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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Fascinating Traitor, by Richard Henry Savage
+
+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: A Fascinating Traitor
+
+Author: Richard Henry Savage
+
+Release Date: June, 2004  [EBook #5972]
+Posting Date: March 28, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A FASCINATING TRAITOR ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Carrie Fellman
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A FASCINATING TRAITOR
+
+AN ANGLO-INDIAN STORY
+
+By Col. Richard Henry Savage
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+
+   BOOK I. OUT OF THE DEAD PAST.
+
+
+   I.-A Chance Meeting at Geneva
+
+   II.-An Offensive and Defensive Alliance
+
+   III.-"And at Delhi What Am I to Do?"
+
+   IV.-The Veiled Rosebud of Delhi
+
+   V.-A Diplomatic Tiffin
+
+
+
+   BOOK II. "A DEVIL FOR LUCK."
+
+
+   VI.-The Mysterious Bungalow
+
+   VII.-The Price of Safety
+
+   VIII.-Harry Hardwicke Takes the Gate Neatly!
+
+   IX.-Alan Hawke Plays His Trump Card
+
+   X.-A Captivated Viceroy
+
+
+
+   BOOK III. PRINCE DJIDDIN'S VISIT TO ENGLAND.
+
+
+   XI.-"Do You See This Dagger?"
+
+   XII.-On the Cliffs of Jersey
+
+   XIII.-An Asiatic Lion in Hiding.
+
+   XIV.-The Council at Granville
+
+   XV.-The French Fisher Boat "Hirondelle"
+
+
+
+
+
+BOOK I. OUT OF THE DEAD PAST.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. A CHANCE MEETING AT GENEVA.
+
+
+"By Jove! I may as well make an end of the thing right here to-night!"
+was the dejected conclusion of a long council of war over which Major
+Alan Hawke had presided, with the one straggling comfort of being its
+only member.
+
+All this long September afternoon he had dawdled away in feeding certain
+rapacious swans navigating gracefully around Rousseau's Island. He had
+consumed several Trichinopoly cigars in the interval, and had moodily
+gazed back upon the strange path which had led him to the placid shores
+of Lake Leman! The gay promenaders envied the debonnair-looking young
+Briton, whose outer man was essentially "good form." Children left the
+side of their ox-eyed bonnes to challenge the handsome young stranger
+with shy, friendly approaches.
+
+Bevies of flashing-eyed American girls "took him in" with parthian
+glances, and even a widowed Russian princess, hobbling by, easing her
+gouty steps with a jeweled cane, gazed back upon the moody Adonis and
+sighed for the vanished days, when she possessed both the physical and
+mental capacity to wander from the beaten paths of the proprieties.
+
+But--the world forgetting--the young man lingered long, gazing out upon
+the broad expanse of the waters, his eyes resting carelessly upon the
+superb panorama of the southern shore. He had wandered far away from the
+Grand Hotel National, in the aimlessness of sore mental unrest, and, all
+unheeded, the hours passed on, as he threaded the streets of the proud
+old Swiss burgher city. He had known its every turn in brighter days,
+and, though the year of ninety-one was a brilliant Alpine season, and he
+was in the very flower of youth and manly promise, gaunt care walked as
+a viewless warder at Alan Hawke's side.
+
+He had crossed over the Pont de Montblanc to the British Consulate, only
+to learn that the very man whom he had come from Monaco to seek, was now
+already at Aix la Chapelle, on his way to America, on a long leave.
+He had wearily made a tour of the principal hotels and scanned the
+registers with no lucky find! Not a single gleam of hope shone out in
+all the polyglot inscriptions passing under his eye! And so he had
+sadly betaken himself to a safe, retired place, where he could hold the
+aforesaid council of war.
+
+The practical part of the operations of this sole committee of ways
+and means, was an exhaustive examination of his depleted pockets. A
+few sovereigns and a single crisp twenty-pound Bank of England note
+constituted the rear guard of Alan Hawke's vanished "sinews of war." The
+young man briefly noted the slender store, with a sigh.
+
+"Twenty-five pounds--and a little trumpery jewelry--I can't ever get
+back to India on that!" He seemed to hear again the rasping voice of the
+vulpine caller at Monte Carlo: "Messieurs! Faites vos jeux! Rien ne va
+plus! Le jeu est fait!" And, if a dismal failure in Lender had been his
+Leipsic, the black week at Monaco had been his long drawn-out Waterloo!
+"I was a rank fool to go there," he growled, "and a greater fool to come
+over here! I might have got on easily to Malta, and then chanced it from
+there to Calcutta!"
+
+The sun's last lances glittered on the waters gleaming clear as crystal,
+with their deep blue tint of reflected sky, and liquid sapphire! The
+gardens were becoming deserted as the loungers dropped off homeward one
+by one, and still the handsome young fellow sat moodily gazing down into
+the rushing waters of the arrowy Rhone, as if he fain would cast the
+dark burden of his dreary thoughts far away from him down into those
+darkling waters. But thirty-two years of age, Alan Hawke had already
+outlived all his wild boyish romances. The thrill with which he had
+first set foot upon the land of Clive and Warren Hastings had faded away
+long years gone! And, Fate had stranded him at Geneva!
+
+As he sat, still irresolute as to his future movements, the dying
+sunlight gilded the splendid panorama of the whole Mont Blanc group.
+Rose and purple, with fading gold and amethystine gleams played softly
+upon the far-away giant peak, with its noble bodyguard, the Aiguilles
+du Midi, Grandes Jorasses, the Dent du Geant, the sturdy pyramid of
+the Mole, and the long far sweep of the Voirons. But he noted not
+these splendors of the dying sun god, as he stood there moodily defying
+adverse fate, a modern Manfred. "I might with this get on to London--but
+what waits me there? Only scorn, callous neglect!" His eye fell upon the
+statue of Jean Jacques, lifted up there by the sturdy men who have for
+centuries clung to the golden creeds of civil and religious liberty--the
+independence of man--and the freedom of the unshackled human soul.
+"Poor Rousseau! seer and parasite, fugitive adventurer, the sport of the
+great, the eater of bitter bread--the black bread of dependence! I will
+not linger here in a long-drawn agony! Here, I will end it forever, and
+to-night!"
+
+There were certain visions of the past which returned to shake even
+the iron nerves of Alan Hawke! Face to face now with his half formed
+resolution of suicide, the wasted past slowly unrolled itself before
+him.
+
+The brief days of his service in India, an abrupt exit from the service,
+long years of wandering in Japan and China, as a gentleman adventurer,
+and all the singular phases of a nomadic life in Burmah, Nepaul,
+Cashmere, Bhootan, and the Pamirs.
+
+He smiled in derision at the recollection of a briefly flattering
+fortune which had rebaptized him with a shadowy title of uncertain
+origin. Thus far, his visiting card, "Major Alan Hawke, Bombay Club" had
+been an easily vised passport, but--alas--good only among his own kind!
+He was but a free lance of the polished "Detrimentals," and, under this
+last adverse stroke of fortune, his poor cockboat was being swamped in
+the black waters of adversity. He had staked much upon a little campaign
+at the Foreign Office in London. The cold rebuff which he had received
+to there had carried him in sheer desperation over to Monaro and
+incoming onto Geneva, he had "burned his ships" behind him. Ignorant of
+the precise manner in which his clouded reputation had stopped the way
+to his advancement in the English Secret Service, he remembered, even
+at the last, that a few letters were due to those who still watched his
+little flickering light on its way over the trackless sea of life.
+For hard-hearted as he was,--benumbed by the blows of fate, his heart
+calloused with the snapping of cords and ties which once had closely
+bound him--there were yet loosely knit bonds of the past which tinged
+with the glow of his dying passions--the unforgotten idols of his
+adventurous career!
+
+He rose and walked mechanically along the Qua du Mont Blanc with the
+alert, springy step of the soldier. "Once a Captain, always a Captain"
+was in every line of his resolute, martial figure. His well-set-up,
+graceful form, his nobly poised head and easy soldierly bearing
+contrasted sharply with the lazy shuffle of the prosperous Swiss
+denizens and the listless lolling of the sporadic foreign tourists.
+Crisp, curling, tawny hair, a sweeping soldierly moustache, with a
+resolute chin and gleaming blue eyes accentuated a handsome face burnt
+to a dark olive by the fiery Indian sun. An easy insouciance tempered
+the habitual military smartness of the man who had known several
+different services in the fifteen years of his wasted young manhood. As
+he swung into the glare of the hospitable doorway of the Grand Rational,
+the obsequious head porter doffed his gold banded cap.
+
+"Table d'hote serving now, Major!" With the mere social instinct of long
+years, Alan Hawke recognized the man's perfunctory politeness, tipped
+him a couple of francs, and then, mechanically sauntered to a seat in
+the superb salle a manger. "I'll get out of here to-night," he muttered,
+and then he bent down his head over the carte du jour and peered at the
+wine list, as the chatter of happy voices, the animated faces of lovely
+women and the eager hum of social life around, recalled him to that
+world from which he contemplated an unceremonious exit. It was in a
+deference to old habit, and the "qu en dira't on," that he ordered a
+half bottle of excellent Chambertin and then proceeded to dine with all
+the scrupulous punctilio of the old happy mess days.
+
+Something of defiance seemed to steal back into his veins with the
+generous warmth of the wine--a touch of the old gallant spirit with
+which he had faced a hard world, since the unfortunate incident which
+had abruptly terminated his connection with "The Widow's" Service. His
+eye swept carelessly over the international detachment seated at the
+splendid table. Lively and chattering as they were, it was a human
+Sahara to him. He easily recognized the "Ten-Pounder" element of
+wandering Britons; poor, anxious-eyed beings grudgingly furloughed from
+shop and desk, and now sternly determined to descend at Charing Cross
+without breaking into the few reserve sovereigns. Serious-looking
+women, clad in many colors, and stolid cockneys, hostile to all foreign
+innovation, met his eye. He sighed as he cast his social net and drew up
+nothing.
+
+There was a vacant chair at his left. Very shortly, without turning his
+eyes, he was made aware of the proximity of a woman, young, evidently a
+continental, from her softly murmured French.
+
+"Houbigant's Forest Violets," he murmured. "She is at least
+semi-civilized!" He was dreaming of the far off lotos land which he
+had left, as he felt the rebellious protest of his young blood and
+the defiant spirit awaked by the mechanical luxury of the well-ordered
+dinner. "These human pawns seem to be all prosperous, if not happy! I'll
+have another shy at it! By God! I must get back to India!" The whole
+checkered past rushed back over his mind! The fifteen years of his
+"wanderjahre"! Scenes which even he dared not recall! Incidents which he
+had never dared to own to any European! He but too well knew the origin
+of his loosely applied title of Major--a field officer's rank more
+honored at the easygoing clubs of Yokahama, Shanghai, and Hong Kong than
+on the Army List--a rank best known at the ring-side of Indian sporting
+grounds, and only tacitly accepted in the extra-official circles of
+Hindustan. For it figured not in the official Army List, either as
+active or retired. The whole panorama of the mystic land of the Hindus
+was unrolled once more by the memories of fifteen clouded years, He
+saw again his far-away theater of varied action, with its huge grim
+mountains towering far over the snow line, its arid wastes, its fertile
+plains bathed in intense sunshine, its mystic rivers, and its silent,
+solemn shrines of the vanished gods.
+
+Major Alan Hawke silently ran over his slender professional
+accomplishments. "I'm not too heavy to ride yet. I've a fair hand at
+cards--tough nerves, and even a bit of staying power. Luck may turn my
+way yet and there's always the Pamirs! At the worst, the Russians--the
+Afghans,--or those fellows up in Sikkim and Hill Tipperah! An
+artillerist is always welcome there!" But even in his moral desperation,
+he hung his head, for a flush of his boyhood's bright ambitions returned
+to shame him. An old song jingled in his memory, "When I first put this
+uniform on." He lapsed into a bitter reverie!
+
+The soldier of fortune was finally aroused from a brown study by the
+impassive steward presenting two great dishes. The clatter of some late
+convive seating himself also caused him to turn his head.
+
+"Hello, Anstruther! You are a long way from staff headquarters here!"
+quietly said Hawke, as the new arrival gazed at him in a mute surprise.
+
+Captain the Honorable Anson Anstruther put up his monocle and duly
+answered: "I thought that you were still in Calcutta, Hawke." There was
+a faint noli me tangere air in the young staff officer's manner, and
+yet mere propinquity drew them together in a few minutes. With the
+insouciance of men bred in club and at mess, the two soldiers soon
+drifted into an easy chat, meeting on safe grounds. They calmly
+ignored the surrounding civilians, regardless of the attractions of two
+falcon-eyed Chicago beauties, loud of voice and brilliantly overdressed,
+who were guiding "Popper" and "Mommer" over the continent. These
+resplendent daughters of Columbia already boasted a train consisting
+of a French count (of a very old and shadowy regime), a singularly
+second-hand looking Italian marquis, a wooden-soldier figured German
+baron, and a sad-eyed, distant-looking Russian prince, whose bold Tartar
+glances rested hungrily upon both Miss "Phenie" and Miss "Genie" Forbes.
+
+The Anglo-Indians, however, calmly pursued their dinner and gossip
+regardless of the fact that Miss "Phenie" had violently nudged Miss
+"Genie," and whispered in a stage aside: "Say, Genie, look at those two
+English fellows! They are something like--I bet you that they are
+two Lords!" The approval of the gilded Western maidens, whose father
+systematically assassinated a thousand porkers per diem, was lost upon
+the chance-met acquaintances. "I must get back to India, by hook or
+crook," mused Alan Hawke, and therefore, he very delicately played his
+wary fish, the sybaritic young swell of the staff. Captain the Honorable
+Anson Anstruther's reserve soon melted under the skillful bonhomie of
+the astute Alan Hawke. An easy-going patrician of the staff, he was in
+the magic circle of the viceroy. The heir to an inevitable fortune, and
+already vested with substantially stratified deposits at "Coutts"
+and Glyn, Carr and Glyn's, he would have been envied by most luckless
+mortals the heavy balances which he always carried at "Grind-lay's," a
+fortune for any less fortunate man.
+
+He was already interested in the remarkably fetching looking young woman
+at Alan Hawke's left, being a squire of dames par excellence, while
+Major Alan Hawke himself wondered how Anstruther had drifted so far away
+from the direct line of travel to London.
+
+Thawing visibly under the influence of Hawke's gracefully modulated
+camaraderie, the susceptible Anstruther was attentively examining his
+fair neighbor in silence, while he tried vaguely to recall some story
+which he had once heard, quite detrimental to the cosmopolitan Major.
+
+He gave it up as a bad job! "Hang it!" he thought. "It may have been
+some other chap. Very likely!" It was the strange story of a sharp
+encounter with the hostile Kookies, in which a couple of English
+mountain guns, long before abandoned by a British expeditionary force,
+had been served with due professional skill and most desperate dash by
+a reckless man, easily recognized as an English refugee artillerist.
+The wounded escaped British soldier, who had died after denouncing the
+deserting adventurer, had left his parting advice to the Royal Artillery
+to burn the fearless renegade, should he ever be captured. It was the
+Story of a nameless traitor!
+
+But, the vague distrust of the curled darling of Fortune soon faded away
+under Hawke's measured social leading. A silver wine cooler stood behind
+their chairs, and the old yarn of a British officer playing Olivier Pain
+became very misty under the subtle influence of the Pommery Sec. Alan
+Hawke guarded the expected story of his own wanderings, waiting craftily
+until Bacchus and Venus had sufficiently mollified Anstruther.
+
+He duplicated the champagne, knowing well the warming influence of
+"t'other bottle." The Major of a shadowy rank had early learned the
+graceful art of effacing himself, and on this occasion, it stood greatly
+to his credit. Anstruther was now quite sure that the graceful head of
+the beautiful neighbor swayed in an unconscious recognition of his witty
+sallies. A true son of Mars--ardent, headlong, and gallant as regarded
+le beau sexe--he talked brilliantly and well, aiming his boomerang
+remarks at a woman whom he knew to be young and graceful, and whose
+beauty he was gayly taking upon trust; an old, old interlude, played
+many a time and oft.
+
+"What is going on here in this beastly slow old town? Nothing much for
+to-night, I fancy," said the aid-de-camp, wondering if a promenade au
+clair de la lune or a carriage ride to Ferney would be possible! He
+already had noted the purity of the French accent of the fair unknown.
+No guttural Swiss patois there, but that crisp elegance of tone which
+promised him a flirtation en vraie Parisienne.
+
+"Only Philemon and Baucis, an antique opera, at the Grand Opera House,
+and sung by a band of relics of better days, wandering over here!" said
+Hawke.
+
+And then it finally dawned upon the blase young staff officer that he
+had met Alan Hawke in certain circles where plunging had chased away the
+tedium of Indian club life with the delightful sensations of raking in
+other people's money.
+
+"Better come up to my rooms then, and have a weed and a bit of ecarte!"
+slowly said Anstruther. "We may manage a ride afterward!" Alan Hawke
+nodded, and a thirsty gleam lit up his crafty eyes. He instinctively
+felt for the little card case containing that solitary twenty-pound
+note; it was a gentleman's stake after all. And the would-be suicide
+silently invoked the fickle goddess Fortuna!
+
+Captain Anstruther, however, furtively murmured a few words to the
+solemn head steward and then leaned back contentedly in his chair.
+His ostensible orders for cafe noir and cards, as well as the least
+murderous of the obtainable cigars, covered the plan of using a
+five-pound note in an adroit personal inquiry. For, the Honorable Anson
+Anstruther proposed to ride that very evening, and he did not wish to
+bore Major Hawke with his company. He nursed a little scheme of his own.
+"Do you make a long stay?" carelessly said the wary Major.
+
+"I intend to leave to-morrow night," gayly answered the other. "I came
+over here on a very strange errand. I've got to see an eminent Gorgon
+of respectability, who has a finishing school here for the young person
+bien clevee," said Anstruther, eyeing the unknown.
+
+"Hardly in your line, Anstruther!" laughed Hawke, casting his eyes
+around the depleted table, for Miss Phenie and Miss Genie Forbes had
+vanished at last, leaving behind them expanding wave circles of sharply
+echoing comment. The noisy Teutons had devoured their seven francs
+worth, and the fair bird of passage on their left was left alone,
+woman-like, dallying with the last sweets and finishing her demi
+bouteille with true French deliberation. "It's a case of the wolf and
+the sheep-fold!"
+
+"Not that; not at all!" gayly answered Anstruther. "I have a long leave,
+and I only ran over here to oblige His Excellency." He spoke with all
+the easy disdain of all underlings born of an Indian official life--the
+habitual disregard of the Briton for his inferior surroundings. "By
+Jove! you may help me out yourself! You're an old Delhi man!" He gazed
+earnestly at Hawke, who started nervously, and then said:
+
+"You know I've been away for a good bit of the ten years in the far
+Orient, but I used to know them all, before I went out of the line."
+
+"Then you surely know old Hugh Johnstone, the rich, old, retired deputy
+commissioner of Oude?" Alan Hawke slowly sipped his champagne, for his
+Delhi memories were both risky and uncertain ground.
+
+"I fail to recall the name, Johnstone--Johnstone," murmured Hawke.
+
+"Why, everyone knows old Johnstone; he is an old mutiny man. You surely
+do! He was Hugh Fraser until he took the name of Johnstone, ten years
+or so ago, on a Scotch relative leaving him a handsome Highland estate!"
+There was a warning rustle at Hawke's left, as the fair stranger
+prepared for her flitting.
+
+"I was very intimate with Hugh Fraser in my griffin days. But I thought
+he had retired and gone back home. He is enormously rich, and an old
+bachelor! I know him very well; he was a good friend of mine in the old
+days, too!"
+
+Anstruther leaned toward Hawke, as he signed to the waiter to refill his
+hearer's glass. "Well, I can surprise even you! He has turned up with a
+beautiful daughter--at Delhi--just about the prettiest girl I ever--"
+
+"Je demande mills pardons, Madame!" politely cried Major Hawke, as his
+fair neighbor's wineglass went shivering down in a crystalline wreck.
+
+"Pas de quoi, Monsieur," suavely replied the woman whom till now he had
+hardly noticed. A moment later the slight damage was repaired, and then
+Captain the Honorable Anson Anstruther had his little innings.
+
+With courtly hospitality he offered the creamy champagne as a
+remplacement for the lost vin du pays.
+
+A charming smile rewarded the gallant youth, while Major Hawke turned
+with interest to the renewal of the interrupted narrative. He had caught
+a glance of burning intensity from the dark brown eyes of the lady a
+la Houbigant, which set every nerve in his body tingling. It was
+a challenge to a companionship, and, as he led on the triumphant
+Anstruther, he deeply regretted the absence of that most necessary
+organ,--an eye in the back of the head. He was dimly aware that his
+beautiful neighbor was very leisurely drinking the peace offering of the
+susceptible son of Mars. "I will bet hundreds to ha'pennies she speaks
+English!" quickly reflected the now aroused Major.
+
+"You astound me, Anstruther," the Major said. "Not a lawful child! Some
+Eurasian legacy--a relic of the old days of the Pagoda Tree! Why, the
+old commissioner always was a woman hater, and absolutely hostile to all
+social influences!" The Captain was now stealing longing glances at the
+willowy figure of the beautiful woman whose glistening dark brown eyes
+were turned to him with a languid glance, as Alan Hawke leaned forward.
+To prolong the sight of that bewitching half profile, with the fair, low
+brows, the velvet cheeks, a Provencale flush tinting them, the parted
+lips a dainty challenge speaking, and the rich masses of dark brown hair
+nobly crowning her regal outlines, Anstruther yielded to the spell and
+babbled on. "The whole thing is a strange melange of official business
+and dying gossip!" dreamily said Anstruther with his eyes straying over
+the ivory throat, the superbly modeled bust and perfect figure of the
+young Venus Victrix.
+
+He was duly rewarded by a glance of secret intelligence when he leaned
+back, dreamily closing his eyes. "You see, they were going to make old
+Hugh Fraser or Hugh Johnstone, as he is now called, a baronet for some
+secret services to the Crown of an important nature, rendered about the
+time when mad Hodson piled up the whole princely succession to the House
+of Oude in a trophy of naked corpsess pistoling them with his own hand."
+He ordered a third bottle of Pommery, with a wave of his hand, and
+proceeded: "Of course, you know, Her Majesty's Government always closely
+investigate the social antecedents of the nominee in such cases. The
+change of name is all right; it is regularly entered at Herald's College
+and all that sort of thing, but the Chief has heard of the sudden
+appearance of this beautiful daughter. Now, old Johnstone surely never
+looked the way of woman in India! It's true that he went back about
+twenty years ago to England on a two years' leave. He has lived the life
+of a splendid recluse in his magnificent old bungalow on the Chandnee
+Chouk."
+
+Anstruther paused, fishing for another fugitive smile. He caught it
+behind the back of the wary adventurer.
+
+"I know the old house well," said Hawke with an affected unconcern.
+"Men were always entertained royally there, but I never saw a woman of
+station in its vast saloons."
+
+"Now there you are!" cried Anstruther, lightly resuming: "I was sent
+up to Delhi to delicately find out about this alleged daughter, for the
+Chief does not want to throw Johnstone's baronetcy over. The fact is
+before they packed the toothless old King of Oude away to Rangoon to
+die with his favorite wife and their one wolf cub out there, Hugh Fraser
+skillfully extorted a surrender of a huge private treasure of jewels
+from these people while they were hidden away in Humayoon's tomb.
+There's one trust deposit yet to be divided between the Government
+and this sly old Indo-Scotch-man, and I fancy the empty honor of the
+baronetcy is a quid pro quo." Alan Hawke laughed heartily. "It is really
+diamond cut diamond, then."
+
+"Precisely," said Anstruther, as he most calmly waved his hand to the
+steward, who silently refilled even the glass of the Venus Anonyma.
+A slight inclination of the head and parthian glance number three,
+encouraged Anstruther to hasten and conclude, for the moon was sailing
+grandly over the lake now.
+
+Love thrilled in the young man's vacant heart, sounding the chords of
+the Harp of Life. He had been in a glittering Indian exile long enough
+to be very susceptible. "I spent two weeks up there with the expectant
+Sir Hugh Johnstone," lightly rattled on the aid. "I verified the fact
+that the young woman is his acknowledged daughter. He has no other
+lineal heir to the title, for an old, dry-as-dust, retired Edinburgh
+professor, a brother, childless and eccentric, is living near St.
+Helier's, in Jersey, in a beautiful Norman chateau farm mansion, where
+old Hugh proposed once to end his days. It seems to be all square
+enough. I was as delicate as I could be about it, and the matter is
+apparently all right. The papers have all gone on, and, in due time,
+Hugh Fraser will be Sir Hugh Johnstone!"
+
+Anstruther quaffed a beaker with guileful ideas of detaining his fair
+neighbor, now ruffling her plumage for departure, for only a sporadic
+knot of diners here and there lingered at the long table. "The girl
+herself?" asked Hawke, with a strange desire to know more.
+
+"Report has duly magnified her hidden charms," replied Anstruther. "She
+is called "The Veiled Rose of Delhi," and no manner of man may lift that
+mystic veil. I was treated en prince, but held at arm's length."
+
+Hawke smiled softly, and said in a low voice, "I hardly see how all this
+brings you over here. The Rose blooms by the far-away Jumna."
+
+"Then know, my friend," laughed Anstruther, "such a rose as the peerless
+Nadine Johnstone must have a duenna." He deftly caught an impassioned
+glance from the softly shining brown eyes, and hastily went on. "She was
+educated right here in this emporium of watches, musical boxes, correct
+principles, and scientific research. Mesdames Justine and Euphrosyne
+Delande, No. 122 Rue du Rhone, conduct an institute (justly renowned)
+where calisthenics, a view of the lake, a little music, a great deal
+of bad French, and the Conversations Lexicon, with some surface womanly
+graces, may all be had for some two hundred pounds a year. Miss Justine
+Delande, a sedately gray-tinted spinster, has been tempted to remain
+on guard for a year out in India, having safely conducted this Pearl
+of Jeunes Personnes Bien Elevees out to the old Qui Hai. I have been
+charged with some few necessary explanations and negotiations, the
+delivery of some presents, and, when I have visited this first-class
+institute, enjoying all the attractions of the Jardin Anglais and the
+Promenade du Lac, I shall flee these tranquil slopes of the Pennine
+Alps. Incidentally, the records of Mademoiselle Euphrosyne will confirm
+the very natural story of the would-be Sir Hugh, whose vanished wife no
+Anglo-Indian has ever seen. She is supposably dead. A last official note
+after I have run on to Paris will close up the whole awkward matter. I
+will call there tomorrow and then take the early train, as I am on for
+a lot of family visits and sporting events before I can settle down to
+have my bit of a fling."
+
+"It's a very strange story," murmured Alan Hawke. "No man ever suspected
+Hugh Fraser of family honors."
+
+"And 'the Rose of Delhi!' will probably marry some lucky fellow out
+there, as old Johnstone has lacs and lacs of rupees," said Anstruther,
+"for he cannot keep her in his great gardens forever, guarded by the
+stony-eyed Swiss spinster, or let her run around as the Turks do their
+priceless pet sheep with a silver bell around her neck. There was some
+old marital unhappiness, I suppose, for the girl is evidently born in
+wedlock, and the story is straight enough."
+
+"Have you seen her?" eagerly inquired Hawke.
+
+"Just a few stolen glimpses," hastily replied Anstruther, politely
+rising and bowing as the fair unknown suddenly left her seat, in evident
+confusion.
+
+The two men strolled out of the salle a manger together, Major Alan
+Hawke critically observing the heightened color and evident elan of his
+aristocratic friend.
+
+"Oh! I say, Hawke," cried Anstruther, "they'll show you up to my rooms
+in a few moments. I'll go and see the maitre d'hotel here! The service
+is beastly--beastly!" and the youth fled quickly away.
+
+Major Alan Hawke nodded affably, and slowly mounted the staircase to his
+room, wondering if the aid-de-camp was destined by the gods to furnish
+forth his purse for the return to India. "He's pretty well set up now,
+and he evidently has his eye upon this brown-eyed nixie. Dare I rush my
+luck? The boy's a bit stupid at cards." With downcast eyes the anxious
+adventurer wandered along the corridor in the dimly-lighted second
+story. It was the turning point of his career.
+
+There was the rapid rustle of silk, the patter of gliding feet, a warm,
+trembling hand seized his own, and in the darkness of a window recess he
+was aware that he was suddenly made the prize of the fair corsair ci
+la Houbigant. "Quick, quick, tell me! Do you go with him?" the strange
+enchantress said, in excited tones, using the English tongue as if to
+the manner born.
+
+"Madame! I hardly understand," cautiously said the astounded Major.
+
+"I want you to help me! You must help me! I must see him! I must
+find out all." The sound of a servant's steps arrested her incoherent
+remarks. "Wait here!" the excited woman whispered, as she walked back
+down the hall. There was a whispered colloquy, and Alan Hawke caught the
+gleam of the silver neck chain of the maitre d'hotel. The sound of
+an opening door was heard, and, in a few moments the flying Camilla
+returned to her hidden prey.
+
+"Tell me truly," she panted, "what will you do with him? He wishes me to
+ride with him; my answer depends on you. You are in trouble; I can see
+it in your haggard eyes. Help me now, and--and I will help you!" And
+then Alan Hawke spoke truly to the waif of Destiny, whom chance had
+thrown in his way.
+
+"I only wish to play with him for a couple of hours; if luck turns my
+way, that will be time enough!"
+
+"Ah! you would have money! Let him go away in peace! Help me to-morrow,
+here, and I will give you money!"
+
+"What is your own scheme?" the doubting vaurien demanded.
+
+"I must know all of this Hugh Johnstone, all about this girl," she
+whispered, her lips almost touching his cheek.
+
+"Let me play with him to-night; I am yours as soon as he departs!"
+sullenly said Hawke.
+
+"Then, finish in two hours," the woman said, gathering her draperies to
+flee away, "for I will ride with him to-night!"
+
+"Just a bit unconventional," murmured Alan Hawke. "Who the devil can
+this French-English woman be anyway." He realized that some subtle game
+depended upon the memories of the past strangely evoked by the artless
+Anstruther's babble. As he strolled back to the smoking-room, he saw
+the maitre d'hotel slyly deliver a twisted bit of paper to the all too
+unconcerned looking young Adonis, and the gleam of a napoleon shone out
+in the grave faced Figaro's hand. "Now for our cafe noir, a good pousse
+cafe--and--a dash at the painted beauties. I can't play very long,"
+was Anstruther's salutation, as he complacently twisted his mustache en
+hussar. Major Hawke bowed in a silent delight.
+
+And so it fell out that both wolf and panther--hungry vulpine prowler
+and sleek feminine soft-footed enemy--gathered closely, around the
+young British Lion, whose easy self-complacency led him into the snare,
+hoodwinked by the fair unknown Delilah.
+
+Alan Hawke strode to the windows of Anstruther's rooms and standing
+there, watched the drifting moonbeams mantling on the spectral blue
+lake, while his chance-met friend rang for a waiter. There was the
+murmur of confidential orders, and then Anson Anstruther with a bright
+smile dropped easily into the role of host. The young staff officer was
+so elated by the apparently flattering selection of the fair anonyma
+that he never considered the idea of possible foul play. It was evident
+that Major Hawke had not noticed the little by-play which was the
+delightful undercurrent of the table d'hote dinner. There was no time
+lost in the preliminaries of the card duel.
+
+Through curling blue wreaths of aromatic incense, over the brandy-dashed
+coffee, the two men sententiously struggled for the smiles of Fortune,
+with impassive faces, in a rapid duel of wits as the fleeting moments
+sped along.
+
+The tide of luck was set dead against Anstruther, who strangely seemed
+to be now possessed of a merry devil. He made perilous excursions into
+the land of brandy and soda, gayly faced his bad fortune, and feverishly
+chattered over the well-worn Anglo-Indian gossip adroitly introduced by
+the now nerve-steadied Hawke. General Renwick's loss of his faded and
+feeble spouse, the far-famed "Poor Thing" of much polite apology for her
+socially aristocratic ailments; Vane Tempest's singular elopement with
+the beautiful wife of a green subaltern; Harry Chillingly's untoward
+end while potting tigers; Count Platen's enormous winnings at Baccarat;
+Fitzgerald Law's falling into a peerage; and Mrs. Claire Atterbury, the
+wealthy widow's purchase of a handsome boy-husband fresh from Sandhurst.
+All this with Jack Blunt's long expected ruin, and a spicy court-martial
+or two, furnished a running accompaniment to Anstruther's expensive
+"personally conducted tour" into the intricacies of ecarte, led on by
+the coolest safety player who ever fleeced a griffin. Truly these were
+golden moments. The Major's cool steady eyes were sternly fixed on his
+cards.
+
+The self-imposed sentence of suicide of the afternoon was indefinitely
+postponed when Alan Hawke amiably nodded as Anstruther at last
+apologized for glancing at his watch. "I've a bit to do to get ready for
+to-morrow, and we'll try one more hand and then I'll say good-night."
+
+"Well, I'll give you your revenge at any time, Anstruther! By the way,
+what's your London address?" Hawke was complacently good humored as
+he glanced at a visiting card whereon sundry comfortable figures were
+roughly totted up.
+
+"Junior United Service, always," carelessly said Anstruther. "They keep
+run of me, for I'm off for the woods as soon as the shooting season
+opens. Where will you be this winter?"
+
+Major Hawke assumed a mysterious air, "That depends upon the Russian and
+Chinese game--the Persian and Afghan intrigues! You see, I am awaiting
+some ripening affairs in the F. O. I was called back on account of my
+familiarity with the Pamirs, and there's a good bit of Blue Book work
+that my knowledge of Penj Deh, and the whole Himalayan line has helped
+out." The captain was a bit agnostic now.
+
+"You were---" began Anson Anstruther, timidly, the old vague gossip
+returning to haunt him. His ardor was cooling in view of the very neat
+sum of his losses in three figures.
+
+"On Major Montgomerie's escort as a raw boy when I came out," promptly
+interrupted Hawke. "I went all over Thibet in '75 with Nana Singh as
+a youngster. He was a wonderful chap and besides executing the secret
+survey of Thibet, he ran all over Cashmere, Nepaul, Sikkim, and Bhootan,
+secretly charged with securing authentic details of the death of Nana
+Sahib." The cool assurance of the adventurer disarmed the now serious
+Anstruther, for both the sagacious English officer and his disguised
+assistant, Nana Singh, were both dead these many years. "Morley's is my
+regular address; I keep up no home club memberships now," coolly said
+Hawke, as at last they threw the cards down.
+
+Anstruther picked up his marker card as he glanced at Hawke's ready
+money upon the table. There was a ten-pound note folded under the
+Major's neat pocket case and a plethoric fold of Bank of England
+notes bulged the neat Russia leather. He never knew that only thirteen
+one-pound notes made up this brave financial show of his adversary. Alan
+Hawke was a past master of keeping up a brave exterior and he blessed
+the Cook's Tourists who had that day left these small bills with the
+hotel cashier.
+
+"Now, here you are," hastily said Anstruther. "Do you make the same
+total as I do?" The spoiled patrician boy carelessly shoved out sixty
+pounds in notes and rummaging over his portmanteau produced a check
+book. "There, I think that's right. Check on Grindlay, 11 and 12
+Parliament Street, for four hundred and twenty-eight." Hawke bowed
+gravely with the air of a satisfied duelist, and then carelessly swept
+the check and notes into his breast pocket.
+
+"Tell me, what sort of a girl is this Nadine Johnstone," the wanderer
+said, by way of a diversion.
+
+"I can't tell you! Only old General Willoughby has pierced the veil.
+Of course, Johnstone could not refuse a visit from the Commander of
+Her Majesty's forces. In fact, Harry Hardwicke, of the Engineers,
+accompanied Willoughby. The old chief treats Hardwicke as a son since
+he bore the body of the dear old fellow's son out of fire in the Khyber
+Pass, and won a promotion and the V. C. Harry says the girl is a modern
+Noor-Mahal! But, she is as speechless and timid as a startled fawn! Now,
+Major, you will excuse me. I have to leave you!" There was a fretful
+haste in the passionate boy's manner. The hour was already near
+midnight.
+
+"Shall I not see you to-morrow?" politely resumed Hawke. "You will
+not spend your whole morning with the stern damsel in spectacles and
+steel-like armor of indurated poplin?"
+
+"Do you know I'm afraid I shall miss you," earnestly said the aide.
+"Hugh Johnstone wishes me to urge Mademoiselle Euphrosyne to allow her
+sister to remain in India, in charge of the Rose of Delhi until the old
+eccentric returns. Of course, the girl left alone would be an easy prey
+to every fortune hunter in India, should anything happen!" There was a
+ferocious, wild gleam in Alan Hawke's eyes as the aide grasped his hat
+and stick. "I wish to probe the family records and find out what I can
+of the 'distaff side of the line,' as Mr. Guy Livingstone would say. I
+have some really valuable presents, and I am on honor to the Viceroy in
+this, for, of course, a baronetcy must not be given into sullied
+hands. Johnstone will probably hermetically seal the girl up till the
+Kaisar-I-Hind has spoken officially. Then, if this delicate matter of
+the hidden booty of the King of Oude is settled, the old fellow intends
+to return to the home place he has bought. I'm told it's the finest old
+feudal remnant in the Channel Islands, and magnificently modernized. The
+government does not want to press him. You see they can't! The things
+went out of the hands of the hostile traitor princes, and Hugh Fraser,
+as he was, cajoled them from the custody of the go-betweens. We have
+never gone back on the plighted word of a previous Governor-General! The
+Queen's word must not be broken. I have a bit of persuading to do, and
+some other little matters to settle!"
+
+"Well, then, Anstruther, we may meet again on the line of the Indus,"
+said Hawke, with his lofty air. "I have always preferred the secret
+service to mere routine campaigning, for, really, the waiting spoils
+the fighting! Poor Louis Cavagnari! He confirmed my taste for silent and
+outside work! I was sent out from Cabul by him as private messenger just
+before that cruel massacre, a faux pas, which I vainly predicted. He
+taught me to play ecarte, by the way!"
+
+"Then he was a good teacher, and you--a devilish apt scholar!" laughed
+Anstruther, as he politely held the door open for the man who had coldly
+fleeced him.
+
+Alan Hawke's pulses were now bounding with the thrill of his
+unlooked-for harvest! He experienced a certain pride in his marvelous
+skill, and, restraining himself, he soberly paced along the corridor.
+The excited aid-de-camp stood for a moment with his foot on the stair,
+and then slowly descended. "He suspects nothing!" the amatory youth
+murmured, as he passed out upon the broad Quai du Leman.
+
+He walked swiftly along, gayly whistling "Donna e Mobile," with certain
+private variations of his own, until he reached the splendid monument
+erected to the miserly old Duke of Brunswick, who showered his
+scraped-up millions upon an alien city, to spite his own fat-witted
+Brunswickers, and so escaped the blood-fleshed talons of the
+hungry-Prussian eagle.
+
+Duke Charles I hovered amiably in the air, over a comfortable carriage
+wherein the "other little matters" were most temptingly materialized
+in the person of a lovely woman waiting there with burning eyes, her
+splendid face veiled in a black Spanish lace scarf. It was the old
+fate--"Unlucky at cards, lucky in love!" The staff officer's abrupt
+command to "drive everywhere, anywhere," until "further orders," was
+implicitly obeyed by the stolid cabby, who set off at once for a
+long round of the mild "lions" of fair Geneva, nestling there by the
+shimmering lake.
+
+The click of the horses' feet upon the deserted roadway kept time to the
+murmurs of a most coy Delilah, who molded as wax in her slender hands
+the ardent military Samson, who was all unmindful of his flowing locks!
+And the silent moon shimmered down upon the waste of waters!
+
+Alan Hawke was seated for an hour alone in his room, enjoying the cigars
+offered up by the "Universal Provider," who had yielded up so liberally.
+The strong brandy and soda had at last restored his shaken nerves, for
+he had played with his life staked upon the outcome! He then grimly
+counted up his winnings. "Four-hundred and eighty-eight good pounds!
+That will take me back to Delhi in very good shape," he soliloquized.
+"I wonder if there is anyway to get at that girl? If I mistake not, she
+will have a half a million! The old Commissioner always liked me, too.
+By God! If I could only get in between him and this baronetcy I might
+creep in on the girl's friendship! But the old curmudgeon keeps her
+locked up! Rather risky in India!" He leaned back, enjoying memories of
+the women with pulses of flame and hearts of glowing coal whom he had
+met in the days when he was "dead square." This strange woman! Who is
+she? What does she know?
+
+He dozed off until the clattering return of the Misses Phemie and Genie
+Forbes, of Chicago, aroused him. His broad grin accentuated the easily
+overheard strident remark: "Say, Genie, I wish we had had those two
+English Lords at our opera supper. They are just jim-dandies, that's
+what!"
+
+"As long as the world is full of such fools, I can afford to live," he
+pleasantly remarked, as he turned in. A new campaign was opening to
+him. Far away, up the shores of the moon-transfigured lake, a hot-headed
+young fool was showering kisses on the hand of a woman, who sweetly
+said: "Remember my conditions! Prove yourself my friend, and I will meet
+you in Paris! Now, take me home." Samson was shorn of his locks, and the
+delighted Alan Hawke found a little note slipped under his door in the
+morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. AN OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE ALLIANCE.
+
+
+When the now buoyant Major Alan Hawke was awakened by the golden lances
+of morning which shivered gayly upon the Pennine Alps he proceeded to a
+most leisurely toilet, having first satisfied himself that his winnings
+of the night before were not the baseless fabric of a dream. He smiled
+as he fingered the crisp, clean notes, and gazed lovingly upon the
+dingy-looking but potent check drawn on the old army bankers.
+
+"No nonsense about that signature," he cheerfully said. "Anstruther is
+no welsher," and, as he rang for his hot water and a morning refresher,
+he picked up the little note with an eager curiosity.
+
+"By Gad! she is a cool one! This is no vulgar darned occasion! I need
+all my wits to-day!" He was studying over the brief words when the ready
+waiter took his order for a cosy breakfast. He had deliberately moved
+out all his lines to an easy comfort, throwing out a line of pickets
+against any appearance of social shabbiness. "She said that she had
+money," he murmured, as he read the note again. "What the devil does she
+want, then, if she has all the money she needs! Perhaps some discarded
+mistress! Bah! The old man's heart is as hollow as a sentrybox, and,
+besides, he has not been in Europe for nearly twenty years. Ah, I see!
+Perhaps a bit of blackmail--some early indiscretion! She did speak about
+the girl! Then I must be the silent partner of her future harvest! She
+probably needs a man's arm to reach the wary old Baronet in future. My
+lady writes in no uncertain tone."
+
+He carefully folded the note and bestowed it safely with the spoil of
+the young patrician. "Of course I must show up," he said as he betook
+himself to his tub whence he emerged shapely as an Adonis with the
+corded torso of an athlete. The appetizing breakfast put the Major in
+excellent humor, and he drew forth his "sailing orders" as he lit his
+first cheroot. Seated in a window recess, he watched the hotel frontage,
+while he read the imperative lines again. They were explicit enough and
+had been dictated en reine. "Meet me at the Musee Rath, in the vestibule
+at two o'clock. He leaves here at one-thirty. Keep away from the hotel
+and avoid us both. Go up to Ferney and come back on the one o'clock
+boat."
+
+There was a neat carte de visite in the inclosure.
