The Adventures of Kathlyn, Harold MacGrath [simple ebook reader .TXT] 📗

the tattle of the hour. It was as much an amusement as a business; indeed, it was the oriental idea of a club, and much the same things were discussed. Thus, Appaji bought a beautiful girl at the last barter and Roya found a male who was a good juggler, and only night before last they had traded. The bazaars were not what they used to be. Dewan Ali had sold his wife to a Punjab opium merchant. Aunut Singh's daughter had run away with the son of a bheestee. All white people ate pig. And no one read the slokas, or moral, stanzas, any more. Yes, the English would come some day, when there would be enough money to warrant it.

All about there were barkers, and fruit sellers, and bangle wallas (for slave girls should have rings of rupee silver about their ankles and wrists), and solemn Brahmins, and men who painted red and ocher caste marks on one's forehead, and ash covered fakirs with withered hands, Nautch girls, girls from the bazaars, peripatetic jewelers, kites, and red-headed vultures—this being a proper place for them.

The chief mahout purchased for Kathlyn a beautiful saree, or veil, which partially concealed her face and hair.

"Chalu!" he said, touching Kathlyn's shoulder, whenever she lagged, for they had dispensed with the litter, "Go on!"

She understood. Outwardly she appeared passive enough, but her soul was on fire and her eyes as brilliant as those of the circling, whooping kites, watching that moment which was to offer some loophole. On through the noisy bazaars, the object of many a curious remark, sometimes insulted by the painted women at the windows, sometimes jested at by the idlers around the merchants' booths. Vaguely she wondered if some one of her ancestors had not been terribly wicked and that she was paying the penalty.

It seemed to her, however, that a film of steel had grown over her nerves; nothing startled her; she sensed only the watchfulness she had often noted in the captives at the farm.

At length they came out into the busy mart. The old mahout congratulated himself upon the docility of his find. It would stiffen the bidding to announce that she was gentle. He even went so far as to pat her on the shoulder. The steel film did not cover all her nerves, so it would seem; the patted shoulder was vulnerable. She winced, for she read clearly enough what was in the mind back of that touch.

She had made her plans. To the man who purchased her she would assume a meekness of spirit in order to lull his watchfulness. To the man who purchased her … Kathlyn Hare! She laughed. The old man behind her nodded approvingly, hearing the sound but not sensing its import. Ah, when the moment came, when the fool who bought her started to lead her home, she would beguile him and at the first sign of carelessness she would trust to her heels. She knew that she was going to run as never a woman ran before; back to the beasts of the jungle, who at least made no effort to molest her so long as she kept out of their way.

Wild and beautiful she was as the old mahout turned her over to a professional seller.

"Circassian!"

"From the north!"

"A bride from the desert!"

"A yellow-hair!"

"A daughter of the north seas!"

The old mahout squatted close by and rubbed his hands. He would be a rich man that night; bags of rupees; a well thatched house to cover his gray hairs till that day they placed him on the pyre at the burning ghat. The gods were good.

Durga Ram, known familiarly as Umballa, at this hour came forth into the sunshine, brooding. He was not in a happy frame of mind. Many things lay heavy upon his soul; but among these things there was not one named remorse. To have brought about all these failures this thought irked him most. Here was a crown almost within reach of his greedy fingers, the water to Tantalus. To have underestimated this yellow haired young woman, he who knew women so well—there lay the bitter sting. He had been too impetuous; he should have waited till all her fears had been allayed. That spawn of Siva, the military, was insolent again, and rupees to cross their palms were scarce. Whither had she blown? Was she dead? Was she alive?

The white hunter had not returned to his camp yet, but the sly Ahmed was there. The perpetual gloom on the face of the latter was reassuring to Umballa. Ahmed's master had not found her. To wring the white man's heart was something. He dared not put him out of the way; too many knew.

And the council was beginning to grow uneasy. How long could he hold them in leash?

What a woman! As magnificent as the daughter of Firoz, shah of Delhi. Fear she knew not. At one moment he loved her with his whole soul, at another he hated her, longed to get her into his hands again, to wreak his vengeance upon her for the humiliation she had by wit and courage heaped upon him. "I am ready!" He could hear it yet. When they had led her away to the ordeals—"I am ready!" A woman, and not afraid to die!

Money! How to get it! He could not plunge his hand into the treasury; there were too many about, too many tongues. But Colonel Hare knew where the silver basket lay hidden, heaped with gold and precious stones; and torture could not wring the hiding-place from him. May he be damned to the nethermost hell! Let him, Durga Ram, but bury his lean hands in that treasure, and Daraka swallow Allaha and all its kings! Rubies and pearls and emeralds, and a far country to idle in, to be feted in, to be fawned upon for his riches!

And Ramabai and his wife, Pundita, let them beware; let them remain wisely in their house and meddle not with affairs of state.

"A thousand rupees!"

Umballa looked up with a start. Unconsciously he had wandered into the slave mart. He shrugged and would have passed on but for the strange, unusual figure standing on the platform. A golden haired woman with neck and arms like Chinese bronze and dressed in a skirt of grass! He paused.

"Two thousand rupees!"

"What!" jeered the professional seller. "For an houri from paradise? O ye of weak hearts, what is this I hear? Two thousand rupees?—for an houri fit to dwell in the zenana of heaven!"

