between a walk and a glide, conscious that his +equanimity had been restored rather than shaken by the incident. "You +wouldn't think," he reflected, "that a man like Salig Singh would lend +himself to anything so childish. Still, I'm not through with it yet." +He conceived a scheme to steal up behind his guide and strip him of his +masquerade, but though he mended his pace he got no nearer, and +eventually abandoned it on the consideration that it was probably most +inadvisable. After all, he had to remember that he was there for a +purpose, and a very serious one, and that properly to further that +purpose he must comport himself with dignity, submissively, accepting, +at least with a show of ease, each new development of the affair along +its prearranged lines. And so he held on in pursuit of the black +shadow, passing forsaken temples and lordly pleasure-houses, all marble +tracery and fretwork, standing apart in what had once been noble +gardens, sunken tanks all weed-grown and rank with slime, humbler +dooryards and cots on whose hearthstones the fires for centuries had +been cold--his destination evidently the temple of the unspeakable Eye. + +As they drew nearer the leading shadow forsook the shade of the walls +which he had seemed to favour, sweeping hastily across a plaza white +with moonglare and without pause on into the black, gaping hole beyond +the marble arch. + +Here for the first time Amber hung back, stopping a score of feet from +the door, his nerves a-jangle. He did not falter in his purpose; he was +going to enter the inky portal, but ... would he ever leave it? And the +world was still sweet to him. His quick, darting gaze registered a +dozen impressions in as many seconds: of the silver splendour spilled +so lavishly upon the soulless corpse of the city, of the high, bright +sky, of dead black shadows sharp-edged against the radiance, of the +fleet flitting spectre that was really a flying-fox.... + +Afar a hyena laughed with a sardonic intonation wholly uncalled-for--it +was blood-curdling, besides. And down the street a melancholy air +breathed gently, sighing like a soul astray. + +"This won't do," he told himself; "it can't be worse inside than out +here." + +He took firm hold of his reason and went on across the dark threshold, +took three uncertain strides into the limitless unknown, and pulled up +short, hearing nothing, unable to see a yard before him. Then with a +terrific crash like a thunder-clap the great doors swung to behind him. +He whirled about with a stifled cry, conscious of a mad desire to find +the doors again, took a step or two toward them, paused to wonder if he +were moving in the right direction, moved a little to the left, half +turned, and was lost. Reverberating, the echoes of the crash rolled far +away and back again, diminishing in volume, dying until they were no +more than as a whisper adrift in the silence, until that was gone.... + +Profound night enveloped him, vast, breathless, without dimensions. One +can endure the blackness that abides within four well-kenned walls; but +night unrelieved by the least gleam of light, night without bounds or +measurements, enfolding one like a stifling blanket and instilling into +the brain the fear of nameless things, quickening the respiration and +oppressing the heart--that is another thing entirely, and that is what +Amber found in the Temple of the Bell. Darkness swam visibly before his +eyes, like a fluid. The sound of his constrained breathing seemed most +loud and unnatural. He could hear his heart rumbling like a distant +drum. + +Digging his nails into his palms, he waited; and in the suspense of +dread began to count the seconds. + +One minute ... two ... three ... four.... + +He shifted his weight from one foot to the other.... + +Seven ... + +He passed a hand across his face and brought it away wet with +perspiration.... + +Nine ... + +In some remote spot a bell began to toll; at first slowly--_clang_!... +_clang_!... _clang_!--then more quickly, until the roar of its +sonorous, gong-like tones seemed to fill all the world and to set it +a-tremble. Then, insensibly, the tempo became more sedate, the fierce +clamour of it moderated, and Amber abruptly was alive to the fact that +the bell was _speaking_--that its voice, deep, clear, sound, metallic, +was rolling forth again and again a question couched in purest +Sanskrit: + +"_Who is there_?... _Who is there_?... _Who is there_?..." + +The hair lifted on his scalp and he swallowed hard in the effort to +answer; but the lie stuck in his throat: he was not Rutton and ... and +it is very hard to lie effectively when you stand in stark darkness +with a mouth dry as dust and your hair stirring at the roots because of +the intensely impersonal and aloof accents of an inhuman Bell-voice, +tolling away out of Nowhere. + +"_Who is there_?" + +Again he failed to answer. Somewhere near him he heard a slight noise +as of a man moving impatiently; and then a whisper: "Respond, thou +fool!" + +"Art thou come, O Chosen of the Gateway?" the Bell-voice rang. + +"I ... I am come," Amber managed to reply. And so still and small +sounded his own voice in the huge spaces of the place that he was +surprised to find he had been heard. + +"Hear ye!" rang the Bell. "Hear ye, O Lords and Rulers in Medhyama! O +Children of my Gateway, hear ye well! He is come! He stands upon the +threshold of the Gateway!" + +Resonant, the echoes of those awe-inspiring tones died upon the +stillness, and in response a faint sighing rose and, momentarily +growing in volume, became as the roaring of a mighty wind; and suddenly +it was abrupted, leaving only a ringing in the ears. + +A great drum roared like the crack of Doom; and Amber's jaw dropped. +For in the high roof of the temple a six-foot slab had been noiselessly +withdrawn, and through it a cold shaft of moonlight fell, cutting the +gloom like a gigantic rapier, and smote with its immaculate radiance +the true Gateway of Swords. + +Not six paces from him it leaped out of the darkness in an iridescent +sheen: an arch a scant ten feet in height, and in span double the width +of a big man's shoulders, woven across like a weaver's frame with +ribbons of pale fire. But the ribbons were of steel--steel blades, +sharp, bright, gleaming: a countless array of curved tulwars and +crescent scimetars, broad jataghans, short and ugly kukurees, long +kutars with straight ends, slender deadly patas, snake-like bichwas; +swords with jewelled hilts and engraved and damascened blades; sabres +with channels cut from point to guard wherein small pearls ran singing; +khands built for service and for parade; swords of every style and +period in all the history of India. With their pommels cunningly +affixed so that their points touched and interlaced, yet swung free, +they lined the piers of the arch from base to span and all the graceful +sweep of the intrados, a curtain of shimmering, trembling steel, +barring the way to the Mystery beyond. Which was--darkness. + +"O ye Swords!" belled the Voice.... "O ye Swords that have known no +dishonour! O ye Swords that have sung in the grasp of my greatest! +Swords of Jehangar, Akbar, Alamgir! Swords of Alludin, Humayun, Shah +Jehan! Swords of Timur-Leng, Arungzeb, Rao Rutton!..." + +The invocation seemed interminable. Amber recognised almost every name +noted in the annals and legends of Hindustan.... + +"Hearken, O my Swords! He, thy Chosen, prayeth for entry! What is thy +welcome?" + +One by one the blades began to shiver, clashing their neighbours, until +the curtain of steel glimmered and glistened like phosphorescence in a +summer sea, and the place was filled with the music of their contact; +and through their clamour boomed the Bell: + +"O my Chosen!" Amber started and held himself firmly in hand. "Look +well, look well! Here is thy portal to kingship and glory!" + +He frowned and took a step forward as if he would throw himself through +the archway; for he had suddenly remembered with compelling vividness +that Sophia Farrell was to be won only by that passage. But as he moved +the swords clattered afresh and swung outwards, presenting a bristle of +points. And he stopped, while the Voice, indifferent and remote as +always, continued to harangue him. + +"If thy heart, O my Chosen, be clean, unsullied with fear and guile; if +thy faith be the faith of thy fathers and thy honour rooted in love of +thy land; if thou hast faith in the strength of thy hands to hold the +reins of Empire ... enter, having no fear." + +"Trick-work," he told himself. He set his teeth with determination. +"Hope they don't see fit to cut me to pieces on suspicion. Here goes." +He moved forward with a firm step until