+
+"Now, I will wager that is not her name," he smiled as he read the
+Italian script.
+
+"I can certainly now afford to throw a day or so away on her. At any
+rate, I will let her make the game. I must wait a day or so to send on
+the Grindlay check," the wanderer mused, smiling genially upon the head
+porter. Major Alan Hawke casually inquired, upon his leisurely descent,
+"My friend?"
+
+"Ah, sir! Paid his bill and left. Luggage already sent to the station
+labeled 'Paris.'" Alan Hawke most liberally tipped the functionary. "I
+think I will take a run of a few days up to Lausanne or Chillon myself;
+the weather is delightful." He strolled over to the local Cook's Agency
+and sent his treasure-trove check on to London for collection.
+
+"I think that I will fight shy of this sleepy burgh," he ruminated, as
+the little paddle-wheel steamer sped along toward Ferney, leaving behind
+a huge triangular wake carved in the pellucid waters. "It might be
+devilish awkward if Anstruther should find me here, hovering around his
+fair enslaver. I may need this golden youth again, in the days to come!
+He will be out of India for a couple of years, but I will not trust Fate
+blindly. What the old Harry can she be up to?" He suddenly burst into a
+merry peal of laughter, to the astonishment of the crowd of passengers.
+
+"Fool that I am! I see it all now! Anstruther cleared out early! The
+proprieties of the home of Calvin must be respected! After he has
+adroitly pumped the intellectual fountain of the past dry, then a quiet
+little breakfast tete et tete will give Madame Louison the time to fool
+him to the top of his bent! The sly minx! Evidently she is cast for the
+'ingenue' part in this little social drama! And her trump card is to
+hide from me what she extracts from our Lovelace by the coy use of those
+deuced fetching brown eyes and--other charms too numerous to mention!
+But you shall tell me all yet, Miss Sly Boots!" And the Major dreamed
+pleasant day dreams.
+
+Life now seemed so different to the hopeful vaurien, with the physical
+and moral backing of the four hundred and odd pounds! "I was a fool--a
+damned fool, yesterday," he cheerfully ruminated. "If I only handle
+this woman rightly, then I may get the hold I want on this old recluse
+Johnstone, congested with the fat pickings of forty-five years. A
+close-mouthed old rat is he, and yet it seems that he is vulnerable
+after all. If he is playing fast and loose with the government he
+will never get his honors before he gives up the sleeping trust of the
+forgotten years."
+
+Major Hawke vainly tried to follow the exuberant Anstruther in his
+incursion into the placid temple of Minerva, where that watchful
+spinster, Miss Euphrosyne Delande, eyed somewhat icily the handsome.
+young "Greek bearing gifts." Professional prudence and the memory of
+certain judiciously smothered escapades caused Miss Euphrosyne at first
+to retire within her moral breast works and draw up the sally-port
+bridge. For even in chilly Geneva, young hearts throb in nature's
+flooding lava passions, jealously bodiced in school-girl buckram and
+glacial swiss muslin. So it was very cool for a time in the august
+cavern of conference where Anson Anstruther, a bright Ithuriel,
+struggled with the cautious and covetous Swiss preceptress, and the
+swift steamer Chilian was far up the lake before Captain the victorious
+Honorable Anson Anstruther, sped away to the morning meeting with the
+woman who had seemed to lean down from the moon-lit skies upon her young
+Endymion in that starry night by the throbbing lake.
+
+Major Alan Hawke, proceeding on his voyage, found a certain bitterness
+in the distant mental contemplation of Captain Anstruther's employment
+of his leisure till train time, not knowing that the young soldier's
+sense of duty led him first to dispatch several careful official
+dispatches, one to London, and the two others to Calcutta and Delhi,
+respectively. When Captain Anstruther finally deposited his mail with
+the head porter of the Grand Hotel National he deftly questioned that
+functionary. "My friend--Major Hawke?"
+
+"Gone up the lake for two or three days, sir. Going to Lausanne and
+Chillon. Keeps all his luggage here, though. Shall I give him any
+message for you?" With a view to artfully veiling his coming meeting
+with the beautiful Egeria a la Houbigant, the captain deposited a card
+marked "P. P. C."
+
+"A devilish pleasant fellow and a right stunning hand at ecarte."
+Anstruther prudently walked for a couple of squares, and then hailed
+a passing voiture, directing him to the very cosiest restaurant in the
+snug city of Bonnivard.
+
+Major Hawke, far away now, entertained a slight resentment toward the
+man who had so coolly aspired to les bonnes fortunes, and ignored his
+own possible interference with the Lady of the Lake. It was with a grim
+satisfaction, however, that he saw on the boat the Misses Phenie and
+Genie Forbes, of Chicago, the bright particular stars of the traveling
+upper tendom. "Popper" and "Mommer" were deep in certain red-bound
+Baedeker's and busied in delving for "historic facts," while the artful
+Alan Hawke glided into a fast and familiar flirtation with the two
+bright-eyed, sharp-voiced damsels. Both the heiresses were dressed as if
+for a reception, with judiciously selected jewelry samples, evidencing
+the wondrous success of machine conducted pig demolition. They glittered
+in the sun as Fortune's bediamonded favorites.
+
+And, so, while Madame Berthe Louison and Captain Anstruther lingered au
+cabinet particulier, over their Chablis and Ostend oysters, the recouped
+gambler extended his store of mental acquirement, by tender converse
+with the two sprightly belles of the Windy City. In fact, the whistle
+of the steamer was heard long before Alan Hawke could extricate himself
+from the clinging tentacles of the audacious beauties. He was somewhat
+repaid for his social exertions, however, as he sped back to keep his
+tryst at Geneva, by the acquisition of a large steel-engraved business
+card inscribed, "Forbes, Haygood & Co., Chicago," loftily tendered him
+by "Popper." He smiled at the whispered assurances of the Misses Phenie
+and Genie that they "should soon meet again."
+
+"Bring your friend--that other Lord," cried the departing Miss Genie,
+waving a thousand-franc lace fan, as she sagely observed, "Two's
+company--three's none. We'll have a jolly lark--us four. Don't forget,
+now!" The polite Major laid his hand upon his heart and played the
+amiable tiger, although burning inwardly now, in a fierce personal
+jealousy of Anstruther as he wandered alone around the cold gray halls
+of the museum, and gazed upon the pinched features of the permanently
+eclipsed shining lights of the "Bulwark of Civil and Religious Liberty."
+There was no charm for him in the bigoted ferocity of Calvin's lean,
+dark face, smacking his thin lips over the roasted Servetus. He abhorred
+the departed heroes of the golden evolution from Eidegenossen into
+Higuerios and later Huguenots. They interested him not, neither did he
+love Professor Calame's scratchy pictures, nor the jumbled bric-a-brac
+of art and history. None of these charmed him. He waited only for the
+gliding step, the clasp of a burning hand, and the flash of the lustrous
+dark-brown eyes. It was his own innings now.
+
+He had referred to his watch for the fiftieth time, when, from a closed
+carriage, the object of his mental vituperations gracefully alighted
+at last. It was with the very coldest of bows that the irritated man
+received the graceful, self-possessed woman, whose lovely face was but
+partially hidden by her coquettishly dotted veil.
+
+"She dresses like a Parisienne, walks like an Andalu-sian, and has
+all the seductiveness of a Polish countess!" the quick-witted rascal
+thought, as they strolled into the museum, which the departed General
+Rath knew not would be the scene of many a hidden love intrigue, when
+he endowed it with a benevolent vanity. The two wary strangers strolled
+along until they found a retired corner. Madame Louison seated herself,
+waving her lace parasol with the impatient gesture of one accustomed to
+command.
+
+Alan Hawke was in no gentle humor, and his cheeks reddened as he
+felt the calm scrutiny of the woman's searching glances. He was now
+determined to take the whip hand, and to keep it. His accents were
+staccato as he said, "Tell me now who you are, and what you wish of
+me!" A clock, hung high over them on the dreary, drab walls, ticked away
+brusquely, as the angered woman gazed steadily into his face.
+
+"And so your little windfall of last night has already made you
+impudent? If you cannot find another tone at once, I will find another
+agent! The man whom you plucked has told me the story of your wonderful
+skill at cards!" The sneer cut the renegade like a whip lash, and Alan
+Hawke sprang up in anger. Madame Berthe Louison coolly settled herself
+down into the red cushions.
+
+"The way to India is before you, but five hundred pounds is not a
+fortune for Major Alan Hawke! Listen! I watched you carefully yesterday,
+in your vigil upon Rousseau's Island. Your telltale face betrayed
+you. You were left stranded here in Geneva. An accident has brought us
+together. You cannot divine my motives. I can fathom yours easily. Tell
+me now, of yourself, of your past in India--of your present standing
+there. If you are frank, I may contribute to your fortune; if not--our
+ways part here!"
+
+"And, if I warn Anson Anstruther that you are a mere adventuress, if I
+notify my old friend Hugh Fraser (soon to be Sir Hugh Johnstone), then
+your little game will be spoiled, Madame Louison!" defiantly said Hawke.
+The woman leaned back and laughed merrily in his face.
+
+"You are like all professional lady killers, a mere fool in the hands
+of the first woman of wit. I dare you to cross my path! I will then join
+Captain the Honorable Anson Anstruther, in Paris, at the Hotel Binda!
+I will also see that you are excluded from every club in India! Your
+occupation will be gone, my Knight of Ecarte. Anstruther waits for
+me." She tossed him a card. "See for yourself. He was kind enough at
+breakfast, and, he will help me, if I ask him."
+
+"And why do you not fly to his arms?" sneered Alan Hawke, who had
+quickly resigned the bullying tone of his abordage.
+
+"Because he is a nice boy and a gentleman," the woman said, with a
+cutting emphasis. "Now, let me read you, Monsieur le Major, a lesson
+in manners. Never be rough with a woman! That is the road which always
+leads on to failure. I wish you a good appetite for your breakfast,
+which I have delayed, and for which I beg your pardon!" She rose and
+swept along with her Juno strides, and had reached the second Hall of
+Antiquities before Alan Hawke overtook her. It had flashed across his
+mind that he had for once in his life met a woman who was not afraid of
+the future, whatever had been her past. A single malicious letter from
+Anstruther would ruin him in India, for there was an ominous cloud, no
+bigger than a man's hand, lingering in that hiatus between his old
+rank of Lieutenant of Bengal Artillery, and the shadowy tenure of his
+self-dubbed Majority. This Aspasia hid none of her methods. She had
+boldly captivated the passing Pericles, and, evidently, she was the
+desired one.
+
+"Let me explain," he began, as the woman looked calmly into his face.
+
+"We are only losing time, Major," Madame Louison remarked, as she sought
+a corner. "I see that you have already repented. Do you know any one in
+Geneva?"
+
+"Not one of the seventy-five thousand here," frankly answered Hawke.
+"The only man I came here to see, the English Consul, is away on leave."
+
+"Then I can use you safely," answered the stranger. "Now, I owe you a
+breakfast. Will you put me in my carriage? I know the town thoroughly.
+Remember that it is only business that brings us together, and yet we
+may become better friends." In a half an hour they were seated in an
+arbor by the lake, where a homely German restaurant offered good cheer.
+
+The Lady of the Lake did the honors ceremoniously, and Major Alan
+Hawke was permitted a cigar after the lake trout, filet, pears, cheese,
+Chambertin, and black coffee had been discussed. He was both conquered
+and repentant, and had adroitly atoned for his mauvais debut by a
+respectful demeanor, which was not feigned. He answered the running fire
+of questions which had led him from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas, and
+from Chittagong to the Khyber Pass.
+
+"You are sure that no one in Geneva knows your face?" Berthe Louison
+asked at last.
+
+"I have been here only two days, and it is twenty years since I first
+roved over Switzerland on schoolboy leave," was the truthful answer.
+
+"Then I can use you if you will decide to aid me, after you have heard
+me. I know, already, all that young Anstruther knows of the whole
+Johnstone matter. I do not intend to meet him at Paris," she demurely
+said. "I am absolutely untrammeled in this world. I am free to act as
+a woman's moods sway her. I have plenty of money, a fact which lifts me
+above the degradation of man's chase, and I indulge in no illusions.
+I am a soldier's daughter, and my dead father was the son of one of
+Napoleon's heroes of La Grande Armee. My whole life has been most
+unconventional; and I am free to dispose of myself, body and soul, and
+will, but for one thing." She was pleased with Alan Hawke's mute glance
+of inquiry. "Only the business which brought me to Geneva! We are all
+the slaves of circumstance! The veriest fools of fortune! I do not blame
+you for your surmises! I had vainly sought, for two years, the very
+information which I gained last night by chance at a Geneva table
+d'hote. It was from Anstruther that I discovered the changed name under
+which Hugh Fraser's daughter has been hidden from me for years. For
+I owe this all to chance, to Anstruther's susceptibility, and to my
+playing the risque part which you saw fit me so well." The woman's eyes
+were now flashing ominously.
+
+"But you led me on--you deceived me!" stammered Alan Hawke.
+
+"I had nothing to risk!" the resolute beauty replied. "My name is not
+Berthe Louison, as you may well imagine! As for the little amourette
+de voyage, I will leave the laurels to your handsome young friend and
+yourself. I do not play with boys, and, as for you, I should always
+guard myself against you!
+
+"Now, I will be practical! I know Europe; I do not know India! I need
+a man brave, cool, and unscrupulous; I need a resolute man to aid me in
+the one purpose of my life! I wish to go out to India to face this
+Hugh Fraser, to lift up the curtain of the dead past, and I need a
+protector--a paid champion--a man who values the only thing which is
+concrete power in life; a man who knows the power of money! For, gold is
+irresistible!" Her bright face hardened.
+
+"My duties are, then, not to be of a tender nature," lightly hazarded
+Hawke.
+
+"I can soon judge of your value by your adroitness, and you can make
+your own record!" smiled the strange woman waif. "Let me see how
+you would do this! I do not care to personally approach Mademoiselle
+Euphrosyne Delande, I would have a picture of the woman whom I seek--the
+lonely child whom I have hungered for long years to see! I do not care
+to expose myself here--"
+
+"The Preceptress might telegraph out to India and the girl be spirited
+away!" broke in Alan Hawke.
+
+"Very good! Precisely so!" said Berthe Louison, gravely. "I will tell
+you now that I have played perfectly fair with Anstruther! I have
+enabled him to assure himself of Nadine Johnstone's regular standing
+as the legal and only heiress of the would-be Baronet! I do not fear
+Anstruther! He is a gallant boy, worthy to wear a sword, and, he does
+not work for hire! He tells me that Euphrosyne Delande showed him the
+last pictures of the girl which were sent on before Hugh Fraser suddenly
+telegraphed to have his child 'personally conducted' on carte blanche
+terms out to join him."
+
+Major Hawke buried his head in his hands and slowly said: "I can do it
+easily! We must not be seen together here! Go up to the Hotel Faucon, at
+Lausanne, and wait for me there for three days. I have to remain here at
+any rate to collect Anstruther's check in London. I have in my favor all
+the facts of Anstruther's story. I happen also to have Anstruther's
+P. P. C. card. I will bring you the picture you want, or a half dozen
+copies. Will you trust to me? I make no professions!"
+
+"That is right!" sternly said Berthe Louison. "Let our casual
+association be one of a mere money interest. We can find each other
+out easily. You have no motive to injure me, your own interest now and
+always lies the other way. I only wish to have some one at hand when I
+am ready to face the embryo Sir Hugh Johnstone!"
+
+"You are bold!" slowly said Alan Hawke. "If I should denounce you to
+Johnstone, himself! If he should be warned--"
+
+"I hold him and his long cherished dream, the Baronetcy, in my hand,"
+the brown-eyed beauty frankly cried. "I should not burn my ships in
+Europe! Even if I were to be betrayed, the purpose of my life will be
+carried out. I should leave here behind me the safest of anchors in
+other well-paid agents. Your rash meddling would only ruin your own
+money interests and not hurt my plans."
+
+"Then we are to make an offensive and defensive alliance without trust
+or faith in each other?" agnostically remarked Hawke.
+
+"Just so!" answered Madame Louison. "I can make it to your interest
+to serve me well, better than the man whom I wish to face. You know
+India--you happen to know Delhi. Your possible adversary is an old
+civilian, rich, retired, and unable to rake up trouble for you in
+military circles. I will do my work alone, but I shall want your aid,
+and I will pay you liberally. I will go up to Lausanne. You will find me
+at the Hotel Faucon. Bring up some route maps of India. We will go out
+as soon as possible. Do you wish any present money?"
+
+Alan Hawke reddened as he shook his head.
+
+"Then, Major Hawke, if you will take the first passing carriage, we will
+meet as soon as you have succeeded. Send me a telegram of your coming."
+The adventurer's low bow of silent assent terminated the strange
+breakfast scene, and at the gate of the vine-clad garden he turned and
+saw her seated there alone, with her head bowed in a reverie.
+
+"Damme if she is made of flesh and blood!" mused the Major, as he drove
+back to the Hotel National. That very evening he revenged himself upon
+the callous-hearted stranger, by a reckless flirtation with the Misses
+Phenie and Genie Forbes, still of Chicago. It was not a matter of
+concern to any one but Paterfamilias Forbes that the Major indulged in
+a stolen moonlight excursion upon the lake in charge of two extremely
+prononcee Daisy Millers. The Major's slumbers, however, were of the
+lightest, for the face of the chance-met directress of his immediate
+future haunted his uneasy dreams. He was a model of respectable gravity,
+however, when he presented himself before Mademoiselle Euphrosyne
+Delande, at her Institute, when the bells clanged ten in the morning.
+Major Hawke at once impressed the sleek door-opener, Francois, by the
+ultra refinement of his demeanor, and the suave elegance of his French.
+"Evidently the one necessary Adam in this Garden of undeveloped young
+Peris," thought Hawke, as he gazed around the cheerless room, with its
+globes, busts of departed sages, topographical maps, and framed samples
+of the "Execution" of the jeunes personnes, with brush and pencil.
+
+"Looks breachy, that fellow--they all have to sneak out to drink, and
+for les fetifs plaisirs! He may be made useful. I'll have a shy at him,"
+mused the Major, now on his mettle. Francois stood there expectant of a
+tip, when he announced the regrets of Mademoiselle Delande, that class
+duties would detain her for a few moments.
+
+"Would Monsieur kindly pardon, etc.?"
+
+"Am I right in inferring that the ladies, are the daughters of the
+famous Professor Delande?" the Major hazarded, with a wild guess. Before
+the votary of Minerva finally descended, Francois had artfully "yielded
+up" much valuable information to the gravely interested visitor. The
+attendant was the richer by a five-franc piece when he retired to
+vigorously fall upon the Major's hat and brush it in an anticipatory
+manner.
+
+It was but a half an hour later when Alan Hawke had concluded his deftly
+worded compliments upon the justly famed Institute, and had subjugated
+the still susceptible spinster by his adroitly veiled flatteries. The
+easy aplomb with which he introduced the forgotten commission of Captain
+Anstruther was aided by the presentation of that gentleman's visiting
+card, and the charms of an interesting word sketch of Delhi and its
+surroundings.
+
+The sound of distant girlish voices punctuated the refined murmur of the
+ensuing conference, which was an exposition of Mademoiselle Delande's
+grand manner! Hawke adroitly soothed the natural uneasiness of the
+cunning Swiss spinster as to her sister's comfort, safety, and the
+surety of Hugh Johnstone's fabulously liberal money inducement to retain
+Miss Justine in his service for a year. The flattered woman fell
+easily into Alan Hawke's net, and she freely dilated upon the singular
+eccentricities of the Indian magnate as to his daughter's education.
+
+There was a breaking light now illumining the strange childhood of a
+girl, nurtured by proxy, and kept in ignorance of her brilliant future
+and vast monetary inheritance.
+
+"In fact, I have never seen the honored Mr. Hugh Fraser," concluded Miss
+Euphrosyne. "Nadine was brought to us a child of three by the wife of
+Professor Fraser, since deceased! And, by special arrangement, she was
+taken by us, and her whole girlhood has been passed in our charge. We
+have never seen her uncle, Professor Fraser, whose duties at Edinburgh
+University chained him down. It was her own father's written and
+positive direction that no one, whomsoever, should be admitted to
+converse with his child. And so Justine and myself have formed her
+entirely!"
+
+Hawke's keen eyes glowed for a moment, in a secret satisfaction. "I have
+you, my lady! They wished to keep you away from this young Peri,
+formed upon such heroically antique models." Major Hawke gazed upon
+the leather-faced visage of the slaty-eyed woman, whose age none might
+venture to guess. An artless admiration of the absent Miss Justine's
+photographed charms, caused a faint glow to flicker upon the ancient
+maiden's cheek. When Alan Hawke drew forth a hideous carbuncle and
+Indian filigree bracelet (an old relic of bazaar haunting), the thin
+lips of the preceptress parted in a wintry smile.
+
+With modest urging, he soon overcame the Roman firmness of Mademoiselle
+Euphrosyne, and, wonder of wonders, was honored by an invitation to dine
+with the austere Genevan maiden. The happy Major was soon triumphant
+at all points, and Francois was hastily dispatched to the Photographic
+Atelier to order a half dozen copies of the card portrait which
+displayed to Alan Hawke the rosebud face of the Veiled Beauty of Delhi.
+The adventurer made haste to excuse himself for interrupting the flow of
+the Parnassian stream, and walked backward from the presence of the poor
+old woman whom he had duped, as if she were a queen.
+
+It was an easy matter for the Englishman to waylay and intercept the
+returning man-at-arms of this castle of cosmopolitan beauty. Francois
+had duly availed himself of his lengthened absence, and his thick tongue
+and swimming eye spoke of potations of the Kirsch-wasser dear to the
+Swiss heart. Major Hawke impressed the servitor with the necessity of
+bringing the pictures down to his rooms upon the morrow, and then the
+Major judiciously duplicated his five-franc piece. The happy butler
+winked with an acute divination of the Major's purpose and went
+unsteadily back to the whirlpool of learning. The Major cheerfully went
+on his own way to meet Miss Genie Forbes, with whom he had established
+a private understanding as to a runaway visit to the Cathedral, to
+be followed by an impromptu breakfast. "I can stand the old Gorgon's
+dinner," mused the happy adventurer, "after a tete-a-tete with Miss
+Genie, and as for Francois, I will also waste a bottle of good Cognac
+on him. I think that I will start into this strange partnership with a
+better stock of family history than even this remarkably self-possessed
+young woman, who seems to be the heiress of some old family vendetta."
+
+The Major laughed as he heard the mills of the gods grinding out a
+golden grist of the future. But lifted up beyond the impulses of his
+itching palm the sight of the delicate, girlish face of the Rosebud
+of Delhi had caused him to dream the strangest dreams. "Why not?" he
+murmured as he wandered back to the hotel and privately indulged in a
+petit verre before his rendezvous with Miss Genie, the belle of the
+West Side. Major Alan Hawke was in "great form" as he piloted the
+bright-eyed, willful Chicago girl through the dim religious light of the
+Cathedral. His mocking history of the gay life and racy adventures of
+Bonnivard, when posing as the rollicking Prior of St. Victor in the wild
+days of his youth, greatly amused the nervous American heiress.
+
+"I should say that he was a holy terror," laughed Miss Genie, "and I
+don't blame the Bishop of Geneva and the Duke of Savoy for making him
+do his six years in that dark old hole at Chillon! He was a gay boy, you
+bet, and with his three wives and his lively ways, I reckon the Genevans
+were blamed sorry they ever let him out. He seems to have been a free
+thinker, a free liver, and a free lover!"
+
+"And yet," mused Alan Hawke, "his writings to-day are the pride of
+Genevan scholars; his library was the nucleus of the Geneva University;
+his defiant spirit broke the chains of Calvin's narrowness, and his
+resistant, spiritual example caught up has made Geneva the home of the
+oppressed, the central, radiant point of mental light and liberty
+for the world! Geneva since 1536 has harbored the brightest wandering
+Spanish, French, English, and Irish youth! Even grim Russia cannot
+reclaim from the free city its wayward exiles. France, in her
+distress, has found an asylum here for its helpless nobles and expelled
+philosophers. I willingly take my hat off to brave little Switzerland,
+where Royal Duke, proscribed patriot, mad enthusiast, bold agnostic,
+and tired worldling can all find an inviolate asylum under the majestic
+shadows of its mountains--by the shores of its dreaming lakes!" Alan
+Hawke dropped suddenly from the clouds as the practical Miss Genie led
+the way to the breakfast rendezvous, cheerfully demonstrating her own
+bold ideas of social freedom by remarking:
+
+"Say! what's the matter with a little day's run up to Chillon? Phenie
+is game for anything! You just get that other English Lord and we will
+dodge Popper and Mommer."
+
+"I am sorry to say that my friend has left suddenly, bound for London,"
+laughed the Major, gazing admiringly at this pretty feminine Bonnivard.
+
+"That's awful bad luck!" gloomily remarked Miss Genie. "He was a regular
+dandy, and I liked him--but," she said, with a thirsty peck at a glass
+of champagne, as they waited for the breakfast, "Phenie will then have
+to give that long-legged Italian fellow the tip. The Marquis of Santa
+Marina! He's not much, but better than nothing at all. We'll have a
+jolly day!"
+
+Major Hawke was mystified at the daring personal independence of the
+sprightly young heiress. She was a social revelation to him, and the
+sunny afternoon was not altogether thrown away, for they carelessly
+rambled over the proud old town together, doing all the sights. They
+visited the stately National Monument, the Jardin Anglais, the Hotel
+de Ville, the Arsenal, the Muse'e Foy, the Botanic Gardens, and the
+Athende. He gazed upon the fresh face of the rebellious young American
+social mutineer with an increasing wonder as they wandered alone on the
+Promenade des Bastions, and was simply astounded when he vainly tried
+to take advantage of a shady corner in the Musee Ariana to steal a kiss
+from the wayward girl's rosy lips. Miss Genie "formed herself into a
+hollow square" and calmly, but energetically, repulsed him.
+
+"See here! Major Hawke!" she coolly said, "get off the perch! I don't
+care for any soft sawder! I'm a pretty good fellow in my way, but I know
+how to take care of myself!"
+
+In fact, Major Alan Hawke at last recognized the existence of a species
+of womanhood which he had never before met. Miss Genie was frankly
+unconventional, and yet she was both hard-headed and hardhearted. When
+he carefully dressed himself for the intellectual feast of Mademoiselle
+Delande's "refined collation," he dimly became aware that the role
+of unpaid bear leader to the Chicago girl simply amounted to being an
+unsalaried valet de place! "As for compromising that devil of a girl,"
+he growled, "she could have given the snake in the Garden of Eden long
+odds and beaten him hollow, in subtlety." This view of the impeccability
+of the Chicago epidermis was confirmed later when Hawke returned
+from the "Institute" at the decorous hour of ten that evening. He was
+thoroughly happy, for the sly Francois was ready to meet him at the
+door, whispering:
+
+"I will be at your rooms at ten, and bring you the photographs. I have a
+couple of hours of freedom then."
+
+Mademoiselle Euphrosyne's pale, anemic nature had bloomed out under the
+graceful attentions of the gallant officer, and gradually she expanded,
+little by little unfolding the desiccated leaves of her tranquil past,
+and, yielding, as of old, to the charm of youth and good looks, the
+faded spinster told him all.
+
+"I will sell my precious knowledge, bit by bit, to Madame Berthe," he
+ruminated. "Evidently the Louison dares not face this stony-faced
+Swiss Medusa. The felices histoires of Francois will fill up my mental
+notebook." Major Hawke then sat down at ease in the cafe of the Hotel
+National to indite a dispatch of spartan brevity to "Madame Louison" at
+the Hotel Faucon, Lausanne. "The Cook's Agency tell me that the London
+draft will be paid to-morrow. Francois will deliver me the photographs,
+and relate his selected historical excerpts, and then I will be ready
+to have a duel of wits with Madame Berthe." So he simply telegraphed to
+Lausanne:
+
+"Successful--arrive to-morrow night." He then dispatched the head porter
+with the telegram, and while enjoying his parting brandy and soda,
+was suddenly made aware of the near proximity of Mr. Phineas Forbes of
+Chicago, who was anxiously drinking cocktail after cocktail in a
+moody unrest. The lank Chicago capitalist waved his tufted chin beard
+dejectedly as he answered the Briton's casual salutation. "I'm worried
+about the girls," he simply said. "They're off on the lake, with the
+Marquis de Santa Marina and that French chap, the Count de Roquefort. I
+don't more than half like it." The hour was late, and the heavy father
+glued his eyes upon the darkened window pane. "Is Madame Forbes with
+them?" murmured the Englishman.
+
+"Oh, Lord, no!" simply said the Illinois capitalist. "The girls are used
+to going out alone with their gentlemen friends, but I'm afraid that
+these two damned useless foreigners will upset the boat and drown my two
+girls. I wouldn't care a rap if they were alone. But these Dago noblemen
+are no good--at least that's my experience. I indorsed a draft for one
+of them that Mommer and the girls dragged up to the house last year.
+Came back marked 'N. G.'--I wish to God the girls wouldn't pick up these
+fellows."
+
+Alan Hawke hazarded the inquiry "Why do you permit it?"
+
+The Chicago pork jammer thrust his hand in his pockets and whistled
+reflectively. "How the deuce can I help it?" he reflectively answered,
+"Mother and the girls go in for high society. What'll you have? You can
+talk French to this fellow. Now, order up the best in the house," Alan
+Hawke laughed and charitably divided the hour of long waiting with
+the simple-hearted old father. At half-past twelve, with a rush and
+a flutter, the two young falcons sailed into the main hallway and
+effusively bade adieu to their limp cavaliers, who slunk away, in
+different directions, when they observed the disgruntled parent and the
+heartily amused Briton.
+
+"So they brought you home safely?" calmly remarked Hawke, as he watched
+the happy father gathering his chickens unto his wing.
+
+"We brought them home safe," cutely remarked Miss Phenie. "Those fellows
+are heavenly dancers, but they are not worth shucks in a boat. I wish
+we had had you out with us. I like Englishmen!" with which frank
+declaration Miss Phenie and Miss Genie whisked themselves away to bed,
+Miss Genie leaning over the banister to jovially cry out:
+
+"Don't you go away till we fix up that Chillon trip." Major Hawke and
+Phineas Forbes, Esq., drank a last libation to the friendly god Neptune,
+the old man huskily remarking:
+
+"Say, Major, those are two fine girls, and they will have a million
+apiece. I want 'em to be sensible and marry Chicago men, but, they both
+go in for coronets and all that humbug." The laughing Major extricated
+himself from the social tentacles of the honest old boy, mentally
+deciding to play off Miss Genie against Mad-ame Berthe Louison.
+
+"I will give these strange girls 'a day out.' It may reduce the nez
+retroussee my mysterious employer." And so he dreamed that night that
+he was an assistant presiding genius of the great pig Golgotha, where
+Phineas Forbes was the monarch of the meat ax. "Right smart girls, and
+you bet they can take care of themselves," was the last encomium of
+their self-denying parent which rang in Alan Hawke's ears as he wandered
+away into the Land of Nod.
+
+"They are a queer lot," laughed the happy schemer, as he woke next
+day to his closing labors at Geneva. "Now, for my check cashing, then,
+Monsieur Francois, a farewell visit to Miss Euphrosyne, and a secret
+council with the fair Genie," He merrily breakfasted, and was more than
+rewarded for his Mephistophelian entertainment of Francois. The sly
+Figaro "parted freely," and when he slunk back to the "Institute" he was
+the richer by fifty francs. Major Hawke was the happy possessor of
+the coveted photographs, and a private address of Francois, artfully
+informing that person that he was going to London, and on his return,
+in a few months, desired a cicerone in the hypocritically placid town.
+Francois's eyes gleamed in a happy anticipation of more Cognac and many
+easily earned francs. "Now, Madame Berthe, I think I have the key of
+the enigma! I see a year's assured comfort before me, for I can play the
+part of the Saxon troops at Leipzig," the schemer joyously ruminated.
+
+His farewell to Miss Delande impressed that thrifty dame with the golden
+fortunes which had descended upon her sister. "Should you return to
+India, Major," she sibillated, "I will give you a confidential letter to
+Justine, for I know there is no one more fitted to remain in charge of
+sweet Nadine than my dear sister!" The Major blushingly accepted the
+honor, and directed the letter to be sent at once to Morley's Hotel,
+for, as he mysteriously whispered,
+
+"The Foreign office may send me back to India--in fact, I may be
+telegraphed for at any moment, and your sister will surely find a fast
+friend in me."
+
+"Easily gulled!" laughed Alan Hawke. "I will sweeten' upon Miss Justine;
+those thin lips indicate the auri sacra fames. These miserly Swiss
+sisters may aid me to approach the veiled Rose Bird." His delight at
+fingering the crisp proceeds of Anstruther's check sent him to the Ouchy
+steamer in the very happiest of moods, and, his cup was running over
+when the birdlike Miss Genie Forbes descended upon him to announce a
+meeting on the morrow at Montreux.
+
+"We can do the castle, and essay the airy railroad at Territet Glion,
+have a jolly dinner on the hill, and come home on the last boat! You be
+sure to meet Phenie and me." The astounded Major murmured his delight
+and surprise. "Oh! Popper will let us go up there. He likes you--he says
+that you are a thoroughbred. So, we'll cut the other fellows and come
+alone. Say, can't you scare up another fellow like yourself for Phenie?"
+Whereat Alan Hawke laughed, and promised to secure an eligible "fellow"
+among the migratory Englishmen hovering around Lausanne-Ouchy, and
+he pledged a future friendship with the patient Phineas Forbes, who
+lingered in the cafe, engulfing cocktails, while "Mother and Phenie were
+out shopping." The vivacious Genie had confided to her callous swain
+that she had watched him as he lingered on Rousseau's Island.
+
+"I rather thought that you were sick and distressed, you looked so
+peaked like, and I was mighty near speaking to you. I was just bound to
+meet you." And upon this frank declaration, Alan Hawke kissed her firm
+white hand, agreeing to her plans, and the glow of prosperity shone out
+upon his impassive face, as he glided away to meet the strange woman
+whom he distrusted. "I hold the trump cards now, my lady!" he cried, as
+he watched Miss Genie's handkerchief fluttering on the quay. Major Alan
+Hawke wasted no time in his three hours' voyage to Lausanne-Ouchy in
+carefully preparing for his interview with Madame Berthe Louison. He
+abandoned the idea of trying the "whip hand," remembering how
+suddenly he had descended from the "high horse." "Bah! She is about as
+sentimental as a rat-tail file. However, she is good for my passage
+to India, at any rate, and, the nearer I am to old Johnstone and this
+pretty heiress to be, the better my all-round chances are." So, he
+contented himself with watching the pictured shores of Lake Leman glide
+by, and wondering if he might not turn aside safely to the chase of
+the bright-eyed, sharp-featured, Miss Genie Forbes. He had profited by
+Phineas Forbes's frank disclosures, and yet the Madame Sans Gene manners
+of the heiresses rather frightened him. He was aware from the amatory
+failure in the dim old cathedral that Miss Genie was armed cap-a-pie.
+"Those American girls, apparently so approachable, are all ready to
+stand to arms at a moment's notice." And so, he drifted back in his day
+dreams toward the Land of the Pagoda Tree, with Ouchy and Chillon. He
+studied the beautiful face of the lonely child from the school-girl
+photograph, and decided, in spite of hideous frocks and a lack of
+conventional war paint, that she was a rare beauty.
+
+"Yes! She will do--with the money. All she needs is the art to show
+off her points, and that is easily gained. The recruits in Vanity
+Fair easily pick up the tricks of society, and old Hugh's money and
+prospective elevation will surely draw suitors around like flies
+swarming near the honey." The boat gracefully glided in to the port of
+Ouchy before Major Hawke's day dream faded away.
+
+A flattering dream which led him on to a future gilded by Sir Hugh
+Johnstone's money. He longed to ruffle it bravely with the best. To
+hold up his head once more in official circles, and to smother the ugly
+floating memories ef a renegade who had served those English guns under
+the fierce Sikkim hill tribes against his one-time fellow soldiers. "I
+must have that money, with or without the girl! There must be a way
+to it! I will cut through the barriers to get it!" There was a steely
+glitter in his blue eyes as he murmured: "Now for the fox's hide! She
+shall have her way--for a time! My play comes on later, when the deal is
+with me!"
+
+He sprang lightly ashore, and was chatting with the gold-banded porter
+of the Hotel Faucon, when a lovely face, thrilling in its awakened
+emotion, met his glance at the window of a carriage. He dispatched
+his luggage to the Faucon, and sprang lightly in the carriage when
+the omnibuses had departed for the Lausanne plateau. Alan Hawke was
+carefully deferential in his greeting and he meekly answered all the
+rapid queries of his mysterious employer.
+
+"You have closed up your own private affairs?" she briskly queried.
+
+"All is ready for the road in one day more. I have a private social
+engagement for to-morrow," he replied. "But I brought you all the
+sailing dates and the detailed information you requested."
+
+"You obtained the pictures safely, then, and with a prudent caution,"
+anxiously demanded Madame Louison.
+
+"You shall know all soon. I hope that I have satisfied you!" he said,
+handing her a packet, failing to tell her that he had kept two pictures
+of the far-away girl for his own private use. They were now near the
+plateau where the Hotel Faucon shows its semi-circular front to the
+splendid panorama unrolled before its windows.
+
+An afternoon concert was in progress at the Casino, near the local
+museum. "We will stop here for a few moments," said the excited woman.
+"You can go on alone, and walk over to the hotel and secure your own
+rooms. Then send your card up to me in the usual manner. To-night we
+will go out separately and meet for a conference. We can arrange all
+our business." The Major bowed submissively, and assisted the lady to
+alight.
+
+Madame Louison dismissed her carriage, and the confederates-to-be
+entered the afternoon concert room. A superb orchestra was playing the
+finishing bars of the last number on the program, and the audience had
+dwindled away to a few knots of demure residents. Following his passive
+policy, the adventurer sat silently, stealing oblique glances at
+his companion as she nervously unfolded the wrappings of the coveted
+pictures. There was a gasp, a low moan, as the woman's head fell back.
+Alan Hawke's strong arms were clasped round her, as she leaned back
+helplessly in her fauteuil. But a smile of secret triumph was on his
+face as he quickly bore the helpless form to an anteroom at once opened
+by the frightened ushers. Berthe Louison's face was corpse-like in its
+pallor, as she lay there upon a divan, her fingers still clutching the
+photograph.
+
+"There is a physician near by," hazarded a sympathetic woman who had
+crowded into the room. The music had stopped with a crash.
+
+"Summon him at once!" energetically ordered Hawke. "Some brandy--quick!"
+he cried, listening to her agonized words, "Valerie! My God! It is
+Valerie herself! My poor sister!" In a few moments an elderly man parted
+the assembling loiterers. His bustling air of command soon dispelled the
+loiterers. A woman attendant was bending over the still senseless woman
+as the spectacled medico seized Alan Hawke's arm. "Has your wife ever
+had a previous heart attack?" he gravely asked, as he opened his lancet
+case. Major Hawke shook his head, and gazed pityingly upon the beautiful
+pallid face before him.
+
+"Can I be of any use to Monsieur?" demanded the chef d'orchestre in
+evening grand tenue, his baton still in his hand.
+
+There was a glance of wondering astonishment as the Englishman faced the
+speaker. "Wieniawski--Casimir, you here?" The other dropped his voice as
+the physician ripped up the sleeve of the patient's gown.
+
+"Major Hawke, I thought you were still in Delhi? Your wife--" faltered
+the artist, as he listened to a low moan when the lancet blade entered
+the ivory arm of the sufferer. Then, with a backward step, he pressed
+his hands to his brows. "My God! It is Alixe Delavigne!" he brokenly
+said. But Hawke sprang to his side and quickly drew him from the room.
+
+"Not a word! Not a single word to any one! Where are you stopping? I
+will come to you tonight!" the excited man sternly said, his firm hand
+still clutching the musician's arm.
+
+"Here, at the Casino! Come in after ten! I will await you! But where did
+you meet her?" the Polish violinist cried, speaking as if in a dream.
+
+"You shall know all later! I must get her to the hotel!" He returned to
+the physician's side, who authoritatively cried, "Now an easy carriage
+and to the Faucon, you said?" In half an hour, Berthe Louison was
+sleeping, a nurse at her side, while Alan Hawke counted the moments
+crawling on till ten o'clock.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. AND AT DELHI WHAT AM I TO DO?
+
+
+
+Major Alan Hawke was the "observed of all observers," in the cosy
+salon of the Grand Hotel Faucon, when the sympathetic hotel manager
+interrupted a colloquy between the handsome Briton and the Doctor.
+"A mere syncope, my dear sir. Perhaps--even only the result of tight
+lacing, or inaction. Perhaps some sudden nerve crisis. These are the
+results of the easy luxury of an enervating high-life. All these
+social habits are weakening elements. Now, fortunately, your wife has a
+singularly strong vital nature. You may safely dismiss all your fears.
+Madame will be entirely herself in the morning."
+
+"Can I be of any service?" demanded the genial host, secretly urged on
+by a coterie of curious, womanly sympathizers in silk and muslin.
+
+"I am the trustee of Madame Louison, in some important business matters,
+and not her husband," gravely remarked the Major. "I only came up here
+to confer with her upon some matters of moment." Both the listeners
+bowed in silence.
+
+"Then, my dear sir, you can be perfectly reassured," the physician
+briskly concluded, tendering his card. "My professional conscience
+will not allow me to make even a single future visit, as doctor, to the
+charming Madame Louison. Should Madame awake in other than her normal
+health and spirits, I should be professionally at fault."
+
+Major Hawke then led the doctor aside and pressed a five-pound note
+upon him. "Madame is of a wonderfully strong constitution. An heiress of
+nature's choicest favors," the happy Galen floridly said, as he took his
+leave.
+
+"So she is," grimly assented Hawke.
+
+The gossipy boniface was already spreading such meager details of the
+sudden seizure as he had been able to pick up, and, the words "Polish
+noblewoman," "Italian marchesa," "French countess," were tossed
+about freely in the light froth of the conversation in the ladies'
+drawing-room.
+
+Meanwhile, Alan Hawke was smoking a meditative cigar alone, while pacing
+the old Cantonal high road before the Faucon. "I think I will remain on
+picket here," he mused. "This fiddler fellow, Wieniawski, must not meet
+her. She must be led on to leave here at once. Constitution, nerve,
+aplomb; she has them all. She should have been born a man. What a
+soldier! One of nature's mistakes--man's mental organization, woman's
+soft, flooding emotions, and beauty's fiery passions."
+
+"I must pump Casimir. He will be safely nailed to the platform by his
+duties, from eight to ten. I will not leave her a moment, however, till
+he has the baton in his hand. I will then watch him until ten--meet him
+down there, and, if he meets her after we separate for the night, he is
+a smarter Pole than I take him for. And now I must go and frighten her
+away from here."
+
+Major Hawke was quick to note all the outer indications of man's varying
+fortunes. He had so long buffeted the waves of adversity himself that he
+was a past master of the art of measuring the depth of a hidden purse.
