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

enter the front, but chose the gate in the rear of the garden. The moon was up and the garden was almost as light as day.

"Ramabai!" called Bruce in a whisper.

The dreaming man seated at a table came out of his dream with a start. A servant ran to the gate.

"Who calls?" demanded Ramabai, suspicious, as all conspirators ever are.

"It is I, Bruce," was the reply in English, flinging aside his burnoose.

"Bruce Sahib? Open!" cried Ramabai. "What do you here? Have you found her?"

Ramabai's wife, Pundita, came from the house. She recognized Bruce immediately.

"The Mem-sahib! Have you found her?"

"Just a moment. Kathlyn Mem-sahib is in one of the palace dungeons. She must be liberated to-night. We need money to bribe what sentries are about." Bruce went on to relate the incident of the baboon. "This proves that the note was written not more than three hours ago. She will probably be held there till morning. This time we'll place her far beyond the reach of Umballa."

"Either my money or my life. In a month from now …"

"What?" asked Ahmed.

"Ah, I must not tell." Pundita stole close to Ramabai.

Ahmed smiled.

"We have elephants but a little way outside the city. We have pulling chains. Let us be off at once. It is not necessary to enter the city, for this window, Ahmed says, is on the outside. We can easily approach the wall in a roundabout way without being seen. Have you money?"

From his belt Ramabai produced some gold.

"That will be sufficient. To you, then, the bribing. The men, should there be any, will hark to you. Come!" concluded Bruce, impatient to be off.

"And I?" timidly asked Pundita.

"You will seek Hare Sahib's camp," said Ramabai. "This is a good opportunity to get you away also."

Ahmed nodded approvingly.

Pundita kissed her husband; for these two loved each other, a circumstance almost unknown in this dark mysterious land of many gods.

"Pundita, you will remain at the camp in readiness to receive us. At dawn we shall leave for the frontier. And when we return it will be with might and reprisal. Umballa shall die the death of a dog." Ramabai clenched his hands.

"But first," cooed Ahmed, "he shall wear out the soles of his pig's feet in the treadmill. It is written. I am a Mohammedan. Yet sometimes these vile fakirs have the gift of seeing into the future. And me has seen …" He paused.

"Seen what?" demanded Bruce.

"I must not put false hopes in your hearts. But this I may say: Trials will come, bitter and heart burning: a storm, a whirlwind, a fire; but peace is after that. But Allah uses us as his tools. Let us haste!"

"And I?" said Ramabai, sending a piercing glance at Ahmed.

But Ahmed smiled and shook his head. "Wait and see, Ramabai. Some day they will call you the Fortunate. Let us hurry. My Mem-sahib waits."

"What did this fakir see?" whispered Bruce as he donned his burnoose again.

"Many wonderful things; but perhaps the fakir lied. They all lie. Yet … hurry!"

The quartet passed out of the city unmolested. Ramabai's house was supposed to be under strict surveillance; but the soldiers, due to largess, were junketing in the bazaars. Shortly they came up to two elephants with howdahs. They were the best mannered of the half dozen owned or rented by Colonel Hare. Mahouts sat astride. Rifles reposed in the side sheaths. This was to be no light adventure. There might be a small warfare.

Pundita flung her arms around Ramabai, and he consoled her. She was then led away to the colonel's camp.

"Remember," Ramabai said at parting, "she saved both our lives. We owe a debt."

"Go, my Lord; and may all the gods—no, the Christian God—watch over you!"

"Forward!" growled Ahmed. First, though, he saw to it that the pulling chains were well wrapped in cotton blankets. There must be no sound to warn others of their approach.

"Ahmed," began Bruce.

"Leave all things to me, Sahib," interrupted Ahmed, who assumed a strange authority at times that confused and puzzled Bruce. "It is my Mem-sahib, and I am one of the fingers of the long arm of the British Raj. And there are books in Calcutta in which my name is written high. No more!"

Through the moon-frosted jungle the two elephants moved silently. A drove of wild pigs scampered across the path, and the wild peacock hissed from the underbrush sleepily. All silence again. Several times Ahmed halted, straining his ears. It seemed incredible to Bruce that the enormous beasts could move so soundlessly. It was a part of their business; they were hunters of their kind.

At length they came out into the open at the rear of the prison walls. Here Ramabai got down, and went In search of any sentries. He returned almost at once with the good news that there was none.

The marble walls shimmered like clusters of dull opals. What misery had been known behind their crumbling beauty!

Ahmed marked the tree and raised his hand as a sign.

"Bruce Sahib!" he called.

"Yes, Ahmed. I'll risk it first."

Bruce moved the elephant to the barred window. His heart beat wildly. He leaned down from his howdah and strove to peer within.

"Kathlyn Hare?" he whispered.

"Who is it?"

"Bruce."

"Father, father!" Bruce heard her cry; "they have found us!"

Ahmed heard the call; and he sighed as one who had Allah to thank. God was great and Mahomet was His prophet.

"Listen," said Bruce. "We shall hook chains to the bars and pull them out, without noise if possible. The moment they give … have you anything to stand on?"

"Yes, a tabouret."

"That will serve. You stand on it, and I'll pull you up and through. Then your father."

"Father is in chains."