his bosom all but touched the +points. + +Instantaneously, with another clash as of cymbals, the blades were +deflected and returned to their first position, closing the way. He +hesitated. Then, "That shan't stop me!" he said through his teeth, and +pushed forward, heart in mouth. He breasted the curtain and felt it +give; the blades yielded jealously, closing round his body like cold +caressing arms; he felt their chill kisses on his cheeks and hands, +even through his clothing he was conscious of their clinging, deadly +touch. Abruptly they swung entirely away, leaving the entrance clear, +and he was drawing a free breath when the moon glare showed him the +swords returned to position with the speed of light. He jumped for his +life and escaped being slashed to pieces by the barest inch. They swung +to behind him; and again the drum roared, while afar there arose a +furious, eldritch wailing of conches. Overhead the opening disappeared +and the light was shut out. In darkness as of the Hall of Eblis the +conches were stilled and the echoes ebbed into a silence that held sway +for many minutes ere again the Bell spoke. + +"Stretch forth thy hand." + +Somewhat shaken, Amber held out an open palm before him. A second time +the gusty sighing arose and breathed through the night, increasing +until the very earth beneath him seemed to rock with the magnitude of +the sound, until, at its highest, it ceased and was as if it had not +been; not even an echo sang its passing. Then out of nothingness +something plopped into Amber's hand and his fingers closed convulsively +about it. It was a hand, very small, small as a child's, gnarled and +hard as steel and cold as ice. + +Amber sunk his teeth into his lower lip and subdued an almost +uncontrollable impulse to scream and fling the thing away; for his +sense of touch told him that the hand was dead. And yet he became +sensible that it was tugging at his own, and he yielded to its +persuasion, permitting himself to be led on for so long a journey that +his fingers clasping the little hand grew numb with cold ere it was +over. He could by no means say whither he was being conducted, but was +conscious of a long, gradual descent. Many times he swept his free arm +out round him, but touched nothing. + +Abruptly the guiding hand was twisted away. He stopped incontinently, +and possessed himself with what patience he could muster throughout +another long wait tempered by strange sibilant whisperings and +rustlings in the void all about him. + +Without any forewarning two heavy hands gripped him, one on either +shoulder, and he was forced to his knees. At the same instant, with a +snapping crackle a spurt of blue flame shot down from the zenith, and +where it fell with a thunderclap a dazzling glare of emerald light shot +up breasthigh. + +To his half-blinded eyes it seemed, for a time, to dance suspended in +the air before him. A vapour swirled up from it, a thin cloud, +luminous. By degrees he made out its source, a small, brazen bowl on a +tripod. + +A confusion of hushed voices swelled as had the sound of that mighty, +rushing, impalpable wind, and died more slowly. + +Conscious that his features were in strong light, he strove to exhibit +an impassiveness that belied his temper; then glancing round beneath +lowered eyelids he sought to determine something of the nature of his +surroundings, but could see little. The hands had left his shoulders +the minute his knees touched the floor; he knelt utterly alone in the +middle of what seemed to be a vast hall, or cavern, of which the size +was but faintly suggested. As his eyes became accustomed to the +chiaroscuro he became aware of monstrous images of stone that appeared +to advance from and retreat to the far walls on either hand as the +green light flared and fell, and of a great silent and motionless +concourse of people grouped about the massive pedestals--a crowd as +contained and impassive as the gods that towered above its heads, +blending into the gloom that shrouded the high roof of the place. + +In front of him he could see nothing beyond the noiselessly wavering +flame. But presently a hand appeared, as if by magic, above the bowl--a +hand, bony, brown, and long of finger, that seemed attached to +nothing--and cast something like a powder into the fire. There followed +a fizz and puff of vapour, and a strong and heady gust of incense was +wafted into Amber's face. Again and again the hand appeared, sprinkling +powder in the brazier, until the smoke clouded the atmosphere with its +fluent, eddying coils. + +The gooseflesh that had pricked out on Amber's skin subsided, and his +qualms went with it. "Greek fire burning in a bowl," he explained the +phenomenon; "and a native with his arm wrapped to the wrist in black is +feeding it. Not a bad effect, though." + +It was, perhaps, as well that he had not been deceived, for there was a +horror to come that required all his strength to face. He became +conscious that something was moving between him and the +brazier--something which he had incuriously assumed to be a piece of +dirty cloth left there carelessly. But now he saw it stir, squirm, and +upend, unfolding itself and lifting its head to the leaping flame: an +immense cobra, sleek and white as ivory, its swelling hood as large as +a man's two hands, with a binocular mark on it as yellow as topaz, and +with vicious eyes glowing like twin rubies in its vile little head. + +Amber's breath clicked in his throat and he shrank back, rising; but +this instinctive move had been provided against and before his knees +were fairly off the rocky floor he was forced down again by the hands +on his shoulders. He was unable to take his eyes from the monster, and +though terror such as man is heir to lay cold upon his heart, he did +not again attempt to stir. + +There was now no sound. Alone and undisturbed the bleached viper warmed +to its dance with the pulsing flame, turning and twisting, weaving and +writhing in its infernal glare.... + +"Hear ye, O my peoples!" + +Amber jumped. The Voice had seemed to ring out from a point directly +overhead. + +He looked up and discovered above him, vague in the obscurity, the +outlines of a gigantic bell, hanging motionless. The green glare, +shining on its rim and partly illumining its empty hollow (he saw no +clapper) revealed the sheen of the bronze of which it was fashioned. + +Out of its immense bowl, the Voice rolled like thunder: + +"Hear ye, O my peoples!" + +A responsive murmur ascended from the company round the walls: + +"We hear! We hear, O Medhyama!" + +"Mark well this man, O Children of my Gateway! Mark well! Out of ye all +have I chosen him to lead thee in the work of healing; for I thy +Mother, I Medhyama, I Bharuta, I the Body from which ye are sprung, +call me by whatever name ye know me--I am laid low with a great +sickness.... Yea, I am stricken and laid low with a sickness." + +A great and bitter wailing arose from the multitude. + +"Yea, I am overcome with a faintness, and my strength is gone out from +me, and my limbs are as water; I am sick with a fever and languish; in +my veins runs the Evil like fire and like poison; and I burn and am +stricken; I toss in my torment and murmur, and the sound of my Voice +has come to thine ears. Ye have heard me and answered. The tale of my +sufferings is known to ye. Say, shall I perish?" + +In the brazier the flame leaped high and subsided, and with it the +cobra leaped and sank low upon its coils. From the people a mighty +shout of negation went up, so that the walls rang with it, and the +echoes were bandied back and forth, insensibly decreasing through many +minutes. When all was still the Voice began to chant again, and the +flames blazed higher and brighter, while the cobra resumed its mystic +dance. + +Amber knelt on in a semi-stupor, staring glassily at the light and the +serpent. + +"I, thine old Mother, have called ye together to help in my healing. +From my feet to my head I am eaten with pestilence; yea, I am devoured +and possessed by the Evil. Even of old was it thus with thy Mother; +long since she complained of the Plague that is Scarlet--moaned and +cried out and turned in her misery.... But ye failed me. Then my +peoples were weaklings and their hearts all were craven; the Scarlet +Evil dismayed them; they fled from its power and left it to batten on +me in my sickness." + +A deep groan welled in uncounted throats and resounded through the +cavern. + +"Will ye fail me again, O my Children?" + +"Nay, nay, O our Mother!" + +"Too long have I suffered and been patient in silence. Now must I be +cleansed and made whole as of old time; yea, I must be purged +altogether and the Evil cast out from