+He recalled the brilliant Casimir Wieniawski of eight years past--the
+curled darling of the hot-hearted ladies of Calcutta, Madras, Bombay and
+Singapore. In a glance of cursory inspection Alan Hawke had noted the
+doubtful gloss of the dress suit; it was the polish of long wear, not
+the velvety glow of newness. There was a growing bald spot, scarcely
+hidden by the Hyperion Polish curls; there were crows'-feet around the
+bold, insolent eyes, and the man's smile was lean and wolfish when the
+glittering white teeth flashed through the professional smirk of the
+traveling artist. The old, easy assurance was still there, but cognac
+had dulled the fires of genius; the tones of the violin trembled, even
+under the weakening but still magic fingers, and the splendid sapphire
+and diamond cluster ring of old was replaced by a too evident Palais
+Royal work of inferior art.
+
+"Poor devil! It is the downward fluttering of the wearied eagle!" mused
+Alan Hawke. "Women, roulette, champagne, and high life--all these
+past riches fade away into the gloomy pleasures of restaurant cognac,
+dead-shot absinthe, and the vicarious smiles of a broken soubrette or
+so! And all the more you can be now dangerous to me, Monsieur Casimir
+Wieniawski, for the old maneater forgets none of his tricks, even when
+toothless."
+
+Casimir, the handsome Pole, glib of tongue, the heir to a thousand minor
+graces, reckless in outpouring the wine of Life, had truly gone the
+downward way with all the abandon of his showy, insincere race. Hawke
+well knew the final level of misery awaiting the wandering, broken-down
+artist here in a land where really fine music was a mere drug; where
+the orchestra was only a cheap lure to enhance the cafe addition.
+The "Professor" was but a minor staff officer of the grim Teutonic
+Oberkellner of the Brasserie Concert.
+
+"But how shall I muzzle this Robert Macaire of the bow?" cogitated
+Hawke, as he anxiously eyed the two windows of Madame Louison's rooms,
+and then sternly gazed at the open front doors of the Hotel Faucon.
+
+A light broke in upon his brain. "There is the golden lure of the Misses
+Phenie and Genie Forbes, of Chicago, U. S. A. Those madcap girls will be
+easily gulled. They arrive to-morrow at nine. A few stage asides, as to
+the stock romance of every Polish upstart, will do the trick!"
+
+"Russian brutality, fugitive Prince, Siberian wanderings, romantic
+escape, killed the Russian general who burned his chateau; all that sort
+of thing will enchant these. This may occupy Casimir and leave me free.
+When the devil is idle he catches flies, and under the cover of this
+rosy glow of romance I will get away to India, but only after Madame
+Alixe Delavigne goes. I can afford to put in ten pounds on Casimir to
+loosen his lying tongue. In vino veritas may apply even to a gallant
+and distinguished Pole. If I can get the true story of Alixe Delavigne's
+life, then I have the key of the Johnstone mystery. Ah! There is now a
+duty signal for me!" The Major smartly approached the main entrance of
+that cosiest of Swiss family hotels, the Faucon, as the anxious face
+of a woman nurse appeared. "Madame veut bien voir Monsieur!" simply
+announced the servant. Major Hawke brushed by her with a nod and quickly
+mounted the stair. To his utter surprise, on entering Madame Berthe
+Louison's apartment, the signs of an approaching departure were but too
+evident. A stout Swiss maiden was busied stolidly packing several trunks
+in an indiscriminate haste, while the fair invalid herself sat at the
+center table poring over an opened Baedeker and the outspread maps
+brought on by her "business agent." Hawke's murmured astonishment was
+at once cut short by the decisive notes of Berthe Louison's flutelike
+voice.
+
+"We have no time to waste, Major!" she said, with an affected
+cheerfulness. "I am all right now. There is an eleven-thirty train for
+Constance. I will take that, reach Munich, and get right over to Venice
+by the Brenner Pass, and thence go down to Aricona, and Brindisi.
+You can return to Geneva, and, by Mont Cenis and Turin you will reach
+Brindisi before me. So, I leave to-night; you can go up to Geneva
+to-morrow night. No one will possibly suspect our business connection in
+this way. I will have time to see you depart for Bombay, before I take
+the steamer for Calcutta. I have marked off the sailings. This little
+occurrence here to-night has brought us both too much under the eyes of
+other people."
+
+"Bah!" said the astounded Major. "No one knows anything of us here. We
+are of no importance."
+
+"You think so?" mused the woman, as if careless of his presence. "And
+yet I have seen a face here, rising out of a past that is long dead and
+buried. Now, are you ready to meet me at Brindisi?"
+
+Alan Hawke blushed even through the sun-browned complexion of the Nepaul
+days, as the clear-eyed woman, faintly smiling, discerned his "hedging"
+policy.
+
+"You will not be put to the slightest inconvenience." She opened a
+handsome traveling bag. The falcon-eyed Major Hawke observed the gleam
+of a pearl handled and silver chased revolver of serviceable make, and
+there was also a very wicked-looking Venetian dagger lying on the table,
+even then within the lady's reach! "Here is the sum of five hundred
+pounds in English notes," said Berthe. "That will neatly take you to
+Delhi, and there is fifty more to liquidate my bill, and pay the
+medical expenses. I am not desirous that the landlord should know of my
+departure. You may bring all my trunks on. I will be waiting for you
+at the 'Vittorio Emmanuele' at Brindisi. Please do telegraph to me from
+Turin of your arrival."
+
+Cool globe-trotter as he was, Alan Hawke was speechless. "Shall I not
+see you safely on board the Constance train?" he muttered.
+
+"The nurse will attend to all that; money will do a great deal," the
+lady said. "I will send her back from Constance. Please do ring the
+bell." The Major was obedient, and he listened in dumb astonishment, as
+Madame Louison ordered a very dainty supper for two, with a bottle
+of Burgundy and a well-iced flask of Veuve Cliquot. When the door had
+closed upon the gaping servant, the lady merrily laughed:
+
+"Pray take up your sinews of war, Major. I shall consider you as
+retained in my service, if I am obeyed."
+
+Alan Hawke turned and faced the puzzling "employer" with a half defiant
+question: "And when shall I know the real nature of my duties?" as he
+carefully folded up the welcome bundle of notes, without even looking at
+them.
+
+"Major, you are not an homme d'affaires. Do me the favor to count your
+money," laughed the mocking convalescent. "Thank you," continued
+the lady as he obeyed her. "Now I will only detain you here till ten
+o'clock. Then you must disappear and not know me again until we meet at
+the Hotel Vittorio Emmanuele at Brindisi. Should any accident occur, you
+are to take the Sepoy for Bombay direct and go on to Delhi. Leave me a
+letter at Suez and also one at Aden, care P. and O. Company. I will ask
+at each of these places. I will go direct to Calcutta, and will then
+meet you at Delhi. Arriving at Delhi, you may telegraph to me care
+Grindlay & Co., Calcutta."
+
+"I wonder if she bled Anstruther," inwardly growled Hawke, as he
+recognized the name of that social butterfly's bankers. But the lady
+only sweetly continued: "I have some business in Calcutta. You can
+write to me at the general postoffice at Allahabad, and leave your Delhi
+address there. I shall probably telegraph for you to come down and meet
+me there."
+
+Major Hawke, neatly entering the lady's directions in a silver-clasped
+betting book, murmured lazily without lifting his eyes: "You seem to
+know a great deal about Hindostan."
+
+"I have made a careful study of it for years--long years," said the
+woman with a telltale flush of color, as the servants entered with the
+impromptu feast.
+
+They were left alone, at an imperious signal, and Madame Louison bade
+Hawke regale himself en garcon. The Major paused with suspended pencil,
+as he quietly approached the decisive question: "And at Delhi, what am I
+to do?"
+
+"You are to take up your old friendship with Hugh Fraser--this budding
+baronet," replied Berthe calmly. She was pouring out a glass of the wine
+beloved of women, but her hand trembled as she hastily drank off the
+inspiring fluid. "All this is bravo--mere bravo! She's a very smart
+woman, and a cool customer!" decided the schemer, who had filled himself
+up a long drink. He took up at once the object-lesson. They were simply
+to be comrades--and nothing more.
+
+"I will obey you to the very letter," he said simply, for he was well
+aware the woman was keenly watching him.
+
+"Then that is all. There is nothing more," soberly concluded his
+companion. "The letters at Suez and Aden are, of course, to be mere
+billets de voyage. The correspondence at Allahabad may cover all of
+moment. Can you not give me a safe letter and telegraph address at
+Delhi?"
+
+"Give me your notebook," said Alan Hawke, as he carefully wrote down the
+needed information: "Ram Lal Singh, Jewel Merchant, 16 Chandnee Chouk,
+Delhi."
+
+"There's the address of my native banker; and as trusty a Hindu as ever
+sold a two-shilling strass imitation for a hundred-pound star sapphire.
+But, in his way he is honest--as we all are." And then Alan Hawke boldly
+said: "How shall I address you at Allahabad?"
+
+The flashing brown eyes gleamed a moment with a brighter luster than
+pleasure's glow. "You have my visiting card, Major," the woman coldly
+said. "I travel with a French passport, always en regie."
+
+"By God! she has the nerve!" mused Alan Hawke, as he hastily said: "And
+now, as we have settled all our little preliminaries, when am I to know
+whether you trust me or not?"
+
+He was pressing his advantage, for her precipitate departure would rob
+him of the expected effect of Casimir Wieniawski's disclosures. "If
+I find you en ami de famille, at Delhi, so that you can confidentially
+approach Sir Hugh Johnstone, the ci-devant Hugh Fraser, your task
+will be soon set for you, and your reward easily earned; but under no
+circumstances are you to make the slightest attempt to a confidential
+acquaintance with this wonderful Nadine. That is my affair." The tone
+was almost trifling in its lightness, but Alan Hawke recognized the hand
+of iron in the velvet glove.
+
+"And now, Sir," coquettishly said Madame Berthe Louison, "you have been
+a squire of dames in your day. Tell me of social India, for, while
+I shall get a good maid out at Calcutta, I must depend upon Munich,
+Venice, and Brindisi for my personal outfit. I know the whole United
+Kingdom thoroughly. The Englishman and his cold-pulsed blonde mate at
+home are well-learned lessons. The Continent, yes, even Russia, I know,
+too," she gayly chattered; "but the Orient is as yet a sealed book to
+me, and I would be helpless in Father India, without the womanly gear
+appropriate to the social habits of your countrywomen."
+
+"You have lived in England?" briefly demanded Alan Hawke, in some
+surprise at her frank admissions.
+
+"Yes, too long!" sternly answered Madame Louison, who was enjoying a
+cigarette, as she signed to the maid to leave them alone. "I detest the
+foggy climate," she added, a little late to temper the bitterness of the
+remark.
+
+"I will lull this watchful feminine tiger," the Major secretly decided,
+as he began a brilliant sketch of the social life of the strange land of
+Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. "I presume, of course, that you do not care to
+appear with a fifty-pound Marshall & Snell grove outfit, as if you were
+the wife of an Ensign in a marching regiment. I will give you the real
+life our women lead out there. You could have secured a splendid London
+outfit by a little time spent in making the detour."
+
+"I wish to appear en Francaise, my true character," smiled Berthe. "I
+never could sacrifice my Gaelic taste to the hideous color mixtures
+and utilitarian ugliness of the English machine-made toilette. An
+Englishwoman can only be trusted with a blue serge, a plain gray
+traveling dress, or in the easy safety of black or white. They are not
+the 'glass of fashion and the mold of form.' Now, Sir, let me see how
+you have profited by your wandering in Beauty's gardens on the Indus and
+Ganges?"
+
+Alan Hawke knew very well at heart what the quickwitted woman would
+know. He sketched with grace, the natural features, the climatic
+conditions, the bizarre scenery of the million and a half square miles
+where the venerable Kaisar-i-Hind rules nearly two hundred millions of
+subjugated people. He portrayed all the light splendors of Mohammedan
+elegance, the wonders of Delhi and Agra, he sketched the gloomy temple
+mysteries of Hinduism, and holy Benares rose up before her eyes beneath
+the inspiration of his brilliant fancy.
+
+The ardent woman listened with glowing eyes, as Hawke proudly referred
+to the wonderful sweep of the sword of Clive, which conquered an
+unrifled treasure vault of ages, annexed a giant Empire, and set with
+Golconda's diamonds the scepter of distant England. The year 1756 was
+hailed by the renegade as the epoch when England's rule of the
+sea became her one vitalizing policy--her first and last national
+necessity--for the Empire of the waves followed the pitiful beginning in
+Madras.
+
+Temples, groves, and mosques peopled with the alien and warring races
+were conjured up, the splendid viceregal circle, the pompous headquarter
+military, the fast set, staid luxury-loving civilians, and all the
+fierce eddies and undercurrents of the graded social life, in which
+the cold English heart learns to burn as madly under "dew of the lawn"
+muslin as ever Lesbian coryphe'e or Tzigane pleasure lover.
+
+The burning noons, the sweltering Zones of Death, the cool hills, the
+Vanity Fair of Simla, the shaded luxury of bungalow life, and the mad
+undercurrent of intrigue, the tragedy element of the Race for Wealth,
+the Struggle for Place, and the Chase for Fame. Major Alan Hawke was
+gracefully reminiscent, and in describing the social functions, the
+habits of those in the swim, the inner core of Indian life under its
+canting social and official husk, he brought an amused smile to the
+mobile face of his beautiful listener. He did not note the passage of
+time. He could now hear the music floating up from the Casino below.
+He had answered all her many questions. He described pithily the voyage
+out, the social pitfalls, the essence of "good Anglo-Indian form," and
+he was astonished at the keenness of the questions with which he was
+plied by his employer.
+
+"You have surely traveled in India," he murmured, when his relation
+flagged.
+
+"So I have, by proxy, and, in imagination," laughed Madame Berthe
+Louison, as she demurely held up her jeweled watch. "Ten minutes more,
+and then, Sir, I shall give you your ordre de route. For, I must go
+quietly. I trust to your experience and good judgment. There is nothing
+to say here. There will be no letters. My bankers have their orders. You
+must simply pay our bill, and depart quietly via Geneva. May I ask if
+you wish any more money? Some personal needs?"
+
+Major Hawke shook his head. "You may rely on me to meet you, and
+to faithfully obey you," he gravely said. There were unspoken words
+trembling on his lips, which he fain would have uttered. "By Heavens!
+She is a witch!" he murmured, in a repressed excitement, as he walked
+quietly down the hallway to keep his tryst with Casimir Wieniawski. For
+Berthe Louison had at once divined the cause of his unrest.
+
+"You think that I should tell you more? Why should I tell you anything?
+We are strangers yet, not even friends. You may divine that I trust no
+man. I have had my own sad lessons of life-lessons learned in bitterness
+and tears. I go out to your burning jungle land, with neither hope to
+allure, nor fear to repel. The whole world is the same to me. That I
+have a purpose, I admit; and even you may know me better by and bye!
+Till then, no professions, no promises, no pledges. I use you for my
+own selfish purposes, that is all; and you can frankly study your own
+self-interest. We are two clay jars swept along down the Ganges of life.
+For a few threads of the dark river's current, we travel on, side by
+side! You have frankly taken me at my word! I have taken you at yours!
+There is a written order to settle my affairs and remove my luggage.
+Of course, should you meet with any accident, telegraph to the Vittorio
+Emmanuele, at Brindisi. Money," she said, almost bitterly, "would be
+telegraphed; and so, I say"--he listened breathlessly--"au revoir--at
+Brindisi!" she concluded, giving him her hand, with a frank smile.
+
+As Alan Hawke descended the stair, he growled. "A woman without a heart,
+and--not without a head!" As he calmly answered the manager's polite
+inquiry for Madame's health, the "heartless woman" whom he had left was
+lying sobbing in the dark room above--crying, in her anguish, "Valerie!
+My poor, dead Valerie! I go to your child!"
+
+But, none suspected her departure, when the trimly-clad woman glided out
+of the entrance of the Hotel Faucon, at eleven o'clock. The maid was in
+waiting on the circular place in front with a carriage, and the key
+of the apartment lay in a sealed envelope on Alan Hawke's table, which
+proves that a few francs are just as potent in Switzerland as the same
+number of shillings in London, or dollars in New York. It was a clear
+case of "stole away."
+
+When Major Alan Hawke leaned over the supper table at the Casino,
+pledging Madame Frangipanni's bright eyes in very fair cafe champagne,
+he nervously started as he heard the wailing whistle and clanging bells
+of the through train for Constance. He forgot the faded complexion,
+the worn face, the chemically tinted hair and haggard eyes of the
+broken-down Austrian blonde concert singer, in the exhilaration of
+Berthe Louison's departure.
+
+For he had not lost Professor Casimir Wieniawski from sight a moment
+since the hour of ten, and that "distinguished noble refugee" was now
+in a maudlin way, murmuring perfunctory endearments in the ear of the
+ex-prima donna, who tenderly gazed upon him in a proprietary manner.
+Alan Hawke had judged it well to ply the champagne, and, at the witching
+hour of midnight, he critically inspected Casimir's condition. "He
+is probably about tipsy enough now to tell all he knows, and, with an
+acquired truthfulness. I will, therefore, bring this festive occasion
+to a close." Whereat the watchful Lucullus of the feast artfully drew
+Madame Frangipanni aside.
+
+"I have to go on to London, Chere Comtesse," he flatteringly said, "you
+must give me Casimir for a couple of hours to-night, to talk over the
+old times."
+
+He lingered a moment, hat in hand, as he chivalrously sent Madame
+Frangipanni home in a carriage. The poor old singer's bosom was thrilled
+with a sunset glow of departing greatness, as she lingered tearfully
+that night over the memories of the halcyon days when the officers of
+Francis Joseph's bodyguard had fought for the honors of the carriage
+courtesies of the Diva. Eheu fugaces!
+
+Closeted together, the minor guests having been artfully dispersed,
+Major Alan Hawke and his friend recalled the olden glories of
+Wieniawski's Indian tour. It was with a jealous hand that Hawke doled
+out the cognac, until Casimir abruptly said: "And now, mon ami, tell me
+what has linked you to Alixe Delavigne?" Alan Hawke had keenly studied
+his man, and found that the limit of the artist's drinking capacity
+seemed to be infinity, and so he leaned back and coldly scrutinized the
+musician's shabby exterior. "I think that I can risk it now," he mused,
+and then, in a crisp, hard voice, he suddenly said: "I don't mind
+parting with a twenty-pound note, Casimir, if you will tell me all you
+know about that beauty. You need it now--more than I. I am to be the
+judge of the value of your story, however. Mark me, I know the main
+features, but I also know that you have met her in the old days." The
+broken-down artist flushed under the changed relation of guest and paid
+tool.
+
+He uneasily stammered, as he filled a brandy glass, "As a loan--as a
+loan!" But Hawke was sternly business-like in his reply.
+
+"Don't make any pretenses with me. You are hard down on your luck, and
+you know it. This is a mere matter of business." He unfolded a bundle
+of notes and carelessly tossed two ten-pound notes over to Casimir, who
+seized them with trembling fingers. The pitiful sum represented to the
+artist two months of his meager salary. Here was absinthe unlimited,
+a little roulette, a new frock for Madame Frangipanni, perhaps even a
+dress coat for himself.
+
+"How old do you think Alixe is?" unsteadily began the artist.
+
+"I should say about twenty-five," gallantly replied the Major.
+
+"We will premise that she is thirty-three," confidently began the
+musician, "or even thirty-five. When I was a young fool at Warsaw,
+eighteen years old," he babbled. "I was the local prodigy. My first
+essays in public were, of course, concerts, and I was soon the vogue.
+And, later, asked as an artistic guest to the chateaux of the nobility
+in Poland, Kowno, Vitebsk, Wilna, Minsk, Grodno and Volhynia. I was
+a poet in thought, a lover of all womankind in my dreams, and a
+conspirator in the inmost chambers of my defiant Polish nature."
+
+"They made me the cat's-paw of adroit adventurers who were filling their
+pockets from wealthy Polish sympathizers in France and America, and
+some of them were Russian paid spies. I braved all the risks. I was
+the secret means of communication of the highest circles of our cult of
+Rebellion. Fool that I was, wandering from province to province, I lived
+the life of a mad enthusiast. The proud memories of Poland were mine,
+the spirit of her music, arts, and poetry had cast its witchery over
+me. Her history, the tragedy of a crownless queen of sorrows, had
+transported me into a dreamy idealism. I was soon the confidant of
+our seductive mobile Polish beauties. Sinuous, insincere, changeful,
+passionate, and burning with the flames of Love and Life, I was, at
+once, their idol and their plaything, their hero, and their willing
+slave.
+
+"For then, the spirit of old Poland rang out in my numbers, and I waked
+the quivering echoes of woman's heart at will. It was in seventy-three
+that I was sent on a special mission to Prince Pierre Troubetskoi's
+splendid chateau at Jitomir in Volhynia. The crafty Russians were
+watching us even there, and were busied in assembling troops secretly,
+at Kiev and Wilna. To another was given the proud place of secret spy
+over the higher circles of Wilna, while my duty was to watch Jitomir and
+Kiev. Troubetskoi was a bold gallant fellow, an ardent Muscovite, and
+had secretly returned from a long sojourn in Paris. He was in close
+touch with the Governors of Volhynia, Kiev, and Podolia, and we feared
+his sword within, his Parisian connections without. An evil star
+brought me into his household as his guest. For nearly a year I was kept
+vibrating between the points of danger to us, my personal headquarters
+being at the Chateau of Jitomir. And there I lived out my brief
+heart-life, for there I met Valerie Troubetskoi. No one seemed to know
+where Pierre had found her, but later I learned her story from her own
+lips.
+
+"That is, all of the story of a woman's heart-life which is ever
+unveiled to any man! She was beautiful beyond--compare, her wistful
+tenderness shining out as the moon, softer than the fierce noonday
+glare of the passion-transfigured faces of our Polish beauties. For
+they loved, for Love's own sake, and Valerie Troubetskoi offered up
+the chalice of her own heart in silent sadness. I never saw so lovely a
+being."
+
+"Did she look like that?" suddenly demanded Hawke, thrusting a
+photograph before the haggard eyes of the broken artist. He gasped, and
+tears gathered in his lashes. "Valerie, herself, and, as I knew her only
+before her fatal illness had marked her down. Did Alixe give you this?"
+He clutched at it with his trembling hands.
+
+"Go on," harshly said Alan Hawke, "the hour is late!"
+
+The Pole buried his face in his thinned hands, and then brokenly
+resumed: "The old story--the only one you know. She was about my own
+age; Troubetskoi was nearly always away; perhaps he thought to trap all
+my traitorous circle through me, or else he was in the secret service
+of the hungry Russian eagle. Valerie roamed silently through the great
+halls of Jitomir, saddened and lonely, for their union was childless.
+My heart spoke to her own in my music; she knew the prayer of my soul,
+though my lips were silent. For I madly adored her. Then, then, I was
+a man! My life belonged to Poland, my soul to art, but my heart was a
+sealed temple of love, a temple where Valerie, the beloved, the secretly
+worshiped, sat alone on her throne.
+
+"One day a woman, radiant in youth, and reflecting Valerie's own beauty,
+was brought to the chateau by Troubetskoi, who had journeyed on to
+Vienna. It was Alixe Delavigne, the woman whom I saw last with you. A
+month later Valerie called me to her side: 'My poor Casimir,' she said,
+as I knelt at her feet, 'I am dying! The struggle will not be a long
+one. I know the secret of your boyish heart. Your eyes have spoken and
+your music has reached my heart. Your love is written in your songs
+without words. When you have forgotten me, there is Alixe; she is alone
+upon earth. Let me seal your heart to hers, and even in death I shall
+feel that I love you both.' Then," the artist sobbed, "I lost my head.
+I told her all in mad, burning words. She raised her eyes to mine, and
+softly said: 'I shall see you no more unless Alixe is with us, for I
+love Pierre and he loves me. When I am gone, Alixe will be the only one
+who knows the secret of my life.'
+
+"It was two months later--for I would not leave her side, even Pierre
+Troubetskoi could not see her passing away, for it was a mysterious
+malady--when a sudden alarm brought me to my senses. My secret society
+work was done, and yet I lingered there, at the very steps of the
+scaffold. Alixe Delavigne burst into my room at midnight.
+
+"'Hasten!' she cried. 'Even now the Cossacks are surrounding the house!'
+She let me out through the secret passage of the old Chateau. A cloak
+was thrown over me by the Intendant. He was a Pole--and one true to
+the old blood. Alixe pressed a purse upon me. An address in Paris was
+whispered. 'I will write! Go! For Valerie's sake, go!'
+
+"Forty-eight hours later I crossed the Galician frontier at Lemberg
+disguised as a Polish peasant. My guardian, the Intendant, turned me
+over to our friends in the valley of the Styr. After six months of
+wandering, I finally reached Paris in safety. There were sorrowful
+letters awaiting me. Valerie was hidden forever in the yawning tombs
+of the gloomy old chapel of Jitomir, and Alixe herself wrote of Pierre
+Troubetlskoi's generous blinding of the pursuit. I was, however,
+prosecuted and hunted. I fled to America, for all our plans of revolt
+were miserably wrecked--and by Polish traitors!
+
+"Two years later, I learned from a fellow refugee that Pierre
+Troubetskoi had been killed by accident in a great forest battle. And to
+Alixe Delavigne, all the wealth which would have been Valerie's was
+left by the lion-hearted man who awoke too late to the early doom of his
+beloved.
+
+"I knew naught of the family history save that the sisters were the
+daughters of Colonel Delavigne, a gallant French officer, who was
+murdered by the Communists in seventy-one." Alan Hawke was now sternly
+eyeing the musician, who abruptly concluded: "I have never met Alixe
+Delavigne since. I dare not return to Poland. My own course has been
+steadily downward, and, beyond knowing that she still possesses the
+splendid domains of Jitomir, we are strangers to each other. Polish
+refugees have told me that she has always administered the vast estate
+with liberal kindness to all. And now you will tell me of her?" The
+tremulous hand of Wieniawski raised a brimming glass of brandy to his
+lips. He stared about vacantly when Hawke said:
+
+"Madame Delavigne left Lausanne this evening on a special mission. Her
+life is a sealed book to all, and a mere business interest has drawn
+us together." The Englishman went callously on: "There are a couple of
+mountainously rich American girls coming down here to-morrow at nine
+o'clock to spend the day at Chillon with me. I need a running mate. Will
+you then meet me at the Montreux Landing? You can have a day off, and
+these young fools are fat pigeons, ardent, and enthusiastic." Hawke saw
+the hesitation on the man's face.
+
+"You can say to Madame Frangipanni that you are with me and that I will
+explain later at the dinner." With a glance at his watch, Alan Hawke
+rang for the Oberkellner. He was extending his hand in goodnight, when
+the refugee cried imploringly, "I must see her once more! Tell me of her
+journey!" and Major Hawke deliberately lied to the poor vaurien artist,
+the wreck of his better self. "The through train to Paris is her only
+address. I presume that Madame Delavigne will spend some time in a
+sanitarium after this heart attack, and she has my banker's address. It
+is only through them that we meet to arrange some affairs of business.
+Whether maid, wife, or widow, I know not, for you know what women
+are--sealed books to their enemies, and to their husbands and
+lovers--only enigmas!
+
+"But fail not to meet me. I'll give you a pleasant day. You will find
+the two Americans both gushing and susceptible." Then as Major Alan
+Hawke stepped lightly away to the sedately closed Hotel Faucon, Casimir
+Wieniawski staggered back into the cafe.
+
+His fit of passionate sorrow was brief, for in a half hour he was the
+king of a mad revel, where his meaner sycophants divided Alan Hawke's
+bounty. The cool Major strode along happy hearted to his rest, quietly
+revolving the plan of campaign.
+
+"There was then a sealed chapter in Valerie Troubetskoi's life. And the
+key of that is in Berthe Louison's keeping. Now, my fair employer, it is
+diamond cut diamond. I think that I have done a fair day's work." And
+he thanked his lucky stars for the precipitate flight of his mysterious
+employer. "She evidently feared the noble Casimir following upon the
+trail. Strange--strange pathways! Strange footprints on the sands of
+Time! It is a devilish funny world, but, after all, the best that we
+have any authentic account of." And so he slept the sleep of the just,
+for he was making the woes of others the cornerstones of his newer
+fortunes.
+
+Major Hawke arose with the lark, by a previous arrangement with the
+Hotel Bureau. His face was eminently businesslike in its gravity, as he
+summoned the porter and dispatched all his luggage to the care of the
+Chef du Gare, Geneva. "Business of extreme importance awaiting upon
+Madame's complete recovery had caused her to depart to consult an
+eminent specialist. Thank you, there will be no letters," said the
+Major, as he pocketed both receipted bills. He amused himself while
+watching for the morning boat, as the mountain mists, lifting, revealed
+the glittering lake, in sending a very carefully sketched letter to
+Mademoiselle Euphrosyne Delande, No. 123 Rue du Rhone, Geneva. This
+letter was of such moment that it went on to London, to be posted back
+duly stamped with good Queen Victoria's likeness. A very careful Major!
+
+The lofty semi-official tone, in which the writer spoke of a possible
+return to India "under the auspices of the Foreign Office," was well
+calculated to fill the spinster's bosom with the flattering unction that
+a mighty protector had been raised up for the adventurous Justine, now
+supposed to be environed with all the glittering snares of society, as
+well as enveloped in the mystic jungle.
+
+A week later, when Euphrosyne Delande laid down the pen and abandoned
+her unfinished "Lecture Upon the Influence of the Allobroges, Romans,
+Provencal Franks, Burgundians, and Germans Upon the Intellectual
+Development of Geneva," she read Alan Hawke's letter with a thrill of
+secret pride.
+
+The smooth adventurer had written: "If I have the future pleasure of
+meeting Mademoiselle Justine Delande I only hope to find a resemblance
+to her charming and distinguished sister. As my movements are
+necessarily secret, pray write only in the utmost confidence to
+Mademoiselle Justine. I hope to soon return and enjoy once more the
+hospitalities of your intellectual circle." The address given for India
+was "Bombay Club." Miss Euphrosyne gazed up at the stony lineaments of
+Professor Delande, her marble-browed and flinty-hearted sire, locked in
+the cold chill of a steel engraving. He was as neutral as the busts
+of Buffon, Cuvier, Laplace, Humboldt, and Pestalozzi, which coldly
+furnished forth her sanctum. She thought of the eloquent eyed young
+Major and sadly sighed. She proceeded to enshrine him in her withered
+heart, and then wrote a crossed letter of many tender underlinings to
+her distant sister. And thus the pathway was made very smooth for the
+artful wanderer, who had already stepped upon the decks of the Sepoy.
+
+Major Hawke had dispatched an excellent breakfast before he stepped into
+the carriage to be whirled away to Montreux. His bridges were burned
+behind him. There was not a vestige of Madame Berthe Louison left to
+give the needy Pole a clue. "They are separated, and Anstruther and the
+Swiss schoolmistress are harmless. I have only my play to make upon the
+lovely Justine, and to retake up my old friendship with Hugh Fraser.
+Then I am ready to bit by bit unravel the story of Valerie Delavigne's
+child--the Veiled Rose of Delhi."
+
+"Between a father with a secret to keep, and this strange woman with a
+purpose, there is a pretty girl and a vast fortune at issue, besides
+the prospective pickings of Madame Berthe Louison." These musings of
+the Major led him up to the question of his employer's false name, as he
+swept down to the nearby Montreux station. "She evidently had traced the
+child to Switzerland, and was upon a still hunt to find out the home of
+the growing heiress, and,--for what purpose? Ah! One day after another,"
+he pleasantly exclaimed, as he saw the artist awaiting him. "Peu apeu
+I'oiseau fait son nid." He had already evolved a scheme to permanently
+separate Casimir Wieniawski from his own beautiful employer, who was now
+dashing along well on her way toward Munich. Alan Hawke was startled
+at the distinguished appearance of the musician. An aristocratic pallor
+refined his face, he was neatly booted and gloved, the elegant lines of
+the Pole's supple figure were displayed in a morning frock coat, and his
+chapeau de soie was virginal in its gloss.
+
+"Some of my own twenty pounds," mused Alan Hawke, as he gayly sprang
+out and saluted his dupe. "Ah! There you are. You look to-day the old
+Casimir. Let us have a few last words before the boat arrives."
+
+Hardened as he was, Alan Hawke was surprised at the childlike lightness
+of the Pole's manner when they encountered the fresh young beauties who
+were already the cynosure of all eyes upon the morning boat. The
+storm of emotion had spent itself, and while Alan Hawke squired, the
+aggressive Miss Genie, Casimir Wieniawski was bending over the slightly
+dreamy and more romantic Miss Phenie! They distributed themselves in
+open order, as they strolled along toward the drawbridge of that most
+hospitable of old horrors, Chillon Castle.
+
+It was a day of days, and the artful Hawke laughed as he smoked his
+cigar upon a rustic bench in the castle Garden. Miss Genie was at his
+side, pouting, petulant, provokingly pretty and duly agnostic as to the
+Polish prince.
+
+A week later, Alan Hawke stood on the deck of the Sepoy, as that
+reliable vessel steamed out of Brindisi harbor for Bombay. He was
+watching a lace handkerchief, waved by a graceful woman, standing alone
+upon the pier. The adventurer drew a silver rupee from his pocket, and
+then gayly tossed it into the waves, crying, "Here's for luck!" as he
+watched the slender, distant, womanly figure move up the pier. There lay
+the Empress of India with steam now curling from her stacks, ready to
+follow on to Calcutta. "I have not broken her lines yet," murmured Major
+Hawke as he paced the deck, "but I have her pretty well surrounded,
+cunning as she is!" and so he complacently ordered his first bottle of
+pale ale.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE VEILED ROSEBUD OF DELHI
+
+
+
+The October winds were whirling the pine needles down the mountain
+defiles in the bracing Alpine autumn, as Alan Hawke sped on past Suez,
+gliding on through the stifling furnace heat of the Red Sea, past Mocha,
+and dashing along through the Bridge of Tears, to Aden. He left at Suez,
+and also at the Eastern Gibraltar of haughty Albion, the brief letters
+for his mysterious employer, and he mentally arranged the social gambit
+of his reappearance at Delhi in the nine days before the Sepoy steamed
+into the island-dotted bay of Bombay.
+
+Sternly shunning, on his arrival, the local sirens, whose songs of old
+fell so sweetly upon his ear, the determined Major sped away at once
+for Allahabad. He was on shaking social quagmires at Bombay. There were
+sundry little threads of the past still left hanging out in the shape of
+stray urban indebtedness, and he now scorned to throw away a single one
+of the crisp Bank of England notes showered upon him by Fortune. He was
+growing sadly wise. He had lately mused over the old motto, "Lucky at
+cards--unlucky in love!" The cool provision of the funds at Lausanne by
+Berthe Louison, her separate route to Delhi, her business-like coldness
+in their strangely frank relations, all these things proved to him
+that he was to be only an intelligent tool; not a trusted friend in the
+little drama about to open at the old capital of Oude.
+
+Alan Hawke had already abandoned the idea of any sentimental advances
+upon Alixe Delavigne. "Strange, strange," he murmured; "a woman can
+sometimes easily be flattered into a second conjugation of the verb 'To
+Love,' but an internal previous evidence of man's unreliability can
+do that which no personal sorrow can effect. The key to this woman's
+behavior is in the story of her sister's shadowed life.
+
+"The hiatus from Hugh Fraser to Pierre Troubetskoi covers the tragedy
+of Valerie Delavigae's life, the death blow was then struck, and the
+central figure is the child. So, with the strangely acquired fortune at
+her beck and call, Alixe Delavigne has consecrated herself to that most
+illogical of human careers--a woman's silent vengeance! That achieved,
+will the furnace fires of her stormy heart be lit by the hand of
+passion?"
+
+He ruminated sagely over these matters as he sped on over the Great
+Indian Peninsula Railway. The western Ghauts were now far behind him
+and their dark basalt crags. Bombay, Hyderabad, Berar, the Central
+Provinces, Central India, and the southern prong of Oude was reached. He
+was, however, no whit the wiser when he reached the Ganges and hastily
+sought the telegraph station at Allahabad. But he felt like a prince in
+the direct line of succession with his net eight hundred pounds still to
+the good. His first care was to telegraph to Madame Berthe Louison,
+to the care of Grindley, at Calcutta: "Waiting at Allahabad for your
+letters, and news of your safe arrival." While rushing past the Vindhia
+Mountains he had encountered several of his old Indian acquaintances.
+The mere hint of a secret governmental employ of gravity satisfied the
+languid curiosity of the qui hais. For a week he lingered in the "City
+of God," and daily haunted the post and telegraph offices.
+
+He had sent on to the Delhi Club a note for the maw of the local
+gossips, and also had dispatched a skillfully constructed letter to
+the unsuspecting Hugh Johnstone. With a veiled flattery of the old
+civilian's wisdom and experience, he referred to his desire to consult
+him as to a secret journey in the direction of the Pamirs. The opportune
+windfall of Anstruther's ecarte and Berthe Louison's liberal advance
+enabled Major Alan Hawke to maintain a dignified and easy port as he
+wandered through Allahabad. Strolling by the waters of the Ganges and
+Jumna, he invoked anew the blessings of the goddess Fortuna, as he gazed
+out upon the majestic heaven descended stream. The daily tide of travel
+toward Delhi brought on each day some familiar faces, and yet Alan Hawke
+lingered gently, declining their traveling company. "Waiting orders," he
+said, with the sad, sweet smile of one enjoying a sinecure. His swelling
+outward port thoroughly proved that the days were gone when he was to
+be scanned before the morning salutation. Les eaux sout basses, the
+impecunious Frenchman mourns, but there was a swelling tide bearing Alan
+Hawke onward now.
+
+A hearty welcoming letter from the ci-devant Hugh Fraser was a good
+omen, for rumor of a thousand tongues had already invested the returning
+Major with an important secret mission. His epistolary seed planted
+in Delhi had brought forth fruit as rapidly as the magic of the Indian
+conjuror's mango-tree trick. It was already rumored even in Allahabad
+that "Hawke had dropped upon a decidedly good thing." The Major was
+busied, however, in analyzing the motives of Alixe Delavigne, in her
+change of name, her separate journey, her choice of the Calcutta route,
+and the inner nature of her projected enterprise.
+
+"A woman in her position, easy as to fortune, will stoop to none of the
+arts of the blackmailer; she could choose a life of soft luxury, for she
+is yet in the bloom of vigorous early womanhood. To her the personality
+of Hugh Fraser is surely nothing. There are but two objects of
+attack--his proposed social elevation, the nattering title, and the
+peace of mind and future of the daughter, this lovely veiled Rose! Love,
+a natural love, even for the stranger child, would ward away the blow;
+but only an unslaked vengeance would point the shaft! The reproduction
+of her sister's face seemed to touch her to her very bosom's core.
+There is some fixed purpose in this cold-hearted woman's coming! Not
+a lingering annoyance, but some coup de main, a bolt to be launched at
+Hugh Johnstone alone!"
+
+"I do not know how I can break her lines, unless she shows me some weak
+point," he mused. "But either her fortune or Johnstone's shall yield me
+a heavy passing toll. And, there is always the girl! There, I would have
+to meet Berthe Louison as a determined enemy!" In recognizing the fact
+that his employer must make the game at last, that she must lead out
+and so uncover herself, he saw his own masterly position between the two
+prospective foes.
+
+"I can play them off the one against each other, at the right time, and,
+if they fight each other, with the help of Justine Delande, I may even
+make a strong running for the girl. I think I now see a way!" He felt
+that his wandering days were over. The dark days of carking cares,
+of harassing duns, of frequent changes of base, driven onward by the
+rolling ball of gossip and innuendo.
+
+He felt strangely lifted up in the familiar scenes of his years of
+wanderings. For he was at home again. Alixe Delavigne, however carefully
+watched for her eastern adventure, was socially helpless in a land of
+strange alien races, of discordant Babel tongues, of shifting scenes, a
+land as unreal as the visions of a summer night.
+
+But to Alan Hawke all this Indian life was now a second nature. The
+scenes of Bombay recalled his once ambitious youth, the days when he
+first delightedly gazed upon the wonders of Elephanta, and the gloomy
+grottoes of Salcette. From his very landing he had set himself
+one cardinal rule of conduct, to absolutely ignore all the lighter
+attractions of native and Eurasian beauty, and to let no single word
+fall from his lips respecting the sudden occultation of Miss Nadine
+Johnstone--this new planet softly swimming in the evening skies of
+Delhi. He felt that he was beginning a new career, one in which neither
+greed nor passion must betray him. It was the "third call" of Fortune,
+and he had wisely decided upon a golden silence. "If I had only met the
+favored Justine, instead of that withered Aspasia, Euphrosyne, then,
+the girl's heart might have been easily made mine," was the unavailing
+regret of the handsome Major. "If I could have come out with them," he
+sighed. He well knew the softening effect upon romantic womanhood of a
+long sea voyage where the willing winds sway the softer emotions of the
+breast, and the trembling woman is defenseless against the perfidious
+darts of Cupid.
+
+"My time will come," he murmured as the train rushed along through the
+incense breathing plantations. A richer nature than foggy England was
+spread out before him in treacherous Hindostan with its warring tribes,
+its dying creeds, its dead languages, its history sweeping far back into
+the mists of the unknown. For every problem of the human mind, every
+throe of the restless heart of man is worn old and threadbare in
+Hindostan, with its very dust compounded of the wind-blown ashes of
+dead millions upon millions. Gross vulgar Gold reigns now as King on the
+broad savannas where spice plantations and indigo farms vary the cotton,
+rice, and sugar fields. Wasted treasures of dead dynasties gleam out
+in the ornamentation of the temples abandoned to the prowling beast
+of prey. And riches and ruin meet the eye in a strange medley. Dead
+greatness and the prosaic present.
+
+Modern bungalows, where the faltering conqueror watches the tax-ridden
+ryots dot the landscape, and an overweighted official system brings its
+haughty military, its self-sufficient civilians, its proud womanhood,
+to drain the exhausted heart of India. And the ryot groans under many
+taskmasters.
+
+Lingering with a restless heart, in Allahabad, Alan Hawke roused himself
+as at a bugle call, when he received a telegram announcing the safe
+arrival of the Empress of India at Calcutta.
+
+"La danse va commencer," he muttered, as he read the brief words of his
+employer: "Go on to Delhi, await me there. Telegrams to you there at
+private address. Leave letters." The signature "Lausanne" was a new
+spur to his well-considered prudence. And, so, the next day, Major Hawke
+sedately descended at Delhi.
+
+There was nothing to distinguish Hawke from any other well-to-do
+European, as he stood gazing around the station, in his cool linens, his
+pith helmet and floating puggaree. The prudent air of judicious mystery
+lately adopted sat easily upon him as his eye roved over the familiar
+scenes of old with a silent gleam of recognition, he followed a
+confidential attendant who salaamed, murmuring "My master awaits the
+sahib whom he delights to love and honor."
+
+"There is one card I must play at once," murmured Hawke, as the carriage
+sped along. "Mademoiselle Justine Delande must be my secret friend! I
+wonder if Euphrosyne really swallowed the bait! If she has fallen into
+the trap and written to her sister, then--all is well!"
+
+His eyes roved over the familiar scene of the broad Chandnee Chouk,
+sweeping magnificently away from the Lahore gate to the superb palace.
+The sun beat down with its old ferocious glare on shop and bazaar. Grave
+merchants lolled over their priceless treasures of gold and silver work,
+heaped up jewels and bullion-threaded shawls for princely wear. Under
+the awnings lingered the familiar polyglot groups, while beggary and
+opulence jostled each other on every hand.
+
+"It's the same old road in life!" murmured Alan Hawke, "whether called
+Inderput, Shahjehanabad, or Delhi--the same old game goes on here
+forever, here by the sacred Jumna!"