A keen-eyed Mohammedan edged closer to the platform. He stared and sucked in his breath. He found himself pulled two ways. He had no money, but he had knowledge.

"Who sells this maiden?" he asked.

"Mohammed Ghori."

"Which is he?"

"He squats there."

The Mohammedan stopped and touched the old mahout on the shoulder.

"Call off this sale, and my master will make you rich."

The old sinner gingerly felt of the speaker's cotton garb. "Ah! 'My master' must be rich to dress thee in cotton. Where is your gold? Bid," satirically.

"Two thousand rupees!" shouted the professional seller.

"I have no gold, but my master will give 10,000 rupees for yonder maid. Quick! Old fool, be quick!"

"Begone, thou beggar!"

And the old man spat.

"Mem-sahib," the Mohammedan called out in English, "do not look toward me, or all will be lost. I am Ali, Bruce Sahib's chief mahout; and we have believed you dead! Take care! I go to inform Ahmed. Bruce Sahib has not returned."

Kathlyn, when she heard that voice, shut her eyes.

Umballa had drawn closer. There was something about this half veiled slave that stirred his recollection. Where had he seen that graceful poise? The clearness of the skin, though dark; the roundness of the throat and arms.…

"Three thousand rupees!"

The old mahout purred and smoothed his palms together. Three thousand rupees, a rajah's ransom! He would own his elephant; his wife should ride in a gilded palanquin, and his children should wear shoes. Three thousand rupees! He folded his arms and walked gently to and fro.

"Five thousand rupees!" said Umballa, impelled by he knew not what to make this bid.

A ripple of surprise ran over the crowd. The regent, the powerful Durga Ram, was bidding in person for his zenana.

Kathlyn's nerves tingled with life again, and the sudden bounding of her heart stifled her. Umballa! She was surely lost. Sooner or later he would recognize her.

The mahout stood up, delighted. He was indeed fortunate. He salaamed.

"Huzoor, she is gentle," he said.

The high-caste who had bid 3,000 rupees salaamed also.

"Highness, she is yours," he said. "I can not bid against my regent."

It was the custom to mark a purchased slave with the caste of her purchaser. Umballa, still not recognizing her, waved her aside toward the Brahmin caste markers, one of whom daubed her forehead with a yellow triangle. Her blue eyes pierced the curious brown ones.

"The sahib at the river," she whispered in broken Hindustani. "Many rupees. Bring him to the house of Durga Ram." This in case Ali failed.

The Brahmin's eyes twinkled. Her Hindustani was execrable, but "sahib" and "river" were plain to his understanding. There was but one sahib by the river, and he was the white hunter who had rescued the vanished queen from the ordeals. He nodded almost imperceptibly. Inwardly he smiled. He was not above giving the haughty upstart a Thuggee's twist. He spoke to his neighbor quietly, assigned to him his bowls and brushes, rose, and made off.

"Follow me," said Umballa to the happy mahout. Presently he would have his bags of silver, bright and twinkling.

Fate overtook Ali, who in his mad race to Hare's camp fell and badly sprained his ankle. Moaning, less from the pain than from the attendant helplessness, he was carried into the hut of a kindly ryot and there ministered to.

The Brahmin, however, filled with greed and a sly humor, reached his destination in safety. Naturally cunning, double tongued, sly, ingratiating, after the manner of all Brahmins, who will sink to any base level in order to attain their equivocal ends his actions were unhampered by any sense of treachery toward Umballa. A Thuggee's twist to the schemes of the street rat Umballa, who wore the Brahmin string, to which he had no right! The Brahmin chuckled as he paused at the edge of Bruce's camp. A fat purse lay yonder. He approached, his outward demeanor a mixture of pride and humility.

Bruce had returned but half an hour before, mind weary, bone tired. He sat with his head in his hands, his elbows propped upon his knees. His young heart was heavy. He had searched the bewildering jungle as one might search a plot of grass before one's door, blade by blade. A hundred times he had found traces of her; a hundred times he had called out her name, only to be mocked and gibbered at by apes. She had vanished like a perfume, like a cloud shadow in the wind.

His soul was bitter; for he had built many dreams, and always this fair haired girl had ridden upon them. So straight she stood, so calm in the eyes, mannered with that gentleness, known of the brave.… Gone, and skilled as he was in jungle lore, he could not find her.

"Sahib, a Brahmin desires audience."

"Ask him what he wants."

"It is for the sahib's ear alone."

"Ah! Bring him to me quickly."

The Brahmin approached, salaamed.

"What do you wish?" Bruce asked curtly.

"A thousand rupees, Huzoor!" blandly.

"And what have you that is worth that many rupees?" irritably.

The Brahmin salaamed again. "Huzoor, a slave this day was purchased by Durga Ram, Umballa, so-called. She has skin the color of old tusks, and eyes like turquoise, and lips like the flame of the jungle, and hair like the sands of Ganges, mother of rivers."

Bruce was upon his feet, alive, eager. He caught the Brahmin by the arm.

"Is this woman white?" harshly.

"Huzoor, the women of Allaha are always dark of hair."

"And was sold as a slave?"

"To Durga Ram, the king without a crown,