me. It is time.... Ye have heard, +ye have answered; make ready, for the day of the cleansing approacheth. +Whet thy swords for the days of the healing, for my cleansing can be +but by steel. Yea, thy swords shall do away with the Evil, and the land +shall run red with the blood of Bharuta, the blood of thy Mother; it +shall run to the sea as a river, bearing with it the Red Evil. So and +no otherwise shall I, thine old Mother, be healed and made whole +again." + +"Aye, aye, O our Mother!" + +The flames, dying, rose once more, and the Voice continued, but with a +change of temper. It was now a clarion call, stirring the blood like +martial music. + +"Ye shall show me your swords for a token.... Swords of the North, are +ye ready?" + +"We are ready, old Mother!" + +With a singing shiver of steel, all around the walls, in knots and +clusters, naked blades leaped up, flashing. + +"Swords of the East, are ye loyal?" + +"Aye, old Mother!" + +And the tally of swords was doubled. + +"Swords of the South, are ye thirsty?" + +A third time the crashing response shattered the echoes. + +"Swords of the West, do ye love me?" + +With the fourth ringing shout and showing of steel, a silence fell. The +walls were veritably hedged with quivering blades, all a-gleam in the +ghastly glare of green. Over the sculptured faces of the great idols +flickering shadows played, so that they seemed to move and grimace, as +if with approbation. + +Amber was watching the serpent--dazed and weary as if with a great need +of sleep. Even the salvos of shouts came to him as from a great +distance. To the clangour of the Bell alone he had become abnormally +sensitive; every fibre of his being shuddered, responsive to its weird +nuances. + +It returned to its solemn and stately intoning. + +"Out of ye all have I chosen and fixed upon one who shall lead ye. +Through him shall my strength be made manifest, my Will be made known +to my peoples. Him must ye serve and obey; to him must ye bow down and +be humble. Say, are ye pleased? Will ye have him, my Children?" + +Without an instant's delay a cry of ratification rang to the roof. +"Yea, O our Mother! Him we will serve and obey, to him bow down and be +humble." + +The Voice addressed itself directly to the kneeling man. He stiffened +and roused. + +"Thou hast heard of the honour we confer upon thee--I Medhyama, thy +Mother, and these my children, thy brothers. Ye shall lead and shall +rule in Bharuta. Are ye ready?" + +Half hypnotised, Amber opened his mouth, but no words came. His chin +dropped to his breast. + +"Thy strength must be known to my peoples; they must see thee put to +the proof of thy courage, that they may know thee to be the man for +their leader.... Ye are ready?" + +He was unable to move a finger. + +"Stretch out thine arms!" + +He shuddered and tried to obey. The Voice rang imperative. + +"Stretch forth thine arms for the testing!" + +Somehow, mechanically, he succeeded in raising his arms and holding +them rigid before him. Alarmed by the movement, the cobra turned with a +hiss, waving his poisonous head. But the Virginian made no offer to +withdraw his hands. His eyes were wide and staring and his face livid. + +A subdued murmur came from the men clustered round the idols, in +semi-darkness. + +The Bell boomed forth like an organ. + +"O hooded Death.... O Death, who art trained to my service! Thou before +whom all men stand affrighted! Thou who canst look into their hearts +and read them as a scroll that is unrolled ... Look deep into the heart +of my Chosen! Judge if he be worthy or wanting, judge if he be false or +true ... Judge him, O Death!" + +Before Amber the great serpent was oscillating like a pendulum, its +little tongue playing like forked red lightning, its loathsome red eyes +holding his own. Terror gripped his heart, and his soul curdled. He +would have cried out, but that his tongue clave to the roof of his +mouth. He could not have moved had he willed to. + +"Look well, O Death, and judge him!" + +The dance of the Hooded Death changed in character, grew more frenzied; +the white writhing coils melted into one another in dizzying confusion; +figure merged into figure like smoke.... The suspense grew intolerable. + +"Hast thou judged him, O Death?" + +Instantly the white cobra reared up to its utmost and remained poised +over Amber, barely moving save for the almost imperceptible throbbing +of the hood and the incessant darting of the forked tongue. + +"If he be loyal, then spare him ..." + +The hood did not move. Amber's flesh crawled with unspeakable dread. + +"If he be faithless, then ... _strike!_" + +For another moment the cobra maintained the tensity. Then slowly, cruel +head waving, hood shrinking, eyes losing their deathly lustre, coil by +coil it sank. + +A thick murmur ran the round of the walls, swelling into an +inarticulate cry, which beat upon Amber's ears like the raving of a +far-off surf. From his lips a strangled sob broke, and, every muscle +relaxing, he lurched forward. + +Alarmed, in a trice the cobra was up again, hood distended to the +bursting point, head swinging so swiftly that the eye could not follow +it. In another breath would come the final thrust.... + +A firearm exploded behind Amber, singeing his cheek with its flame. He +fell over sideways, barely escaping the head of the cobra, which, with +its hood blown to tatters, writhed in convulsions, its malignant tongue +straining forth as if in one last attempt to reach his hand. + +A second shot followed the first and then a brisk, confused fusillade. +Amber heard a man scream out in mortal agony, and the dull sound of a +heavy body falling near him; but, coincident with the second report, +the brazier had been overturned and its light extinguished as if sucked +up into the air. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +RUTTON'S DAUGHTER + + +In darkness the blacker for the sudden disappearance of the light, +somebody stumbled over Amber--stumbled and swore in good English. The +Virginian sat up, crying out as weakly as a child: "Labertouche!" A +voice said: "Thank God!" He felt strong hands lift him to his feet. He +clung to him who had helped him, swaying like a drunkard, wits a-swirl +in the brain thus roughly awakened from semi-hypnosis. + +"Here," said Labertouche's voice, "take my hand and follow. We're in +for it now!" + +He caught Amber's hand and dragged him, yielding and unquestioning, +rapidly through a chaotic rush of unseen bodies. + +The firing had electrified the tense-strung audience. With a +pandemonium of shrieks, oaths, shouts, orders unheard and commands +unheeded, a concerted rush was made from every quarter to the spot +where the doomed man had been kneeling. Men running blundered into +running men and cannoned off at direct angles to their original +courses, without realising it. Disorder reigned rampant, and the cavern +rang with a thousand echoes, while the Bell awoke and roared a raging +tocsin, redoubling the din. No man could have said where he stood or +whither he ran--save one, perhaps. That one was at Amber's side and had +laid his course beforehand and knew that both their lives depended upon +his sticking to it without deviation. To him a rush of a hundred feet +in a direct line meant salvation, the least deviation from it, death. +He plunged through the scurrying masses without regard for any hurt +that might come either to him or to his charge. + +A red glare of torches was breaking out over the heads of the mob +before they gained their destination. Amber saw that they were making +for a corner formed by the junction of one of the pedestals with a +rocky wall. He was now recovering rapidly and able to appreciate that +they stood a good chance of winning away; for the natives were all +converging toward the centre of the cavern, and apparently none heeded +them. Nevertheless Labertouche, releasing him, put a revolver in his +hand. + +"Don't hesitate to shoot if any one comes this way!" he said. "I've got +to get this door open and..." + +He broke off with an ejaculation of gratitude; for while he had been +speaking, his fingers busily groping in the convolutions of the +sculptured pedestal had encountered what he sought, and now he pulled +out an iron bar two feet or so in length and as thick as a woman's +wrist. Inserting this in a socket, as one familiar with the trick, he +put his weight upon it; a carved sandstone slab slid back silently, +disclosing a black cavernous opening. + +"In with you," panted Labertouche, removing the lever. "Don't +delay...." + +Amber did not. He took with him a hazy impression of a vast, vaulted +hall filled with a ruddy glare of torchlight, a raving rabble of +gorgeously attired natives