+
+He was dreaming of the artful part which he had to play in the fierce
+modern race for wealth. "They used to fight for it like men in the old
+days," he bitterly murmured. "Now, the only gold that I see before me
+is to be had by gentlemanly blackmail! Right here--between old Hugh
+Johnstone and this flinty-hearted woman avenger--lies my fortune. And I
+swear that nothing shall stop me! I will be the prompter of the little
+play now ready for a first rehearsal!" His eyes lighted up viciously
+as he was swept along past the great marble house, gleaming out in the
+shady compound, where the Rosebud of Delhi was hidden.
+
+"Cursed old curmudgeon! To lock the girl up!" muttered the handsome
+young rascal. "Old Ram Lal must do a bit of spying for me!" Hawke could
+see on the raised plateau of marble steps all the evidences of the
+sumptuous luxury of the haughty Briton, "who toils not, neither does
+he spin." But, the dozen pointed arches on each face of the vast palace
+house of the budding baronet showed no sign of life. The clustered
+marble columns stretched out in a splendid lonely perspective, and
+the square inner castellated keep rose up in the glaring sun, but with
+closed and shaded windows. Dusky shapes flitted about, busied in the
+infinitesimal occupations of Indian servitors, but no graceful woman
+form could be seen in the witching gardens where a Rajah might have
+fitly held a durbar.
+
+"I'll warrant the old hunks has Bramah locks and Chubb's burglar proofs
+to fence this beauty off!" growled the Major, as he sank back in the
+carriage. "I fancy, though, that a liberal dose of Madame Louison's
+gold, judiciously administered by me, in her interest, to Justine
+Delande, may open the way to the girl's presence! The mother's story
+may serve to win the girl's heart. If I can only busy old Hugh and the
+Madame in watching each other, then I can handle Justine."
+
+"Yes," the satisfied schemer concluded, "the old man's game is the
+bauble title. Berthe Louison's must be some studied revenge. She is
+above all blackmail. I know already half the story of this clouded past.
+Madame Alixe Delavigne must yield up the other half, bit by bit. By the
+time she arrives, my spies will have posted me. I will have opened my
+parallels on the Swiss dragon who guards the lovely Nadine. Now to make
+my first play upon the old nabob."
+
+Major Alan Hawke had studied skillfully out his gambit for an attack
+upon Hugh Johnstone's vanity. When he descended at the hospitable doors
+of his secret ally, Ram Lal Singh, he plunged into the seclusion of a
+luxurious easy toilet making. A dozen letters glanced over, a comforting
+hookah, and Alan Hawke had easily "sized up" the situation. For Ram
+Lal's first skeleton report had clearly proved to him that the coast
+was clear. "Thank Heavens there are as yet no rivals," Hawke murmured.
+"Neither confidential friend of the old boy, no dashing Ruy Gomez as
+yet in the way." Hawke viewed himself complacently in the mirror. He
+was severely just to himself, and he well knew all his own good points.
+"Pshaw!" he murmured, "any man not one-eyed can easily play the Prince
+Charming to a hooded lady all forlorn, a mere child, a tyro in life's
+soft battles of the heart. I must impress this pompous old fool that I
+know all the intrigues of his proposed elevation. He will unbosom, and
+both trust and fear me. These pampered civilians are as haughty in their
+way as the military and be damned to them," mused Hawke, cheerfully
+humming his battle song, those words of a vitriolic wit:
+
+"General Sir Arthur Victorious Jones, Great is vermillion splashed with
+gold."
+
+"This old crab has quietly stolen himself rich, and now forsooth would
+tack on a Sir Hugh before his name. Ah! The jewels! I must delicately
+hint to him that I am in the inner circle of the cognoscenti."
+
+And then Alan Hawke cheerfully joined his obese and crafty friend and
+host, Ram Lal Singh. For an hour the soft, oily voice of the old jewel
+merchant flowed on in a purring monologue. The ease and mastery of the
+Conqueror's language showed that the usurer had well studied the
+masters of Delhi. Sixty years had given Ram Lal added cunning. A crafty
+conspirator of the old days when the mystic "chupatties" were sent out
+on their dark errand, the sly jewel merchant had survived the bloody
+wreck of the throne of Oude, and from the place of attendant to one of
+the slaughtered princes, dropped down softly into the trade of money
+lender, secret agent, and broker of the unlawful in many varied ways.
+
+It was Ram Lal's easy task to purvey luxuries to the imperious Briton,
+to hold the extravagant underlings in his usurious clutches, to be at
+peace with Hindu, Moslem, Sikh, Pathan, Ghoorka, Persian, and Armenian,
+and to blur his easy-going Mohammedanism in a generous participation in
+all sins of omission and commission. A many-sided man!
+
+Alan Hawke heaved a sigh of easy contentment when he had brought the
+chronique scandahuse of Delhi down to the day and hour.
+
+"You say that she is beautiful, this girl?"
+
+"As the stars on the sea!" nodded Ram Lal.
+
+"And the Swiss woman?"
+
+"Never leaves her for a minute. They see no one, for all men say the old
+Commissioner will take her home, to Court when he is gazetted!"
+
+"None of the great people go there?" keenly queried Hawke.
+
+"Not even the fine ladies," laughed Ram Lal. "The old fellow may have
+his own memories of the past. He trusts no one. The girl is only a
+bulbul in a golden cage and with no one to sing to." Hawke cut short Ram
+Lal's flowery figures.
+
+"Does the Swiss woman trade with you?" he demanded.
+
+"Yes, she buys a few simple things--my peddlers take the Veiled Rose
+many rich things. The old Sahib is very generous to the child. And the
+dragon loves trinkets, too!" Then Alan Hawke's eyes gleamed.
+
+"She knows your shop here?"
+
+"Perfectly," replied Ram Lal, "and comes alone--on the master's
+business. You know I had many dealings with Sahib Hugh Fraser in the old
+days," mused the jeweler. "He always admits my men. I have valued gems
+for him for twenty years."
+
+"Good!" cried the happy Major. "I want to send a man now to her with a
+note. I am going to put up at the United Service Club, but I must see
+this woman first. I don't like to send a letter, though. If I had any
+one to trust--"
+
+The merchant promptly said: "I will go myself! They are always in the
+garden in the afternoon. I can easily see her alone."
+
+"First rate! Then I will give you a message," answered Hawke. "I must
+see her to-morrow early, for old Hugh will surely ask me to tiffin. And,
+Ram, you must at once set your best man on to watch all that goes on
+there. I have a good fat plum for you now--to set up a neat little house
+here for a friend of mine who is coming, and you shall do the whole
+thing!" The merchant's dark eyes glistened. "A new officer of rank?" he
+queried.
+
+"It's a lady--a friend of mine--rich, too, and she wants to live on the
+quiet! She will stay here for some time!" The oily listener had learned
+a vast prudence in the days when he trod the halls of the last King
+of Delhi, so he held his peace and wondered at the suddenly enhanced
+fortunes of that star of graceful wanderers, Allan Hawke!
+
+"I'll go over to the club now and get a room! Send all my things over!"
+said the Major. "I wish to let Hugh know that I am here. I will give
+you the directions about the house to-morrow. Make no mistake with this
+message now!" Whereat Alan Hawke repeated a few words which would
+awake the slumbering curiosity in the woman-heart of the lonely Justine
+Delande!
+
+"Now, I will return and await your success," concluded Hawke as he read
+over a dozen times Madame Berthe Louison's long dispatch, ordering him
+to prepare her pied de terre in Delhi. "Gad! Milady means to do the
+thing in style," he murmured. "She is a deep one, and she must have a
+pot of money!" He lit a cheroot and sauntered away to show up officially
+at the club. Major Hawke soon became aware that nothing succeeds like
+success. Not only did all the flaneurs of the Chandnee Chouk seize
+upon him, but, from passing carriages, bright, roguish eyes merrily
+challenged him as the hot-hearted English Mem-Sahibs whirled by.
+
+Rumor had magnified the importance of Major Alan Hawke's secret service
+appointment, and the wanderer was astounded when the highest official of
+the Delhi College gravely saluted him.
+
+"By Gad! I believe that I am really becoming respectable!" laughed the
+delighted major. His uncertain past seemed to be fast fading away in the
+glow of the skillfully hinted official promotion. "I wonder now if old
+Ram Lal has a hold on my canny friend, Hugh Fraser Johnstone--Sir Hugh
+to be! Perhaps they are like all the rest of us--rascals of the same
+grade, but only in different ways. The old jewel matters! I must look to
+this and watch Ram Lal!" The returned Anglo-Indian carelessly nodded
+to the group of men gathered in the club's lounging-room as he entered.
+Designedly, he loudly demanded to know if his traps had arrived. "Left
+all my odds and ends in store," he murmured to a friend, as he called
+for a brandy pawnee. "Beastly bore! Must wait orders here for some
+time!"
+
+Skilled at tossing the ball of conversation to and fro, Major Alan
+Hawke, while at luncheon, artfully planted seeds here and there, to be
+neatly dished up later for that incipient baronet, Hugh Johnstone. And
+yet a graceful shade of dignified reserve lent color to his rumored
+advancement, and the schemer leaned over the writing table with quite a
+foreign-office air as he indited his diplomatic note of arrival to his
+destined prey.
+
+With a grave air he selected his rooms and accommodations to suit his
+swelling port, and even the club stewards nodded in recognition of the
+tidal wave of Alan Hawke's mended fortunes.
+
+With due official gravity the man "who had dropped into a good thing,"
+disappeared, to allow the gilded youth of Delhi to carry the gossip to
+mess and bungalow. It was a welcome morsel to these merry crows!
+
+It was late when the handsome Major returned to find a small pyramid of
+notes on his table and many letters in his box. He was in the highest
+good humor, for the wary Ram Lal had most diplomatically acquitted his
+task of opening a secret communication.
+
+"Just as I thought," laughed the Major, as he sipped his pale ale in Ram
+Lal's spacious room of pleasaunce. "They all protest, woman-like, but
+they all come!"
+
+The watchful Swiss exile's heart fluttered tenderly in the far-off Lotos
+land at the arrival of a secret friend of her sage sister. She longed
+for the morning to meet her new friend. Alan Hawke's irresistible
+attractions had pointed the praises which flowed smoothly over the
+double crossed letter which had preceded him! The oily Ram Lal, a
+veteran observer of many an intrigue, scented a budding rose of romance
+in the Major's adroit coup, and the arrival of the only lady whom Alan
+Hawke had ever socially fathered in Delhi.
+
+"In three days I will be all ready! So you can telegraph to-night,"
+reported the merchant, when the Major carefully went over all the
+details of the proposed temporary establishment of the disguised Alixe
+Delaviarne.
+
+"Very good!" approvingly answered the dignified confidant and patron.
+"See here, Ram Lal! You have only to serve me well in these little
+private matters, and you shall handle all the coming Mem-Sahib's money
+business here! She wants to be quiet. I am to direct all her private
+matters! Not a word, however, to old Hugh!" The two men separated, Hawke
+with the knowledge that one of Ram's men had already glided into the
+swarming household entourage of Hugh Johnstone's stately home, and the
+spy was on every movement of the strange interior, which defied the
+Delhi beaux.
+
+"Not a bad day's work," mused Hawke, as he dined in solitary state. The
+hospitable bidding of the wealthiest civilian of Delhi to tiffin on the
+morrow brought him in touch with Alixe Delavigne's proposed victim once
+more. The delighted rascal mused: "I will surely have letters from her
+to-morrow, possibly even a telegram of her arrival. When the silly Swiss
+woman is the partner of an innocent secret, she is mine to control! Then
+the chase for a few lacs of rupees begins!"
+
+Major Hawke was somewhat startled at the little avalanche of welcoming
+cards and notes. "Bravo! this will throw old Hugh off the track a bit
+also. The simple duty of piquing local curiosity shall open all hearts,
+hearths, and homes to me!" And then, Alan Hawke joyously realized how
+easily the light-headed world can be fooled to the top of its bent by
+the hollow trick of a bit of mystery play.
+
+"This falls out rightly," he mused. "I will take up all the threads of
+my old society life and Madame Berthe Louison may deign to confide a bit
+in me the first half of the story forced from her, then I will guess out
+all the missing links of the chain. Once domiciled here, she is
+helpless in my hands, for I can either gain her inner secrets, or boldly
+checkmate her. And the veiled Rose of Delhi?"
+
+Alan Hawke dreamed not of the sorrows of the restless heart beating
+in that virginal bosom. He paced the veranda of the Club gravely
+preoccupied till the midnight hour. Long before that, Justine Delande
+had sought her rooms in a feeble flutter of excitement over the harmless
+assignation of the morrow. There was a stern old man pacing his splendid
+hall alone, with an unhappy heart, that night, for Hugh Johnstone
+saw again in the sweet uplifted eyes of his beautiful child the old
+unanswered question!
+
+He stood long gazing out upon the unpitying stars, while above him,
+lonely and lovely, Nadine recked not the queenly splendor of her
+magnificent apartment. Glittering wealth, splendid train of servants,
+the golden future stretching out before her, all this she noted not,
+for, even in the gray, colorless life of the pension school at Geneva,
+soft-eyed Hope whispered to her of a gentle and gracious mother!
+Loved--gone before, but not lost--and, here in the land of gaudy Asiatic
+splendors, a strange land of wonderment and fairy riches, she sobbed
+alone in her heart anguish:
+
+"He will not speak! He tells me nothing! A marble palace this, but
+never a home!" The timid girl had seen no beloved woman's face upon
+the fretwork of the walls of this Aladdin's castle. And, in her own
+frightened heart, she remembered the ashen pallor of her father's
+face when she had faltered out the burning question of her yearning
+heart--the question of long years! The past was still a blank to her,
+while on this same night, crafty Alan Hawke in Delhi, and, in far
+Calcutta, a woman, pacing her boudoir in sad unrest, were both busied
+with the story of the vanished mother whom the Rose of Delhi had never
+seen!
+
+Alixe Delavigne, lonely and resolute, was thinking of her departure
+on the morrow, to face the man who had locked his dead past in his own
+marble heart, in his grand marble palace. Her busy days at Calcutta had
+astounded the senior manager of Grindlay & Co. The old banker marveled
+at the strange commissions and imperative orders of his beautiful
+business client, but many years had taught him much of the
+incomprehensibility of womanhood! Whereupon he marveled in silence, and
+bowing with his hand upon his heart, assured the lady of his absolute
+discretion, and the unbroken honor of the house. "Some very queer little
+life histories go on out here in India!" mused the old banker, as he
+handed the lady her special letter to the Delhi agents of the great
+house which house which he directed. "As beautiful as a statue, as firm
+as a flint! Where have I seen a face like hers?" mused the old man, as
+he sought his rest.
+
+The "beautiful statue" was steadfastly gazing at the picture of the
+young Rose of Delhi, in her lonely boudoir. "She shall learn to love
+her! To love her--through me! And this man of iron shall yield! He shall
+hear my prayer! For, if he does not, then, he shall be struck to the
+heart--blow for blow! And Fate shall pass her over! I swear it by that
+lonely grave in far away Jitomir!" There were kisses rained upon the
+pictured face smiling up at her, the face which had called back to her
+the dead past, and then the "beautiful statue" tore aside her gown. She
+gazed upon a folded paper which had long lain upon her throbbing heart.
+"This shall speak for me--at the last! His pride shall bend! He shall
+not break the child's heart! For the mother's sake, I swear it! She
+shall love and be loved!" and as she spoke, in far away Delhi sweet
+Nadine stirred in her sleep, and smiled, with opening arms, for the
+phantom mother she fondly sought seemed to clasp her now to a loving
+breast!
+
+In the Delhi Club there was high wassail below him, while Major Alan
+Hawke restlessly paced his spacious rooms above, watching the lonely
+white moon sail through the clearest skies on earth. The quid mines had
+all observed the patiently haughty air of the returned Major, and even
+the chattering club stewards marveled at the sudden efflorescence of
+Hawke Sahib's fortunes.
+
+"Devilish neat-handed fellow, Hawke," growled old Major Bingo Morris,
+over his whist cards. "Close-mouthed fellow! Always wonder why he left
+the service! Neat rider! Good hand with gun and spear! He ought to be in
+our Staff Corps! He knows every inch of the northern frontier!" The old
+Major glared around, inviting further comment.
+
+"Fellow in Bombay tells me he went a cropper about some woman or other,
+ten years ago," lisped a rosy young lieutenant who was spreading the
+golden revenues of a home brewery over the pitfall-dotted path of a rich
+Indian sub.
+
+"Right you are!" sententiously remarked Verner of the Horse Artillery.
+"He went a stunning pace for a while, and at last had to get out. Big
+flirtation--wife of commanding officer! Hawke acted very nicely. Said
+nothing--sacrificed himself. That's why the women all like him. Very
+safe man. But, he's a shy bird now." They dissected his past, guessed at
+his present, but could not read his future!
+
+And then and there, the man who knew it all, told of the mysterious
+governmental quest confided to Major Alan Hawke. "You see, he has a sort
+of roving commission in mufti, to counteract the ceaseless undermining
+of the Russian agents in Persia, Afghanistan and in the Pamirs. We
+always bear the service brand too openly. It gives away our own military
+agents. Now, Hawke's a fellow like Alikhanoff, that smart Russian
+duffer! He can do the Persian, Afghan, or Thibetan to perfection! He has
+been on to London. Some morning he will clear out. You'll hear of him
+next at Kashgar, or in Bhootan, or perhaps he will work down into China
+and report to the Minister there. He is a Secret Intelligence Department
+of One, that's all!"
+
+"That's all very irregular for Her Majesty's Service," growled an
+envious agnostic.
+
+"Bah! Secret Service has no rules, you know," said the man who knew it
+all, thrusting his lips deeply into a brandy pawnee.
+
+And so it was noted that Alan Hawke was a devilish pleasant fellow, a
+rising man, and one who had certainly dropped into an extremely good
+thing. The tide of Fortune was setting directly in favor of the man
+who, pacing the floor upstairs, unavailingly tormented himself with the
+subject of the missing jewels.
+
+"If I could only get a hold on Hugh Johnstone!" mused the adventurer.
+"Berthe Louison knows nothing of these old matters. She only seeks to
+approach the child. And she will be here to watch me in a day or so.
+Ram Lal, the old scoundrel! Does he know? If he did, he would bleed the
+would-be Baronet on his own account. But he may not know of the golden
+opportunity, and the old wretch always has many irons himself in the
+fire. Hugh Fraser was a canny Scot in his youth. Sir Hugh Johnstone is a
+horse of another color. If old Johnstone has the jewels, why does he not
+yield them up? Perhaps he wants the Baronetcy first, and then his memory
+may be strangely refreshed."
+
+As the wanderer strode up and down the room like a restless wolf, he
+returned in his memories to the strange intimacy of Hugh Fraser and Ram
+Lal. "I have it!" he cried. "I will kill two birds with one stone. My
+pretty 'employer' shall furnish the golden means to loosen old Ram Lal's
+tongue. This Swiss woman is fond of gewgaws, he tells me. I will let Ram
+Lal 'squeeze' the Madame's household accounts to his heart's content. If
+the Swiss woman is susceptible, she can be delicately bribed with
+jewels paid for by my haughty employer's money, and my feeding this
+'bucksheesh' out to Ram Lal liberally may bring him to talk of the old
+days. I must give Hugh Johnstone the idea that I am inside the official
+secrets as to the affair of the Baronetcy. Fear will make him bend, if
+he is guilty, and I will alarm Ram Lal at the right time. If they have
+any old bond of union, the ex-Commissioner may turn to me for help,
+and all this will bring me nearer to the still heart-whole woman who is
+hidden in that marble prison. I will make my strongest running on the
+Swiss woman. Once the bond of friendly secrecy established between us,
+she can be fed, bit by bit, for then she dare not break away."
+
+Ram Lal Singh was the last watcher in Delhi who coveted a glimpse that
+night into the dim future. The old schemer sat alone in his favorite
+den in rear of the shop. His round, black eyes surveyed complacently his
+faithful domestics, sleeping on the floor at the threshold of the doors
+of the four rooms opening into the central hall of his shop. A single
+clap of his hands, and these faithful retainers were ready to rise,
+tulwar in hand, and cut down any intruder.
+
+The old jewel merchant's eye roved over the medley of priceless
+bric-a-brac in the main hall. The spoils of temple and olden palace cast
+grotesque, soft, dark shadows on the floor, under the glimmer of the
+swinging cresset lamp filled with perfumed nut oil. Seated cross-legged,
+and nursing the mouth-piece of his narghileh, Ram Lal pondered long over
+the sudden appearance of the rehabilitated Major Hawke, and the coming
+of the rich Mem-Sahib who was to be a hidden bird in the luxurious nest
+already awaiting its inmate.
+
+Ram Lal was vaguely uneasy, as he glanced at the pretty pavilion in his
+own compound, where languid loveliness awaited his approach. He resigned
+himself with a sigh to his lonely schemes. He rose and with his own
+hand, poured out a draught of the forbidden strong waters of the
+Feringhee.
+
+Dropping down upon the cushions, he reviewed the whole day's doings. "It
+is not for him, for Hawke Sahib, this bungalow of delight is made ready!
+And the old Sahib is to know nothing. Can it be a trap for him? I am to
+watch the old man for Hawke Sahib. This woman who comes. They say here
+he will go soon away, over the sea to the court of the Kaisar-I-Hind. He
+is rich, why does he linger? And perhaps not return.
+
+"All these long years of my watch thrown away! For, never a single one
+of the sacred jewels has he shown me! They have never seen the light
+since the awful day in Humayoon's Tomb. Has he the jewels? Does he hide
+them? Has he buried them? Has he sent them away? If he has them, then he
+dies the death of a dog. The jewels of a king to be the spoil of a low
+tax-gatherer! The King of Kings.
+
+"But why does he not go? I have watched him for years.
+
+"There is some reason! Hawke Sahib shall tell me all! He must tell!
+He needs my help!" The old man's slumbers were haunted with the olden
+memories of a day of doom, the day when the bodies of the sacred Princes
+of Oude lay naked in the glaring sun as they were despoiled after
+Hodson's pistol had done its bloody work. "They may have taken them all
+from him, these English are greedy spoilers," muttered the crafty old
+man, as his head fell upon the silken cushions with a curse. He was a
+rebel still, as rank as Tantia Topee.
+
+In the splendid marble palace of Hugh Johnstone, the startled Justine
+Delande was awake long before the dawn, thinking only of the meeting of
+the morning, her bosom heaving with its first questionable secret, but
+Major Alan Hawke smiled as he leisurely breakfasted later, reading a
+telegram just received. "On my way. Will come to private address. Send
+servants to Allahabad to join me. Silence and discretion.--Lausanne."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. A DIPLOMATIC TIFFIN.
+
+
+
+Major Alan Hawke had designedly breakfasted in the stately seclusion of
+his rooms, and as he came gravely sauntering into the Club ordinary, was
+at once beset by a friendly chorus, as he carelessly glanced over the
+morning letters which attested his progress toward the social zenith.
+He, however, gazed impatiently at the club-house door, where a neat pair
+of ponies awaited him, with servants deftly purveyed by the subtle Ram
+Lal. His two body servants were also afrites of the same sly Aladdin.
+His swelling port duly impressed his old friends.
+
+The man "who had dropped into a good thing" gently put aside sundry
+hospitable proffers, politely laughed away several tempting bargains
+as to horses, carriages, furnished bungalows, and offers of racing
+engagements, hunting bouts, and "private" dinners. "Waiting orders,
+d'ye see!" he gently murmured. "Not worth while to set up anything!"
+And then, with the air of a martyr, he disappeared, the ponies springing
+briskly away, leaving all baffled conjecture behind. The curious men who
+were left discussing a flying rumor that Major Hawke was authorized to
+raise a Regiment of Irregular Horse for a special expeditionary secret
+purpose, wrangled with those who maintained that a brilliant local
+civil-service vacancy would be theatrically filled by the man who now
+bore a brow of mystery. The advent of this prosperous Hawke had made the
+great social deeps of Delhi to boil like a pot. His mission was one of
+those things no fellow could find out.
+
+Laughing in his sleeve, the object of all this sudden curiosity made
+a number of detours, and adroitly followed a native servant down an
+obscure rear street, after dismissing his pony carriage. The equipage
+was busied during the earlier hours of the day in leaving the visiting
+cards of the returned soldier of fortune in certain quarters well
+calculated to attract social notice.
+
+Threading the spacious gardens in rear of Ram Lal's establishment, the
+artful Major entered the jewel merchant's abode without the notice of
+the morning gossips of the Chandnee Chouk. "All right, now," he laughed,
+as he bade the sly merchant set a private guard to prevent all intrusion
+upon their privacy. "I think that I have thrown these fellows off the
+track very neatly!" he laughed. "No one knows of your rear entrances at
+the club, I am sure!" It suited the luxurious old jewel merchant to hide
+the opulence of his secret life, and to veil the graceful lapses of his
+private code from the sober austerities of a dignified Mohammedanism.
+
+"Look alive now, Ram Lal!" said Hawke, briskly, as he handed his
+confederate the telegram from Berthe Louison. "You see that the lady
+will arrive here tomorrow night! Some one must go down to Allahabad for
+her! Are you all ready for her coming?"
+
+"Perfectly!" smiled Ram Lal. "The Mem-Sahib could give a dinner of
+twenty covers in an hour after her arrival! You know that the bungalow
+was fitted up for--" he bent his head and whispered to Major Hawke, who
+laughed intelligently and viciously.
+
+"All right, then! Here is the address in Allahabad, where the lady is to
+wait for her conductors. She seems not to wish me to come down. I will
+be at the bungalow, then, on your arrival! I will give you a letter
+for her," said Hawke. Ram Lal's eyes gleamed in anticipation of the fat
+pickings of the Mem-Sahib. He pondered a moment over the case.
+
+"Then, I will go down myself," complacently said Ram Lal, with an eye
+to future business. "You can tell her to trust to me in all things. She
+shall travel like a queen!"
+
+"That is better, and so I will telegraph to her, at Allahabad, this
+afternoon, that I have sent you to meet her! Have a covered carriage
+awaiting her here, and no one must be allowed to follow her to her
+hidden nest. It is the making of your fortune with her!" cried Hawke, as
+he lit a cheroot.
+
+"Trust to me, Sahib!" answered the wily jewel merchant, relapsing into
+an expectant silence. He already connected the arrival of the beautiful
+foreigner with the destiny of the opulent man whom he had revengefully
+watched for twenty years. Hugh Fraser Johnstone had heaped up a fortune,
+but it was not yet successfully deported to England.
+
+"And the Swiss woman, when may I see her; this morning?" demanded the
+adventurer, as he dropped into a cool, Japanese chair.
+
+"My man will bring you the news of her coming!" answered the oily old
+miscreant. "I told him to watch her, and run on to warn me!" Ram Lal was
+a wily old Figaro of much experience.
+
+"Good! Then go outside and wait for her," coolly commanded the young
+man. "When she comes, you can come in and warn me, and I will be ready."
+Ram Lal obediently left Hawke without a questioning word, and the busy
+brain of the adventurer was soon occupied with weaving the meshes for
+the bird nearing the snare. "This woman's help is absolutely necessary
+to me now!" he thought, as he contemplated his own handsome person in a
+mirror. "If she can only hold her tongue and keep a secret, she may
+be the foundation of my fortunes. I think that I can make it worth her
+while, but she must never fall under the influence of this she-devil in
+petticoats, who comes to-morrow night! And yet, the Louison knows she is
+here! A friendship between them must be prevented!" He closed his eyes
+dreamily, and studied the problem of the future attentively, revolving
+every point of womanly weakness which he had observed in his past
+experience.
+
+He had finally hit upon the right thing. It came to him just as Ram Lal
+entered, with his finger on his lip. "She is in there, waiting for you,
+and she came alone!" said the crafty merchant. "I can perhaps frighten
+her with the idea that Madame Louison wishes to supplant her as lady
+bear leader. The future pickings of this young heiress would be then
+lost to her! Yes! A woman's natural jealousy will do the trick!" so
+sagely mused the young man as he walked out into the hall, where Ram
+Lal's treasures were heaped up on every side. There was no one visible
+in the shop, but Ram Lal silently pointed with a brown finger, gleaming
+with whitest gems, to a closed door. It was the entrance to the room
+specially devoted to the superb collection of arms, the regained loot of
+Delhi, slyly collected in the days of the mad sacking by the revengeful
+English soldiery. A bottle of rum then bought a princely token.
+
+It had been with a guilty, beating heart that Justine Delande abandoned
+her fair, young charge to the morning ministrations of a bevy of
+dark-skinned servants. However, the sturdy Genevese waiting-maid who had
+accompanied them to India was at hand, when the spinster incoherently
+murmured her all too voluble excuses for an early morning visit to the
+European shops on the Chandnee Chouk, and then fled away as if fearful
+of her own shadow. She was duly thankful that no one had observed her
+entrance to the jewel shop, and the refuge of the room, pointed out by
+the amiable Ram Lal, at once reassured her. Justine was accorded a brief
+breathing spell by the fates as the Major settled his plans.
+
+It did not seem so very hard, this first fall from maidenly grace, when
+Major Alan Hawke, entering the little armory chamber, politely led the
+startled woman to a seat, with a graceful self-introduction.
+
+"I should have recognized you any where, Mademoiselle Justine," deftly
+remarked the Major, "by your resemblance to your most charming sister.
+You have, I hope, received some private letters from her, with regard to
+my visit?" The Swiss gouverriante faltered forth her affirmative answer,
+while secretly approving the enthusiastic judgment of her distant sister
+upon this most admirable Crichton of English Majors. "Then," said Hawke,
+alluringly, "we must be very good friends, you and I, for we are alone
+together, among strangers, in this far-away land!" Then he calmly
+dropped into an easy discourse, in which Geneva and Sister Euphrosyne
+punctuated the graceful flow of his friendly chat. There was nothing
+very sinful in the debut of this little intrigue.
+
+"Let us always speak French!" said Alan Hawke, with a quiet, warning
+glance at the closed door. "These same soft-eyed Hindostanees are the
+very subtlest serpents of the earth. The only way to do, is never to
+trust any of them!" The Major was busied in carefully taking a mental
+measurement of Mademoiselle Justine, who, still well on the sunny side
+of forty, was really a very comely replica of her severer intellectual
+sister. Justine Delande still lingered in that temperate zone of life
+where a fair fighting chance of matrimony was still hers. "If a ray of
+sunshine ever steals into the flinty bosom of a Swiss woman, there maybe
+a gleam or two still left here," mused the Major, most adroitly avoiding
+all reference to Justine's rosebud charge, and only essaying to place
+her entirely at her ease.
+
+But, in proportion as he gracefully labored, the frightened governess
+began to realize the danger of her situation.
+
+"I hope that no one will observe us," she said, speaking rapidly and
+under her breath. "Mr. Johnstone is so eccentric, so haughty, and so
+very peculiar!" Her distress was evident, and the gallant Major at once
+hastened to allay her fears.
+
+"I have already thought of that. My old friend, Ram Lal, has a lovely
+garden in rear of his house and there we will be entirely unobserved.
+For I have so much that I would say to you." It was with a sigh of
+relief that the frightened woman hastily passed through Ram Lal's
+spacious snuggery in rear of his jewel mart and was soon ensconced in
+a little pagoda, where Major Hawke seated himself at her side and
+skillfully took up his soft refrains.
+
+In half an hour they were thoroughly en bon rapport, for the graceful
+Major Hawke adroitly conversed with his laughing eyes frankly beaming
+upon the lonely woman. He had drawn a long breath of relief when he ran
+over the letter which the delighted Justine frankly submitted to him
+for his inspection. The fair Euphrosyne's secret advices justified his
+warmest anticipations. He had conquered her heart.
+
+"I will not delay you longer this morning," he said at last, with an
+artful mock confidence. "I am infinitely grateful to you for so kindly
+coming to meet me here. And it is only due to you to tell you why I
+begged you to come here to-day. The nature of my important official
+duties is such that I am not permitted to exhibit my real character to
+any one here as yet. I am charged with some very delicate public duties
+which may force me to linger here for some time, or perhaps disappear
+without notice, only to return in the same mysterious manner. But in me
+you have a stanch secret friend always. I have already written to your
+charming sister, and I expect to receive from her letters which will be
+followed by letters to you from her. And I shall write to-day and tell
+her of your goodness to me." Miss Justine Delande's eyes were downcast.
+Her agitated bosom was throbbing with an unaccustomed fire, and the
+desire to be safely sheltered once more in Hugh Johnstone's marble
+palace was now strong upon her.
+
+Hawke paused, still keeping his pleading eyes fixed upon the
+fluttering-hearted woman's face. "Miss Nadine sees absolutely no one!"
+murmured the governess, "and, of course, I never leave her. It is a very
+exacting and laborious position, this charge which I now fill, and
+of course the life is a very lonely one, though Nadine is an angel!"
+enthusiastically cried Miss Justine.
+
+"And so," earnestly said Major Alan Hawke, "I am absolutely prevented
+from seeing you, unless you will trust yourself to me, and come here
+again." The frightened woman cast a glance at the unfamiliar loveliness
+of the secluded garden, with the hidden kiosques, sacred to Ram Lal's
+furtive amours.
+
+"I dare not!" she said, with trembling lips. "I would like to come,
+but--"
+
+"Listen!" said Alan Hawke, softly taking her unresisting hand, "I will
+confide in you. I must, even to-day, go to Hugh Johnstone's house. He
+has bidden me to a private interview. And he gives a tiffin in my honor.
+I have known him in past years. He does not as yet know of my official
+position. My duties are secret. My very honor forbids me to divulge
+it. I dare not openly acknowledge an acquaintance with you, with your
+sister. It rests with you that we meet again, for my sake, for your own
+sake, for your sister's sake. I cannot lose you for a mere quibble."
+
+There was a genuine alarm in Justine Delande's voice as she started up,
+crying out, "You come to us to-day?"
+
+"Precisely!" gravely said Major Hawke, as he tried a long shot.
+"Both Captain Anstruther and myself have the gravest secret duties in
+connection with Hugh Johnstone's future. He soon may be Sir Hugh, you
+know. And I dare not divulge to him my own delicate functions in this
+matter. Now you understand me at last," said Hawke, warmly pressing
+Justine Delande's hand. "I feel that I must not lose you, because I have
+my duty to perform, and I trust my honor to you. All will be well if
+you will only favor me with your womanly kindness, and trust to me as
+frankly as I to you. We must meet to-day at Hugh Johnstone's as absolute
+strangers. We must also remain strangers to all appearances for a time,"
+he said at last. The Swiss spinster gazed up at him piteously.
+
+"May I not even tell Nadine?" she faltered.
+
+"Ah!" carelessly said Alan Hawke, "she is a mere child; I shall probably
+never see her. It is you alone that I would trust. Will you not come
+here again? I dare not, for your own sake, detain you longer now." The
+timid woman glanced hurriedly at her watch.
+
+"I have been here already too long, and I must go! And there is so much
+I would say to you!" She was almost handsome in her blushing confusion.
+
+"Then you will come again, here? Ram Lal is my old factotum!" the young
+Major pleaded.
+
+"I will come!" the half-subjugated woman whispered under her breath.
+"But when?" Her eyes were meekly downcast and her faltering voice
+trembled.
+
+"The day after to-morrow, at the same time," said Alan Hawke, his heart
+leaping up in a secret victory, "but no living soul must ever know of
+it. I will be here in the pagoda, waiting for you. Ram Lal will wait for
+you himself and admit you. Do you promise?" he said, with a glance which
+set her pallid cheeks aflame.
+
+"I promise! I promise! Let me go, now!" gasped the excited woman. With
+stately courtesy, the Major then led her back into the jewel merchant's
+luxurious lounging-room.
+
+"Wait here for a single moment!" he whispered as he quickly poured out a
+glass of cordial. And, then, returning in a few moments, he clasped upon
+the woman's wrist a bracelet of old Indian gold, whose flexible links
+glittered with the fire of a row of old Indian mine stones. Justine
+Delande sat mute, as if dreaming.
+
+"Our little secret is now all our own!" he pleasantly murmured.
+"Remember! Should we meet at the marble house, you do not know me!
+Can you trust yourself? You must--for my sake! This will help you to
+remember our first meeting."
+
+"You may depend upon me, whenever you may wish to call upon me," she
+whispered. "I will come!" and then she fled away, with soft, gliding
+steps, to regain the safety of her own room before the trying hour of
+tiffin.
+
+Major Alan Hawke closed the door, and laughed softly as he threw himself
+into a chair. "They are all the same!" he mused. "Not a bad morning's
+work! For she will never tell our little secret! And she will surely
+come again! She may be my salvation here! Madame Louison, I now debit
+you just thirty pounds!" laughed Major Alan Hawke, as he deftly blew a
+kiss in the direction of Allahabad. "You shall pay for this bracelet,
+and much more! You shall pay for all! And I'll set this soft-hearted
+Swiss woman on to watch you, and you shall pay her well, too! Now, for
+my old friend, Hugh Johnstone!" He waited in a most happy frame of mind
+till his carriage bore him to the club for an elaborate Anglo-Indian
+toilet.
+
+There was a crowd of eager gossips secretly tracking him who watched him
+roll away in state to the marble house.
+
+"By Jove! I believe that he is the coming man!" said old Captain Verner.
+"I wonder if this handsome young beggar is really going in for the
+Veiled Rose of Delhi. Just his damned luck!" And then the loungers
+left the club window and drank deeply confusion to the would-be wooer's
+stratagems.
+
+All unconscious of their busy curiosity, the gallant Major Alan Hawke
+calmly descended at the marble house, with a secret oath now registered
+to ignore the very existence of Nadine Johnstone, "The old man is always
+harping on his daughter," he mused. "I must throw this old beggar off
+his guard thoroughly to-day, once and for all. He must never think that
+I, too, am 'harping on his daughter.'
+
+"But only let me get to the core of this old secret of the jewels, and I
+will find a way to frighten the baronet-to-be until he opens his miserly
+old heart." And so the wary guest sought his old friend's presence. When
+Major Alan Hawke's neat trap drew up before the marble house there
+was an officious crowd of Hindu underlings in waiting to welcome the
+expected guest.
+
+Casting his eyes around the wide hall gleaming with its superb trophies
+of priceless arms, with a quick glance at the crowd of sable retainers,
+Major Hawke realized in all the barren splendors of the first story the
+absence of any womanly hand. As he followed the obsequious house butler
+into a vast reception room, he murmured:
+
+"A diplomatic tiffin, I will warrant! The old fox is sly." He wandered
+idly about the Commissioner's sanctum, admiring the precious loot of
+years, displayed with an artfully artless confusion. On the walls, a
+series of beautiful Highland scenes recalled the Land o' Lakes. Pausing
+before a sketch of a stern old Scottish keep of the moyen age, Major
+Alan Hawke softly sneered: "Oatmeal Castle! The family stronghold of the
+old line of the Sandy Johnstone's, nee Fraser." And, picking up the last
+number of the Anglo-Indian Times, he then affected a composure which he
+was far from feeling.
+
+"Damn this sly Scotsman! Why does he not show up?" was the chafing
+soliloquy of the Major, now anxious to seal his re-entree into Delhi
+society with the open friendship of the most powerful European civilian
+within the battered walls of the wicked city. He needed all his
+nerve now, for Hugh Fraser Johnstone was a past master of the arts of
+dissimulation.
+
+In fact, the mauvais quart d'heure was really due to the innate womanly
+weakness of Mademoiselle Justine Delande. This guileless Swiss maiden
+had been carried off her feet by the romantic episode of the morning.
+Her cool palm still tingled with the meaning pressure of the handsome
+Major's hand! She had hastened away to her own apartment, as a wounded
+tigress seeks its cave for a last stand! The concealment of the diamond
+bracelet was a matter of necessity, and, with a beating heart, she
+buried it deep under the poor harvest of paltry Delhi trinkets which she
+had already gathered, with a mere magpie acquisitiveness.
+
+Alan Hawke had builded better than he knew, when he selected this same
+bauble. He had been guided by a chance remark of Ram Lal's. "Give her
+that," said the crafty old jeweler. "She has priced it a dozen times
+since her first coming here." It was the Ultima Thule of personal
+decoration to her. The Swiss governess reserved the secret delight of
+donning the glittering ornament until she was positive that no tell-tale
+spy had observed her innocent assignation with her sister's chivalric
+friend. "He must be rich and powerful," she murmured as she fled from
+her room to play the safety game of being found with the heiress when
+her Prince Charming should arrive. Miss Nadine Johnstone failed not to
+observe the unusual color mantling her sedate friend's cheeks.
+
+"You look as if you had received some good news. Is the mail in?"
+queried Miss Johnstone.
+
+"Not yet. I hastened back, for I forgot to take my watch and was
+belated. I fear I am late, even now, for tiffin," demurely replied the
+Swiss maiden, dropping for the first time in her life into the baleful
+arts of the other daughters of Eve. She had broken the ice of propriety
+in which her past life had been congealed and an insidious pleasure now
+thrilled her quickened veins, as she felt herself possessed of a secret,
+one linking her to an attractive member of the dangerous sex, and a hero
+of romance, a very Don Juan in seductive softness. Her knees trembled at
+a sudden summons to report to the Master of the marble house, forthwith.
+
+Her bosom heaved with a vague alarm as she timidly descended the grand
+stair, and was conducted to the private snuggery of the Commissioner
+adjoining his own apartments. "Does he know aught of the meeting?" she
+questioned herself, in the throes of a sudden fright. She was somewhat
+reassured as she observed the carriage drawn up in the compound and, by
+hazard, caught a glance of Alan Hawke's graceful martial figure, as
+he stood regarding her intently from the safe shelter of the darkened
+reception-room. Her heart bounded with delight as her Prince Charming
+smilingly placed his finger on his lip.
+
+A sense of manly protection, never felt before, gave her the strength of
+ten as she then glided along boldly to face her gray-headed master. For
+now she knew that she had a champion at her side, a man professionally
+brave, both resolute and charming. Her promise to meet Alan Hawke again
+at the jeweler's now took on a roseate hue.
+
+"I must surely keep my plighted word at all risks," she murmured to
+herself. For the sage reflection that she owed a sacred duty to her
+sister's friend, now came to comfort her, in her heart of hearts. It was
+almost a pious duty which lay before her now. And so she became brave
+in the knowledge of the innocent secret shared between herself and the
+handsome official visitor.
+
+To her delight and relief she found it an easy task to face Hugh
+Johnstone, after that one reassuring glance. Her stern employer failed
+to pierce the muslin fortifications of her guilty bosom and discern the
+moral turpitude lurking there. She stole a last anxious glance at her
+still plump wrist where the diamond bracelet had softly clasped her
+flesh, and then softly sighed in relief as the master calmly said:
+
+"Miss Justine, I have a gentleman of some distinction to entertain
+to-day at tiffin. An official visitor. I would be thankful if you would
+do the honors. Will you kindly join us in the reception room in half
+an hour, and I will present Major Hawke, my old friend. He has just
+returned from England."
+
+"And Miss Nadine?" meekly demanded the happy woman. The old
+Commissioner's brow darkened, as he shortly said: "My daughter will
+be served in her rooms, as usual on such formal occasions. These
+interlopers are no part of her life. We may soon leave for Europe, and
+she is therefore better off to remain a stranger to these merely local
+acquaintances. It is very unlikely that we shall ever re-visit India!
+Will you see her and say that I purpose driving out with her later?"