"Ahmed, he is in chains. What in God's name shall we do?"

"Return for me later," said Hare. "Don't bother about me. Get Kit away, and quickly. Umballa may return at any moment. To work, to work, Bruce, and God bless you!"

They flew to the task. Round the hooks Ahmed had wrapped cloths to ward against the clink of metal against metal. The hooks were deftly engaged. The chains grew taut. So far there was but little noise. The elephants leaned against the chains; the bars bent and sprang suddenly from their ancient sockets.

Kathlyn was free.

CHAPTER X WAITING

Kathlyn flung herself into her father's arms.

"Dad, dad! To leave you alone!"

"Kit, you are wasting time. Be off. Trust me; I wasn't meant to die in this dog's kennel, curse or no curse. Kiss me and go!"

"Curse? What do you mean, father?"

"Ahmed will tell you. In God's name go, child!"

"Come, Miss Kathlyn," Bruce called anxiously.

Kathlyn then climbed up to the window, and Bruce lifted her into his howdah, bidding her to lie low. How strong he was, she thought. Ah, something had whispered to her day by day that he would come when she needed him. Suddenly she felt her cheeks grow hot with shame. She snuggled her bare legs under her grass dress. Till this moment she had never given her appearance a single thought. There had been things so much more vital. But youth, and there is ever the way of a man with a maid.

Now, Kathlyn did not love this quiet, resourceful young man, at least if she did she was not yet aware of it; but the touch of his hand and the sound of his voice sent a shiver over her that was not due to the chill of the night. She heard him give his orders, low voiced.

"Do not lift your head above the howdah rim, Miss Kathlyn, till we are in the jungle. And don't worry about your father. He's alive, and that's enough for Ahmed and me. What a strange world it is, and how fate shuffles us about! Forward!"

The curse: what did her father mean by that? It seemed to Kathlyn that hours passed before Bruce spoke again.

"Now you may sit up. What in the world have you got on? Good heavens, grass! You poor girl!" He took off his coat and threw it across her shoulders, and was startled by the contact of her warm flesh.

"I can not thank you in words," she said faintly.

"Don't. Pshaw, it was nothing. I would have gone——" He stopped embarrassedly.

"Well?" Perhaps it was coquetry which impelled the query; perhaps it was something deeper.

He laughed. "I was going to say that I would have gone into the depths of hell to serve you. We'll be at your father's bungalow in a minute or so, and then the final stroke. Umballa is not dependable. He may or may not pay a visit to the cell to-night. I can only pray that he will come down the moment I arrive."

But he was not to meet Umballa that night. Umballa had won his point in regard to having his prisoners flogged; but, Oriental that he was, he went about the matter leisurely. He ate his supper, changed his clothes and dallied in the zenana for an hour. The rascal had made a thorough study of the word "suspense"; he knew the exquisite torture of making one's victim wait. For the time being his passion for Kathlyn had subsided. He desired above all things just than revenge for the humiliating experience in the ceil; he wanted to put pain and terror into her heart. Ah, she would be on her knees, begging, begging, and her father would struggle in vain at his shackles. Spurned; so be it. She should have a taste of his hate, the black man's hate. Two should hold her by the arms while the professional flogger seared the white soft back of her. She would soon come to him begging. He had been too kind. The lash of the zenana, it should bite into her soft flesh. He would break her spirit and her body together and fling her into his own zenana to let her gnaw her heart out in suspense. She should be the least of his women, the drudge.

First, however, the lash should bite the father till he dropped in his chains; thus she would be able to anticipate the pain and degradation.

And always there would remain the little dark-haired sister. She would marry him; she would do it to save her father and sister. Then the filigree basket heaped with rubies and pearls and emeralds and sapphires! As for the other, what cared he if he rotted? It gave him the whip hand over the doddering council. Master he would be; he would blot out all things which stood in his path. A king, till he had gathered what fortune he needed. Then let the jackals howl.

Accompanied by torch bearers, servants and the professional flogger, he led the way to the cell and flung open the door triumphantly. For a moment he could not believe his eyes. She was gone, and through yonder window! Hell of all hells of Hind! She was gone, and he was robbed!

"Out of your reach this time, you black devil!" cried the colonel. "Go on. Do what you please to me, I'm ready."

Umballa ran to the tabouret and jumped upon it. He saw the trampled grass. Elephants. And these doubtless had come from the colonel's camp. He jumped off the tabouret and dashed to the door.

"Follow me!" he cried. "Later, Colonel Hare, later!" he threatened.

The colonel remained silent.

Up above, in the palace, Umballa summoned a dozen troopers and gave them explicit orders. He was quite confident that Kathlyn would be carried at once to her father's bungalow, if only for a change of clothes. It was a shrewd guess.

As the iron door changed upon the sill Colonel Hare leaned against the pillar and closed his eyes, praying silently.

At the bungalow Pundita fell at Kathlyn's feet and kissed them.

"Mem-sahib!" she cried brokenly.

"Pundita!" Kathlyn stooped and gathered her up in her arms.

After that Ramabai would have died for her under any torture.

"Now, Ahmed, what did my father mean when he said 'curse or no curse'?"

"It's a long story, Mem-sahib," said Ahmed evasively.

"Tell it."

"It was in a temple in the