in its centre. Then the opening received him +and he found himself in a black hole of an underground gallery--a place +that reeked with the dank odours of the tomb. + +Labertouche followed and with the aid of a small electric pocket-lamp +discovered another socket for the lever. A moment later the slab moved +back into place, and the Englishman dropped the metal bar. "If there +were only some way of locking that opening," he gasped, "we'd be fairly +safe. As it is, we'll have to look nippy. That was a near call--as near +a one as ever you'll know, my boy; and we're not out yet. What are you +doing?" he added, as Amber stopped to pick up the lever. + +"It isn't a bad weapon," said the Virginian, "at a pinch. You'll want +your gun, and that she-devil, Naraini, got mine." + +"Keep the one I gave you and don't be afraid to use it. I've another +and a couple of knives for good measure. That Mohammedan prince whom I +persuaded to change places with me was a walking arsenal." Labertouche +chuckled. "Come along," he said, and drew ahead at a dog-trot. + +They sped down a passage which delved at a sharp grade through solid +rock. Now and again it turned and struck away in another direction. +Once they descended--or rather fell down--a short, steep flight of +steps. At the bottom Amber stopped. + +"Hold on!" he cried. + +Labertouche pulled up impatiently. "What's the matter?" + +"Sophia--!" + +"Trust me, dear boy, and come along." + +Persuaded, Amber gave in, blundering on after Labertouche, who loped +along easily, with the confidence of one who threads known ways, the +spot-light from his lamp dancing along the floor several feet before +him. Otherwise they moved between walls of Stygian darkness. + +It was some time later that Labertouche extinguished his lamp and threw +a low word of warning over his shoulder. Synchronously Amber discerned, +far ahead, a faint glow of yellow light. As they bore down upon it with +unmoderated speed, he could see that it emanated from a rough-hewn +doorway, opening off the passage. Before it a man stood guard with a +naked sword. + +"_Johar!_" he greeted them in the Mahar form: "O, warrior!" + +"_Johar!_" returned Labertouche, panting heavily. He closed upon the +native confidently, but was brought up short by a peremptory sweep of +the sword, coupled with an equally imperative demand for an explanation +of their haste. The Englishman replied with apparent difficulty, as if +half-winded. "It is an order, _Johar_. The woman is to be brought to +the Hall of the Bell." + +"You have the word?" The Mahar lowered his sword. "It hath been said to +me that--" + +Labertouche stumbled over his feet, and caught the speaker for support. +The native gurgled in a sodden fashion, dropped his sword, stared +stupidly at Labertouche, and put an uncertain hand to his throat. Then +he lurched heavily and collapsed upon himself. + +The secret-agent stepped back, dropping the knife he had used. "Poor +devil!" he said in a compassionate undertone. "That was cold-blooded +murder, Mr. Amber." + +"Necessary?" gasped Amber, regarding with horror the bloodstained heap +of rags and flesh at his feet. + +"Judge for yourself," said Labertouche coolly, stepping over the body. +"Here," he added, pausing by the doorway, "you go first; she knows +you." + +He pushed Amber on ahead. Stooping, the Virginian entered a small, rude +chamber hollowed out of the rock of Kathiapur. A crude lamp in a +bracket furnished all its illumination, filling it with a reek of hot +oil. Amber was vaguely aware of the figures of two women--one standing +in a corner, the other seated dejectedly upon a charpoy, her head +against the wall. As he lifted his head after passing under the low +lintel, the woman in the corner fired at him point-blank. + +The Virginian saw the jet of flame spurt from her hand and felt the +bullet's impact upon the wall behind his head. He flung himself upon +her instantly. There was a moment of furious struggle, while the cell +echoed with the reverberations of the shot and the screaming of the +woman on the charpoy. The pistol exploded again as he grappled with the +would-be murderess; the bullet, passing up his sleeve, creased his left +arm as with a white-hot iron, and tore out through the cloth on his +shoulder. He twisted brutally the wrist that held the weapon, and the +woman dropped it with a cry of pain. + +"You would!" he cried, and threw her from him, putting a foot upon the +pistol. + +She reeled back against the wall and crouched there, trembling, her +cheeks on fire, her eyes aflame with rage. "You dog!" she shrilled in +Hindi--and spat at him like a maddened cat. Then he recognised her. + +"Naraini!" He stepped back in his surprise, his right hand seeking +instinctively the wrist of his left, which was numb with pain. + +His change of position left the pistol unguarded, and the woman swooped +down upon it like a bird of prey; but before she could get her fingers +on its grip, Labertouche stepped between them, fended her off, and +quietly possessed himself of the weapon. + +"Your pardon, madam," he said gravely. + +Naraini retreated, shaking with fury, and Amber employed the respite to +recognise Sophia Farrell in the woman on the charpoy. She was still +seated, prevented from rising by bonds about her wrists and ankles, and +though unnaturally pale, her anguish of fear and despair had set its +marks upon her face without one whit detracting from the appeal of her +beauty. He went to her immediately, and as their eyes met, hers flamed +with joy, relief and--he dared believe--a stronger emotion. + +"You--you're not hurt, Mr. Amber?" + +"Not at all. The bullet went out through my sleeve. And you?" He +dropped on his knees, with his pocket-knife severing the ends of rope +that bound her. + +"I'm all right." She took his hands, helping herself to rise. "Thank +you," she said, her eyes shining, a flush of colour suffusing her face +with glory. + +"Did you cut those ropes, Amber?" Labertouche interposed curtly. + +"Yes. Why?" + +The Englishman explained without turning from his sombre and morose +regard of Naraini. "Too bad--we'll have to tie this woman up, somehow. +She's a complication I hadn't foreseen.... Here; you'd better leave me +to attend to her--you and Miss Farrell. Go on down the gallery--to the +left, I'll catch up with you." + +The pistol which he still held lent to his demand a sinister +significance of which he was, perhaps, thoughtless. But Sophia Farrell +heard, saw, and surmised. + +"No!" she cried, going swiftly to the secret-agent. "No!" She put a +hand upon his arm, but he shook it off. + +"Did you hear me, Amber?" said Labertouche, still watching the queen. + +"What do you mean to do?" insisted Sophia. "You can't--you mustn't--" + +"This is no time for half-measures, Miss Farrell," Labertouche told her +brusquely. "Our lives hang in the balance--Mr. Amber's, yours, mine. +Please go." + +"You promise not to harm her?" + +"Amber!" cried the Englishman impatiently. "Will you--" + +"Please, Miss Farrell!" begged Amber, trying to take the girl's hand +and draw her away. + +"I won't!" she declared. "I'll not move a step until he promises. You +don't understand. No matter what the danger she's--" + +"She's a fiend incarnate," Labertouche broke in. "Amber, get that +girl--" + +"She's my sister!" cried Sophia. "_Now_ will you understand?" + +"What!" The two men exclaimed as one. + +"She's my sister," the girl repeated, holding up her head defiantly, +her cheeks burning--"my sister by adoption. We were brought up +together. She was the daughter of an old friend of my father's--an +Indian prince. A few years ago she ran away--" + +"Thank God!" said Amber from the bottom of his soul; and, "Ah, you +would!" cried Labertouche tensely, as Naraini seized the opportunity, +when his attention was momentarily diverted, to break for freedom. + +Amber saw the flash of a steel blade in the woman's hand as she struck +at the secret-agent, and the latter, stepping back, deflected the blow +with a guarding forearm. Then, with the quickness of a snake, Naraini +stooped, glided beneath his arms, and slipped from the cell. + +With a smothered oath Labertouche leaped to the doorway, lifting his +pistol; but he was no quicker than Sophia, who caught his arm and held +him back. "No," she panted; "not even for our lives--not at that +price!" + +He yielded unexpectedly. "Of course you are perfectly right, Miss +Farrell," said he, with a little bow. "I'm sorry that circumstances ... +But come! She'll have this hornet's nest about our ears in a brace of +seconds. Hark to that!" + +A long, shrill shriek echoed down the gallery. Labertouche shrugged and +turned to the left. "Come along," he