+
+No woman in India was as happy, at that particular moment, as the
+Genevese, who merely bowed in silence, and glided softly away, having
+escaped the levin-bolt of Hugh Johnstone's wrath, ever ready, lurking
+under his bushy, white eyebrows. It was the work of a moment for her to
+fulfill her simple task as messenger, and this done, she burned to
+hide herself in her own coign of vantage, for certain new-born ideas
+of personal decoration were crystallizing in her excited brain. For
+the first time in her life, she would be fair to man's views; so as to
+justify the partner of her momentous secret in the complimentary remarks
+which, even now, made her ears tingle in delight.
+
+"Do you know aught of this Major Hawke who comes to-day?" wearily,
+said the listless girl. "Some one of these red-faced old relics of my
+father's early life, I suppose!" The Rose of Delhi was gazing wistfully
+out upon the wilderness of beauty in the tangled gardens, sweeping far
+out to where the high stone wall shut off the glare and flying dust of
+the Chandnee Chouk.
+
+"Certainly not, Nadine!" softly said the governess. "This is only a
+peopled wilderness to me!" Her heart smote her as the girl, with a
+sudden lonely sinking of the heart, threw her arms around the neck of
+her startled companion.
+
+"I am so unhappy here--so wretched, this is but a gleaning white stone
+prison, Justine! I stifle in this wretched land! Why did my father bring
+me here to die by inches?" There was no pretense in her stormy sobs.
+
+"We are soon going home, Darling!" cried the affrighted Swiss. "Just
+now your father told me that we were all to leave India forever, and at
+once." And so, gently soothing the unhappy girl, orphaned in her
+heart, Justine Delande escaped to the first essay of her life in high
+decorative art. "There is some strange mystery of the past in all this!
+He has a heart of flint, this old tyrant!" murmured Justine, as with
+fingers trembling in haste she completed a toilet, which later caused
+even old Hugh Johnstone to growl "By Gad! This Swiss woman's not half
+bad looking!" A last pang, caused by the keen secret sorrow of not
+daring to wear her diamond bracelet, was effaced by the rising tide
+of indignation in Justine Delande's awakened heart. There were strange
+emotional currents fitfully thrilling through her usually placid veins
+as she stole a last glance at herself in the mirror. "A tyrant to the
+daughter. I warrant that in the old days he broke the mother's heart! He
+never mentions her! Not a picture is here--nothing--not even a memento,
+not a reference to the woman who gave him this lovely child! Her life,
+her death, even her resting place, are all wrapped in the selfish and
+brutal silence of a selfish tyrant! He should have been only a drill
+sergeant to knock about the half-crazed brutes who stagger under a
+soldier's pack over these burning plains!" It suddenly occurred to her
+that in some mysterious way Major Alan Hawke's coming would contribute
+to the rescue of the captive Princess.
+
+Justine Delande really loved her beautiful charge with all the fond
+attachment of a mature woman for the one rose blossoming in her lonely
+heart. Their gray passionless lives had run on together since Nadine's
+childhood, as brooks quietly mingle, seeking the unknown sea! She now
+felt the wine of life stirring within her, and, seizing upon another
+justification for her dangerous secret association with Alan Hawke, she
+murmured: "I will tell him of all this. He has high influence with
+the Home Government. This Captain Anstruther on the Viceroy's staff is
+certainly his firm friend. We must leave here and return to dear old
+Switzerland. Perhaps the Major himself knows the secret of the family
+history!"
+
+And there was a meaning light in her eyes as she stole back to Nadine's
+room when the silver gong sounded, and throwing her arms around the
+girl, whispered: "We are going home soon, darling! Be brave and trust to
+me! I will find out the story of the past and tell you all, my darling!"
+Justine Delande unwound the girl's arms from round her neck, while
+honest tears trembled in her eyes.
+
+The low cry: "My mother! My darling mother! He never even breathes the
+name!" had loosened all the tide of repressed feeling long pent up in
+Justine Delande's heart.
+
+"Trust to me! You shall know all, dearest! I am sure that Euphrosyne
+knows, and we shall see her soon!" So with an added reason for
+their second meeting, Miss Justine descended the grand marble stair,
+murmuring: "He shall tell me all he knows; he can search the past here!
+He can help me, and he must--for Nadine's sake!"
+
+And as he bowed low before her in courteous acknowledgment of the
+master's presentation, Alan Hawke caught the lambent gleam of the newly
+awakened fires in Justine Delande's eyes. "She is another woman," he
+mused. With one silent glance of veiled recognition, Alan Hawke returned
+to his diplomatic fence with the wary old nabob who sat at the head of
+the glittering table. He was in no doubt now as to the second meeting at
+Ram Lal Singh's shop, for Justine Delande's eyes promised him more than
+even his habitual hardihood would have dared to ask. "What the devil's
+up now?" he mused, "Something about the girl, I warrant. I suppose that
+the old brute has exiled her here for safety." And then and there, Alan
+Hawke swore to reach the side of the Veiled Rose of Delhi, though the
+cold gray eyes of the host never caught him off his guard a moment in
+the two hours of the pompously drawn-out feast. Both the men were keenly
+watching each other now.
+
+It had been no mere accidental slip of the tongue which guided Alan
+Hawke in his greeting of the old ex-Commissioner when Hugh Johnstone
+entered the reception-room, a study in gray and white, with only the
+three priceless pigeon-blood rubies lending a color to his snowy linen.
+"Upon my word, Sir Hugh, you are looking younger than I ever saw you,"
+said the visitor gracefully advancing.
+
+"You're a bit premature, are you not, Hawke?" dryly said the civilian,
+opening a silver cheroot box, once the property of a Royal Prince of
+Oude. Hugh Johnstone motioned his visitor to be seated, and keenly
+watched the younger man.
+
+"I am on the inside of the matter," soberly said Alan Hawke. "It was an
+open secret when I left London, and I've heard more since. A brief delay
+only,--a matter of a few months--no more."
+
+"Take a weed! They serve in half an hour!" abruptly said Hugh Johnstone,
+as if anxious to change the subject. The old man then strode forward
+and closed the door. Then, turning sharply upon his visitor, frankly
+demanded, "Now, tell me why you are here?"
+
+"That depends partly upon your affairs," said Hawke, meeting his
+questioner's gaze unflinchingly. "I may have something to say to you
+about the Baronetcy, by and bye." He paused to notice the keen old
+Scotchman wince under the thrust, "but, in the mean time, I am merely
+waiting orders here, and I want you to post me about the condition of
+affairs up there." He vaguely indicated with his thumb the far-distant
+battlement of the Roof of the World. Hugh Johnstone rang a silver bell,
+and muttered a few words in Hindostanee to an attendant. "I must know
+more from Calcutta before I can explain just where I stand," said the
+renegade soldier, with caution.
+
+Before the silver tray loaded with ante-prandial beverages was produced,
+Hugh Johnstone quietly turned to his guest. "Did you see Anstruther in
+London?" he demanded, with a scarcely veiled eagerness.
+
+"We were together some days," very neatly rejoined the now confident
+Major. "In fact, I'm to operate partly under his personal directions. We
+are old friends."
+
+"I wonder when he will return?" dreamily said Johnstone, as if the
+subject was growing annoying in its bold directness.
+
+"I believe that he has a long leave--a furlough of a year," lightly
+answered the Major. "In fact, I am to carry on some official matters for
+him in his absence, but he is wary and non-committal."
+
+"What is his English address?" abruptly said Johnstone, as they bowed
+formally over their glasses.
+
+"I do not know," frankly returned Hawke. "I am to send all reports to
+headquarters in Calcutta."
+
+"Are you going down there soon?" asked the old nabob, with a growing
+uneasiness.
+
+"Not unless I am sent for by the Viceroy," quietly said the Major, with
+a listless air, gazing around admiringly on the magnificence of the
+apartment.
+
+"I will give you a letter to my nephew, Douglas Fraser, when you do go,"
+said Johnstone. "He is a fine youngster, and he will have charge of all
+my Indian affairs, if I go home. He is in the P. and O. office. I would
+like you to know him."
+
+"I did not know that you had any family connection here," replied the
+Major with a start of innocent surprise.
+
+"Only this boy," hastily replied the incipient baronet, "and my
+daughter. She is, however, a mere child--a mere child. I have seen the
+leaves of the family tree wither and drop off one by one." The host then
+stiffly rose, and formally said, "Let us go in!"
+
+"You are good for a score of years yet," jovially remarked Major Hawke,
+as he gazed at the well-preserved outer man of his uneasy entertainer.
+"The harpoon is deeply fixed in the old whale," mused Hawke, as he
+followed Hugh Johnstone. "He begins to flounder now."
+
+Conscious of the mental alarm which Hugh Johnstone could not altogether
+conceal, Major Hawke had simply bowed, in his grand manner, when the
+host presented his guest to Mademoiselle Delande. "I will let the old
+beggar lead out," mused Hawke. "This royal spread is an excuse for any
+amount of silence." And the Anglo-Indian renegade gazed admiringly at
+the thousand and one adjuncts of a blended English comfort and Indian
+luxury.
+
+"Ever been in Geneva?" suddenly demanded Hugh Johnstone, with a glance
+at his two companions.
+
+"He's an uneasy old devil. He is trying to trap me now," thought Hawke,
+who innocently replied: "Long years ago, when I was a mere lad. I'm told
+the town has been vastly improved by the Duke of Brunswick's legacy.
+I've not seen it in later years."
+
+"Miss Delande is a Genevese," remarked the host.
+
+"I congratulate you, Mademoiselle," politely said the Major. "It is a
+famous city to date from."
+
+It was evident that the spinster was held in reverent awe of her
+employer, for she guarded a judicious silence, as with a formal bow
+she at last left the table at the graciously permitting nod of Hugh
+Johnstone. There was a cold and brooding restraint, which had seemed to
+cast a chill even over the sultry Indian midday, but Justine's smile
+was bright and winning as she faintly acknowledged with a blushing cheek
+Major Hawke's gallantry as he sprang up and opened the door for the
+retiring lady. "She will come, she will come," gayly throbbed the
+Major's happy heart.
+
+Alan Hawke was now thoroughly on his guard. He had never lifted an
+eyebrow at the mention of Miss Johnstone. He had dropped Justine
+Delande like a plummet into the lake of forgetfulness, and watched Hugh
+Johnstone's listless trifling with the dainties of the superb collation.
+The raw-boned old Scotsman leaned heavily back in his chair.
+
+His bony hands were thin and claw-like, his bushy white beard and
+eyebrows gave him a "service" aspect, while his cold blue eye gleamed
+out pale and menacing as the Pole star on wintry arctic seas. His broad
+chest was sunken, his tall form was bent, and a visible air of dejection
+and unrest had replaced the sturdy vigor of his early manhood. He was
+sipping a glass of pale ale in silence when Hawke neatly applied the
+lance once more. "It must be a great change for you to leave India,
+Johnstone, but you need rest, and a general shaking up. You have a good
+deal to leave here. I suppose your nephew--"
+
+"He's a good lad, but a stranger to me, Hawke," broke in the host. "The
+fact is, I am as yet undecided. I go home for my daughter's sake; it's
+no place for her out here," he sternly said. "You know what Indian life
+is?"
+
+Hawke bowed, and mutely cried, "Peccavi." He had been a part of it. "I'm
+waiting for the action of the Government. This Baronetcy. I must talk
+with you about it. I might have had the Star of India. You see, it's an
+empty honor. And I hate to break away for good, after all. Do you know
+anything from Anstruther? He was up here, you know."
+
+"I have him now!" secretly exulted Hawke, as he said gravely, "You know
+what duty is, I cannot speak as yet, but you can depend on me as soon as
+my honor will permit--"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know," said Hugh Johnstone, with a sigh, rising from the
+table. "You must make yourself at home here. In fact, I am thinking of
+sending my daughter back to Europe. Douglas Fraser can have them well
+bestowed; that is, if I have to remain and fight out this Baronetcy
+affair, then I could put you up here." Alan Hawke bowed his thanks.
+
+They had wandered back to the reception-room. With an affected surprise
+the Major consulted his watch. "By Jove! I've got a heavy official
+mail to prepare, and I'm to dine to-day with Harry Hardwicke, of the
+Engineers. General Willoughby wants a private conference with me, and
+Hardwicke is the only confidential man he has. He gets his Majority
+soon, and Willoughby will lose him on promotion. A fine fellow and a
+rising man."
+
+"See here, Hawke! Come in to-morrow and dine with me at seven. I want to
+have a long talk with you," said the uneasy host.
+
+"You may absolutely depend on me, Sir Hugh," heartily answered the
+visitor, with a fine forgetfulness as to the title. When he rode away,
+Major Hawke caught sight of a womanly figure at a window above him,
+watching his retreat in due state, and there was the flutter of a
+handkerchief as his carriage drove around the oval. "I wonder if Ram
+Lal knows about the jewels. I must buy him out and out, or make Berthe
+Louison do it unconsciously for me," so mused the victorious renegade.
+"He is afraid of me! Now to dispatch Ram Lal to Allahabad. I must only
+see Berthe Louison, at night, in her own bungalow, for my shy old bird
+would take the alarm were we seen together. What the devil is her game?
+I know mine, and I swear that I will soon know hers. I have him guessing
+now. I must hunt up Hardwicke and call on old Willoughby to keep up the
+dumb show. Johnstone may watch me--very likely he will. He is afraid of
+some coup de theatre." He drove in a leisurely way back to the Club and
+sported the oak after giving Ram Lal his last orders.
+
+"I think I hear the jingle of gold 'in the near future,' as the Yankees
+say; and, Miss Justine, you shall open the way to the veiled Rose of
+Delhi for me, while Berthe Louison tortures this old vetch. Place aux
+dames! Place aux dames!" he laughed.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II. "A DEVIL FOR LUCK."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE MYSTERIOUS BUNGALOW.
+
+
+
+If the fates favored Major Alan Hawke upon this eventful day, for as he
+was contentedly awaiting the news of Ram Lal's departure for Allahabad,
+the card of Captain Harry Hardwicke, A. D. C., and of the Engineers, was
+sent up to him. With a neat bit of Indian art, old Ram Lal had sent the
+carriage around to report, as a mute signal of his own departure. It was
+a flood tide of good fortune!
+
+In ten minutes, the Major and his welcome guest were spinning along in
+the cool of the evening, toward the deserted ruins of the old city of
+Delhi! As they passed through the Lahore gate, Hardwicke's pith helmet
+was doffed with a jerk, as a superb carriage passed them, proceeding in
+a stately swing. Major Alan Hawke bowed low as he caught the cold eye of
+the would-be Sir Hugh Johnstone.
+
+"Who are the ladies, Hardwicke?" laughed the Major, as he saw the young
+officer's face suddenly crimson. "For a man who won the V. C. in your
+dashing style, you seem to be a bit beauty-shy!" They were hardly
+settled yet for their cozy chat. Hardwicke lit a cheroot to cover his
+evident confusion.
+
+"I know" he slowly answered, "that one of them is Miss or Madame
+Delande, old Fraser's house duenna--I will still call him Fraser, you
+see--the other is the mystery of Delhi. Popularly supposed to be the old
+boy's daughter, and his sole heiress, Miss Nadine," concluded the young
+aid-de-camp. "The old curmudgeon keeps her judiciously veiled from
+mortal ken. No man but General Willoughby has ever exchanged a word with
+her. The dear old boy--his memory does not go back beyond his last B.
+and S.--he can't even sketch her beauty in words. And she is as hazy,
+even to the Madam-General--our secret commanding officer. There is a
+continuous affront to society in this old monomaniac's treatment of that
+girl."
+
+"You would like to storm the Castle Perilous, and awaken the Sleeping
+Beauty?" archly said Hawke, as they rolled along under a huge alley of
+banyan trees.
+
+"Not at all," gravely said Hardwicke. "She is only a girl, like other
+girls, I presume; but, this old fool is only fit for the old days,
+when the kings of Oude flew kites and hunted with the cheetah; or,
+half drunken, dozed, lolling away their lives in these marble-screened
+zenanas, with the automatic beauties of the seraglio. Our English cannon
+have knocked all that nonsense silly. Here is a high-spirited, Christian
+English girl, shut up like a slave. It's only the unfairness of the
+thing that strikes me." Hawke eyed the blue-eyed, rosy young fellow of
+twenty-six with an evident interest. Stalwart and symmetrical in figure,
+Hardwicke's frank, manly face glowed in indignation.
+
+"You've won your spurs quickly out here," said Hawke. "You have not
+been long enough in India to case-harden into the cursed egotism of this
+hard-hearted land, and remember, age, crawling on, has indurated old
+'Fraser-Johnstone.' He was never an amiable character. What do the
+ladies of the city say of this strange social situation? I never knew
+that the old beast had a daughter till to-day."
+
+Captain Hardwicke wearily replied: "They all hold aloof, of course,
+after some very rough rebuffs, as I believe the old boy will clear out
+for good when he gets his baronetcy. It's possible that the girl is
+half a foreigner after all," mused Hardwicke. "The duenna is surely a
+continental."
+
+"Yes; but she seems to be a very nice person. I was there to-day at
+tiffin," finally said Major Hawke,
+
+"She had very little to say, and cleared out at once. I did not see Miss
+Johnstone." They fell into an easy, rattling chronicle of things past
+and present, and before the two hours' ride was over, the astute Major
+felt that he had divined General Willoughby's object in sending his pet
+aid-de-camp to reconnoitre Hawke's lines and pierce the mystery of his
+rumored employment.
+
+"I suppose that you will come up and duly report to the Chief," rather
+uneasily said Captain Hardwicke, as they neared the Club on their
+return. Hawke cast a glance at the superb domes of the Jumma Musjid
+towering in the thin air above them, as he slowly answered:
+
+"I am only here on a roving secret commission. I shall call, of course,
+and pay my personal respects to His Excellency, the General Commanding.
+I am an official will-o'-the-wisp, just now, but my blushing honors
+are strictly civil, and, by the way, in expectancy. Where does your
+promotion carry you?"
+
+"Oh, anywhere--everywhere," laughed Hardwicke. "I may be sent home. I'm
+entitled to a long leave--there's my wound, you know. I've only stayed
+on here to oblige Willoughby." It was easy to see that the frank,
+splendid young fellow was but awkwardly filling his role of polite
+inquisitor, for they talked shop a couple of hours over a bottle at the
+Club, and Hardwicke at last took his leave, no whit the wiser.
+
+"If he did not post me as to the heiress, at least, old Willoughby gets
+no valuable information," laughed the Major, that night. "The boy seems
+to be ambitious and heart-whole. Old Johnstone will soon clear out
+to the Highlands, I suppose, with this hidden pearl." But Major Hawke
+laughed softly when the morning brought to him a personal invitation to
+dine "informally" with General Willoughby. "Wants to know, you know,"
+laughed the Major. "All I have to do is to keep cool and let him drink
+himself jolly, and so, answer his own questions."
+
+"That Hardwicke is an uncommonly fine young fellow." So decided the
+Major as he splashed into his morning tub. There was one man, however,
+in Delhi who now viewed Hawke's presence with a secret alarm, amounting
+to dismay. It was the stern old miserly Scotsman who had paced his floor
+half the night in a vain effort to reassure himself. "What does he know?
+I must have old Ram Lal watch him," mused Hugh Johnstone. "I was a fool
+not to have cleared out from here months ago, before these spies were
+set upon me. First, Anstruther; now this fellow, Hawke, and, perhaps,
+even Hardwicke. If it were not for the old matter I would go to-morrow,
+and let the Baronetcy go hang--or find me in the Highlands. But, I must
+make one last attempt to get them out. I must--" and the old man slept
+the weary sleep of utter exhaustion.
+
+Before the nabob awoke, Captain Henry Hardwicke, swinging away on his
+morning gallop, had reviewed the strange attitude of Major Hawke. "He is
+very intimate with Hugh Johnstone, and he is a man of the world, too. I
+will yet see this charming child, when the ban of her prison seclusion
+is lifted." He vaguely remembered the one timid and girlish glance of
+the beautiful dark eyes, when he had been presented, pro-forma, to the
+Veiled Rose upon that one memorable state visit. He then rode out of his
+way to gaze at the exterior of the great marble house, and was rewarded
+by the sight of a graceful woman walking there under her governess's
+escort in the dewy freshness of the early morn.
+
+He doffed his helmet as Miss Justine paused among the flowers, and then
+Miss Nadine Johnstone looked up to see the graceful rider disappear
+behind the fringing trees.
+
+"That was Captain Hardwicke, was it not?" asked the lonely girl. Miss
+Justine was busied in dreaming of her meeting of the morrow.
+
+"Yes, it was," she absently replied.
+
+"They tell me that he nobly risked his life to save his wounded friend,"
+dreamily continued Nadine. "He gave back to a father the life of an only
+son at the risk of his own. How brave--how noble." And Justine gazed at
+her charge in surprise, as the beautiful Nadine bent her head to greet
+her sister flowers.
+
+The resolute Major Hawke, at his cheerful breakfast, was busied with
+thoughts of the coming arrival of Hugh Johnstone's secret foe. "I must
+have money from her at once to swing Ram Lal's Private Inquiry Bureau
+and to mystify these quid nuncs here. For I must entertain the clubmen a
+bit. It's as well to begin, also, to pot down a bit of her money for
+the future. She shall pay her way, as she goes." And, with a view to the
+further cementing of his rising social pyramid, he planned a very neat
+little dinner of half a dozen of the most available men whom he had
+selected as being "in the swim." "The next thing is to discover what the
+devil she really wants of old Johnstone! She must show her hand now, and
+then soon call on me for help."
+
+He gazed at his little memorandum of "pressing engagements." "A pretty
+fair book of events. First, old Johnstone's dinner--more of the
+boring process--then to welcome my strange employer, and, after that,
+Mademoiselle Justine! Later, I'll have my own little innings with
+General Willoughby, and, finally play the gracious host while Ram Lal
+watches Madame Louison's cat-like play upon her victim. Money I must
+have, her money first, to pay the piper," he laughed, which proposed
+liberality was destined to doubly bribe the wily old jewel merchant. At
+that very moment Ram Lal, securely hidden away in the native compartment
+of the train, rushing on from Allahabad toward Delhi, was dreaming of
+the long-deferred triumph of a life!
+
+"If he has them--if they can be traced--they shall be mine if every
+diamond gleams red with his heart's blood! Perhaps these two strange
+people have brought them. Who knows? They are rich; it may be the
+jewels!" And Ram Lal dreamed of a tripartite watch upon the three
+principal figures of the opening drama. "The jewels were a king's
+ransom. But I shall know all," he softly smiled, for every attendant of
+the beautiful recluse now burning to meet her advance spy was a sworn
+confederate of Ram Lal in a dark brotherhood whose very name no man
+even dared to lisp! And so the long, blazing day wore away, bringing the
+hunter and the hunted nearer together. The mysterious bungalow was now
+alive with the slaves of luxury, while Alan Hawke secretly inspected
+the last finishing touches, for he, alone, was master of the private
+entrance once used by a man whose glittering rank had lifted him
+presumably above all human weaknesses!
+
+Major Hawke departed for the Club in a very good humor, after his hour
+of inspection of the jewel box bungalow now ready for his fair employer.
+It was a perfect cachette d' amour, and its superb gardens, so long
+deserted, were now only a tangled jungle of luxuriant loveliness!
+The light foot of the beauty for whom this Rosamond's Bower had been
+prepared had wandered far away, for a substantial block of marble now
+held down the great man, who had in the old days found the welcome of
+his hidden Egeria so delicious in this long-deserted bungalow. For
+the dead Numa Pompilius slept now with his fathers, in far away Merrie
+England, and--as is the wont--the mortuary inscriptions on his tomb
+recorded only his virtues. But both his virtues and failings were of
+no greater weight now to a forgetful generation, which knew not the
+departed Joseph, than the drifted leaves in the garden alleys where the
+romance of the old still lingered in ghostly guise! "There were no
+birds in last year's nest," but the mysterious bungalow had been hastily
+arranged for the lovely successor to the vanished queen of a cobweb
+Paradise. The bungalow, itself, was adroitly constructed with a special
+reference to seclusion as well as comfort. An Indian Love's Labyrinth.
+
+"Just the very place!" murmured Alan Hawke, as he hastened away to dress
+for the diner de famille, with his timorous secret foe, Hugh Johnstone.
+"I wonder if my canny friend, in his humble days as Hugh Fraser, ever
+assisted at les petits diners de Trianon here?
+
+"Probably not, for friend Hugh was ever apter in squeezing the nimble
+rupee than in chanting sonnets to his mistress's eyebrow. How the devil
+did he ever catch a wife, such as Valerie Delavigne must have been?
+Either a case of purchase or starvation, I'll warrant!"
+
+Ram Lal Singh was growing dubious as to the perfect sweep of his hungry
+talons over Madame Louison's future expenditures. He had noted, with
+some secret alarm, a grave-faced, sturdy Frenchman, still in the
+forties, who was cast in the role of either courier or butler for the
+beautiful Mem-Sahib, whose loveliness in extenso he so far only divined
+by guess-work.
+
+In the stranger lady's special car there was also, at her side, a
+truculent Parisienne-looking woman of thirty, whose bustling air,
+hawk-like visage, and perfect aplomb bespoke the confidential French
+maid. "I must tell Hawke Sahib of this at once," mused Ram Lal. "We
+must, in some way, get rid of these foreign servants." The man had
+a semi-military air, heightened by the sweeping scar--a slash from a
+neatly swung saber. This purple facial adornment was Jules Victor's
+especial pride. In these days of "ninety" he often recurred to the
+stroke which had made his fortune in the dark reign of the Commune.
+
+As a wild Communard soldier he had risked his life vainly to save the
+aged Colonel Delavigne from a furious mob, for the red rosette in the
+old officer's buttonhole had cost him his life in an awkward promenade,
+and this sent the orphans, Valerie and Alixe Delavigne, adrift upon
+the mad maelstrom of Paris incendie. While Ram Lal glowered in his
+dissatisfaction, Madame Berthe Louison complacently regarded her two
+secret protectors on guard in the special car. For the strange turn of
+Fortune's wheel, which had left Alixe Delavigne alone in the world,
+and rich enough to effect her special vengeance upon her one enemy,
+had given to Jules Victor and his wife Marie a sinecure for life as the
+personal attendants of the soi-disant Madame Berthe Louison.
+
+Marie was but a wild-eyed child of ten when Jules had picked her up in
+the flaming streets of Paris, and they had graduated together from the
+gutters of Montmartre into the later control of Madame Louison's pretty
+little pied a terre in Paris, hard by Auteuil, in that dreamy
+little impasse, the Rue de Berlioz. Neither of these attendants were
+faint-hearted, for their young hearts had been attuned early to the
+wolfish precocity of the Parisian waif. And they had followed their
+resolute mistress in her weary quest of the past years.
+
+Berthe Louison smiled in a comforting sense of security, as she gazed
+listlessly out upon the landscape flying by.
+
+The two servants, modestly voyaging out to Calcutta, on a telegraphic
+summons, to embark at Marseilles, had preceded the Empress of India by
+ten days. So, neither friendless, nor without untiring devotion, was
+the wary woman who had thus secretly armed herself against any "little
+mistake" on the part of Major Alan Hawke. Certain private instructions
+to the manager of Grindlay & Co., at Calcutta, had caused that
+respectable party to open his eyes in wonder.
+
+"Of course, Madame, our local agent at Delhi will act in your behalf,
+with both secrecy and discretion. I have already written him a private
+cipher letter in regard to your every wish being fulfilled."
+
+Such is the potent influence of a letter of credit, practically
+approaching the "unlimited."
+
+"If I could only use Jules in the double capacity of gentleman and
+factotum, I would dress him up a la mode and let him approach Hugh
+Johnstone," mused the beautiful tourist, but I must be content to use
+this cold-hearted adventurer Hawke, for he has at least a surface rank
+of gentleman, and, moreover, he knows my enemy! I must keep Jules and
+Marie every moment at my side, for some strange things happen in India
+by day as well as by night. Sir Hugh may dream of some 'unusually
+distressing accident' as a means of safely ridding himself of a long
+slumbering specter."
+
+"Of course, this sly jeweler is Alan Hawke's spy! A few guineas extra,
+however, may buy his 'inner consciousness' for me," she mused. And so it
+fell out that Ram Lal Singh was destined to drop into the secret
+service of both Hawke and the fair invader! And, as yet, neither of his
+intending employers could divine the dark purposes of the oily rascal
+who had stealthily watched Hugh Fraser for long years to slake the
+hungry vengeance of a despoiled traitor to the last King of Oude.
+
+Major Hawke found the tete a tete dinner with Hugh Johnstone a mere dull
+social parade. There was no demure face at the feast slyly regarding
+him, for while the two watchful secret foes exchanged old reminiscence
+and newer gossip, Justine Delande was cheering the lonely girl, whose
+silent mutiny as to her shining prison life now reached almost an open
+revolt. It was a grateful relief to the Swiss woman, whose agitated
+heart was softly beating the refrain: "To-morrow! to-morrow! I shall see
+him again!" She feared a self-betrayal!
+
+While the governess mused upon the extent of her proposed revelations to
+the handsome Major, that rising social star had adroitly exploited his
+long tete a tete with Captain Hardwicke to his host, and gracefully
+magnified the warmth of General Willoughby's personal welcome.
+
+"You see, Johnstone," patiently admitted the man who had dropped into a
+good thing, "They all want to delve into the secrets of my mission here.
+You, of all men," he meaningly said, "cannot blame me for throwing
+the dust into their eyes. I detest this intrusion, and so in sheer
+self-defense I am going to give a formal dinner to a lot of these
+bores, and then cut the whole lot when I've once done the decent thing."
+Circling and circling, and yet never daring to approach the subject,
+old Hugh Johnstone warily returned to the suspended baronetcy affair, at
+last revealing his secret burning anxieties. But when Alan Hawke heard
+the train whistles, announcing the arrival of his beautiful employer, he
+fled away from the smoking-room in a mock official unrest.
+
+"I am expecting dispatches from England, and also very important
+detailed secret instructions. I've had a warning wire from Calcutta."
+
+He had broken off the seance brusquely with a design of his own, and
+he rejoiced as Hugh Johnstone brokenly said: "Let me see you very soon
+again. I must have a plain talk with you." The old nabob was in a close
+corner now. There had been a few bitter queries from the half-distracted
+girl which showed, even to her stern old father, that his position was
+becoming untenable.
+
+"Damn it! I must either talk or send her away," he growled when left
+alone. "I've half a mind to telegraph Douglas Fraser to come here and
+convoy this foolish young minx home to Europe. She may grow to be a
+silent rebel like her mother." His scowl darkened. "And yet, where to
+send her? I ought to go with them. Can I trust the Delandes to find
+a safe place to keep her till I come?" He was all unaware that his
+daughter Nadine was now a woman like her bolder sisters of society, but
+it was true. The chrysalis was nearing the butterfly stage of life and
+beating the bars with her wings.
+
+The secret exultation of Justine Delande in her shadowy hold on Major
+Alan Hawke caused her to furtively lead Nadine Johnstone to the head of
+the great stairway, when Hawke made his adieux.
+
+"He is a handsome young officer," timidly whispered the girl, shrinking
+back out of sight. "What can he have in common with my father? I thought
+he was some old veteran." And the awakened heart of Justine Delande
+bounded in delight. She would have joyed to tell Nadine of her own
+romantic budding friendship, but a wholesome fear tied her tongue, and
+she was only happy when caressing the diamond bracelet that night, which
+encircled her arm, while with dry and aching eyes she waited for the
+dawn.
+
+While Hugh Johnstone paced the veranda of his lonely marble palace that
+night, a prey to vague fears, and unwilling to face the accusing eyes of
+his daughter, Major Alan Hawke, with a sudden astonishment, stood mute
+before the splendid woman who received him in the mysterious bungalow.
+There was scant ceremony of greeting between them, for Berthe Louison
+impatiently grasped his hands.
+
+"He is here, and the girl, too," she said, with blazing eyes. She stood
+robed as a queen before her secret agent. "Where were you? You left me
+here to wait in a torment of anxiety."
+
+"I have just come from his dinner table," quietly said the startled
+Major. "They are both here, and well. I am already intimate at the
+house, but I have not seen the girl. I feared being followed or I would
+have met you at the train." He marveled at her royal beauty. She was
+conscious now of the power of wealth, and some hidden fire glowed in her
+veins. "What can I do for you? He watches me. I can only come at night."
+
+"Ah!" the lady sternly said, "we must then play at hide and seek!"
+
+Ringing a silver bell twice, Madame Louison sank into a chair. Alan
+Hawke started up, inquiringly, as Jules and Marie entered the room from
+an ante-room, whose door was left ajar.
+
+"Jules! Marie!" calmly said Madame Louison. "This gentleman is my secret
+business agent. He will call here in the evenings very often. He has
+pass keys of his own, and you need not announce him. He is the only
+person who has the right to be in my house--at all times." The husband
+and wife bowed in silence and, at a gesture from their mistress,
+departed silently, having mentally photographed the newcomer.
+
+Gazing in open-eyed astonishment, the surprised Major faltered, "Who are
+these people? Why did you do this strange thing?"
+
+"To assure myself of safety," quietly smiled Berthe Louison. "They are
+my personal servants, whom I brought on from Calcutta, and I have reason
+to believe that Jules is both alert and courageous. He is a veteran
+of the Tonquin war, and that pretty scar was a present from the Black
+Flags. They were selected by one who knows the wiles of my desperate
+enemy Johnstone."
+
+"Now, Major Hawke, let us to business" calmly continued Berthe, secretly
+enjoying Alan Hawke's dismay. "Tell me your whole story. Only the events
+since your arrival here. The rest counts for nothing. We are all on
+the ground here and I propose to act quickly. I learned some matters in
+Calcutta which have greatly enlightened me." The facile tongue of the
+renegade was slow to do the bidding of his unready brain. "Damme! But
+she's a cool one!" the ex-officer concluded, as he caught his breath.
+But, conscious of her watchful eye, he related all his adventures, with
+a judicious reserve as to Justine Delande. The burning eyes of Berthe
+Louison were steadily fixed upon the relator's face, and she was coldly
+noncommittal when Hawke paused for breath and a mental recapitulation.
+The Major now gazed upon her immovable visage. There was neither joy nor
+sorrow, neither the flush of anger nor the trembling of rage, awakened
+by the businesslike presentment of the social facts. "She is a human
+icicle," he mused. "She has some deadly hold on him!"
+
+"Can you trust this Ram Lal Singh?" the woman demanded in a
+business-like tone. Alan Hawke nodded decisively.
+
+"He knows Hugh Fraser Johnstone well?" queried Berthe.
+
+"They have been companions in the mixed line or Delhi since the mutiny,"
+earnestly replied Hawke, slowly concluding: "And Ram Lal has been
+Johnstone's broker in selecting his almost unequaled Indian collection.
+Ram is a thief, like all Hindus, but he is square to me. I hold him
+in my hand. You can trust to him, but only through me!" Berthe Louison
+raised her eyes and then fixed a searching glance upon Alan Hawke, as if
+she would read his very soul.
+
+"And, can I trust you?" she said, almost solemnly.
+
+"You remember our strange compact, Madame," coldly said Alan Hawke.
+"Here, face to face with the enemy, I expect to know what is required of
+me--and also what my future recompense will be."
+
+"Ah, I forgot," mused the strange lady of the bungalow. "You have the
+right to teach me a lesson, in both manners and business. I forgot how
+sharply I had drawn the line, myself. Well, Sir, I will trust to you
+without any assurance on your part." She rang the silver bell at her
+side, once, and the silent Jules appeared, as attentive as Rastighello
+in the boudoir of the Duchess of Ferrara. "My traveling bag, Jules,"
+said the lady, in a careless tone. There was a silence punctuated only
+by Alan Hawke's heavy breathing, until the silent servitor returned,
+bowing and departing without a word, as he placed the bag at Madame
+Louison's side. With a businesslike air, the lady handed Alan Hawke a
+sealed letter, addressed simply:
+
+HUGH FRASER JOHNSTONE, ESQ., DELHI.
+
+Near at hand, in the opened bag, the watchful Major saw the revolver and
+dagger once more which he had noted, at Lausanne.
+
+"Let Ram Lal deliver that personally to the would-be Baronet, to-morrow
+morning at eight o'clock. He is to say nothing. There will be no reply,"
+measuredly remarked the strange woman whose life as Alixe Delavigne had
+brought to her the legacy of an undying hatred for the man whom she was
+about to face. "This will bring Hugh Johnstone to me at once!"
+
+"That is all?" stammered Alan Hawke, as he received the document,
+respectfully standing "at attention."
+
+"No, not quite all!" laughed Berthe Louison. "Pray continue a career of
+judiciously liberal social splendor here, an external 'swelling port'
+just suited to a man whose feet are planted upon a financial rock. But
+do not overdo it! It might excite Hugh Johnstone's alarm. Here is five
+hundred pounds in notes. There will be no accounts between us."
+
+"And, I am to do nothing else?" cried Hawke, in surprise. "I fear to
+have you meet this man alone! He is rich, powerful, and crafty. The
+nature of your business, I fear, is that of deadly quarrel. Remember,
+this man is at bay. He is unscrupulous. I fear for you!"
+
+The renegade spoke only the truth. For dark memories of Hugh Fraser's
+bitter deeds in days past now thronged upon his brain.
+
+"Fear not for me." cried Berthe Louison, springing up like a tigress in
+defense of her cubs. "Do you know that his life would be the forfeit of
+a lifted finger? Do you take me for a blind fool?" she raged. "Do you
+know the power of gold? Ah, my friend, there are unseen eyes watching my
+pathway here, and may God have mercy upon any one who practices against
+me, in secret! Any 'strange happening' to me would be fearfully avenged!
+As for this flinty-hearted brute, he would never even reach that
+threshold alive, if he dared to threaten! Go! Leave him to me. Come here
+to-morrow night. I shall have need of your cool brain and your ready
+wit! My only task was to find him and the girl together."
+
+"And if I am questioned about you? If anything occurs?" persisted Alan
+Hawke.
+
+"Simply ignore my existence; if we meet we are strangers!" gasped
+Berthe, who had thrown herself on a divan. "Obey me without questioning
+my motive! Each night you will receive orders for the next day, should I
+need your secret hand! Go now! I am tired! I must be ready to meet this
+man!"
+
+Alan Hawke had reached the door, but he turned back. "And as to Ram Lal?
+What shall I do?" The woman's eyes flashed fire.
+
+"Leave him also to me! I will handle him! A few rupees--will serve
+as his bait. Stay! You say that this Swiss woman, Justine Delande, is
+sympathetic, and seems to be a worthy person?" She was scanning his
+impassive face with steely glances now.
+
+"She is younger than her sister Euphrosyne," gravely said Alan Hawke,
+"and not without some personal attractions. Her older sister adores her.
+Even this old brute, Johnstone, seems to treat her with great respect
+and deference."
+
+"There is the only danger to us! Watch that woman! Mingle freely in the
+Johnstone household," said Berthe, wearily, "but never cast your eyes
+toward Nadine. Never even hint to this Swiss governess that you have
+seen her sister. After they return to Europe it is another thing.
+Silence and discretion now. Good night. Come to-morrow night at ten
+o'clock; all will be quiet, and you can steal away from the Club in
+safety."
+
+Major Alan Hawke stole away to the hidden entrance like a thief of the
+night. He started as he saw the menacing figure of Jules Victor glide
+swiftly after him to the secret opening in the wall. The servitor spoke
+not a single word, but watched the business agent disappear. "I must
+watch this damned Frenchman," he mused, feeling for his packet of notes
+and loosening his revolver. "He may be set on by this she devil to watch
+Ram Lal." And then Hawke gayly sought the jewel merchant, lingering
+an hour in the very room where he was on the morrow to meet the
+heart-awakened Justine. Old Ram Lal grinned as he accepted the letter.
+He was happy, for he heard the jingling of golden guineas in the near
+future. "You have nothing to do with me, Ram Lal," laughed the Major.
+"The lady will give you your orders, only you are to tell me all for
+both our sakes. I will see you rewarded," and again Ram Lal grinned in
+his quiet way.
+
+When Alan Hawke's head was resting on his pillow he suddenly became
+possessed with a strange new fear. "By God! I believe that she has been
+here before; she seems to be up to the whole game."
+
+Alan Hawke's steps hardly died away in the hallway before the beautiful
+Nemesis made a careful inspection of her splendid reception-room. The
+splendors of its curtained arches, its fretted ceiling, and its frescoed
+walls were idly passed over, for the woman only made an exhaustive
+survey of its geometrical arrangement. Marie Victor was in waiting at
+her side, and the mistress and maid were soon joined by Jules. Throwing
+open the door of a little adjoining cabinet, Madame Louison whispered a
+few private directions to the ex-Communard. "Do this at once yourself;
+none of the blacks are to know. I trust none of them!" imperatively
+commanded Berthe. "Marie will receive him. You are to be here at nine
+o'clock, and be sure to let no one of these yellow spies observe you.
+Now, both of you. Here is the rearrangement of the furniture. This will
+be your first task in the morning. You can both use the whole household
+for these changes. They are to obey you in all. Let all be ready when
+I have breakfasted. Now, Marie, I will try and rest. Jules, inspect and
+examine the house; then you can take your post for the night at my door.
+Have you exhausted every possibility of any trickery in the sleeping
+room?"
+
+"There's but the one door, Madame. Trust to me. I have sounded every
+inch of the walls, and even examined the floor." Jules Victor's romantic
+nature thrilled with the possibilities of the little life drama to come.
+
+Berthe Louison departed to rest upon her arms the night before the
+battle. Much marveled the swarming band of Ram Lal's creatures that no
+human being was suffered to approach the Lady of the Bungalow but her
+two white attendants. Berthe Louison had not reached the idle luxury of
+employing a dozen Hindus in infinitesimal labors near her person. For
+she fathomed easily Ram Lal's devotion to Major Alan Hawke.
+
+The presence of keen-eyed Marie Victor's brass camp-bed in My Lady's
+sleeping-room was a source of wonder to the velvet-eyed spy who was
+Ram Lal's especial "Bureau of Intelligence." "Strange ways has this
+Mem-Sahib," murmured the Hindu when he craved to know if the Daughter of
+the Sun and Light of the World desired aught. "I will then have two to
+watch. The waiting woman has the eye of a tiger."
+
+A personal verification of the fact that Jules Victor was encamped for
+the night, en zouave, on a divan drawn before the only door joining the
+boudoir and sleeping-room, caused the sly spy to greatly marvel, for the
+scarred face of the French social rebel was ominously truculent, and a
+pair of Lefacheux revolvers and a heavy knife lay within the ready reach
+of this strange "outside guard."
+
+In the dim watches of the first night in Delhi, the same barefooted
+Hindu spy learned by a visit of furtive inspection, that a night light
+steadily burned in the boudoir where Jules was toujours pret. The
+sneaking rascal crept away, with a violently beating heart, fearing even
+the rustle of his bare feet upon the mosaic floor.
+
+And all this, and much more, did he deliver with abject humility to
+Ram Lal Singh, when that worthy appeared the next day to crave his
+mysterious patron's orders. It seemed a tough nut to crack, this
+tripartite household arrangement.
+
+The dawn found Madame Berthe Louison as alertly awake as bird and beast
+stirring in the ruined splendors of old Shahjehanabad. Long before the
+anxious Justine Delande arose to deck herself furtively for her tryst
+with Alan Hawke, Berthe Louison knew that all her orders of the night
+before were executed.