said. "Amber, take Miss Farrel's +hand and keep close to me." He led the way from the cell at a brisk +pace--one, indeed, that taxed Sophia's powers of endurance to maintain. +Amber aided her as much as he might, but that was little; the walls of +the passageway were too close together to permit him to be by her side +much of the time. For the most part he had to lead the way, himself +guided by the swiftly moving patch of light cast by Labertouche's +bull's-eye. But through it all he was buoyed up and exhilarated out of +all reason by the consciousness of the hand that lay trustfully in his +own; a hand soft and small and warm and (though he could not see it) +white, all white! More, it was the hand of his wife to be; he felt this +now with an unquestioning assurance. He wondered if she shared the +subject of his thoughts ... + +The gallery sloped at varying grades, more or less steep--mostly +more--and minute by minute the air became more dank and cold. At an +unseen turning, where another passage branched away, a biting wind +swept out of the black nowhere, chilling them to the marrow. Deeper and +still deeper, into the very bowels of the earth, it seemed, the +secret-agent led them, finding his way with an unfaltering confidence +that exalted Amber's admiration of him to the pitch of hero-worship. + +At length the gallery dipped and ran level, and now, while still cold, +the wind that blew in their faces was cleaner, burdened with less of +the clammy effluvium of death and decay; and then, abruptly, the walls +narrowed suddenly, so that Amber was forced to surrender possession of +the girl's hand and to fall behind her. She went forward without +question, following the dancing spotlight. + +Amber paused to listen for sounds of pursuit, but hearing nothing save +the subdued sigh of the draught between the straitened walls of rock, +followed until the walls fell away and his hands, outstretched, failed +to touch them, and he was aware that the stone beneath his feet had +given way to gravel. He halted, calling guardedly to Labertouche. + +The secret-agent's voice came from some distance. "It's all right, my +boy. Miss Farrell is with me. Come along." + +There was an _élan_ in his tone that bespoke a spirit of gratulation +and relief and led Amber to suspect that they were very close upon the +end of their flight, near to escape from the subterranean ways of +Kathiapur the dead. He proceeded at discretion in the direction of +Labertouche's voice--the light being invisible--and brought up flat +against a dead wall. Coincidently he heard Sophia exclaim with surprise +and delight, somewhere off on his left, and, turning, he saw her head +and shoulders move across a patch of starlit sky. In half a dozen +strides he overtook her. + +They stood on a low, pebbly ledge, just outside the black maw of the +passage--an entrance hidden in a curtain-like fold in the face of the +cliff that towered above them, casting an ink-black shadow. But beyond +it the emblazoned firmament glowed irradiant, and at their feet the +encircling waters ran, a broad ribbon of black silk purling between the +cliff and the opposing shores, where a thicket of tamarisks rose, a +black and ragged wall. + +Labertouche strode off into the water. "Straight ahead," he announced; +"don't worry--'tisn't more than knee-deep at the worst. I've horses +waiting on the other side--" + +"Horses!" Amber interrupted. "Great heavens, man, you're--you're +omniscient!" + +"No--lucky," Labertouche retorted briskly. "Where'd I've been without +Ram Nath? He's taking care of the animals.... Come along. What're you +waiting for? Don't you know--" He turned to see the girl hesitant, +though with lifted skirts. "Oh," he said in an accent of understanding, +and came back. "If you'll help me, Amber, I daresay we can get Miss +Farrell across without a wetting." + +He offered to clasp hands with the Virginian and so make a seat; but +Amber had a happier thought. + +"I think I can manage by myself, thank you--if Miss Farrell will trust +me." + +His eyes met the girl's, and in hers he read trust and faith unending: +he was conscious of a curious fluttering in his bosom. + +"Trust _you!_" she said, with a little, broken laugh, and gave herself +freely to his arms. + +Labertouche grunted and turned his back, wading out into the stream +with a great splashing. + +Amber straightened up, holding her very close to him, and that with +ease. Had she been thrice as heavy he could have borne her with as +little care as he did his own immeasurably lightened heart in that hour +of fulfilment. And she lay snug and confident, her arms round his neck, +the shadowed loveliness of her face very near to him. The faint and +elusive fragrance of her hair was sweet and heady in the air he +breathed; he could read her eyes, and their allure and surrender was +like a draught of wine to him. He felt the strength of ten men +invigorate him, and his soul was sober with a great happiness. But a +little while and she would be in safety; already her salvation seemed +assured.... The further bank neared all too quickly. He would willingly +have lingered to prolong the stolen sweetness of that moment, forgetful +altogether of the danger that lay behind them. + +Ahead, he saw Labertouche step out upon a shelving shore and, shaking +his legs with an effect irresistibly suggestive of a dog leaving the +water, peer inland through the tamarisks. His low, whistled signal +sounded as Amber joined him and put down the girl--reluctantly. Her +whispered thanks were interrupted by an exclamation from Labertouche. + +"Hang it all! he can't've mistaken the spot. I told him to wait right +here, and now ... We daren't delay." He cast an apprehensive glance +across the stream. "Look lively, please." + +He shouldered away through the thicket, and for several moments they +struggled on through the hindering undergrowth, their passage betrayed +by much noisy rustling. Then, as they won through to open ground, +Labertouche paused and whistled a second time, staring eagerly from +right to left. + +"I'm blessed!" he declared, with a vehemence that argued his desire for +stronger language. "This is bad--bad--bad! He never failed me before! +I--" + +A mocking chuckle seemed to break from the ground at their feet, and in +the flicker of an eyelash a shadow lifted up out of the +scrub-encumbered level. Sophia cried aloud with alarm; Labertouche +swore outright, heedless; and Amber put himself before her, drawing his +revolver, heartsick with the conviction that they were trapped, that +their labour had gone all for naught, that all futilely had they +schemed and dared.... + +But while his finger was yet seeking the trigger the first shadow was +joined by a score of fellows--shades that materialised with like +swiftness and silence from the surface of the earth--and before he +could level the weapon Labertouche seized his wrist. For an instant he +resisted, raging with disappointment; but the Englishman was cool, +strong, determined; inevitably in the outcome the weapon was pointed to +the sky. + +"Steady, you ass!" breathed the secret-agent in his ear. "Can't you +see--" + +And Amber gave over, in amazement unbounded, seeing the starlight +glinting down a dozen levelled rifle-barrels, glowing pale on the +spiked, rounded crowns of pith helmets, and striking soft fire from +burnished accoutrements; while a voice, thick with a brogue that was +never bred out of hearing of Bow Bells, was hectoring them to +surrender. + +"'Ands up, ye bloomin' black beggars! 'Ands up, I s'y!" + +"Tommies!" cried Amber; and incontinently he dropped the revolver as +though it had turned hot in his hand. + +"Steady, my man!" Labertouche interrupted what threatened to develop +into a string of intolerable abuse. "Hold your tongue! Can't you see +we've a lady with us?" + +"Ul-_lo!_" The soldier lowered his rifle and stepped closer, his voice +vibrating with astonishment. "Blimme, 'ere's a go!... beggar of a +nigger givin' me wot-for 's if 'e was a gent! 'Oo in 'ell d'ye think +y'are, yer 'ighness?' + +"That'll do. Put down those guns, and call your commanding officer. +I'll explain to him. Where is he? What troops are you? When did you +arrive?" + +Such queries and commands discharged quickly in crisp English from the +mouth of one who wore the color and costume of a Mohammedan of high +degree, temporarily dazed his captors. In a body they pressed round the +three, peering curiously into their faces--the two white and the one +dark; and their murmurings rose and swelled discordant. "Blimme if 'e +_ain't_ a gent!" "T'other un is!" "An this un a leddy!"...But to his +interrogations Labertouche got no direct reply. While as for Amber, he +could have laughed aloud from a heart that brimmed with thanksgiving +for the honest sound of their rich rough voices; besides which, Sophia +stood very close to him, and her fingers were tight about his.... + +"What's this?" A sharp voice cut the comments of the Tommies, and they +were smitten silent by it. An officer, with jingling spurs and sword in +hand, elbowed through the heart of the press. "Stop that row instantly. +What's this? Who are you, sir?" + +"I sent the message from Kathiapur, and I'm uncommonly happy to meet +you, whoever you may be, sir. Tell your men to fall back, please, and +I'll introduce myself properly." + +Two words secured the secret-agent the privacy he desired; the officer +offered him an ungloved hand as the troopers withdrew out of hearing. + +"Happy, indeed!" he said cheerfully. "I'm Rowan, Captain, Fourteenth +Pioneers." + +"I'm Labertouche, I.S.S. This is Miss Farrell, daughter of Colonel +Farrell, and this Mr. Amber, of New York. We're just escaped from that +rock over there and--if you'll pardon--I'd suggest you set a strong +guard over the ford behind those tamarisks." + +"One moment, please." The officer strode off to issue instructions in +accordance with Labertouche's advice. "We got here only a quarter of an +hour ago," he apologised, swinging back as the men deployed into the +thicket, "and haven't had time to nose out the lay of the land +thoroughly." + +"I infer you got my man with the horses--native calling himself Ram +Nath?" + +"He's with the Colonel-commanding now, Mr. Labertouche. As I was +saying, we've hardly had time to do more than throw a line of pickets +round the rock. It's been quick work for us--marching orders at +midnight yesterday, down by train to Sar, and forced march across the +desert ever since daybreak." + +"I'd hardly hoped the thing could be done so quickly. If I had been +able to get the information an instant earlier, my mind would've been +easier, captain, but--Hello!" + +From the ford an abrupt clamour of voices interrupted. The officer +hooked up his scabbard. "Sounds as if my men had gathered in somebody +else," he said hastily. "If you'll excuse me, I'll have a look." He +trotted off into the shade of the tamarisks. + +As he disappeared the disturbance abated somewhat. "False alarm," Amber +guessed. + +"I fancy not," said Labertouche. "If I'm not mistaken our friend +Naraini left for the special purpose of raising the hue and cry. This +should be the vanguard of the pursuit." + +Amber looked upward. Overhead the soulless city slumbered in a +stillness apparently unbroken, yet he who saw its profile rugged +against the stars, could fancy what consternation was then, or +presently would be, running riot through its haunted ways. + +"How many of 'em are there, do you reckon?" he asked. + +"Three or four hundred," replied the secret-agent absently; "the pick +and flower of Indian unrest. My word, but this will kick up a row! +Think of it, man! three hundred and fifty-odd lords and princes bagged +all at once in the act of plotting the Second Mutiny! What a change it +will work on the political face of the land! ... And the best of it is, +they simply can't get away." + +"Is this the only exit, then--the way we escaped?" + +"Not by three--all on the other side of the rocky where they rode up +and left their horses. And that's where the most of 'em will come out, +by twos and threes, like the animals out of the Ark, you know. What a +catch!" + +"And we've you to thank!" + +"I? Oh, dear boy, thank the Tommies!" + +"But what would we have done, or the Tommies either, without you?" + +"What indeed!" Sophia echoed warmly. "I've had no chance, as yet--" + +"Not another word, my dear Miss Farrell!" Labertouche protested, +acutely uncomfortable. "To've been able to help you out of the scrape +is enough." + +"But I must--" she began, and stopped with a little cry as a shot rang +out from the heart of the thicket, to be followed by another and then +by a shriek of agony and a great confusion of sounds--shouts and oaths +and noisy crashings in the tamarisks as of many men blundering hither +and yon. + +Silenced, with a slight shudder of apprehension, the girl drew to +Amber's side, as if instinctively. He took her hand and drew it through +his arm. + +"Run to earth at last!" cried Labertouche. "I wonder--" + +"If my hope's good for anything," Amber laughed, less because he felt +like laughing than for the purpose of reassuring Sophia, "this will be +the gentleman who trained the Hooded Death to dance, or else he who--" + +He was thinking with vindictive relish of what fate he would mete out +to the manipulator of the Bell, were it left to him to pass sentence. +But he broke off as a body of soldiery burst from the tamarisks, and, +headed by young Rowan, hurried toward the three, bringing with them a +silent and unresisting prisoner. + +"I say," the officer called excitedly in advance, "here's something +uncommon' rum. It's a woman, you know." + +"Aha!" said Labertouche, and "Ah!" said Amber, "with a click of his +teeth, while the woman on his arm clung to him the closer. + +"I thought we'd better bring her to you, for she said ..." Rowan +paused, embarrassed, and took a fresh start. "My men got to the ford +just as she was coming ashore with three other men, and the whole pack +took to cover on this side. Two of the men are still missing, but we +routed out the other just now with this--ah--lady. He showed fight and +got bayonetted. But the woman--excuse me, Mr. Amber--she protests--by +George, it's too ridiculous!--" + +"I have claimed naught that is not true!" an unforgettably sweet voice +interrupted from the centre of the group. It opened out, disclosing +Naraini between two guards, in that moment of passion and fear perhaps +more incomparably beautiful than any woman they had ever looked upon, +save her who held to Amber's arm, a-quiver with womanly sympathy and +compassion. + +During her flight and her resistance Naraini's veil had been rent away; +in the clear starlight her countenance, framed in hair of lustrous jet +and working with uncontrollable rage and despair, shone like that of +some strange tempestuous Aphrodite fashioned of palest gold. Beneath +its folds of tightly drawn, bespangled gauze her bosom swelled and fell +convulsively, and on her perfect arms, more softly beautiful than any +Phidias ever dreamed to chisel, the golden bracelets and bangles +clashed and tinkled as she writhed and fought to free herself of the +defiling hands. Half-mad with disappointment, she raged amid the +scattered shreds of her dream of power like a woman hopelessly +deranged. + +"Aye, I have claimed!" she stormed. "I have claimed justice and the +rights of wifehood, the protection of him whose wife I am; or, if he +deny me, I claim that he must suffer with me--he who hath played the +traitor's part to-night, betraying his Cause and his wife alike to +their downfall!... I claim," she insisted, lifting, in spite of the +soldiers' restraining hands, one small quivering arm to single Amber +out and point him to scorn, "that this is the man who, wedded to me by +solemn right and the custom of the land, hath deserted and abandoned +me, hath denied me even as he denies his birthright, when it doth +please him, and forswears the faith of his fathers! I claim to be +Naraini, Queen, wife to Har Dyal Rutton, rightful ruler of +Khandawar--coward, traitor, renegade--who stands there!" + +"For the love of Heaven, Rowan, shut her up!" cried Labertouche. "It's +all a pack of lies; the woman's raving. Rutton's dead, in the first +place; in the second, he's her father. She can't be his wife very well, +whether he's alive or dead. It's simply a dodge of hers to gain time. +Shut her up and take her away--she's as dangerous as a wildcat!" + +"Nay, I will not be gagged nor taken hence till I have said my say!" +With a sudden furious wrench Naraini wrested her arms from the grasp of +the guards and sprang away, eluding with lithe and snake-like movements +their attempts to recapture her. "Not," she cried, "until I have +wrought my will upon the two of them. Thou hast stood in my light too +long, O my sister!" + +A hand blazing with jewels tore at the covering of her bosom and +suddenly came away clutching a dagger, thin, long, and keen; and +snarling she sprang toward the girl, to whose influence, however +unwitting, she rightly ascribed the downfall of her scheme of empire. +Rowan and Labertouche leaped forward and fell short, so lightning swift +she moved; only Amber stood between her and her vengeance. Choking with +horror, he put the girl behind him with a resistless hand, and took +Naraini to his arms. + +"Ah, hast thou changed thy mind, Beloved?" The