+
+"You are sure that you can see perfectly, Jules?" said the anxious
+woman.
+
+"I command the whole side of the room where you will be seated," replied
+the Frenchman, "and the ornaments and carved tracery cover the aperture.
+Marie has tested it and I have also done the same, reversing our
+positions. Nothing can be seen."
+
+"Good! Remember! Nine o'clock sees you at your post! You are prepared?"
+The woman's voice trembled.
+
+"Thoroughly!" cried the alert servitor, "Only give me your signal! I
+must make no mistake! There's no time to think in such cases!" He bent
+his head, while his mistress, in a low voice gave her last orders. Jules
+saluted, as if he were the leader of a forlorn hope.
+
+"And now for the first skirmish!" mused Berthe Louison, as she
+personally examined some matters, of more material interest to her, in
+the reception-room.
+
+The rearrangement of the furniture seemed to be satisfactory, and Madame
+Berthe Louison composedly busied herself with the arrangement of a
+writing case, and a few womanly articles upon the table which she had
+chosen as her own peculiar fortification. A few moments were wasted upon
+trifling with a well-worn envelope, now carefully hidden in her bosom.
+This maneuver passed the time needed for a stately carriage to sweep up
+from the opened grand gate of the bungalow to the raised veranda steps.
+"There he is!" she grimly said. "Now, for the first blood!"
+
+A man who was shaking with mingled rage and fear hastily strode across
+the broad portico, as Berthe Louison glided away from the curtained
+window and confidently resumed her own chosen chair. Her bosom was
+heaving, her eye was fixed and stern, and she steadily awaited her foe,
+for one last warning whisper had reached her hidden servitor.
+
+When Marie Victor threw open the double doors of the reception room, on
+its threshold stood the towering form of the man whom Alixe Delavigne
+had known in other years as Hugh Fraser, the man whose pallid face told
+her that he knew at last that he was under the sword of Damocles! Clad
+in white linen, his sun helmet in his hand, steadying himself with a
+jeweled bamboo crutch-handled stick, the old Anglo-Indian waited until
+Berthe Louison's voice rang out, as clear as a silver bell: "Marie! I
+am not to be interrupted." she calmly said. "You may wait beyond, in the
+ante-room!"
+
+The woman who had emerged from the dark penumbra of a dead Past,
+to torture the embryo Baronet, gazed silently at the stern old man
+glowering there.
+
+Striding up to her, the insolent habit of years was, strong upon him, as
+he hoarsely said: "What juggling fiend of hell brings you here?"
+
+Without a tremor in her voice, the lady of Jitomir replied:
+
+"I came here to undo the work of years! To teach an orphaned girl to
+know that a love which hallows and which blesses, can reach her from the
+grave in which your cold brutality buried the only being I ever loved!
+She shall know her mother, from my lips, and not wither in the gray hell
+of your egoism. I have searched the world over, and found you, at last,
+together!"
+
+"By God! You shall never even see her face, you she-devil!" cried the
+infuriated old man, nearing the defiant woman. "You were the go-between
+for your worthless sister and that Russian cur, Troubetskoi!"
+
+"You lie! Hugh Fraser, you lie!" cried Berthe, in a ringing voice. "You
+crushed the flower that Fate had drifted within your reach! You turned
+her into the streets of London to starve! You robbed her of her child,
+all this to feed your own flinty-hearted tyrant vanity! She was divorced
+from you by a Royal Russian Decree, before she married the man whose
+heart broke when she was laid in the tomb. She rests with the princes of
+his line, and her tomb bears the name of wife!"
+
+The old nabob crept nearer, growling:
+
+"You shall never see the child's face!"
+
+Then, Alixe Delavigne sprang up and faced him: "There she is! on my
+heart! Just what her mother was, before you sent her to an early grave.
+Valerie died hungering for one sight of that child's face!" Throwing
+the picture of Nadine Johnstone on the table, the lady of Jitomir said:
+"Pierre Troubetskoi left to me the wealth which makes me your equal. I
+fear you not! I shall see Nadine to-morrow!"
+
+"Never!" roared Hugh Johnstone, now beyond all control. "I defy you!
+Beware how you approach my threshold!" His eyes were murderous in their
+steely blue gleam, and, yet, he met a glance as steady as his own.
+
+"Listen," said Berthe Louison, sinking back into her chair, "I will tell
+you a little story." Hugh Johnstone was now gazing at the photograph,
+which trembled in his hand. "Once upon a time a man secreted a vast
+deposit of jewels, really the spoil of a deposed king, and, rightly, the
+property of the victorious British Government!" The photograph fell to
+the floor as the old man sprang up from the chair, into which he had
+dropped. "This paper, the receipt for the deposit, once delivered to the
+Viceroy of India--and the Baronetcy which is to be your life crown is
+lost for ever." The old man's hands knotted themselves in anger. "The
+lying story that the deposit was stolen by an underling will bring
+you, Hugh Johnstone, to the felon's cell! You shall live to wear the
+convict's chain! The Government is partly aware of the facts. It rests
+for me to give the Viceroy the receipt for your private deposit. The
+private bank vault in Calcutta has hidden your shame for twenty years.
+You know the condition of your settlement with the Government. Now,
+shall I see my sister's child? I hold your very existence here--in the
+hollow of my hand!" The dauntless woman drew forth a yellowed envelope
+from her breast. There was a smothered shriek, a crash and a groan, as
+Jules Victor, springing from his concealment, hurled the infuriated man
+to the floor!
+
+With a knee on the panting nabob's breast, he hissed:
+
+"Move, and you are a dead man!"
+
+"Take the paper, Madame," calmly said the victorious Jules. Then Alixe
+Delavigne laughed scornfully.
+
+"Let the fool arise. The contents are only blank paper. The document
+is where I can find it for use. Remain here, Jules," concluded the
+triumphant woman, as she replaced the photograph in her bosom. "Take the
+envelope--you know it, Hugh Fraser. I stole it the night you drove
+the sister I loved from our miserly lodgings in London." The furious
+onslaught had failed, and the old nabob was only a cowering, cringing
+prisoner at will. He dared not even cry out.
+
+Hugh Johnstone groaned as his eyes turned from the woman, now laughing
+him to scorn, to the stern-faced Frenchman, who was covering the baffled
+assailant with the grim Lefacheux revolver.
+
+"Send this man away. Let us talk, Alixe," muttered the astounded
+Johnstone. Then a mocking laugh rang out in the room.
+
+"I am in no hurry now. I can wait. I like Delhi, and I shall find my way
+to Nadine's side, and she shall know the story of a mother's love. One
+signal from me, by telegraph, and the document goes to the Viceroy. So,
+I fear you not, my would-be strangler! It is for me to make conditions!
+Listen! I will send my carriage and my man to your house to-morrow
+morning at ten. You will have made up your mind then. I have friends
+all around me, here, at Allahabad, and in Calcutta. If you practice any
+treachery on me you die the death of a dog, even here, in your robber
+nest!"
+
+"I will come! I will come!" faltered Johnstone.
+
+"Ah!" smiled the lady. "Jules, show Sir Hugh Johnstone to his carriage."
+And then turning her back in disdain, she vanished without a word.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE PRICE OF SAFETY.
+
+
+
+When nabob Hugh Johnstone's carriage dashed swiftly down the crowded
+Chandnee Chouk, on its return to the marble house, the driver and
+footman, as well as the slim syce runners, were alarmed at the old
+man's appearance when he was half led, half carried out of his luxurious
+vehicle. The staggering sufferer reached his rooms and was surrounded by
+a bevy of frightened menials, while the equippage dashed away in search
+of old Doctor McMorris, the surgeon par excellence of Delhi. A second
+butler had hastily darted away to the Delhi Club with an imperative
+summons for Major Alan Hawke, who had, unfortunately, left for the day.
+
+With a shudder of affright Mademoiselle Justine Delande had slipped into
+a booth on the great thoroughfare, only to feel safe when she glided
+into Ram Lal Singh's jewel shop, to be swiftly hurried into the rear
+reception room by the argus-eyed merchant, who had noted the swiftly
+passing carriage. Her womanly conscience was as tender as her heart.
+
+"Lock the door, Ram Lal!" cried Alan Hawke, "We will be in the pagoda
+in the garden. Let no one pass this door, on your life!" When they were
+alone, Major Alan Hawke led the trembling woman away to to the hidden
+bower, where Ram Lal had hospitably spread a feast of India's choicest
+cakes and dainties.
+
+Only there, in that haven of safety, dared the excited Justine to
+falter. "If you knew what I have suffered! He drove almost over me as I
+crossed the Chandnee Chouk, and I had a struggle to leave Nadine. There
+is the curse of an old family sorrow there. The father and daughter are
+arrayed against each other."
+
+"Forget it all, my dear Justine," murmured Alan Hawke. "Here you are
+hidden now and perfectly safe with me. Never mind those people now. Let
+us only think of each other. You were simply matchless in your behavior
+at the house."
+
+"Oh, I fear him so! I fear that hard old man!" whispered the timid
+woman, as she dropped her eyes before Alan Hawke's ardent glances. He
+had noted the growing touch of coquetry in her dress; he measured the
+tell-tale quiver of her voice, and he smiled tenderly when she shyly
+showed him the diamond bracelet, securely hidden upon her left arm.
+
+"I put this on to show you that I do trust you," she murmured. "And
+I wear it every night. It seems to give me courage." The happy Major
+pressed her hand warmly.
+
+"Let it be a secret sign between us, an omen of brighter days for all
+of us. Stand by me and I will stand by you to the last. We will all meet
+happily yet by the beautiful shores of Lake Leman!"
+
+In half an hour, Justine Delande was completely at her ease, for well
+the artful renegade knew how to circle around the dangerous subject
+nearest his heart--the secret history of Nadine Johnstone's mother.
+He had dropped easily into the wooing and confidential intimacy which
+lulled Justine Delande into a fool's paradise of happy content.
+
+She was sinking away and now losing her will and identity in his own,
+without one warning qualm of conscience. For Alan Hawke's dearly bought
+knowledge of womankind now stood him in great stead.
+
+"One single familiarity, one questionable liberty, and this cold-pulsed
+Heloise would fly forever. She must be left to her day dreams and to
+the work of a sweet self-deception," he artfully mused. They were
+interrupted but a moment, when Ram Lal Singh glided to the door of the
+pagoda.
+
+"I must now go to the bungalow to see Madame Louison and have her
+approve her horses and carriage. She has sent word that she will drive
+this afternoon. And," he whispered breathlessly, "Old Johnstone is very
+sick. He has sent all over the city to find you, and now his own private
+man bids me go there at once. He must have me, if he can't find you."
+
+Major Hawke mused a moment. "Give me the keys! Put your best man on
+guard to watch for any intruders! Go first to the Mem-Sahib! Keep your
+mouth shut! Remember about me and--" He pointed to the governess, now
+timidly cowering in a shadowy corner. "Let the old devil wait till you
+are done with her! Pump the old wretch! Find out what he wants! Say that
+I went off for a day's jaunt!" Alan Hawke smiled grimly as he seated
+himself tenderly at Justine Delande's side. "Old Hugh did not last long!
+They must have had their first skirmish. If he is a coward at heart, she
+will rule him with a rod of iron. What is her hold over him? I warrant
+that the jade will never tell me. She will fight him to the death in
+silence, and try to hoodwink me. We will see, my lady! We will see!"
+
+"Now, Justine," softly said the renegade, "tell me all of the story
+of this strange father and daughter! Ram Lal has reconnoitered! We are
+safe! Both Hugh and his daughter are at home!"
+
+The reassured governess frankly opened her heart to her wary listener.
+It was an hour before the recital was finished, and Miss Justine was
+gayly chatting over the impromptu breakfast, when the details of these
+last stormy days at Delhi were described. "I cannot make it all out. She
+is certainly his legitimate daughter. He is crafty, covetous, miserly,
+and yet he lives in a scornful splendor here. Both my sister and myself
+look forward to learning the whole story through my visit here. Of
+course, on our arrival, Nadine and myself wondered not at the gloomy
+solitude of the marble house. But the affronts to society, the practical
+imprisonment of this girl, this chilling silence as to her mother, have
+roused her brave young heart. Not a picture, not a single memento, not
+even a jewel, not a tress of hair, not even a passing mention of where
+that shadowy mother lies buried!" the Swiss woman sighed. "He is a brute
+and tyrant--a man of a stony heart and an iron hand!"
+
+"You have never been made his confidante?" earnestly asked the Major.
+
+"Never!" promptly replied Justine. "Beyond a grave courtesy and the curt
+answers to our reports, with liberal payment, we know no more now than
+when the prattling child of four was brought to us.
+
+"She has no childish memories of her own. I have overheard all the
+unhappy scenes of the last month. There are the tearful prayers of
+Nadine, then the old man's harsh threats, and then only his cold
+avoidance follows. Strange to say--gentle and warm-hearted, formed
+for love, and yearning to know of the dear mother whom she has fondly
+pictured in her dreams, Nadine Johnstone has all the courage of a
+soldier's daughter, and her fearless bravery of soul is as inflexible
+as steel. She returns frankly to the contest, and his only refuge is the
+wall of cold silence that he has built up between them!"
+
+"Has he tried to punish her in any way--to intimidate her?" eagerly
+cried the Major.
+
+"Not yet," answered Justine. "She tells me all, and he knows it. I can
+see that his eyes are fixed on me now with a growing hatred. He fears
+that I uphold her in this duel of words, of answerless questions.
+
+"He has threatened her roughly with sending her away to some place, to
+'come to her senses,' alone, and--" the frightened woman said, "That
+is what I fear--some sudden, rough brutality. He despairs of making her
+love him. If she were suddenly removed--and I cast adrift on the world,
+alone, here, he would, I suppose, send me back to Switzerland. He can
+do no less, but I would lose her forever from my sight. I know that
+he hates me, and we have always hoped that he would make us a handsome
+present, on her marriage. Euphrosyne and I have been as mothers to her."
+There were tears in the woman's anxious eyes now. She was startled as
+Hawke bounded to his feet.
+
+"By God!" he cried, forgetting himself. "That's just his little game!
+It must never be! See here, Justine! I have reason to think that you are
+right. He may try to spirit her away and separate her forever from you
+and Euphrosyne. He would cut off the only two friends who could connect
+her with this strange past. Yes, that's his little game! And--" he
+slowly concluded, controlling himself, "I have reason to think he may
+go about it at once. He is afraid of me, also, about some old official
+business. Now, I will watch over your interests. The least this old
+miser can do is to give you a neat little home in Geneva, as a final
+recompense."
+
+Justine Delande's eyes sparkled in gratitude. The acute Major had easily
+learned from the garrulous Francois that the "Institut Pour les Jeunes
+Dames" was an intellectual property only; the fine old mansion belonging
+to a rich Genevese banker. Major Alan Hawke was now busied in writing
+upon a few leaves torn from his betting book.
+
+"Listen to me!" he gravely said. "Promise me that you will never let
+these papers leave you a moment."
+
+"I will carry them in my passport case, around my neck," murmured
+Justine. "My money in notes, and a few articles."
+
+"Good!" energetically cried Hawke. "I will write the same to Euphrosyne,
+and send it by 'registered post' to-day."
+
+"Here!" he suddenly cried, "Just pencil a few words to her to say that
+you are with me, and that we understand each other; that our interests
+are to be one; and that she must keep the faith and help us both, for
+both our sakes. I will mail it so that old Johnstone will be powerless
+to injure any of us three." He gave her another leaflet from his book,
+and detached a golden pencil from his watch chain.
+
+There was a crimson flush upon her cheek, as she vainly essayed to
+write. Her hand trembled, and then with a sob, her head fell upon
+her breast; with an infinite art, the triumphant renegade soothed the
+excited woman, and, it was only through her happy tears that she saw
+him, before her there, duplicating the secret addresses.
+
+"Now, Justine; my Justine!" softly said Alan Hawke. "Here is a secret
+address in Allahabad, and a secret address in London. If this man
+decides to send Nadine away, he will do it secretly in some way. There
+are several seaports open to leave India. You will be, of course, sent
+out of Hindostan with her. It would be just his little game, however,
+to separate you at the first foreign port, to pay you off royally, and
+then--neither you nor Euphrosyne would ever see Nadine again. There is
+something hanging over him that he would hide from her. He fears me,
+also, for my official power. Remember, now! No matter whatever happens
+you can always find a way to telegraph to me. If I am in India, here
+to Allahabad; if in Europe, to London. Now, Euphrosyne will know always
+where I am. Telegraph me the whereabouts of Nadine Johnstone, or, where
+you are forced to leave her, telegraph the vessel you are on, and her
+destination, and, I swear to you, by the God who made me, I will track
+her down, and we three shall find a way to reach her later. He would
+like to lock her up in a living tomb, if he found it to be to his
+interest. A cheap private asylum in Germany, or some low haunt in
+France, perhaps hide her away in Italy as a pretended invalid. The man
+is mad--simply mad--about this baronetcy, and in some strange way the
+girl stands between him and it. Do you promise?"
+
+"I promise you all!" faltered the excited woman. "Let me go now. Let me
+go home, Alan," she murmured, and there were no heart secrets between
+them any more, as the blushing woman, still trembling with the audacity
+of her own burning emotions, was led safely to the door of the jewel
+mart.
+
+"Be brave, be brave, dear Justine," he whispered. "Old Johnstone has
+sent for me. You shall have your home yet; I guarantee it. I shall
+be frequently at the house in the next few days. Remember to control
+yourself, and to watch the sly game of this old brute. I will stay here
+and send off at once our first letter to Euphrosyne. This girl will
+have a million pounds. You and your sister must not be robbed of the
+recompense of nearly twenty years of tenderness. Cleave to her, heart to
+heart, and tell me all. I will make you both rich!"
+
+"Trust me to the death! I understand all now," whispered Justine, her
+breast heaving in a new and strange emotion, flooding her chilly veins
+as with a subtle fiery elixir.
+
+"Then go, but, dear one, be here two days from now at the same time.
+Should any accident happen, Ram Lal will then come and bear to you my
+message. You can trust him. I will stay here and send this registered
+letter from here at once. Then, Hugh Johnstone has three loving
+guardians to outwit before he can hide away your beautiful nursling!"
+
+"For you." he softly whispered, as he slipped a little packet into her
+hand, when she stole out of the shop, after Alan Hawke had judiciously
+reconnoitered.
+
+"Dear, simple soul!" contentedly reflected Major Hawke, as he busied
+himself with the important letter to the staid Euphrosyne. "She has
+given me her heart, in her loving eagerness to defend that child, and
+the key to the whole situation. It would be just like this old brute
+to spirit the girl away to baffle Madame Berthe Louison. That is, if he
+dare not kill or intimidate her. And that I must look to. I think that
+I see my way to that girl's side now. God, what a pot of money she will
+have!"
+
+When Alan Hawke had finished his boldly warm letter to Euphrosyne, he
+sealed it and sent it to the post by Ram Lal's footman. The world looked
+very bright to him as, enjoying a capital cheroot, he studied for a half
+hour a wall map of India. "There's a half dozen ways to spirit her
+out of the Land of the Pagoda Tree. I must watch and trust to Justine.
+To-night I may or may not know what this devil of a Berthe Louison is up
+to. Will she try to take the girl away? That would be fatal."
+
+"Hardly--hardly," he decided, as he mixed a brandy pawnee. He gazed
+around at Ram Lal's sanctum, in which the old usurer received the
+Europeans whom he fleeced in his nipoy-lending operations. "A pretty
+snug joint. Many a hundred pounds have I dropped here." It was neatly
+furnished forth with service magazines, London papers, army lists, and
+all the accessories of a London money-lender's den. When the receipt
+for his registered letter was laid away in his pocket-book, Alan Hawke
+calmly ordered his carriage. "I'll take a brush around town and show
+them that I am out of all these intrigues," he decided. It was six hours
+later when he drew up at the Club, having passed Madame Berthe Louison's
+splendid turnout swinging down the Chandnee Chouk. On the box the alert
+Jules, in a yager's uniform, sat beside the dusky driver, and, even in
+the dusk, he could see the neat French maid seated, facing her mistress.
+"By God! She has the nerve of a Field Marshal! She will never hide her
+light under a bushel!" he had gasped when Madame Louison, at ten feet
+distant, gazed at him impassively through her longue vue, and then
+calmly cut him. He was soon besieged by a crowd of gay gossips at the
+Club upon dismounting from his trap.
+
+"Tell us, Hawke, who is the wonderful beauty who has taken the Silver
+Bungalow," was the excited chorus.
+
+"How the devil should I know, when you fellows do not," good-humoredly
+cried Alan Hawke, as the Club steward edged his way through the throng.
+
+"There's a message for you, Major," said the functionary. "Mr. Hugh
+Johnstone is quite ill at his house, and has been sending all over for
+you."
+
+"Ah! This is grave news" ostentatiously cried Hawke. "I'll drive over at
+once." And then he fled away, leaving the gay loiterers still discussing
+the lovely anonyma whose advent was now the one sensation of the hour.
+"Who the devil can her friends be?"
+
+"She plays a bold game," mused the startled Major.
+
+On her return to the marble house, Justine Delande had been welcomed by
+the anxious-eyed apparition of Nadine Johnstone, who burst into her
+room in a storm of tears. "I have been so frightened," she cried as she
+clasped her returning governess in her trembling grasp.
+
+"My father has just had a terrible seizure--an attack while riding out
+on business. He will see no one but Doctor McMorris, and besides, he
+has the old jewel merchant searching all over Delhi for Major Hawke. You
+must not leave me a moment, Justine."
+
+"Is he better?" demanded Justine, with guilty qualms.
+
+"He is resting now, but he will not be quieted till he sees this strange
+man," answered the disconsolate girl.
+
+"How beautiful she is," mused the Swiss woman, as Nadine Johnstone sat
+with parted lips relating the excitements of the morning. The wooing
+Indian climate was fast ripening the exquisite loveliness of eighteen.
+Her dark eyes gleamed with earnestness, and the rich brown locks crowned
+her stately head as with a coronal of golden bronze. The roses on her
+cheeks were not yet faded by the insidious climate of burning India, and
+a thrilling earnestness accented the music of her voice.
+
+"What can we do, Nadine?" murmured Justine Delande.
+
+"Nothing," sighed the motherless girl. "But when this Major Hawke
+comes, you must, for my sake, find out all you can. Ah! To leave India
+forever!" she sighed. Her marble prison was only a place of sorrow and
+lamentation.
+
+Major Hawke's flying steeds reached the marble house, after a circuit
+to Ram Lal's jewel mart. Without leaving his carriage, he called out the
+obsequious old Hindu. The dusk of evening favored Ram Lal in his adroit
+lying.
+
+He gave a brief account of Hugh Johnstone's strange morning seizure,
+forgetting to divulge to Hawke that the old nabob had already bribed him
+heavily to watch the inmate of the Silver Bungalow, and report to him
+her every movement. Nor, did the Hindu divulge his secret report to
+Madame Berthe Louison, after her ostentatious public carriage promenade.
+He further hid the fact that Madame Louison had deftly pressed a hundred
+pounds upon him, in return for a daily report of the secret life of the
+marble house. But he smiled blandly, when Major Hawke hastily said "Will
+he die?"
+
+"No; he is all right! He was over there with the Mem-Sahib this morning,
+and something must have happened."
+
+"What happened?" imperiously demanded Hawke.
+
+"I don't know," slowly answered Ram Lal.
+
+"Don't lie to me, Ram Lal," fiercely said the Major. "I have a
+fifty-pound note if you will find out."
+
+"He is going there to-morrow," slowly said Ram.
+
+"All right, watch them both. I'll be back here. Wait for me." And then
+at a nod the horses sprang away.
+
+"Fools! Fools all!" glowered Ram Lal, as he straightened up from his low
+salaam. "I'll have those stolen jewels yet. Now is the time to gain his
+confidence. He is an old man, and weak, and, cowardly."
+
+When Major Hawke entered the great doors of the marble house, he was
+gravely received by Mademoiselle Justine Delande. "He has been asking
+every ten minutes for you," she said. "I am to show you at once to his
+rooms."
+
+"Now, what's this? what's all this?" cheerfully cried the Major as he
+entered the vast sleeping-room of the Anglo-Indian. Old Johnstone feebly
+pointed to the door, and motioned to his attendants to leave the room.
+He was worn and gaunt, and his ashen cheeks and sunken eyes told of some
+great inward convulsion. He had aged ten years since the pompous tiffin.
+"I'm not well, Hawke! Come here! Near to me!" he huskily cried. And
+then, the hunter and the hunted gazed mutely into each other's eyes.
+
+"What's gone wrong?" frankly demanded the Major. The old man scowled in
+silence for a moment.
+
+"I have no one I dare trust but you," he unwillingly said. "You know
+something of my position, my future. I want to know if you have ever met
+this woman who has taken the Silver Bungalow--a kind of a French woman.
+There's her card." Old Johnstone's haggard eyes followed Hawke, as he
+silently studied the bit of pasteboard.
+
+"Madame Berthe Louison," he gravely read. And, then, with a magnificent
+audacity, he lied successfully. "Never even heard the name," he
+murmured.
+
+"Fellows at the Club speaking of some such woman today. Pretty woman, I
+supppose a declassee." Hawke, lifted his eyebrows.
+
+"No, a she-devil!" almost shouted old Hugh. "Now, I want you to watch
+her and find out who her backers are. She is trying to annoy me. Be
+prudent, and I'll make it a year's pay to you." Hawke's greedy eyes
+lightened as he bowed. "But never mention my name. Come here as often
+as you will. Go now and look up what you can. I'll see you to-morrow, in
+the afternoon. Don't scrape acquaintance with her. Just watch her. I'm
+going there to-morrow morning myself."
+
+"You?" said Hawke.
+
+"Yes," half groaned the old man, turning his face to the wall. "Come
+to-morrow afternoon. Spare no money. I'll make it right. Don't linger a
+minute now."
+
+Major Alan Hawke was gayly buoyant as the horses trotted back to Ram Lal
+Singh's, where he proposed to await the hour of ten o'clock. "I fancy,
+my lady, that you, too, will pay toll, as well as Hugh Johnstone,"
+he murmured. "You shall pay for all you get, and pay as you go."
+He cheerfully dined alone in Ram Lal's little business sanctum, and
+listened to the measured disclosures of the Hindu in return for the
+fifty-pound note.
+
+"It's to-morrow's interview that I want to know about," quietly directed
+the major, whereat Ram Lal modestly said:
+
+"I'll find a way to let you know all."
+
+"That's more than she will, the sly devil," said Hawke, in his heart, as
+he leaned back in the consciousness of "duty well done."
+
+In the Silver Bungalow, Alixe Delavigne sat in her splendid dining-room,
+under the ministrations of her Gallic body-guard. Her eyes were very
+dreamy as she recalled all the fearful incidents of the annee terrible.
+The flight from Paris after their father's death, the escape to England,
+the refuge at a Brighton hotel--the sudden projecture of Hugh Fraser
+athwart their humble lives. When the returned Indian functionary
+abandoned all other pursuits and plainly showed his mad craving to
+follow Valerie Delavigne everywhere, then the younger sister had learned
+of his rank, of his long leave and wealth and future prospects. The man
+was most personable then. He was of a solid rank and a brilliant civil
+position, and the penniless daughters of the dead Colonel Delavigne were
+now reduced to a few hundred francs. The hand of Misery was upon them,
+poor and friendless. Alixe, with a shudder, recalled the two years of
+silence, since the ardent Pierre Troubetskoi had whispered to beautiful
+Valerie Delavigne in Paris: "I go to Russia, but I will soon return and
+you must wait for me!"
+
+Day by day, when the skies grew darker, Valerie Delavigne had gazed
+with a haunting sorrow in her eyes, at her helpless sister. Some strange
+possessing desire had urged Hugh Fraser on to woo and win the helpless
+French beauty, whom an adverse fate had stranded in England. The mute
+sacrifice of the wedding was followed by the two years of Valerie's
+loveless marriage. It was an existence for the two sisters, bought by
+the sacrifice of one and Troubetskoi never had written!
+
+Sitting alone, waiting for the morrow, to face Hugh Fraser once more,
+Alixe Delavigne recalled, with a vow of vengeance, that sad past, the
+slow breaking of the butterfly, the revelation of all Hugh Fraser's
+cold-hearted tyranny, the sway of his demoniac jealousy--jealous, even,
+of a sister's innocent love. And that last miserable scene, on the eve
+of their projected voyage to India, when the maddened tyrant discovered
+Pierre Troubetskoi's long-belated letter, returned once more to madden
+her. Fraser had simply raged in a demoniac passion.
+
+For the mistake of a life was at last revealed when that one letter
+came! The letter addressed to the wife as Valerie Delavigne, which had
+followed them slowly upon their travels, and, by a devil's decree, had
+fallen, by a spy-servant's trick, into Hugh Fraser's hands. It mattered
+not that the coming lover was even yet ignorant of the miserable
+marriage. The envelope, with its address, was missing, when the long
+pages of burning tenderness were read by the infuriated husband. "I have
+been buried a year in the snows of Siberia," wrote Pierre, "upon the
+secret service of the Czar. I was ill of a fever for long months upon my
+return, and now I am coming to take you to my heart, never to be parted
+any more." The address of his banker in Paris, all the plans for
+their voyage to Russia, even the tender messages to the sister of his
+love--all these were the last goad to a maddened man, whose raging
+invective and brutal violence drove a weeping woman out into the
+cheerless night. He deemed her the Russian's cherished mistress. With a
+shudder Alixe Delavigne recalled the white face of the discarded mother,
+whose babe slumbered in peace, while the half-demented woman fled away
+to the shelter of the house of an old French nurse.
+
+The morrow, when Hugh Fraser bade her also leave his house forever, was
+pictured again in her mind, and the insolent gift of the hundred-pound
+note, with the words, "Go and find your sister! Never darken my door
+again!" She had taken that money and used it to save her sister's life.
+
+The darkened sick-chamber, the flight across the channel, and the rugged
+path which led Valerie, at last, to die in peace in Pierre Troubetskoi's
+arms--all this returned to the resolute avenger of a sister who had
+died, dreaming of the little childish face hidden from her forever, "He
+shall pay the price of his safety to the uttermost farthing, to the last
+little humiliation," she cried, starting up as Alan Hawke stood before
+her, for the hour of ten had stolen upon her. "Nadine shall love her
+mother, and that love shall bridge the silent gulf of Death!"
+
+"You have been agitated?" he gently said, for there were tell-tale tears
+upon her lashes. "Tell me, is it victory or defeat?"
+
+"I shall see my sister's child, to-morrow," the Lady of Jitomir bravely
+said. "And he--the man of the iron heart--shall conduct me to his house
+in honor." There was that shining on her transfigured face which made
+Alan Hawke murmur:
+
+"There is a great love here--greater than the hate which demands an eye
+for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."
+
+He waited, abashed and silent, for his strange employer's orders of the
+day.
+
+"Is there anything I can do for you to-morrow?" said Alan Hawke. "Do
+you find your arrangements convenient for you here in every way?" The
+respectful tone of his manner touched Berthe Louison's heart. He was
+beginning to win his way to her regard by judiciously effacing himself.
+
+"I am entirely at home, thanks to your thoughtful provision," she
+smiled. "There is nothing to-night. Have you seen Johnstone?" Her dark
+eyes were steadfastly fixed upon him now.
+
+"Yes; he sent for me. He is very much agitated and, I should say, he is
+almost at your mercy. But beware of an apparent surrender on his part.
+He is--capable of anything!"
+
+"I know it. I am on my guard," slowly replied Berthe Louison. She saw
+that Alan Hawke had spoken the truth to her--even with some mental
+reservations. "To-morrow morning will determine my public relations with
+Hugh Johnstone. Come to me to-morrow night, and do not be surprised if
+we meet as guests at Hugh Johnstone's table. You must only meet me as a
+stranger. I may leave here for a few days, and then I will place you in
+charge of my interests in my absence."
+
+The Major gravely replied:
+
+"You may depend upon me wherever you may wish to call upon me."
+
+"Strange mutability of womanhood," he mused a half hour later as he
+left the lady's side. "There is a woman whom I should not care to
+face tomorrow morning if I were in Hugh Johnstone's shoes." It was the
+renegade's last verdict as he slept the sleep of the prosperous. The
+Willoughby dinner and his own feast now occupied his attention, for his
+mysterious employer had bade him to eat, drink, and be merry.
+
+At ten o'clock the next day the "gilded youth" of the Delhi Club all
+knew that Hugh Johnstone had betaken himself to the Silver Bungalow, in
+the carriage of the woman whose beauty was now an accepted fact. Hugely
+delighted, these ungodly youth winked in merry surmises as to the
+relationship between the budding Baronet and the hidden Venus. Even bets
+as to discreetly "distant relationship," or a forthcoming crop of late
+orange blossoms were the order of the day. But silent among the merry
+throng, the handsome Major, making his due call of ceremony upon General
+Willoughby, denied all knowledge of the designs of either of the high
+contracting parties.
+
+In due state, escorted by the alert Jules Victor, Hugh Johnstone entered
+the Silver Bungalow, to find his Cassandra silently awaiting him. There
+was no memory of the happenings of the day before in her unconstrained
+greeting. The door of the strategic cabinet was ajar, but the tottering
+visitor had no fears of an ambush. For Madame Alixe Delavigne calmly
+said: "Jules, you may remain within call, in the hall."
+
+The old nabob's heart leaped up in a welcome relief at this command. His
+wrinkled face was of the hue of yellowed ivory, and his cold blue eyes
+were weak and watery, as he heavily lurched into a chair facing his
+hostess. Courage and craft had not failed him, for already Douglas
+Fraser was speeding on to Delhi from Calcutta, the sole occupant of
+a special train. In the long vigil of the night, Hugh Johnstone had
+evolved a plan to ward off the blow of the sword of Fate! But watchfully
+silent he awaited his enemy's conversational attack.
+
+"Damn her! I will outwit her yet!" he silently swore.
+
+"Before you give me your answer, Hugh Fraser," said the calm-voiced
+woman, "I wish to tell you again what, in your mad jealousy, you would
+not believe. I swear to you that Pierre Troubetskoi's letter, written to
+my dead sister, was written in ignorance of her marriage with you. The
+frightful scenes of the carnage of Paris had tossed us to and fro, and
+the careless destruction of the envelope, addressed to my sister under
+her maiden name, prevented me from proving her innocence as a wife.
+Pierre Troubetskoi had long known my father, who had been an attache in
+Russia. He was Valerie's knightly suitor. And he fell into the estates
+which now burden me with wealth, while absent upon the Czar's secret
+affairs. My gallant old father was sacrificed to the frenzy of the time;
+his soldier's face betrayed him, his rosette of the Legion doomed him,
+Troubetskoi's letter to our father demanding Valerie's hand was returned
+to the writer, through the Russian Legation, a year later, after the
+reorganization of the Paris Post-office. I do not ask you to believe
+this, but by the God of Heaven, it is my warrant for forcing myself to
+the side of my dead sister's child. She shall yet have every acre and
+every rouble that Pierre Troubetskoi would have given to this child
+whom you hide. My sister died with her empty arms stretched to Heaven,
+imploring God for her child. And now, what terms will you make with me.
+In the one case, an armed peace; in the other, 'war to the knife!'"
+
+"What would you have?" he stubbornly muttered. "You seek my ruin."
+
+"I do not!" solemnly answered Berthe Louison. "God has blasted your life
+in denying you the love of your own child. You rule her by fear. You, in
+your selfish passion, once reached out your strong hand and crushed this
+girl's mother, a poor, fragile flower, in her girlhood. Valerie believed
+Pierre to be dead or false when she timidly crossed the threshold of
+the wedded home which you made a prison for her! You only care for
+this bubble Baronetcy and for your heaped-up hoards. The tribute of
+the shrieking ryot! Now, here are my terms: I will go down with you to
+Calcutta, and deliver over to you there the receipt for the deposit of
+jewels which holds back your coveted honor. You may do with them as you
+will! A visit to the Viceroy will at once clear the path. Tell any story
+you will of their recovery. An underling's unfaithfulness or the loss of
+the paper. You may remove them and surrender them as you will. Perhaps a
+fanciful discovery of their hiding-place here, their surrender by Hindu
+thieves, frightened at last; any of these conventional lies will clear
+your official record of the olden stain. Long years ago I would have
+treated with you, but I wanted to find the child. You hid her away from
+me. I found you out by chance in your changed name and new official
+residence."
+
+"And your terms?" demanded Johnstone. He saw, with lightning cunning, a
+pathway leading him out of his troubles. The vigil of the night before
+had borne its fruit already.
+
+"That I have free access to your house and home. That I shall be the
+honored guest at your table. That I shall be left in no dubious social
+standing here. That I may see your daughter, learn to know her, and you
+may prudently arrange the story I am to tell her later. As Madame Berthe
+Louison, a tourist of wealth, an art dilettante, a French woman of rank
+and position, your social guaranty will keep the pack of human wolves
+away from my retreat here. I have my papers to prove all this."
+
+"When must this be? Before I receive the jewels? Before my title to the
+baronetcy is perfected? What guaranty have I?" he replied.
+
+"My honor alone! I pledge you now that I will not make myself known to
+Nadine until you have received the jewels and the Crown has obtained its
+long sequestered property. We are to come back here together. The
+future relations can be decided upon when I have satisfied my natural
+affection; when your innocently besmirched record has been righted."
+Hugh Johnstone's silvered head was bowed for a long interval in his
+trembling hands. "You will not betray me to the authorities, when all is
+done? Your lips shall be sealed as to the past?" Alixe Delavigne bowed
+in silence. "Then I accept your terms upon one condition only: That
+until we return from Calcutta, you will only see Nadine in my presence
+or in that of Mademoiselle Delande, her governess. It is only fair. When
+you have restored to me the jewels, you can then concert with me upon a
+plan to enlighten Nadine, with no scandal to me, no heart-break to her.
+The slightest gossip as to a family skeleton reaching the Viceroy or the
+home authorities would lead to my public disgrace."
+
+Alixe Delavigne paced the room in silence for a few moments, while Hugh
+Johnstone's eyes were fixed upon the opened cabinet whence Jules Victor
+had so fiercely sprung forth as a champion.
+
+"Be it so!" sternly replied Alixe Delavigne. "And may God confound and
+punish the one who breaks the pact."
+
+"When do you wish to come? When can you go to Calcutta? I would like
+to hasten matters," demanded the old nabob, with his eyes averted. The
+beautiful woman paused, and after a moment replied:
+
+"To-morrow, come here and bring me to your house to dine. This afternoon
+you may call here and drive me over Delhi in your carriage. This will
+set a public seal upon our acquaintance. My maid can accompany us. This
+done, I will go to Calcutta with my two European servants, as you wish.
+You can take the train on either the preceding or the following day. It
+will avoid both spies and gossip."
+
+"I will go before you and await you!" eagerly said Hugh Johnstone,
+rising. "I will ask another person to dine with us to-morrow, and this
+evening I will prepare my daughter for the dinner, so that your coming
+will be no surprise to her. Shall I bring my carriage here at four
+to-day?"
+
+"I will await you," gravely said Alixe Delavigne, as she bowed in answer
+to her guest's formal signal of departure.
+
+An hour later Jules Victor reported to his mistress: "We drove to the
+telegraph office, where I awaited the gentleman for some time, and then
+we repaired to his home."
+
+There was a disgruntled man whose curses upon his kinsman's changing
+moods were both loud and deep when Douglas Fraser received a telegram
+that night at Allahabad. "Is the old man crazy?" he demanded, as he
+read the words: "Wait at Allahabad for me. Keep shady. With you in three
+days. Telegraph your address." The canny young Scot thought of a coming
+legacy and obeyed the head of his clan.
+
+Madame Berthe Louison, as Delhi was destined to know her, lingered long
+over her afternoon driving toilet. There was a recurring fear which made
+her tremble. "Would Hugh Johnstone divulge the facts as to the jewels
+to the Viceroy, and so gain his free rehabilitation-and then defy her?
+No-no! He never would dare!" she answered. "My agents are even now
+watching that bank. The bank would never give up the sealed packages
+contents unknown, save on surrender of the carefully drawn receipts."
+And then Berthe remembered her own secret work at Calcutta. The
+Grindlays knew of the surreptitious attempts made by the plausible Hugh
+Fraser to withdraw the deposit long before the baronetcy episode. And
+Berthe laughed, in memory of her capture of the receipts in the old days
+at Brighton, while looking for the stolen letter.
+
+Long before that rising star of fashion, Major Alan Hawke, returned from
+General Willoughby's delightful dinner upon the day of Hugh Johnstone's
+crafty surrender, he knew that Hugh Johnstone had astounded Delhi by a
+personal exploitation of the Lady of the Silver Bungalow.
+
+"By Gad! Hawke!" roared old Brigadier Willoughby, with his mouth full of
+chutney, "Johnstone is going the pace! First he produces a daughter, a
+hidden treasure, and now this wonderfully beautiful French countess."
+
+"I suppose, General," lightly said the Major, "the old nabob will marry
+and retire to Europe on his coming baronetcy."
+
+"Likely enough!" sputtered Willoughby. "You lucky young dog. I suppose
+you are in the secret?"
+
+But neither that night, nor two days later, at Major Hawke's superb
+dinner at the Delhi Club, did the jeunesse doree of the old capital
+extract an admission from that mysterious "secret service" man, Major
+Alan Hawke. "You cannot deny, Hawke, that you dined at the marble house
+with the beauty whom we are all toasting," said a rallying roisterer.
+"And--with the Veiled Rose of Delhi!" said another, still more eagerly.
+
+"It is true, gentlemen" gravely said Major Hawke, "that I was invited to
+dinner at the marble house, but Madame Louison is a stranger to me,
+and I believe a tourist of some rank. It was merely a formal affair.
+I believe that she brought letters from Paris to Hugh Johnstone." Late
+that night Alan Hawke laughed, as he pocketed his winnings at baccarat.
+"Three hundred pounds to the good! I'm a devil for luck!" And he sat
+down in his room to think over all the events of a day which had half
+turned his head. Warned by Justine Delande that Madame Louison was
+bidden to dine with Hugh Johnstone, Alan Hawke closely interrogated her.
+She evidently knew and suspected nothing. "Ah! Berthe plays a lone hand
+against the world," he smiled.
+
+His mysterious employer had merely bidden him be ready to meet her
+there, without surprise. There was as yet no lightning move up on the
+chess board, and in vain he studied her resolute, smiling face. "All I
+can tell you," murmured Justine to her handsome Mentor, in the seclusion
+of Ram Lal's back room, "is that this Madame Berthe Louison comes to
+spend the day in looking over Hugh Johnstone's art treasures. Nadine and
+I are to meet her, with the master. Do you know aught of her?"
+
+"Nothing, dear Justine," unhesitatingly lied Alan Hawke. "Watch her and
+tell me all."
+
+"I will," smilingly replied the Swiss. "I have a strange fear that Hugh
+Johnstone has known her before, that he intends to marry her, and then
+to send us two, Nadine and I, away to a quiet life in Europe." Whereupon
+Alan Hawke laughed loud and long.
+
+"She is only a bird of passage, some wealthy globe wanderer, perhaps
+even a sly adventuress. No, old Johnstone will not tempt Fortune."
+
+"He has been so unusually amiable," agnostically said Justine. "Of
+course he could hide such a design easily from Nadine, who knows nothing
+of love."
+
+"She will learn! She will learn--in due time," laughed Hawke. "There is
+but one thing possible. This whole pretended visit may be a sham--she
+may even be the belle amie of this old curmudgeon."