woman caught him +fiercely to her with an arm about his waist, and her voice rose shrill +with mocking triumph, "Are my lips become so sweet to thee again? Then +see how I kiss, thou fool!" + +She thrust with wicked cunning, twice and again, before the men tore +her away and disarmed her. For an instant wrestling like a demon with +them, still animated by her murderous frenzy, still wishful to fill her +cup of vengeance to the brim with the blood of the girl, she of a +sudden ceased to resist and fell passive in their hands, a dying +flicker of satisfaction in the eyes that watched the culmination of her +crime.... + +To Amber it was as if his body had been penetrated thrice by a needle +of fire. The anguish of it was exquisite, stupefying. He was aware of a +darkening, reeling world, wherein men's faces swam like moons, pallid, +staring, and of a mighty and invincible lethargy that pounced upon him, +body, brain and soul, like a black panther springing from the ambush of +the night. Yet there were still words that must be spoken, lest they +live in his subconsciousness to torment him through all the long, black +night that was to receive him. He tried to steady himself, and lifted +an arm that vibrated like the sprung limb of a sapling, signing to the +secret-agent. + +"_Labertouche_," he said thickly ... "_Sophia ... out of India ... at +once ... life_ ..." + +The girl's arms received him as he fell. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +A LATER DAY + + +A man awoke from a long dream of night and fear, of passion, pain, and +death, and opened eyes whose vision seemed curiously clear, to realise +a new world, very unlike that in which the incoherent action of his +dream had moved--a world of light and lively air, as sweet and +wholesome as glistening white paint, sunshine, and an abundance of +pure, cool air could render it. + +Because he had known these things in a former existence, he understood +that he lay in the lower berth of a first-cabin stateroom, aboard an +ocean steamship; a spacious, bright box of a room, through whose open +ports swayed brilliant shafts of temperate sunlight, together with +great gusts of the salt sweet breath of the open sea. Through them, +too, he could see patches of unclouded blue, athwart which now and +again gulls would sweep on flashing, motionless pinions. + +The man lay still and at peace, watching, wondering idly, soothed by +the sense of being swung through space, only vaguely conscious of the +plunging pulsations of the ship's engines, hammering away indomitably +far in the hold beneath him. His thoughts busied themselves lightly +with a number of important questions, to whose answers the man realised +that he was singularly indifferent. Who was he? What had happened to +bring him back to life (for he was sure that he had died, a long time +ago)? How had he come to that stateroom? What could the name of the +vessel be? Where ... Deep thoughts were these and long; the man drowsed +over them, but presently was aroused by the sensation of being no +longer alone, of being watched. + +His eyeballs seemed to move reluctantly in their sockets, and his head +felt very light and empty, although so heavy that he could not lift it +from the pillow. But he managed to shift his gaze from the window until +it rested upon a man's face--a gaunt, impassive brown face illuminated +by steady and thoughtful eyes, filled with that mystic, unshakable +spirit of fatalism that is the real Genius of the eastern peoples. The +head itself stood out with almost startling distinctness against the +background of pure white. It was swathed with an immaculate white +turban. The thin, stringy brown neck ran into a loose surtout of snowy +white. + +The sick man felt that he recognised this countenance--had known it, +rather, in some vague, half-remembered life before his latest death. +The name...? He felt his lips move and that they were thin and glazed. +Moistening them with his tongue he made another attempt to articulate. +A thin whisper passed them in two breaths: "Ram ... Nath ..." + +Hearing this, the dark man started out of his abstraction, cast a +swift, pitiful glance at the sick man's face, and came to hold a +tumbler to his lips. The liquid, colourless, acrid, and pungent, +slipped into his mouth, and he had to swallow whether he would or no. +When the final drop disappeared, Ram Nath put down the glass, smiled, +laid a finger on his lips, and went on tiptoe from the stateroom. + +After awhile the man without an identity fell asleep, calmly, +restfully, in absolute peace. When again he awakened it was with the +knowledge that he was David Amber, and that a woman sat beside him. + +Her face was turned from him, and her brown eyes, clouded with dreams, +were staring steadfastly out through the open port; the flowing banners +of sunshine now and again touched her hair with quick fire--her +wonderfully spun hair, itself scarcely less radiant than the light that +illumined it. Against the blue-white background her gracious profile +showed womanly and sweet. There was rich colour in cheeks fresh from +the caress of the sea wind. She smiled in her musing, scarlet lips +apart. + +"Sophia..." + +His voice sounded in his own hearing very thin and brittle. The girl +turned her gaze upon him swiftly, the soft smile deepening, the +dream-light in her eyes burning brighter and more steady. She bent +forward, placing over his wasted hand a hand firm and warm, strong yet +gentle, its whiteness enhanced by the suggested tracery of blue veins +beneath the silken skin, and by the rosy tips of her slender, subtle +fingers. + +"David!" she said. + +He sighed and remembered. His brows knitted, then smoothed themselves +out; for with memory came the realisation that, since he was there and +she by his side, God was surely in his Heaven, all well with the world! + +"How long...Sophia?" + +"Five days, David." + +"Where...?" + +"At sea, David, on a _Messageries_ boat for Marseilles. Dear ..." + +He closed his eyes in beatific content: "David ... Dear ...!" + +"Can you listen?" + +"Yes ... sweetheart." + +Her voice faltered; she flushed adorably. "You mustn't talk. But I'll +tell you.... They refused to let us go back to Kuttarpur; an escort +took us across the desert to Nok, you in a litter, I on horseback. +There we took train to Haidarabad and Karachi. Ram Nath came with us, +as bearer, it being necessary that he too should leave India. My father +and your man Doggott joined us at Karachi, where this steamer touched +the second day." + +"You understand, now--?" + +"Everything, dearest." + +"Labertouche--?" + +"He told me nothing. I haven't seen him since that morning, when, just +after you were wounded, we started for Nok. He posted off to Kuttarpur +to find my father.... No; it was you who told me--everything--in your +delirium." + +"And ... you forgive--?" + +"Forgive!" + +He smiled faintly. "That photograph?" + +"I had it ready to return to you that morning, David." + +"Knowing what it meant to me?" + +"Knowing what it meant to _me_--what it meant to both of us, David." + +"So you weren't offended, that night?" + +"I loved you even then, David. I think I must have loved you from that +first day at Nokomis. Do you remember...?" + +His eyes widened, perplexed, staring into her grave, dear eyes. "Then +why did you pretend--?" + +With the low, caressing laugh of a happy child, the girl knelt by the +side of his berth, and laid her cheek against his own. "Oh, David, my +David! When do you expect to understand the heart of a woman, dear +heart of mine?