+
+"I will watch all three of them! You shall know all!" murmured Justine,
+as she stole away, not without the kisses of her secret knight burning
+upon her lips.
+
+"What a consummate actress!" mused Alan Hawke, when, for the first time,
+since Nadine Johnstone's arrival, a formal dinner party enlivened the
+dull monotony of the marble house. The round table, set for five, gave
+Hugh Johnstone the strategic advantage of separating his secret enemy
+from his blushing daughter. Hawke demurely paid his devoirs to Madame
+Justine Delande, with a finely studied inattention to either the guest
+of the evening or the beautiful girl who only murmured a few words when
+presented to her father's only visitor. "I wonder if Justine, poor soul,
+will see the resemblance?" It had been a triumph of art, Madame Berthe
+Louison's magnificent dinner toilette, those rich robes which effaced
+the opening-rose beauty of the slim girl in the simplicity of her rare
+Indian lawn frock. Rich color and flowers and diamonds heightened the
+splendid loveliness of the woman who "looked like a queen in a play that
+night."
+
+Alas, for Justine Delande, she was so busied with her mute telegraphy to
+Alan Hawke that she never saw the startling family likeness of the two
+women so eagerly watched by Hugh Johnstone. But the keen-eyed Alan Hawke
+saw the girl's fascinated gaze. He noted her virginal bosom heaving in
+a new and strange emotion. He marked the tender challenge of her dreamy
+eyes as Berthe Louison's loving soul spoke out to the radiant young
+beauty only held away from her heart by the stern old skeleton at the
+feast.
+
+The long-drawn-out splendors of the feast were over, and the ladies had,
+at last, retired. Hawke observed the stony glare with which Johnstone
+whispered a few words of command to Justine Delande, when the two men
+sought the smoking-room.
+
+The door was hardly closed upon them when the coffee and cigars were
+served, when Johnstone, striding forward, locked the door.
+
+"See here, Hawke!" abruptly said the host "I want you to serve me
+to-night, and to stand by me while this she-devil is in Delhi. I've
+got to run down to Calcutta on business for a few days. She will not be
+here. She has some business of her own down there, also. First, find
+out for me, for God's sake, all about her. How she came here; where
+she hides in Europe; who her friends are. When you are able to, you can
+follow her over the world. I'll foot the bill, as the Yankees say.
+
+"Now, to-night, I wish you to take your leave conventionally. Get away
+at once, and go immediately and telegraph to Anstruther in London. No,
+don't deny you are intimate with him. I know it. Telegraph him that I am
+in a position, now, to trace out and restore those missing jewels. The
+secret of their hiding is mine at last. Here's a hundred pounds. Don't
+spare your words. Within a month they will be in the hands of the
+Viceroy. I have to play a part to get them--a dangerous part. I pledge
+my whole estate to back this. But I must have my Baronetcy so that I
+can leave India, for I fear the vengeance of the devils who robbed the
+captured Princes of Oude.
+
+"Once in England, I am safe. I'll not leave till I get the Baronetcy,
+and the jewels will not be delivered up until I get it. I am closely
+watched here."
+
+Hawke's eyes burned fiercely. "And if I was to take the train and tell
+the Viceroy this?" he boldly said.
+
+"Then I would say that you had lied--that is all."
+
+"What do I get?" coolly demanded Hawke.
+
+"Five thousand pounds the day that I get my Baronetcy," quietly replied
+Johnstone.
+
+"I'll not do it," hotly cried Hawke. "You might say I lied," he sneered.
+"I want it now!"
+
+The two men glared at each other in a mutual distrust. Hugh Johnstone
+pondered a moment, and said deliberately:
+
+"I'll give you five accepted drafts for a thousand pounds each, when
+I return from Calcutta, on Glyn, Carr & Glyn, my London bankers, dated
+thirty days apart. That will make you sure of your money, and me, sure
+of my Baronetcy. Will you act?" Hawke knocked the ash off his Havana
+lightly.
+
+"Yes, if you give me a thousand pounds cash bonus now! I am deliberately
+misleading Anstruther to help you. And I risk my own place to do it."
+
+"All right," said Johnstone as he left the room, and in a few moments
+returned with a check-book. "There's your thousand pounds. Now listen.
+Not a word to old General Willoughby. He is a meddlesome old sot. I
+shall slip away quietly. To deceive the Delhi scandal-mongers you must
+call here every day in my absence. Mademoiselle Delande will receive
+you. My daughter, of course, sees no one in my absence. And you can
+inform Delhi secretly, guardedly, that Madame Berthe Louison is an art
+enthusiast, a Frenchwoman of rank and fortune, and one who, in her short
+stay, only studies the wonders of old Oude. I don't want this damned
+pack of local lady-killers--the lobster-backs--to get after her. Do you
+understand? I'll have further use for you. I may retire to Europe. You
+can trust the Swiss woman. I will give her my orders."
+
+"All right! I will go and telegraph as soon as I can make my adieux.
+When do you start for Calcutta?" Hawke asked warily.
+
+"The moment you get Anstruther's reply," decisively replied Johnstone.
+"I'll be away for a couple of weeks in all!" Hawke turned paler than
+his wont, but he mused in silence and cheerfully finished his coffee
+and cognac. In half an hour, he left an aching void in Justine Delande's
+bosom, but some subtle magnetism had so drawn Berthe Louison and the
+heart-stirred Justine together that Hugh Johnstone was happy, when, with
+courtly gallantry, he escorted the beauty, who had set Delhi all agog,
+to her garden-bowered nest.
+
+"Have I kept my compact?" said Berthe, as they stood once more in her
+"tiger's den."
+
+"You have, madame!" said Hugh Johnstone. "I have been considering all.
+I will leave secretly for Calcutta in two or three days. You had better
+follow me in a week. I have some private business there. I will ask
+my friend, Major Hawke, to show you the environs. You can trust him.
+Telegraph me to Grindlay's Bank, Calcutta, of your arrival. I will meet
+you. Our business transacted, we can return together on the same train.
+All will then be safe." His own secret preparations were all made.
+
+"I agree to all," said Berthe. "And, as to Nadine?"
+
+Johnstone turned with blazing eyes, "You are to see her each day, at her
+own home, in the presence of Justine Delande. She will have my orders.
+Remember our compact! All your future association with her depends on
+your prudence. I will not be betrayed or openly disgraced!" His face was
+as black as a murderer caught in the act.
+
+"I remember!" said the beauty of the Bungalow.
+
+"To mystify the fools here, if I will bring my daughter and take you for
+a drive, each day at four, till I go," said Johnstone. "And, then,
+I'll have Hawke show you the city." He bowed, and at once disappeared,
+leaving his enemy laughing. But he grinned.
+
+"If she knew that I go to meet Douglas Fraser, my lady would pass an
+uneasy night! I hold the trump cards now!"
+
+Major Alan Hawke smiled grimly the next day, when he presented to Hugh
+Johnstone a neatly got up cipher, answering dispatch in code words which
+had cost Ram Lal just half of the bribe which Hawke gave him for the sly
+Hindu telegraph clerk.
+
+"Ah! Anstruther was prompt!" said the neatly tricked nabob, when Hawke
+translated:
+
+"Intelligence gratifying. Name approved and on list. Appointment sure!"
+Three days later, Delhi missed Hugh Johnstone from the afternoon drives,
+which showed Madame Louison and Nadine to an eager bevy of Madame
+Grundys. But the envied of all men was Major Alan Hawke, escorting
+Madame Louison for a week over the storied plains of the Jumna.
+
+When Madame Berthe Louison and her two body servants took the Calcutta
+train, local society jumped to its sage conclusion.
+
+"Old Hugh will lead the beautiful Countess to the altar, while Major
+Alan Hawke will bear off the Rosebud of Delhi, and so become the
+richest son-in-law in India." But the handsome Alan Hawke, each morning
+lingering with Justine Delande in the grounds of the marble house,
+never saw the face of Nadine Johnstone. The beautiful girl breathlessly
+awaited her new-made friend's return. But stern old Hugh Johnstone, at
+Calcutta, laughed as he thought of his own secret coup de main.
+
+"Wait! Wait till I return!" he gloated. "She is powerless now!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. HARRY HARDWICKE TAKES THE GATE NEATLY.
+
+
+
+In the few days succeeding Hugh Johnstone's still unsuspected departure,
+the dull fires of a growing jealousy burned and smouldered in Captain
+Harry Hardwicke's agitated heart. The old nabob had neatly slipped away
+in the night, on a special engine, and the Captain heard all the growing
+tattle of Delhi, as to the social activity at the marble house. The
+open hospitable board of General Willoughby rang with the very wildest
+rumors. Alan Hawke seemed to be the "Prince Charming" of the hidden
+festivities.
+
+Hardwicke, on the eve of his Majority, now darkly moped in his rooms,
+undecided to apply for a long home leave, unwilling to leave Delhi, and
+even afraid to ask his general for any positive favor as to a future
+station. Club and mess bandied the freest tattle as to old Hugh
+Johnstone's lovely "importation." Men eyed the prosperous Major Alan
+Hawke on his rising pathway with a growing envy. There was a smart
+coterie who now firmly believed that the Major's only "secret business"
+was to marry the Rose of Delhi, and then, departing on an extended
+honeymoon, leave the "Diamond Nabob," as the ci-devant Hugh Fraser was
+called, free to proclaim Madame Berthe Louison, queen of the marble
+house, and sharer of his expected dignity, the crown of his life, the
+long-coveted Baronetcy. When old Major Verner growled:
+
+"That's the scheme, Hardwicke! My Lady of France makes the condition
+that the young heiress shall be settled first. Gad! What a lucky dog
+Hawke is!" Then, Harry Hardwicke suddenly discovered that he loved the
+moonlight beauty of his dreams--the fair veiled Rose of Delhi. Hawke
+rose up as a darkly menacing cloud on his future.
+
+His morning rides were now but keen inspections of the Commissioner's
+garden, and, lingering on the Chandnee Chouk, he knew, by experiments,
+conducted with a beating heart, just where Justine Delande was wont
+to wander in the lonely labyrinth, with her lovely young charge. A low
+double gate, a break in the high stone wall, often gave him glimpses
+of the two women in their morning rambles and, with a softened feeling,
+born of her own secret passion for Hawke, Justine Delande watched a
+fluttering handkerchief often answer Captain Hardwicke's morning salute.
+
+"Tell me, Justine," said Nadine, the morning after Hugh Johnstone had
+stolen away, "Why does my father not ask Major Hardwicke to visit us? He
+is to be promoted for his superb gallantry, he is so brave--so noble! He
+certainly has as many claims to honor as this--this Major Hawke--whom my
+father has made his confidant. I don't know why, but I don't like that
+man!"
+
+"What do you know of Major Hardwicke, as you call him?" cried Justine in
+wonder at Miss Nadine's growing interest.
+
+"Ah!" the agitated girl cried with blushing cheeks, "Mrs. Willoughby
+told me how he dragged his wounded friend out of a storm of Afghan
+balls, and gave her back the child of her heart. It was General
+Willoughby who got him his Victoria Cross. And, she says that he is
+a hero, he is so gentle and manly--so gifted--a man destined to be a
+commanding general yet." The guilty Swiss woman dared not raise her eyes
+to watch the fleeting blushes on Nadine's cheeks.
+
+"It is time, high time we leave India," she mused, and then, the thought
+of separation from Alan Hawke chilled her blood. "Let us go in," she
+said. "The grass is damp yet." Captain Hardwicke's argus eyes, love
+inspired, were now daily fixed on the marble house. He scoured Delhi and
+amassed a pyramid of detached fragmentary gossip in all his alarm, but
+one star of hope cheered him. Though Major Hawke was known as the only
+cavalier of Madame Louison, save the old nabob, now supposed to be ill
+at home; though Hawke drove out for a week with the lovely countess--to
+the great surprise of the local society, the handsome renegade had never
+once been seen in public with Miss Nadine Johnstone. Stranger still, the
+star-eyed Madame Berthe Louison had never accompanied the young heiress
+in the regular afternoon parade en voiture. "There's a mystery
+here," mused the lover. "Old Hugh and the Major appear daily with the
+Frenchwoman, but Nadine Johnstone has never been seen alone with anyone
+save her father, or this Swiss duenna. Hawke is making slow progress
+there, if any." Meeting old Simpson, the nabob's butler, Captain
+Hardwicke tipped him with a five-pound note. The old retired soldier
+grinned and opened his confidence.
+
+"The Major! Bless your stars!" gabbled Simpson, "She's a straightaway
+angel, and not for the likes of him! Major Hawke has a dark spot or two
+in his record--away back!" grumbled Simpson, "No, Captain! Major Hawke
+has never set eyes on her for a single moment, but the one night of that
+dinner. By the way, it is the only one we ever gave!" The butler swelled
+up proudly.
+
+"That night she never lifted her eyes, nor spoke even a word to him. He
+comes to see the Guv'nor on business, an' mighty private business it is.
+They're locked up together often."
+
+"And, this marrying? The stories are now told everywhere?" queried
+Hardwicke, blushing, but desperately remembering that "all is fair in
+love and war." He, an incipient Major, a V. C.--"pumping" an old private
+soldier.
+
+"Rank rot!" frankly said the butler, "They're all strangers. The French
+countess is only sight-seeing here and buying out old Ram Lal's shop.
+The old thief! She brought letters to the Guv'nor! That's all! He's no
+special fancy to her, and he set Major Hawke on just to do the amiable.
+The Guv'nor's far too old to beau the lady around. Marry?--not him! And
+Miss Nadine's just as silent as a flower in one of them gold vases. All
+she does is to look pretty and keep still, poor lamb. Her music, her
+books, her flowers, her birds. And as to Major Hawke and this Madame
+Louison--I've the Guv'nor's own orders they are never to see Miss
+Nadine. That is, Hawke not at all, and the lady only when Miss Delande
+is present! Them's my solid orders, and the old Guv'nor put my eye
+out with a ten-pound note--the first I ever got from him. No, Captain!
+You've done the handsome by me, and I give you the straight tip--wasn't
+I in the old Eighth Hussars with your father when we charged the rebel
+camp at Lucknow? I've got a tulwar yet that I cut out of the hand of a
+'pandy' who was hacking away at Colonel Hardwicke."
+
+"How did you get it, Simpson?" cried the young Captain.
+
+"I got arm and all! Took it off with a right cut! You may know, Cap'n,
+that we ground our sabers in those old days! No, sir! Miss Nadine's for
+none of them people, and Hawke is only in the house for business. He's a
+deep one--is that same Hawke," concluded Simpson, pocketing his note.
+
+Captain Hardwicke began to see the light dawning. "Alan Hawke has then
+some secret business scheme with the old money grubber that's all,"
+mused the young engineer officer, happy at heart. "I'll fight a bit shy
+of him. His scheme may take the girl in. So, old Johnstone's away a few
+days. Perhaps settling his affairs before his departure. I think," the
+lover mused, "I will follow them to Europe, if they go, and, if they
+stay, Willoughby will ask for my retention, and, after all, 'faint heart
+never won fair lady.' Hawke is not an open suitor. If the old man should
+ever marry this French beauty, I may find the pathway open to Nadine
+Johnstone's side!"
+
+So, with a "fighting chance," Captain Hardwicke determined that Miss
+Nadine should know his heart before long, and have also a chance to know
+her own mind. "The fact is, the old boy has lived the life of a recluse,
+that's all, but I'll find a way to pierce the shell of his moroseness.
+There's one comfort," he smiled, "No other fellow is making any
+running."
+
+In these swiftly gliding days of absence, Ram Lal Singh and the watchful
+Major Alan Hawke conferred at length over narghileh and glass. A sullen
+discontent had settled down on Hawke's brow when Berthe Louison publicly
+departed upon her business trip with not even a fragmentary confidence.
+
+"Wait for my return, and only watch the marble house," said the Madame.
+"Do not be foolish enough to attempt to call on Miss Nadine. I heard
+Johnstone tell the Swiss woman not to allow you to follow up any social
+acquaintance with his daughter. 'I want Nadine to remain a girl as yet,'
+growled the old brute. Now, the Swiss woman may be able to give you some
+information."
+
+"I'll do what I can," carelessly replied Alan Hawke, but his eyes
+gleamed when she said:
+
+"Do not sulk in your tent. On my return I shall have need of you. You
+can prepare to go into action then."
+
+"Where shall I address you at Calcutta?" demanded Hawke. "Something
+might happen."
+
+"Ah," smiled Berthe Louison. "Nothing will happen. Not a line, not
+a telegram; send nothing, come what will! I return here soon, and,
+besides, Old Johnstone might watch and intercept it. Remember, we do not
+know each other. It would be a fatal mistake to write." And so she went
+quietly on her way. The house was locked, the Indian servants having the
+Madame's orders to admit no one, on any pretense. "Damn her!" growled
+Alan Hawke, when the door was shut in his face. "She feared I would
+give her away to Johnstone. No address! Not a line or a telegram! Only
+wait--only wait!"
+
+Ram Lal infuriated him later with the news that nothing could be learned
+from the baffled spies of the household in the Silver Bungalow as to the
+first or second interwiew of Johnstone and the resolute Alixe Delavigne.
+"Money will not do it! Not a lac of rupees. The Frenchman and woman
+never leave her day or night. He is on guard with weapons and a night
+light at her door, and the maid sleeps in the room.
+
+"And she has other secret helpers!" groaned the baffled Ram Lal. "She is
+writing and receiving letters all the time. And yet none of these
+come or go by the post. She does not trust you, Major," said the jewel
+merchant, with a cruel gleam of his dark eyes. "I believe that she
+is some old love of Sahib Johnstone. They have deep dealings. She has
+bought a great store of jewels and trinkets from me."
+
+"Hell and fury! I've been duped!" cried Hawke. "I see it. That damned
+Frenchman takes and brings the letters! But who is her local go-between?
+Perhaps the French Consul at Calcutta, or some banker here! I can't buy
+them all. She only needs me in case of a violent rupture with Johnstone.
+Damn her stony-hearted impertinence!"
+
+And he mentally resolved to sell her out and out to the liberal old
+nabob. "He might then give his daughter to me for peace and safety. But
+I've got to do the trick before he finds out the falsity of Anstruther's
+so-called telegram. And, first, I must have something to sell. She is
+the devil's own for sly nerve, is my lady."
+
+"She is too smart for us, as yet," soothingly said Ram Lal. "But wait;
+wait till they return! Pay me well and I will find out all that goes on.
+I can always get into the marble house at night. At any time, I may spy
+on old Johnstone and get the secret there. I have a couple of men of my
+own in his house. They know where to leave a door, a window, an opened
+sash for me. And at the Silver Bungalow, I can go in and out secretly by
+day and night. She would not know. You would not wish anything to happen
+to her?" The old jewel merchant's voice was darkly suggestive.
+
+"No! Devil take her!" cried Hawke. "What I want to know is hidden in her
+crafty head and stony heart. Death would bury it forever. Nothing must
+happen either to her or to him. It would spoil the whole game. Don't you
+see, Ram Lal, there's money in this for you and me just as long as we
+keep them all here under our hands. If they separate--even if one goes
+to Europe--you can watch one and I the other. You can always frighten
+money out of old Johnstone if we tell each other all, and I can follow
+that woman over Europe and dog her till she is driven crazy. She will
+fear me just as long as old Hugh Johnstone is alive, for I could
+sell her out to him. No one else cares. They must both live to be
+our bankers. Now tell me, why did either or both of them go to
+Calcutta--what for?" Ram Lal figuratively washed his hands in invisible
+water.
+
+"Running water, passing silently, leaves no story behind, Sahib," he
+said, simply. "We have not caught our eels yet. But they are both coming
+back into our eel pot." And as the days dragged on Alan Hawke beguiled
+the time with the most energetic inroads into Justine Delande's heart.
+
+"Some one must break the line of the enemy," darkly mused Alan Hawke, as
+in the unrestrained intimacy of their long, morning rides, he influenced
+the Swiss woman's heart, love-tortured, to a greater passionate
+surrender.
+
+"It maybe all in all to me, in my secret career, your future fidelity,"
+he pleaded. '"It will be all in all to you, and to your sister. There
+will be your home, the friendship of an enormously rich woman! The girl
+will have a million pounds! And you and I, Justine, shall not be cast
+off, as one throws away an old sandal." The cowering woman clung closer
+daily to the man who now molded her will to his own.
+
+The absence of Johnstone and Madame Louison seemed confirmation of the
+rumors of coming bridals.
+
+"They will come back, as man and wife!" growled old Verner, to Captain
+Hardwicke, "and then, look out for a second bridal! Hawke and the
+heiress!" But Harry Hardwicke only smiled and bided his time. His daily
+morning ride led him to the double gateway, to at least nearby the
+isolation of the lovely Rose who was filling his heart with all beauty
+and brightness.
+
+Major Alan Hawke had withdrawn himself into a stately solitude at the
+Club. His evenings were spent with Ram Lal, and his mornings with the
+deluded Justine, who dared not now write to the calm-faced preceptress
+in Geneva how far the tide of love had swept her on. In the long
+afternoons, Major Hawke was apparently busied with the "dispatches"
+which duly mystified the Club quid mines, as they were ostentatiously
+displayed in the letter-box. No one but Ram Lal knew of the abstraction
+from the mail, and destruction of these carefully sealed envelopes of
+blank paper. But the thieving mail clerk in their secret pay, laughed as
+he consigned them later to the flames.
+
+The astute Major was not aware that he was being daily watched by secret
+agents representing both the absent ones whom he desired to dupe. But a
+daily letter was dispatched by a local banker to a well-known Calcutta
+firm, which reached Madame Louison, and old Hugh Johnstone, busied at
+his lawyers, or sitting alone at night with Douglas Fraser in Calcutta,
+smiled grimly, when he, too, received his data as to Hawke's progress.
+A growing coldness which had cut off Hardwicke's friendship seemed to
+interest Hugh Johnstone. "I suppose that old Willonghby thinks Hawke is
+spying upon him. Just as well!"
+
+There had been a lightning activity in the old man's movements before
+Madame Louison arrived in Calcutta. He was fighting for his future peace
+and his coveted honors. The lawyer with whom he spent his first day was
+astounded at the peculiar nature of the last will and testament which
+the old nabob ordered him to draft at once. "The steamer, Lord Roberts,
+goes to-morrow, and I wish a duplicate to be deposited here in the bank,
+under your care, as I shall write to my senior executor regarding it."
+
+The nabob's remark, "Make your fees what you will. I give you carte
+blanche!" had silenced the remonstrances which rose to the lawyer's
+lips. "I know what I am doing, Hodgkinson," said Hugh Johnstone. "Blood
+is thicker than water! I can trust nothing else. These two men as
+executors will exactly carry out my wishes. In naming a guardian by
+will, for my daughter, I do not forget that she is yet a child at
+eighteen, and, at twenty-one, she may be the destined prey of many a
+fortune hunter! As for my directions and restrictions, I know my own
+mind!"
+
+When Hugh Johnstone, Esq., of Delhi and Calcutta, had seen the fleet
+steamer, Lord Roberts, sail away for London, bearing a carefully
+registered document addressed to "Professor Andrew Fraser, St. Agnes
+Road, St. Heliers, Jersey, Channel Islands, England," he could not
+remember a detail forgotten in the voluminous letters of positive orders
+now also on their way to his distant brother. He smiled grimly as he
+entered the P. and O. office, and, after a private interview with the
+manager, called his nephew, Douglas Fraser, away to a private luncheon.
+They had first visited the one bank, which Johnstone trusted, and there
+deposited a sealed document to the order of "Douglas Fraser, executor."
+The young man had been alarmed at his stern old uncle's curtness, on the
+return trip from Allahabad, his strange manner and his grim silence. But
+he was simply astounded when his nabob relative quietly said:
+
+"I have obtained a six months' leave of absence for you! Let no one know
+of your movements. Leave your rooms and baggage just as they are. I will
+now move in there, and put one of my servants in charge while you are
+gone. I have made my will and named your father as my executor and the
+guardian of my daughter, and you are to succeed, in case of his death!
+There will be a small fortune for you both in the fees, and neither of
+you are forgotten in the will! I have drawn two thousand pounds in notes
+for you, and here is a bank draft on London for three thousand more!"
+The young man was sitting in open-mouthed wonder, when the nabob sharply
+said: "Now! Have your wits about you! I bear all the expenses here,
+and your office pay goes on. You will be promoted on your return. The
+manager of the P. and O. is my lifelong friend."
+
+"What am I to do?" gasped the young man, fearing his uncle was losing
+his wits.
+
+"You are to disappear from Calcutta to-night. Go without a word to a
+living soul! You are neither to write to a soul in India, nor open your
+mouth to a human being, in transit. You are to go by Madras, take
+the first steamer to Brindisi, and then hurry by rail to Paris and
+Granville, and to St. Heliers. You will find your detailed orders
+there with your father. Then stay there, await my orders from here, not
+leaving your father's side, a moment. Now, I tell you again, your future
+fortunes depend upon your exact obedience! I will give you my private
+wishes after we have had luncheon. The only thing that you will have in
+writing is an address to which I wish you to cable each day after you
+land at Brindisi, until you turn over your business to your father. You
+may cable also from Aden and Port Said."
+
+The luncheon was "a short horse and soon curried." For a half an hour
+Hugh Johnstone earnestly whispered to his nephew, whose face was grave
+and ashen. At last the old man concluded, "Here is a letter to use at
+Delhi. There will be a telegram already in the hands of the two parties
+intended.
+
+"'Remember! You are to go, but once, from here to your lodgings. Then
+simply disappear! Take nothing but a mackintosh, an umbrella, and your
+traveling bag. Buy at Madras what you want. Here's a couple of hundred
+pounds. You will find the engine at the station now in waiting for you.
+The whole line is open for you. Do your Delhi work at night. The train
+will be made up for you the very moment you arrive at Delhi. I give you
+just one day to connect with the Rangoon at Madras. You are not for one
+single moment to lose your charge from sight till on the steamer. From
+Brindisi, the directions I have given cover all. Here is an envelope for
+the Swiss woman which will make her your friend. Now go, Douglas! This
+is the foundation of your fortune. If you succeed, you will have all
+I leave behind in India. In case of any trouble in India, telegraph
+instantly to this address, and I will join you at once. Memorize this
+address, and destroy it then! Telegraph to me from Delhi, but only when
+you start. And, when you sail from Madras, only the name of the steamer.
+The trainmen will do the rest. They have their orders already. Is there
+anything else?"
+
+The young man pulled himself together. "It's like the Arabian Nights!"
+
+"Go ahead, now, and show yourself a man!" cried Hugh Johnstone, almost
+in anguish. "I do not wish to see you again until you have earned your
+fortune! One last word: You are to make no explanations whatever!"
+
+The young envoy grasped his kinsman's hands, crying: "You may count on
+me in life and death! I'll do your bidding."
+
+Old Johnstone drank a bottle of pale ale and composedly smoked a
+cheroot, after he had watched the stalwart, rosy young Briton stride
+away on his strange journey. A robust, frank-faced, fine young fellow
+of twenty-six, with the fair brow and clear blue eyes of the "north
+countree," was manly Douglas Fraser.
+
+Toiling resolutely to rise, step by step, in the service of the
+Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company, he had never dreamed of the
+sudden favor of his rich kinsman, and yet, loyal as the good Sir James
+Douglas, he silently took up his quest.
+
+"I can't understand the old gentleman." he mused as he hurried a half
+an hour later into the station, through prudently selected by-streets.
+"There may be some old official entanglement hanging over him yet. Some
+reason why he would quit India quietly, or perhaps some one who owes him
+a grudge. At any rate I'll do my duty to him like a man--to him and to
+the others--like a gentleman."
+
+Hugh Johnstone measuredly betook his way to Douglas Fraser's lodgings.
+
+Before the old man was settled on Douglas's cozy wicker lounge, the
+pilot engine was tearing away with the young voyager, who had simply
+stepped out of his own life to make a sudden fortune.
+
+"Now, damn you, Alixe Delavigne," hoarsely muttered the old man, when
+alone, "I will see you to-morrow! You shall rule me until I get these
+two coffers out of the bank, and until our home-coming at Delhi. Then,
+you jade," he growled, "Ram Lal shall do the business for you, even if
+it costs me ten thousand pounds!" which proves that an old tiger may be
+toothless and yet have left to him strong claws to drag his prey down.
+"Money will do anything in India or anywhere else!" the old nabob
+growled, forgetting that even all the yellow gold of the Rand or the
+gleaming diamonds of the Transvaal will not avail to fill the burned-out
+lamp of life!
+
+The prolonged absence of the embryo Sir Hugh Johnstone was a matter of
+public comment in Delhi, while the knowing ones winked significantly at
+the almost triumphal departure of Madame Berthe Louison, whose special
+car and ample retinue made her a modern European Queen of Sheba. "Tell
+you what, fellows," said "Rattler" Murray, otherwise known as "Red
+Eric, of the Eighth Lancers," "the old Commissioner will return superbly
+'improved and illustrated' with her, a new edition of the standard old
+work. You see, there's a French Consul-General at Calcutta, and then
+and there the matrimonial obsequies will be performed. But I'll give him
+just a year's life," and the gay lieutenant struck an attitude, quoting
+the menacing jargon in "Hamlet":
+
+"In second husband, let me be accurst; None wed the second, but who
+killed the first."
+
+"What infernal rot you do gabble, Murray!" suddenly cried Alan Hawke,
+dropping a double barrier of the newest Times, as he prepared to
+leave the clubroom in disgust. "Hugh Johnstone was only called down to
+Calcutta on some important financial business some days ago, and he went
+there simply to rearrange some of his large investments. Madame Louison
+is only a stranger here, a tourist traveling incognito, and connected
+with some of the best noble families of France." With great dignity
+Major Hawke stalked away to his rooms, leaving the club for a long drive
+in disgust.
+
+By the next evening Madame Berthe Louison had been discovered to be a
+noble relative of the Comte de Chambord, "traveling incognito," and then
+the clacking tongues of gossip rose up in a shrill chorus of greater
+intensity. Immense investments of the Orleans fortunes in Indian
+properties to be managed by Major Alan Hawke were discovered to be the
+object of her Indian tour, with wise old Hugh Johnstone as an infallible
+financial adviser. But Alan Hawke smiled his superior smile and said
+nothing.
+
+All this and more soon reached the ears of Capt. Harry Hardwicke, whose
+fever of gnawing curiosity and romantically born love was now strong
+upon him. A second conference with his old friend Simpson enlightened
+the engineer officer upon many things, as yet "seen in a glass darkly."
+He began to fear that Alan Hawke was growing dangerous as the secret
+juggler in the strange social situation at the marble house. With
+the vise-like memory of an old soldier, Simpson had retained various
+anecdotes not entirely to the credit of the self-promoted Major
+Alan Hawke, and had partly supplied the hiatus between the sudden
+disappearance of the desperate lieutenant, a rake gambler and
+profligate, and the return of the prosperous and debonnaire Major
+en retraite. "Don't let him work too long around Miss Nadine, Major
+Hardwicke," said the wary Simpson. "Sly and quiet as he seems, he's
+surely here for no good. I know him of old. He's forgotten me, though."
+
+That night, the night when Berthe Louison, in her special car was
+nearing Calcutta, at last, Captain Hardwicke was haunted in his dreams
+by the sweet apparition of Nadine Johnstone, and her lovely arms were
+stretched appealingly to him. It was the early dawn when he awoke, and
+sprang blithely from his couch. "If that graceful shade crosses my
+path to-day, I'll speak to it in the flesh--though a dozen Hawkes and a
+hundred crusty fathers forbid," he gayly cried, for his entrancing dream
+had given him a strangely prophetic courage.
+
+In the ambrosial freshness of the morning, a long gallop upon his pet
+charger, "Garibaldi," restored the equilibrium of the young officer's
+nerves. He had neatly taken the strong-limbed cross-country horse over a
+dozen of the old walls out by the Kootab Minar, and with the reins lying
+loosely on Garibaldi's neck, he rode back to the live city by the side
+of its two dead progenitors.
+
+The bustle and hum of awaking Delhi interested him not, for a fond
+unrest led him down to the great walled inclosure of the marble house.
+
+"Shall I see her to-day? Will she be in the garden?" he murmured in his
+loving day-dream.
+
+The springy feet of the charger dropped noiselessly on the lonely
+avenue and already the double carriage gate was in sight. An instinct
+of martial coquetry caused Harry Hardwicke to gather up his reins and
+straighten lightly into the military position of eyes right. He was
+watching the gate of Paradise, a Paradise as yet forbidden to him.
+
+Yes. There was the gleam of white robes shining out across the friendly
+gate.
+
+Standing under a huge spreading camphor tree, a graceful form was there,
+clear cut against the dark foliage, and seeming to float upon the tender
+green of the dewy grass. A nymph--a goddess, shyly standing there, was
+shading her eyes with one slender hand and gazing down the path toward
+the golden East which was bringing to the Lady of his dreams, a flood of
+golden sunlight and her secret adorer, the man whose lonely young heart
+had throned her as its queen. Hardwicke raised his head quickly as a
+wild shriek sounded out upon the still morning air.
+
+The lover with one agonized glance saw the outspread arms of Justine
+Delande, and heard again a voice which had thrilled his soul in loving
+memory. It appealed for aid. Nadine was shrieking for help.
+
+With one glance, the young soldier gathered his noble steed. There
+was but twenty yards for the rally and the raise, but the game old
+"Garibaldi" dropped as lightly on the other side of the closed carriage
+gate as any "blue ribbon" of the Galway "Blazers."
+
+There was a moment, but one fleeting moment, given to the lover to see
+the danger menacing the woman whom he loved. His heart was icy, but
+his hand was quick. There, a few feet only from the horribly fascinated
+girl, a cobra di capdlo rising and swaying in angry undulations.
+The huge snake was angrily hissing with a huge distended puffed hood
+swelling menacingly over the dirty brown body. "Standfast!" yelled
+Hardwicke in agony.
+
+There was a gleam of steel, the rush of a charger's feet, and as man and
+horse swept by the fainting girl--the swing of a saber, and the heavy
+trampling of iron-clad hoofs! Only Justine Delande saw the flashing
+saber cleaving the air again and again, as Hardwicke gracefully
+leaned to his saddle bow, in the right and left cut on the ground. And
+Garibaldi's beating hoofs soon completed the work of the circling sword.
+
+And then as the Swiss woman broke her trance and turned to run toward
+the house, the young horseman leaped lightly to the ground. "Go on, go
+on!" he cried. "The other snake is not far off!" When Simpson and the
+frightened domestics rushed out to the veranda in a panic, they only
+saw before them a graceful youth with his strong arms burdened with the
+senseless form of the woman he loved--the woman whose life he had saved!
+
+And, dangling from his right wrist, by the leather sword-knot, hung
+the saber which Colonel Hardwicke had swung in the mad onslaught on the
+mutineers' camp at Lucknow.
+
+"Here, Simpson! Send for Doctor McMorris!" cried Hardwicke, as a dozen
+willing hands sprang to aid him. "Bring brandy, ammonia, and oil!" There
+was a bamboo settee on the veranda. It received the precious burden
+which the soldier had held against his heart. "Carry her to her rooms!
+Gently, now!" commanded the captain. Seizing Justine by the arm, he
+said: "I think that I arrived in time. Go! Go! You will find me waiting
+for you here! Examine her at once! The hot iron and artery ligatures
+alone will save her if she was bitten!" His brow was knotted in agony.
+
+"You came between them!" gasped Justine. "The thing never reached her
+side!"
+
+"God be thanked! Go! Go!" cried Hardwicke. "I have my work to do here!"
+A black servant had already led the dancing Garibaldi out to the
+open safety of the graveled carriage drive. "Look to my horse!" cried
+Hardwicke. "See that he is not bitten!" and then he slowly walked over
+to where a dozen menials, with heavy clubs, had beaten the writhing
+cobra into a shapeless mass.
+
+"Come away, all of you!" cried the captain, in Hindustanee. "Run, some
+of you, and get the snake catcher!" Doctor McMorris, arriving on the
+gallop, had reported the absolute safety of the frightened girl,
+when Harry Hardwicke, leaning on his sheathed sword, watched a slim,
+glittering-eyed Hindu, followed by a boy bearing an earthen pot, who had
+noiselessly reconnoitered the vicinity of the great tree. The boy most
+keenly watched all the movements of his white-robed master, who, drawing
+a little fife from his red cummerbund sash, began to play a shrill,
+weird tune. A frightened household coterie watched from a safe distance
+the thirty-foot circle of herbage around the shade of the giant tree
+trunk. A shudder crept over the watchers as a huge brown head, with two
+white circles on the back of the neck, rose slowly out of the grass, and
+two red-hot gleaming eyes blazed out, as an immense cobra swelled out
+its fearfully disgusting hood, and, rising halfway, bloated out its
+loathsome head, swaying to and fro, to the strange music. "There's the
+mate!" quietly whispered Hardwicke to Simpson. The snake now showed its
+greasy belly, like dirty stained marble, and the lithe boy, circling
+behind it, warily essayed to drop the red earthen pot over its head.
+But one of the excited servants, stealing up, had released a little
+mongoose, which now bravely darted upon its deadly enemy.
+
+Seven times did the active little animal dart upon the huge reptile, in
+a confusedly vicious series of attacks and close in a deadly conflict,
+and, when, at last, the snake charmer walked disgustedly away, the
+little ferret's sharp teeth were transfixed in the throat of its dead
+enemy.
+
+A handful of silver to the snake catcher and his boy sent them away
+delighted, while the wounded mongoose, having greedily sucked the blood
+of the dead cobra, wandered away in triumph, creeping on its belly into
+the rank grass in search of the life-saving herb which it alone can
+find, to cure the venom-inflamed wounds of the deadly "naja." The
+silent duel was over, and the bodies of the dreadful vipers were hastily
+buried.
+
+"I shall call this afternoon, at five, to ask Miss Johnstone if she
+has entirely recovered," gravely said Captain Hardwicke to Mademoiselle
+Justine Delande, when the still excited Swiss woman poured forth her
+congratulations to the young hero of this morning's episode. Hardwicke
+was standing with his gloved hand grasping the mettlesome "Garibaldi's"
+bridle. Justine Delande threw her arms around the neck of the noble
+horse and kissed his sleek brown cheek. Then she whispered a few words
+to Captain Hardwicke, which made that young warrior's heart leap up in a
+wild joy.
+
+He laughed lightly as he said: "Keep this quiet. Pray do not allow Miss
+Johnstone to walk any more in the dewy grass. These deadly reptiles
+affect moisture, and, strange to say, they love the vicinity of human
+habitations. As for 'Garibaldi,' good old fellow, I'll bring him this
+afternoon, but I'll not take him again over the gate. It was a pretty
+stiff jump for the old boy." When Simpson escorted the happy Captain to
+the opened carriage gate, he threw up his wrinkled hand in salute.
+
+"You're your father's own son, Captain, and God bless you and good luck
+to you and the young mistress."
+
+There was no answer as Harry spurred the charger down the road, but
+Simpson pocketed a sovereign, with the sage prophecy that things were at
+last, going the right way.
+
+The watchful Hugh Johnstone was already in waiting, on this very
+morning, at the East Indian station in Calcutta, with a sumptuous
+carriage; for a telegram had warned him that the woman whom he dreaded,
+and had secretly doomed, was fast approaching. His heart was resolutely
+set upon the master stroke of his life, for a private audience with the
+Viceroy of India had been graciously granted him at two o'clock. "I am
+saved--if nothing goes wrong," he murmured, as the Delhi train trundled
+into the station.
+
+A steely glare lit up his eyes as he advanced with raised sun helmet to
+meet the Lady of the Silver Bungalow.
+
+In the train were one or two of the curious Delhi quid nuncs, who
+smiled and exchanged glances as the embryo Sir Hugh led the lady to the
+carriage.
+
+On the box Jules Victor sat bolt upright clasping a traveling bag, while
+Marie gazed at the swarming streets of Calcutta from her mistress's
+side. "She is on the defensive. I'll show her a trick," old Hugh
+murmured, as he noted the servants' presence.
+
+A few murmured words exchanged between the secret foes caused Hugh
+Johnstone to sternly cry, "To Grindlay and Company's Bank."
+
+The dark goddess Kali, patron demon of Kali Ghatta, was hovering above
+them in the pestilential air as the carriage swiftly rolled along the
+superb streets of the metropolis born of Governor Charnock's settlement
+in sixteen eighty-six. The gift of an Emperor of Delhi to the ambitious
+English, Fort William had grown to be an octopus of modern splendor.
+Down the circular road, past the splendid Government House, they
+silently sped through the "City of Palaces." Berthe Louison never noted
+the varied delights of the Maiden Esplanade, nor, even with a glance
+honored Wellesley and Ochterlony, raised up there in marble effigy.
+Her face was as fixed as bronze, while Hugh Johnstone, right and left,
+saluted his countless friends.
+
+Men of the Bengal Asiatic, the Bethune, the Dai-housie, plumed generals,
+native princelings, gay aides-de-camp, grave judges, and university
+Dons eagerly bowed to the richest civilian in Bengal--the homage of
+triumphant wealth.
+
+Stared at from club windows, Johnstone, with proudly erect head, nodded
+to fashion's fools, crowding there all eager to catch a glimpse of the
+lovely Lady Johnstone in posse.
+
+For these last days of waiting had been only a mental torture to the
+nabob assailed by rallying gossipers. He was now counting grimly the
+moments till a telegram from Delhi should seal his safety for life. And
+then, his dark and silent revenge!
+
+At Grindlay's Bank, Madame Louison quietly descended, leaning on the arm
+of Hugh Johnstone. There was hurrying to and fro on their appearance,
+and in ten minutes a second carriage received the disguised Alixe
+Delavigne, while the Manager of Grindlay's escorted her, under the eyes
+of her two guardians. The Golden Calf was the reigning god, even in
+these later days.
+
+With a dignified pace, the carriage of Hugh Johnstone led the way to
+the Bank of Bengal, where a private room soon hid the three principal
+parties from the gaze of the multi-colored throng of clerks and
+accountants. A conference of the gravest nature ensued, as both the Bank
+Managers jealously watched each other.
+
+Hugh Johnstone was as pale as a man wrestling with the dark angel when
+Madame Louison produced a faded document and a receipt of extended legal
+verbiage. The Manager of Grindlay's gazed, in mute surprise, when the
+highest dignitary of the Bengal Bank at last entered the room, followed
+by two porters bearing two brass-bound mahogany boxes of antique
+manufacture. Hugh Fraser Johnstone's stony face was carelessly
+impassive.
+
+"Pray examine these seals!" the newcomer said, "and, remember, Mr.
+Johnstone, that we exact your absolute release for the long-continued
+responsibility. Here is a memorandum of the storage and charges. You
+must sign, also, as Hugh Fraser--now Hugh Fraser Johnstone."
+
+Old Hugh Johnstone's voice never trembled, as he said, after a minute
+inspection:
+
+"I will give you a cheque." Then, dashing off his signature upon the
+receipt tendered by Madame Louison, he calmly said: "These things
+are only of a trifling value--some long-treasured trinkets of my dead
+wife's. May I be left alone for a moment?"
+
+The three silent witnesses retired into an adjoining room. In five
+minutes, Hugh Johnstone called the Bank Governor to his side. "There is
+your receipt, duly signed, and your cheque to balance, Mr. Governor. We
+are now both relieved of a tiresome controversy. Will you please bring
+in the others?"