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE FINAL INCARNATION + + +About five o'clock of an evening in April the Cunarder _Caronia_, four +hours out from Queenstown and buckling down to a night's hard work +against the northwesterly gale, shipped a sea. It was not much of a +sea--merely a playful slap of a wave that broke against the staunch +black side and glanced upward in a shower of spray, spattering +liberally a solitary passenger who had been showing enough interest in +the weather to remain on deck until that particular moment. Apparently +undisconcerted by the misadventure, he shook himself and laughed a +sober, contented laugh, found a handkerchief and mopped his face with +it, then, with a final approving survey of the lowering and belligerent +canopy of wind-cloud that overhung the tortured ocean, permitted +himself to be blown aft to the door of the first-cabin smoking-room. +Opening this by main strength, he entered. The gale saved him the +bother of closing it. + +Removing his rain-coat and cap and depositing them on a convenient +chair, he glanced round the room and discovered that he shared it with +a single passenger, who was placidly exhausting the virtues of an +excellent cigarette. Upon this gentleman the newcomer bent a regard +steadfast and questioning, but after returning it casually the smoker +paid him no further attention. Dissatisfied, the other moved toward +him, and the deck slanted suddenly and obligingly the better to +accelerate his progress, so that he brought up with a lurch in the seat +next the smoker. The latter raised the eyebrows of surprise and hoped +that the gentleman had not hurt himself. + +"I didn't, thank you, Mr. David Amber." + +Mr. David Amber looked the gentleman over with heightened interest. He +saw a man of medium height, with a sturdy figure that bore without +apparent fatigue the years that go with slightly greyish hair. He was +quietly dressed and had intelligent eyes, but was altogether +unimpressive of manner, save for a certain vague air of reserve that +assorted quaintly with his present attitude. + +"You've the advantage of me, sir," Amber summed up the result of his +scrutiny. + +"It's not the first time," asserted the other, with an argumentative +shake of his head. "No-o?" Light leaped in Amber's eyes. "Labertouche!" + +"Surprised you, eh?" The Englishman grinned with pleasure, pumping +Amber's arm cordially. "I don't mind owning that I meant to." + +"Well, considering that this is positively your first appearance as +yourself on the stage of my life, you don't deserve any credit for +being able to deceive me. When one gets accustomed to remembering you +only as a native--generally as a babu in dirty pink satin--...Do you +know, I made all sorts of enquiries after you, but they told me, in +response to my wires to Calcutta, that you'd dropped out of the world +entirely. I had begun to fear that those damned natives must have got +you, after all, and that I'd never see you again." + +"I'd almost given up hope of ever seeing myself again," said +Labertouche drily. + +"But why didn't you--?" + +"Business, dear boy, business.... I was needed for several days in the +neighbourhood of Kathiapur." + +"It seems as though I'd waited several years for news of Kathiapur. The +papers--" + +"There are a good many things that happen in India that fail to get +into the newspapers, Amber. It wasn't thought necessary to advise the +world, including Russia, that half the native potentates in Hindustan +had been caught in the act of letting the Second Mutiny loose upon +India." A network of fine wrinkles appeared about his eyes as he smiled +enjoyment of what he seemed to consider a memorable joke. + +"Go on," pleaded Amber. + +"Kathiapur was a sort of mousetrap; the brutes came out by twos and +three, just as I said they would, for the better part of three days. It +was either surrender or starve with them, and after five-sixths of them +had elected not to starve we turned a couple of companies of Tommies +into the place, and I don't believe they left unturned a stone big +enough to hide a rabbit. One by one they routed 'em out and booted 'em +down to us. Meanwhile we had rushed enough troops to Kuttarpur to keep +their tails quiet." + +"And Salig Singh--and Naraini?" + +"Salig Singh, it turned out, was the chap that got bayoneted in the +tamarisks. Naraini managed somehow to steal away the next night, under +the noses of any number of sentries; beauty such as hers would bribe +her way out of hell, I think. What became of her I don't know, but I +can prophesy that she won't live long. She was rather too advanced in +her views, for India--some centuries ahead of her race. She and Salig +Singh had it all planned, you know; his was the master-mind, hers the +motive-power. They were to crown you, instead of Salig's son, the next +day--in the name of Har Dyal Rutton; and then you were to die suddenly +by virtue of hemp poison or some other contagious disease, and Salig +was to step into your shoes as Emperor of Hindustan, with Naraini as +his Empress.... She should have stayed home and been a suffragette." + +"Better for her," said Amber. "Of course I've found out about her, from +Farrell. It seems that she was brought up in England, with Sophia, and +always given to believe she was his own daughter, but she was a wild +thing and hard to handle. One day she found out about her +parentage--how, it's not known, but Farrell suspects that the men who +were hounding Rutton got into communication with her. At all events, +she brooded over the thing, and when, five years or so ago, Mrs. +Farrell died and the Colonel sent for Sophia to join him in India, +Naraini--well, she rebelled. He refused to let her leave England, and +she finally took the bit in her teeth and ran away--vanished and was +never heard of again until Sophia recognised her in Kathiapur." + +"I myself can fill in the gap," Labertouche volunteered. "She joined +some of Salig's underlings in Paris and went thence direct to +Khandawar, assuming the name of one of the old queens who had elected +opportunely to die.... Queer case--singular instance of reversion to +type." + +"A mighty distressing one to the old colonel; you know Rutton kept +religiously to his promise not to see the child after he'd given her +into Farrell's care. Farrell lost all track of him and was unable to +communicate with him, of course, when Naraini chose to strike out for +herself.... One thing has always puzzled me; the girl called me by her +father's name, pretending to recognise me as her husband; you can't +reconcile such conduct." + +"You can, easily enough--beg pardon, my dear fellow. Neither she nor +Salig Singh was for an instant deceived. But Salig _had_ to deliver up +_a_ Har Dyal Rutton to the Council, so Naraini was set to seduce you. +Their plans only required that you should be madly infatuated with her +for a couple of days; after that ..." Labertouche turned down his thumb +significantly. "I fancy there must have been a family secret or +tradition, handed down from father to son in the Rutton line, that some +day one of the family would be called upon to raise the standard of the +Second Mutiny. That will explain why Har Dyal Rutton, a gentleman of +parts and cultivation, dared not live in India, and why--because he was +sworn to keep the secret--he laid stress on the condition that you were +not to mention his name." + +"Still, he gave me permission to talk to Dhola Baksh." + +"True; but it seems that Dhola Baksh had been his confidential +body-servant in Kuttarpur, during his too-brief reign. Rutton thought +he would be able to help you, and knew that he would be loyal to his +master's memory." + +"Finally, what about that photograph?" + +"You've Salig Singh to thank for its return, I fancy. I had nothing to +do with it. But they were bent on luring you to Naraini's bower, and +they figured that after receiving it you'd go anywhere to meet the man +who returned it. By the way, where's Ram Nath?" + +"He's staying in England as body-servant to Colonel Farrell." + +"He's well off, so; his sphere of usefulness in India was at an end. +So, in fact, was mine. That's why I'm here--on indefinite leave of +absence. One or two things grew out of the affair of the Gateway to +make me a person of interest to the natives, and when that happens in +India it's just as well for the interesting person to pack up and get +thence with all possible expedition. It's too bad; I was really doing +some good work there. Well...! When the East gets into a fellow's +blood, he's a hopeless, incurable case; I shall go back, I presume, +some day. If the big trouble comes in my lifetime--and I think it will; +come it will unquestionably, soon or late--I shan't be able to keep +away, you know." He glanced at his watch and rose. "Time to dress for +dinner," said he; and as they were moving to the door, he added: "What +ever became of that emerald ring, Amber?" + +"The Eye?" Amber laughed. "Well--it was silly enough; but women are +superstitious, you know--Sophia dropped it overboard one day as we were +coming through the Mediterranean. She said she was afraid of it ... and +I don't know but I sympathise with her." + +"I'm certain I do. And yet, in your case, it was the means of +introducing you, wasn't it?... But there! It's been on the tip of my +tongue a dozen times to ask, but other things got in the way.... How +_is_ Mrs. Amber?" + +"You shall see for yourself," said Amber, "when we meet for dinner." + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE BRONZE BELL *** + +This file should be named 8brzb10.txt or 8brzb10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, 8brzb11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, 8brzb10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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