+
+With a pleasant smile, the flush of a great happiness upon his face,
+Hugh Fraser Johnstone remarked: "I desire to state publicly that Madame
+Louison and my self have, in this little transaction, closed all our
+affairs. I have given to her a quit-claim release of all and every
+demand whatsoever." With kindly eyes, Berthe Louison listened to a few
+murmured words from Hugh Johnstone. Bowing her stately head, she swept
+from the room upon the arm of the polite manager of Grindlay's.
+
+"Home," said the genial banker, as he deferentially questioned the Lady
+of the Silver Bungalow. "Do you honor us with a long visit?" he eagerly
+asked.
+
+"I return to-morrow evening, on the same train with the soon-to-be
+Sir Hugh. I only came here to attend to some business at the French
+Consulate and to adjust this trifling matter." Hugh Johnstone writhed
+in rage, as he saw the cool way in which Berthe Louison fortified her
+safety lines.
+
+Before they were in the shelter of the banker's superb mansion, Hugh
+Johnstone was double locked within the walls of Douglas Fraser's
+apartment.
+
+"I have two hours to work in" he gasped, after a nervous examination
+of the contents of the cases which had been placed at his feet in his
+carriage. "And, then, for the Viceroy! But first to the steamer and the
+Insurance Office!'"
+
+Not a human being in Calcutta ever knew the contents of the small steel
+strongbox which occupied the place of honor in the treasure room of the
+Empress of India on her speeding down the Hooghly. But a Director of
+the Anglo-Indian Assurance Company opened his eyes widely when Hugh
+Johnstone, his fellow director, cheerfully paid the marine insurance
+fees on a policy of fifty thousand pounds sterling. "I am sending some
+of my securities home, Mainwaring," the great financier said. "I intend
+to remove my property, bit by bit, to London. I do not dare to trust
+them on one ship." The director sighed in a hopeless envy of his
+millionaire friend.
+
+Hugh Johnstone's Calcutta agent was also solemnly stirred up when his
+principal gave him some private directions as to the custody of his
+private papers and a substantial Gladstone bag, consigned to the
+recesses of the steel vaults. "I go back with these papers to Delhi
+to-morrow night. Give me the keys of my private compartment till then.
+In a few months I may be called to London. Douglas Fraser will have my
+power of attorney."
+
+With a sunny gleam in his face, Hugh Johnstone then alertly sprang
+into his carriage, when he had finished his careful toilet, to meet the
+Viceroy of India. The two brass-bound mahogany cases were left standing
+carelessly open upon his table in Douglas Fraser's rooms, neatly packed
+with an assortment of toilet articles and all the multitudinous personal
+medical stores of a refined Anglo-Indian "in the sere and yellow."
+
+"Five pounds worth!" laughed Hugh Johnstone, as he closed the door.
+"Now, in one hour, my Lady Disdain, I can say 'Checkmate.' Ram Lal shall
+attend to you later--behind all your bolts and bars. He will find a way
+to reach you."
+
+It was a matter of profound speculation to the gilded youth of the
+Government House what strangely sudden friendship had blossomed to bring
+the august representative of the great Victoria, Kaisar-I-Hind, and
+Queen of England, as far as the middle of the audience room, in close
+colloquy with, and manifesting an almost affectionate leave-taking of,
+the silver-haired millionaire of Delhi.
+
+But that night the most confidential General "at disposal" received from
+the Viceroy some secret orders which caused the experienced soldier's
+eyes to open widely.
+
+"Remember! The personal interests of the Crown are involved here!" said
+the Viceroy. "Any mistake might cost me my Sovereign's confidence and
+you your commission, perhaps a Star of India!" he laughed, with an
+affected lightness.
+
+In far-away Delhi, as the sun faded away into the soft summer twilight,
+Harry Hardwicke was sitting at the side of Nadine Johnstone, while her
+stern father secretly exulted in distant Calcutta. He had already mailed
+by registered post a set of duplicated receipts and insurance policies
+for his last shipment addressed to "Professor Andrew Fraser" and his
+mind was centered upon some peculiarly pleasurable coming events to take
+place in the Marble House. But the dreamy-eyed girl watching the man who
+had so gallantly saved her life, thought only of a love which had stolen
+into her heart to wake all its slumbering chords to life, and to loosen
+the sweet music of her singing soul! They were alone, save for the bent
+figure of Justine Delande at a distant window, and the spirit of Love
+breathed upon them silently drew them heart to heart.
+
+Here now, before the divinity so fondly worshiped, Harry Hardwicke lost
+his soldier's ready voice. "Say no more! You need rest, Miss Nadine!
+I shall only call to-morrow to assure myself of your perfect recovery.
+When your father returns I shall do myself the honor to ask his formal
+permission to visit you later." There was a sigh and a sob as Nadine
+Johnstone took her silent lover's hands and pressed them in her own,
+bursting into happy tears.
+
+"I owe you my life--my father shall speak, but in my own heart I shall
+treasure your splendid bravery forever!" Her tall young knight stooped
+over the little hands, kissed them, and was turning to go, when the
+maiden slipped off a sparkling ring. "Wear this always for my sake; I
+can say no more till we meet again!" And, bending low, Captain Hardwicke
+stepped backward, as from a queen's presence, leaving her there, weak,
+loving, and trembling in a strange delight.
+
+As he rode slowly homeward in the evening's glow, he passed Major Alan
+Hawke dashing away to the railway station in a carriage. Traveling
+luggage told the story of a sudden jaunt. A wave of the hand and the
+secret-service man was gone. Hawke growled: "Damned young jackanapes,
+I'll fool you, too; but what does old Johnstone want?" He was reading a
+telegram just received: "Come to meet me at Allahabad. Have brought the
+drafts. Want you for a few days down here."
+
+At ten o'clock next morning, Simpson, his voice all broken, his old eyes
+filled with tears, dashed into Captain Hardwicke's office. "Dead?"
+cried the young soldier, springing up in a sudden horror. "No. Gone over
+night--both the women--God knows where, but they left secretly, by the
+Master's orders!" And then Hardwicke sank back into his chair with
+a groan. But, at Allahabad, Major Alan Hawke was raving alone in a
+helpless rage. There was no Johnstone there, and Ram Lal Singh had
+telegraphed him: "The daughter and governess went away in the night by
+the railroad--special train. A man from Calcutta took them away."
+
+"You shall pay for this, you old hound!" he yelled, "Yes, with your
+heart's blood.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. ALAN HAWKE PLAYS HIS TRUMP CARD.
+
+
+
+When the Calcutta train rolled into Allahabad, two days after Harry
+Hardwicke's crushing surprise, Major Alan Hawke, the very pink of
+Anglo-Indian elegance, awaited the dismounting of the returning
+voyagers. He had passed a whole sleepless night in revolving the various
+methods to play oft each of his wary employers against each other, and
+had decided to let Fate make the game.
+
+"The devil of it is, I'm not supposed to know anything of the flitting!"
+he mused, after digesting Ram Lal Singh's carefully worded telegrams.
+All the light in his shadowy mental eclipse was the positive information
+that a special train had been made up for Bombay at the station, "on
+government secret service."
+
+"The old man is preparing to fight, now," he decided. "His 'wooden
+horse' is within Berthe Loiuson's camp. If she is not wary, she may
+never leave India, Johnstone can be very ugly. But what must I do? Shall
+I warn Berthe, now? If I do, she will both doubt me and make a scene.
+Old Johnstone will then know at once that I have betrayed him." An
+hour's cogitation led Alan Hawke to decide to let the "high contracting
+parties" fight it out themselves at Delhi.
+
+"I'll secretly join the winner and then bleed them both. I must be
+unconscious of all. Johnstone's money I want first, then, Berthe must
+pay me well for my aid." With an exquisite nosegay of flowers, he
+awaited the slow descent of the social magnates. A second telegram from
+Johnstone had warned him that the wanderers were on the same train. "He
+is a cool devil!" mused Hawke.
+
+Radiant in beauty, pleasantly smiling, and watched by her French
+bodyguard, Madame Louison swept into the grand cafe room upon the arm of
+Hugh Johnstone, who deftly exchanged a silent glance of warning with
+the artful Major. The first intimation of Johnstone's craft was the fact
+that Alan Hawke found he could not manage to see Madame Louison alone,
+even for a single moment. There was a veiled surprise in her beautiful
+brown eyes, when the nabob led Hawke a few tables away for a conference
+in full view of the beauty, who was surrounded with a cloud of
+obsequious attendants. "As we have but one hour, Madame, pray at
+once, order a repast for us all. I must have a few words with Hawke."
+Johnstone was as smiling as a summer sea.
+
+"We were delayed a day by my own private business," genially cried the
+nabob. "What's new in Delhi?"
+
+It was the crowning lie of Hawke's splendidly mendacious career when
+he carelessly said, "Nothing. I supposed, of course, that you had grave
+need of me here."
+
+"So I have," earnestly replied Johnstone, as the station master bustled
+up, scraping and bowing, with a bundle of letters and several telegrams.
+"Just look over these five drafts on Glyn, Carr & Glyn's, while I look
+at the letters," whispered Johnstone, handing Hawke an official looking
+envelope. Even while the adventurer carefully scanned the bills of
+exchange, he saw a gleam of devilish triumph in the old man's eyes as he
+opened the telegrams, and with affected carelessness shoved his letters
+in his pocket. "See here, Hawke! You can even earn a neat 'further
+donation' if you will play your part rightly. General Abercromby, as
+personally representing the Viceroy, arrives here to-morrow night to
+adjust my accounts finally. He will be a week or so at Delhi. I want
+you to represent me and receive him here. I've telegraphed back to
+Abercromby that you will bring him up in a special car. He does not want
+old Willoughby to think he is nosing around Delhi. Now, do the
+handsome thing. Abercromby knows you. Here is a pocket-book. Lose a few
+fifty-pound notes to the old boy on the train. Amuse him, mind you, and
+set him up well! The car will be well stocked. I leave my two men here
+to wait on you and him. That's all. I want to go off 'in a blaze of
+glory,' as the Yankees would say. I will meet you at Delhi. Abercromby
+comes to my house. Can I depend on you? And, not a single word about
+the Baronetcy. The Viceroy has graciously sent a special dispatch to
+England."
+
+"All right. Let us join the Madame," said Hawke, with an uneasy feeling
+of a coming tropical storm, "I'm glad to be out of it," mused Hawke. "If
+Abercromby stays a week, both parties will defer hostilities until he
+goes. If that soft-hearted Swiss fool only telegraphs! By God, I would
+have liked to have had one final tete-a-tete. She can make my fortune
+yet."
+
+The flying minutes glided easily away, with Hugh Johnstone's old-time
+gallantry artfully separating the two secret conspirators against his
+peace. Alan Hawke lunched gayly, with but one lurking regret--a futile
+sorrow that he had not bent Justine Delande to his will. There was no
+dark pledge between them, no secret bond of a man's perfidious victory,
+no soft surrender, the seal of a woman's dishonor.
+
+"Will she telegraph?" the adventurer asked himself with a beating heart
+and a burning brain. "If so, then I hold them both in my hands, and
+the game is mine." When the train drew out, the Major watched the
+disappearing forms of the mortal enemies in a secret wonder. "Have they
+made it up? Will they marry after all?" he growled, and yet he laughed
+the idea to scorn. "And yet fear, as well as love, has tied the nuptial
+knot before," he mused.
+
+A new proof of Johnstone's craft was afforded him after he had, in a
+leisurely way, verified the regularity of his windfall in good London
+exchange, signed by the millionaire upon his home bankers, and duly
+stamped. A mental flash of lightning showed him how he was "sewed up,"
+for Johnstone's all too polite servants shadowed him, alternately,
+in his every movement. He even dared not visit the secret telegraph
+address. "Old scoundrel!" raged Alan Hawke. "I will only get the first
+news after the fair and probably in a storm from Berthe. The denouement
+may occur with me languishing here in Capua. Suppose that this she-devil
+would bolt? Where would I land then?" He was most sadly rattled.
+
+In the Delhi train, Hugh Johnstone busied with his late London papers,
+slyly smiled as he studied a route map and railway time table. He
+had received a single telegraphed word, dated Madras, and wisely
+left unsigned, but that one word was the keynote of his coveted
+victory--"Arrived."
+
+"Ah! my lady," he mused, casting his eyes in the direction of Madame
+Louison's cozy private compartment. "To-morrow at Delhi, if Douglas
+Fraser is true to his trust, there will be the message which tells of a
+'bark upon the sea,' which bears away forever all the brightness of
+your life--away from you, yes, forever! And Hawke, this smart cad, is
+powerless now, and both of them are outwitted. The Baronetcy is safe the
+very moment that Abercromby's work is done. I've paid Hawke now, and
+he has been very naturally brought down here, out of the way. Madame!
+Madame! Now to settle accounts with you the very moment that Abercromby
+has reported back from Calcutta. I think I will just have a good
+old-fashioned talk with Ram Lal Singh. I need his evidence to hoodwink
+this old cask of grog, Abercromby. I must blow off' his vanity in great
+style."
+
+While Berthe Louison slept, while old Hugh Johnstone plotted, while Ram
+Lal Singh fumed at Delhi, and Harry Hardwicke "mourned the hopes that
+left him," Major Alan Hawke retired to the Nirvana of a long afternoon
+siesta. There was a little departing detachment on this golden afternoon
+at Madras--two frightened women, now gladly seeking the shelter of their
+cabins, as the fleet steamer Coomassie Castle turned her prow toward
+Palk Strait. The terrible ordeal of "passing the surf" had appalled
+them, and the exhausted Nadine Johnstone at last fell asleep with her
+arms clasped around her sad-hearted governess. A hundred times had they
+read over together the old nabob's telegram: "Going home from Calcutta
+to settle the Baronetcy appointment. Will meet you in Europe." Nadine's
+letter from her stern father bade her implicitly trust to her new-found
+kinsman, Douglas Fraser. The old nabob's judiciously private letter had
+filled Justine Delande's sad heart with one twilight glow of happiness.
+A comforting cheque for one thousand pounds was contained therein.
+
+The words: "Your salary and expenses will be paid by me in Europe. This
+is only a little present. Another may await you and your sister, if
+you fulfill your trust, that no man, not even Douglas Fraser, meets my
+daughter alone until you give her back to me. He is but my traveling
+agent. Nadine is in your hands alone. I have so written to her." With
+a breaking heart Justine Delande kissed her beloved gage d'amour, the
+diamond bracelet, murmuring: "Alan! Alan! To part without even a word!"
+She lay with tear-stained eyes, watching the low shores of Madras fade
+away, and listened to the sleeping girl's murmur: "Harry! Harry! I owe
+you my life!" Even the maid mourned a dashing Sergeant-Major! With a
+desperate courage, trying to fan the spark of love, which had slowly
+crept into her lonely heart, Justine Delande had timidly bribed a
+stewardess, going on shore for some last commissions, to telegraph to
+the secret address at Allahabad the words: "Madras steamer Coomassie
+Castle, Brindisi."
+
+The signature, "Your Justine," brought a grim smile to Alan Hawke's
+face, the next night, when on the arrival of General Abercromby, he
+stationed Hugh Johnstone's secret spies on duty with the redoubtable
+Calcutta warrior. "By God! She is both game and true!" cried Hawke.
+"Here is my fortune, and Justine shall share my spoils yet!" As the
+special train rolled out into the starlit night the old nabob, in a
+paroxysm of delight, read in the marble house words telegraphed by the
+happy-hearted Douglas Fraser, now taking up his endless deck tramp
+on the Brindisi bound steamer. The young Scotsman, ignorant of all
+intrigue, was relieved to know that he had laid the firm foundation of
+his future fortunes. His last shore duty was done when he had wired to
+his urgent relative in Delhi the glad tidings: "All right. Coomassie
+Castle. Orders strictly obeyed."
+
+Even the astute Alan Hawke failed, after many days of futile private
+research, to trace the route of the train which had pulled out of Delhi
+in the dead of night, beat the record to Allahabad, and then, turning
+off apparently for Bombay, had curved, on a loop, to the Madras line,
+and surpassed all speed records on the Indian Peninsula. Even when he
+telegraphed to Ram Lal's friends at Madras, he could obtain no definite
+trace, the railway officials were silent, and the travelers had sought
+no hotel in Madras. Hugh Johnstone's well applied money had smothered
+all inquiry. Even the driver and stokers of the special train never knew
+who so generously presented them with a ten pound note apiece. "Some
+secret service racket," they laughed over their ale. Not a tremor of
+a single muscle betrayed Major Alan Hawke when he delivered over his
+official charge, Major General Abercromby, to Hugh Johnstone in the
+golden glow of Delhi's morning. "I've kept your interests in view," he
+whispered. "The old boy's just two hundred pounds richer. And, you may
+be sure, he wanted for nothing. I know all his damned old tiger and
+mutiny stories by heart. I'm going up to the Club for a good long sleep.
+My compliments to the ladies," lightly said Alan Hawke, as he gracefully
+declined Hugh Johnstone's invitation to breakfast. Then Johnstone bore
+off his purple prize, set in red and gold.
+
+The wide ripple of excitement caused by General Abercromby's reported
+arrival had crowded the railway station. Hugh Johnstone chuckled,
+"Evidently Hawke knows nothing," as the two old friends drove away
+in splendid state. But Major Hawke, an hour later, at his Club, was
+suddenly interrupted in a cozy breakfast by the most unceremonious
+entrance of Major Harry Hardwicke, whose promotion was at last gazetted.
+"Hello! I see you're a Major now. Lucky devil! What can I do for you,
+Hardwicke?" cried Alan Hawke, eyeing the haggard and worn-looking young
+officer with a strange dawning suspicion of the truth. "Did he know,
+too, of the Hegira?"
+
+Major Hardwicke threw himself down in a chair, curtly saying: "You
+can tell me who effectuated this lightning disappearance act of Madame
+Delande and young Miss Johnstone."
+
+"You speak in riddles to me, Hardwicke," coolly said the wary Major.
+"I've just come in from Allahabad with General Abercromby, who is here
+to settle old Johnstone's accounts. I know nothing of what you refer to.
+I expected to meet both the ladies at dinner to-day."
+
+"Then I will not uselessly take up your time, Major Hawke," gloomily
+rejoined Hardwicke, as he picked up his sword, and, with a cold formal
+bow, quitted the room.
+
+"I must watch this young fool," growled Alan Hawke. "Thank my lucky
+stars, the woman is far away! But, he's well connected, has a brilliant
+record, and is a V. C. now for Berthe Louison and the fireworks! But,
+first, old Ram Lal! They bowled the old boy out! I suppose that he has
+already told Alixe Delavigne that she has been outwitted. I hold the
+trump cards now! No single word without its golden price! I must not
+make one false step! As to the club men, I only join in the general
+wonder." He made a careful and very studied toilet and sauntered out of
+the club en flaneur, and then stealthily betook himself to the pagoda
+in Ram Lal's garden, where his innocent dupe had so often waited for him
+with a softly beating heart.
+
+"I'm glad the girl is gone," mused Alan Hawke. "If she were here, the
+chorus hymning Hardwicke's perfections might set her young heart on
+fire." He was, as yet, ignorant of the tender bond of gratitude fast
+ripening into Love. For, Love, that strange plant, rooted in the human
+heart, thrives in absence, and, watered by the tears of sorrow and
+adversity, fills the longing and faithful heart, in days of absence,
+with its flowers of rarest fragrance and blossoms of unfading beauty.
+Nadine Johnstone, speeding on over sapphire seas, had already conquered
+the tender secret of the simple Justine Delande's heart; and in her own
+loving day-dreams:
+
+"Aye she loot the tears down fa' for Jock o' Hazeldean!"
+
+"I must see him again! I must see him!" she fondly pledged her waiting
+heart. With the serpent cunning of a loving maiden, she brooded like a
+dove with tender eyes, and so in her heart of hearts, determined to
+draw forth from her stalwart cousin, Douglas Fraser, the secret of their
+future destination. And the honest fellow became even as wax in
+her hands; while the gloomy Hardwicke, in far-away Delhi, eyed the
+parchment-faced Hugh Johnstone in mute wonder, at the long official
+reception in the Marble House. "Will he not vouchsafe to me even one
+word of thanks?" thought the young man, in an increasing wonder.
+
+But, Ram Lal Singh, when Major Alan Hawke drew him into the sanctum
+behind the shop, showed a dark face, seamed with lines of care. "There
+will be some terrible happening!" muttered the smooth old Mohammedan.
+
+He had good gift of the world's gear, and now preferred the role of fox
+to lion. "She knows nothing as yet. I waited till I could see you. I
+dared not to tell her. She only fancies that this official visit of the
+General-Sahib from Calcutta will, of course, take up all their time at
+the marble house. But she begs me to watch them all, and she has given
+me some little presents--money presents." Hawke winced, but in silence.
+His employer trusted him not. Here was proof positive.
+
+"How in the devil's name did they get away without you knowing of it?"
+demanded Hawke. "If you are lying to me, Ram Lal, we may lose both our
+pickings from this fat pagoda tree. You see old Johnstone may slip away
+after the girl. He may leave here with Abercromby."
+
+The jewel merchant's eyes gleamed with a smoldering fire. "Johnstone
+Sahib will not leave Delhi. It is in the stars! He has too much here
+to leave. There are many old ties which bind. No, he will not go like
+a thief in the night." Hawke was surprised at the old rascal's evident
+emotion.
+
+"Then tell me what you think about the disappearance of these women,"
+said Hawke, watching him keenly.
+
+"I have seen all my friends in the station, even the mail clerks,
+telegraph men, and all," began Ram Lal. "A train 'on government
+service'--a special--came in that night from Allahabad at ten o'clock.
+Then two small trains were kept in waiting for some hours; one left for
+Simla before daylight, and the other drew out for Allahabad. There was a
+crowd of ladies, officers' ladies, and some children and servants in
+the waiting-room. They like to travel at night in the cool shade. No
+one knew them. Now, at Allahabad, the east-bound train could branch off
+either for Calcutta, Madras, or Bombay."
+
+"So you know not which way these women fled?" The old merchant seemed
+absolutely at sea. As Hawke shook his head the story was soon finished.
+
+"My men at the marble house tell me that a strange young man arrived at
+ten o'clock. He was admitted by Simpson, the private man of Johnstone
+Sahib. The Swiss woman talked with him alone a half hour in the library,
+and then Johnstone's daughter came down there, but only for a few
+moments. My men watched him writing and reading papers in the library;
+then they all went away."
+
+"That is all. I slipped into the house when Simpson went away next day.
+He often goes out to drink secretly, and he has a pretty Eurasian friend
+or two, besides, down in the quarter." Ram Lal winked significantly. "I
+went all over the upper part of the house myself. The women's rooms were
+left just as if they had gone out for a drive along the Jumna. If they
+took anything it was only a few hand parcels. Now you know all that I
+know. No one ever saw the strange man before. And these people are gone
+for good, that is all. Go now to the Mem-Sahib at the Silver Bungalow. I
+fear her. But tell me what I must say to her." The old man was evidently
+in a mortal fear. "There is that French devil--that old soldier. He is
+a fighting devil, that one, and the woman a tiger. The lady herself is a
+tiger of tigers!"
+
+"Say nothing, Ram Lal," soothingly said Hawke. "Leave it all to me. I
+see it. Old Johnstone has sent the girl to the hills to keep her away
+from the young fellows who will crowd the house, while this General
+Abercromby is here. There'll be drink and cards, and God knows what
+else."
+
+"I know," grinned Ram Lal. "I knew old Johnstone in the old days, a
+man-eater, a woman-killer, a cold-hearted devil, too! What does he do
+with this General?" The jewel merchant's eyes blazed.
+
+"Oh! Buying his new title with some official humbug or another. I don't
+know. Perhaps he is really settling his accounts," laughed Hawke.
+
+"I have a little account of my own to settle with him! I will see him at
+once! He, too, may slip away and follow his girl to the hills," quietly
+said Ram Lal. "I know his past. He is never to be trusted--not for a
+moment--as long as he is alive!" Alan Hawke stared in wonder at Ram Lal,
+who humbly salaamed, when he closed:
+
+"See the woman over there--come back, and tell me what I must do or say.
+You and I are comrades," the jewel seller leeringly said, "and we must
+lie together! All the world are liars-and half of the world lives by
+lying." with which sage remark the old curio seller betook himself to
+his narghileh.
+
+In a half an hour, Major Alan Hawke was wandering through the garden of
+the Silver Bungalow with Alixe Delavigne at his side. Behind them, at a
+discreet distance, sauntered Jules Victor, his dark eyes most intently
+fixed upon the promenaders. Madame Delavigne was pleased to be
+cheerfully buoyant. She had silently listened to Hawke's recital of
+the probable causes of General Abercromby's visit. "I could see that
+Johnstone evidently wished to occupy us both at Allahabad. Your conduct
+was discretion itself! Have you seen him yet? Or the ladies?" She eyed
+her listener keenly.
+
+"No, Madame," frankly said Hawke. "There is all manner of official
+junketing on here now. I am not, of course, to be officially included,
+as I am not on the staff of either the visiting or commanding general. I
+must wait until I am invited--if I am!" he hesitatingly said. "You know
+that my rank is--to say the least--shadowy!" The lady passed over this
+semi-confession in silence.
+
+"It is not like Johnstone to let Nadine meet all the gay coterie which
+will fill the great halls," mused Madame Delavigne. "I suppose that the
+dear child will have a week of 'marble prison' in her rooms, with only
+the governess. I think I shall let General Abercrornby leave before I
+call. What do you advise? Johnstone has always ignored the ladies of
+Delhi!"
+
+"I really am powerless to counsel you," said Major Hawke gravely, "as I
+am outside of the circle. I would watch this man keenly. He bears you no
+good will. And now--what shall I do? Did your business at Calcutta bring
+me the summons to action?" There was no undue eagerness in his voice. He
+was gliding into a safe position for the future eclaircissement.
+
+"Not yet. But it will come! It will come--as soon as this General goes.
+For I now will demand the right to drop Berthe Louison, and to be my own
+self. To be Alixe Delavigne to one bright, loving human soul only, in
+this land of arid solitudes, of peopled wastes. The land of the worn,
+scarred human nature, which, blind, creedless, and hopeless, staggers
+along under the burden of misery under the menace of the British
+bayonet."
+
+"When do you leave it?" quietly asked the cautious Major.
+
+"When my work is done!" the resolute woman replied. "I am here for peace
+or war! We have only crossed swords! I do not trust this man a moment!
+He is capable of any foul deed! Now, you must keenly watch the clubs,
+the social life. Find out all you can! Come to me here every night at
+ten. If I suddenly need you, then I will send Ram Lal!"
+
+"By day or night I am ready!" gravely said Major Hawke. "I do not like
+to intrude upon you," he hesitatingly said.
+
+"You will win your spurs yet in my service!" said Alixe. "The real
+struggle is to come yet. I am only knocking at the door of Nadine's
+heart. And the old nabob is but half conquered."
+
+Major Hawke, with a bow, retired and wended his way to the Club, where
+he spent an hour in preparing a careful letter to Euphrosyne Delande.
+It was a careful document, intended to prudently open communication with
+Justine through the Halls of Learning on the Rue du Rhone, Geneva, but
+a little sealed inclosure to Justine was the grain of gold in all the
+complimentary chaff. "Her own heart, poor girl, will tell her what to
+do," said Hawke, as he departed and registered the letter himself.
+
+The passing cortege of General Abercromby, returning the visit of the
+local chief, excited Hawke's attention. He caught a glimpse of the
+silver-haired millionaire whom two widely different natures had
+denounced that day as "being capable of anything."
+
+"And so old Ram Lal has it 'in for him,' too! What can he mean?"
+
+With a sudden impulse Major Hawke drove back and made a formal call upon
+the ladies at the Marble House. He was astounded when old Simpson, with
+a grudging welcome, openly announced that the ladies were permanently
+not at home. "Gone to the hills for a month or two," curtly replied
+the veteran servant, and then, on a silver tray, the butler decorously
+handed to Major Alan Hawke a sealed letter. "I was to seek you out at
+the Club, sir, as this letter is important. I take the liberty to give
+it to you now. It was the master's orders: 'That I give it into your own
+hands!'"
+
+Major Alan Hawke's face darkened as he read the curt lines penned by
+Hugh Johnstone himself. With a smothered curse he thrust the letter in
+his pocket. "Both of them are trying to keep me in the dark, I'll let
+Madame Berthe Louison run her own head into the trap. Then, when she
+pays, I will talk, but not till then." The careful lines stated that for
+a week the writer would be greatly engrossed with private matters, and
+at home to no one. "I will send for you as soon as I am able to see you,
+upon some new business matters."
+
+The last clause was significant enough. "He prepared this to give me
+a social knockout!" coolly said the renegade. "All right! But wait!
+By Gad! I fancy I'll take a cool revenge in joining Ram Lal and Berthe
+Louison. Suppose that the old duffer were put out of the way? Could I
+then count on Justine, and my wary employer? There is a storm brewing,
+and breakers ahead. I must soon get my 'retaining fee' from the lady of
+the Silver Bungalow or I may lose it forever! And I will let her uncover
+the empty bird's nest herself! She must not suspect me!" And yet the
+curt letter of the old civilian wounded him to the quick. "What does
+this jugglery mean? He ought to fear me, by this time, just a little! He
+intends to crush Berthe Louison by some foul blow, and then will he
+dare to begin on me? I will double forces with Ram Lal. That's my only
+alliance!" The Major's soul was up in arms.
+
+When the splendid reception at General Willoughby's was over, Hugh
+Johnstone cautiously approached Major Hardwicke. "I am just told that
+General Abercromby will remain and dine 'en famille' with his old
+brother in arms. Will you drive with me to my house? I have something of
+a private nature to say to you. I can give you a seat in my carriage."
+Major Hardwicke bowed and, obtaining his conge, sat in expectant waiting
+until the two men were comfortably seated in Johnstone's snuggery in the
+deserted mansion. They talked indifferently over Abercromby's arrival
+till Simpson announced dinner.
+
+"I would like you to dine with me, Major Hardwicke," said the old
+Commissioner, "for I have something now to say to you." He rang a silver
+bell, and, whispering to Simpson, faced his young visitor, who had bowed
+in acceptance. The butler returned in a few moments with a superb Indian
+saber, sheathed in gold, and shimmering with splendid jewels. He stood,
+mute, as Johnstone gravely said: "I learned from Simpson, on my return
+from Calcutta, of your prompt gallantry in aiding my daughter in her
+hour of peril." He continued, "Simpson alone, was left to tell me, as
+I have sent the child away to the hills for a couple of months. For
+reasons of my own, I do not care to have a motherless girl exposed to
+the indiscriminate hubbub of merely official society. The young lady
+will probably not remain in India. I therefore sent them all away before
+this official visit, which would have forced a child, almost yet a
+school girl, out into the glare of this local junketing," he said with
+feeling.
+
+"Take this saber, Major. It was given up by Mir-zah Shah, a Warrior
+Prince, in old days, so the legend goes. It is the sword of a king's
+son. It will recall your own saber play so neatly conceived, and, as a
+personal reminder, wear this for me! It is a rare diamond, which I have
+treasured for many years. And its old Hindustanee name was 'Bringer of
+Prosperity.'" Hardwicke bowed, and murmured his thanks.
+
+The nabob slipped a superb ring from his finger, and then, as if he
+had relieved his mind forever of a painful duty, dismissed the subject,
+almost feverishly entertaining his solitary guest at the splendid feast
+which had been prepared for General Abercromby. It was late when the
+strangely assorted convives separated. "I will now send Simpson home
+with you, in my carriage," solicitously remarked Johnstone, as the hour
+grew late. "There is a prince's ransom on that sword--and, you did not
+bring your noble charger! You must treat him well for my sake--for my
+daughter's sake!"
+
+"Will Miss Johnstone return soon?" said the heart-hungry lover, catching
+at this last straw.
+
+"It is undetermined! I may send them home in a few months. But, if I
+have any little influence left, 'at Headquarters,' that shall always be
+exerted for you. I am always glad to meet you, your father's son, for
+Colonel Hardwicke was a true soldier of the olden days--brave, loyal,
+and beyond reproach."
+
+The lover's beating heart was smothered in this flowing honey. "Ah! I
+must trust to Simpson!" he mused. "The old man is a sly one!"
+
+Politely bowed out by the stern, lonely old man, Major Hardwicke
+departed, his conversational guns spiked with the deft compliments, as
+the mighty clatter of the returning General filled the courtyard of the
+Marble House.
+
+In the soft, wooing stillness of the night, Simpson, at the young
+Major's side, found time to whisper: "Never let the Guv'nor see us
+together! He's a sly one! There's a honey-baited trap in this! The
+girl's been spirited off to Europe! I only know that--but, as yet, no
+more."
+
+"What do you mean? Is he lying to me?" gasped Hardwicke, with a sinking
+heart.
+
+"Rightly said!" huskily whispered Simpson. "Seek for her--London
+ways--I'll find it out soon where she is, and I'm just scholar enough to
+write! Give me your own safe London address! I heard ye would soon take
+yer long leave. Bless her sweet soul! I'll tell ye now! She whispered to
+me: 'Tell him--tell Major Hardwicke--he'll hear from me himself, even if
+I was at the very end of the earth! and give him this!'" The frightened
+servant thrust a little packet into the officer's hand. "It was the only
+chance she had."
+
+"That Swiss woman watched her every moment, and the man--the one the
+father sent from Calcutta. There was a telegram to her. I gave it to her
+myself! Major, my oath--they're on the blue water, now! I'll watch and
+come to you! Don't leave Delhi till I post you!"
+
+"You're a brave fellow, Simpson. Keep this all quiet," softly said Major
+Hardwicke. "I'll follow your advice, and I'll not leave here till I know
+more from you. I'll follow her to Japan, but I'll see her again."
+
+"That's the talk, Major!" cried the happy old soldier, who felt
+something crisp in his hand now. "Distrust old Hugh! He'll lie to ye and
+trap ye! Watch him! He's capable of anything." The carriage then stopped
+with a crash and Hardwicke sprang out lightly. "Make no sign! Trust to
+me! I'll come to ye!" was Simpson's last word.
+
+Before Simpson had discovered in the marble house the pleasing figures
+on a ten-pound note, Harry Hardwicke, striding up and down his room, in
+all the ecstasy of a happy lover, had kissed a hundred times a little
+silver card case--a mere school girl's poor treasure, but priceless
+now--for within it was a hastily severed tress of gold-brown hair, tied
+with a bit of blue ribbon. A scrap of paper in penciled words brought to
+him "Confirmation stronger than Holy Writ." "I will write or telegraph
+when not watched. Do not forget. --Nadine."
+
+The words of the old servitor returned to the soldier in a grim warning.
+"He is capable of anything."
+
+"So am I," cried Harry as his heart leaped up. "I will find her were
+she at the North Pole. He cannot hide her from me. Love laughs at
+locksmiths!"
+
+If the would-be Sir Hugh Johnstone had heard the three verdicts of
+the hostile critics of his being "capable of anything," he might have
+laughed in defiance, but after several friendly "night caps" with the
+slightly jovial General Abercromby, it might have seriously disturbed
+the host to know what hidden suspicions the Viceroy's envoy had brought
+back from a very secret conference with that acute old local commander,
+Willoughby.
+
+"It sounds all very well, Abercromby, my old friend," said Willoughby,
+"but Johnstone, or old Fraser, as we call him, is a hitman shark!
+Without a list or some general details, he will surely rob the crown of
+one-half the jewels, you may be sure. His cock and bull story of their
+recovery is too pellucid. It's Hobson's choice, though. That or nothing.
+He, of course, slyly claims to have only lately made this bungling
+accidental recovery. If the return is a really valuable one, then all
+you can officially do is to accept it. But be wary! I can give you some
+friendly aid here, when you get all the returned treasure. I'll give
+you a captain's guard here. Bring all here at once. We, you, and I, will
+seal it up, and I'll have old Ram Lal Singh secretly come here and value
+them. He's the best judge of gems in India, and he was once an official
+in the Royal Treasure Chamber of the old King of Oude. Less than fifty
+thousand pounds worth as a return would be a transparent humbug, and
+besides you can delay your signature for a day or so, till you and I,
+after listing the gems, see this old expert and have him examine them in
+our presence. No one need know of it but you and I, and His excellency,
+the Viceroy. As for Hugh Johnstone, he is simply capable of anything. I
+told the Viceroy's aid, Anstruther, so. And I'll be damned glad to get
+Johnstone out of my bailiwick, that I will."
+
+With which vigorous "flea in the ear," General Willoughby dismissed his
+startled comrade to the society of his crafty old host. And, that night,
+strange dreams of unrest haunted the "modern Major General" in the
+marble house, while singularly gloomy misgivings weighed down the
+brave-hearted Berthe Louison, now heart-hungry for a sight of the doubly
+beloved child of the dead lady of Jitomir. She woke in the hot and
+clammy night to cry "No, no! He would never dare to! She is here! I
+shall go boldly and demand to see her to-morrow!" Her womanly intuition
+told her the lines were broken.
+
+And so, robed in fashion's shining armor, Alixe Delavigne counted the
+moments, until at four o'clock of the next afternoon her carriage waited
+in the bower-decked oval of the marble house. A gloomy frown settled
+upon her face, as the impassive Hugh Johnstone approached her carriage,
+sun helmet in hand. She scented treachery now! There were a dozen
+brilliant young officers longingly gazing at this sweet apparition in
+the gloomy gardens. Even General Abercromby strutted out and displayed
+himself in the foreground, as Johnstone leaned over and gravely
+whispered to the pale-faced beauty:
+
+"My daughter has been sent away from the city for her health! Her
+absence is indefinite. I will see you when General Abercromby leaves
+here in a week, and explain all. No, not before. It is impossible."
+
+With a sudden motion of her hand to Jules, Alixe Delavigne leaned back,
+half fainting, upon her cushions. Her agitated heart was now beating in
+a wild tumult of rage and baffled hatred! "Home!" she cried, and then,
+as the marble house was lost to view, she harshly cried: "To Ram Lal's
+first! To the jewel store!"
+
+There was a brooding death in her eyes when she sternly said to the
+merchant: "Send him to me at once! Send Hawke! Go! Waste not a moment!"
+
+And then she swore an oath of vengeance, which would have made Hugh
+Fraser Johnstone shudder, as he sat drinking champagne cup with his
+guest. "One for you, my lady!" he had laughed, grimly, as the woman
+whom he had tricked drove swiftly away. And the grim fates laughed too,
+spinning at a shortening life web.
+
+Major Alan Hawke was interrupted in his cosy nest at the Club by the
+hasty advent of Ram Lal. The old jeweler had for once abandoned all his
+Oriental calm, and he trembled as he muttered. "She demands you at once.
+I brought my own carriage. Go to her quickly. There will be a great
+monsoon of quarrel now. But her face looks as if she was stricken to
+the death, and something will come of all this. You must watch like the
+crouching cheetah!"
+
+"What has happened?" anxiously cried Hawke.
+
+"She has just found out the women are gone! She went up to the marble
+house this afternoon, and saw the old Sahib Johnstone. He did not even
+bid her to leave her carriage. One of my men ran over at once and told
+me. She drove to the shop on her way homeward and sent me here." The
+black Son of Plutus scuttled away, as if in a mortal fear. "I do not
+dare to face her--in her angry mood," was Ram's last word. He was only
+accustomed to baby-faced Hindu women of the "langorous lily" type, who
+hung on his every word--the mute slaves of his jaded passions. "This one
+is a tigress!" he sighed, as he fled from the Club.
+
+"Ah! My lady is a bit rattled," mused Hawke as the carriage sped along.
+"Now is the time to catch her off her guard." And so he made himself
+sleek and patient, with the surface varnish of his "society manner,"
+when Jules Victor, with semi-hostile eyes, ushered him into the presence
+of Alixe Delavigne, still in her robes of "visitation splendor."
+
+"What is this devil's work done in my absence? This spiriting away of
+Nadine!" cried Alixe, grasping Hawke's wrist with a nervous clasp, which
+made the strong man wince. "This juggling in my absence?" Her eyes were
+sternly fixed on him in dawning suspicions.
+
+"Madame," calmly said Alan Hawke, "if you had trusted to me, this would
+not have happened. But you have chosen to make an enigma of yourself,
+from the first. I am not tired of your moods, but I am of your cold
+disdain, your contemptuous slighting of my useful mental powers. You
+left me with no orders. I warned you that he was capable of anything.
+See how he has treated me," he continued, with a well-dissembled
+indignation. "He called me away to Allahabad to be bear-leader to
+Abercromby, and the brute has just shown me the door, to-day, openly
+saying that his daughter has gone to the Hills. I believe that he
+lies! I know that he does! If you had deigned to trust me, I would
+have followed on her track to hell itself, but you chose to play the
+woman--the catlike toying with men! Damn him! I owe him one now! If
+he had openly entertained me in this brilliant visit, I might have
+re-entered the staff service--in a week. And, you threw all my
+experience away in not trusting to me."
+
+Alixe Delavigne looked up, with one piercing glance, as she sealed a
+note. "Go openly to him--to Johnstone! Bring him back at once with you!
+He dare not disobey this! I will denounce him, now, to-day! to both the
+generals, and go to the Viceroy myself! I care not what excuse he makes!
+BRING HIM!"
+
+"And so I cut the last tie that binds me to a future reinstatement for
+you, a callous employer, and am left adrift without an anchor out for
+the future! You know that this man is a director of the Bank of Bengal!
+A multi-millionaire! He will chase me from India! I might trace the
+girl to her hiding-place for you! She has surely been sent home by sea!"
+Alixe Delavigne was gliding up and down the room as noiselessly as a
+serpent. She abruptly stopped her march.
+
+"I will find her in Europe! What do you require to follow my orders for
+three months? To wait here and then to take the road or to join me
+in Europe! I pay all expenses and incidentals. What will make you
+reasonably sure against fate--in advance?"
+
+Alan Hawke dropped his eyes. Gentleman once, he was ashamed of the
+sordid implied threat of abandonment.
+
+"Five thousand pounds!" he whispered. The stony-faced woman dashed off a
+check.
+
+"Bring that man to me at once!" she cried, "and then go down to
+Grindlay's agency here, and get your money! Go openly!"
+
+"Shall I come back with him?" demanded Hawke.
+
+"No, bring him here, and then excuse yourself."
+
+Alixe Delavigne watched the carriage dash away. Hawke was on his mettle
+at last, and he brutally enjoyed the little tableau, when Hugh Fraser
+Johnstone impatiently tore open "Madame Berthe Louison's" note. Hawke
+observed significantly that he had been shown into a small room, suited
+to semi-menial interviews. The additional slight maddened him. The clash
+of glasses and shouts of a gay crowd of military convives rose up in a
+merry chorus within. Across that banquet hall's draped doors the thin,
+invisible barrier of "Coventry" shut out the bold social renegade.
+"She'll have to wait, Hawke!" roughly said Hugh Johnstone, moving toward
+the door.
+
+"By God! she shall not wait a minute, you damned old moneybags!" cried
+the ruined soldier, who had long forfeited his caste--his cherished
+rank. "You treated her like a brute to-day! She is a lady, and you can't
+play fast and loose with her! You insulted me by closing your damned
+door and sending me your offensive letter. Go to her now! If you do not,
+I'll send my seconds to you, and if you don't fight, by Heaven, I'll
+horsewhip you like a drunken pandy!" and the fearless renegade barred
+the door.
+
+"Don't be a fool, Hawke," faltered Johnstone. "She has taken the whole
+thing the wrong way. I'll join you in a moment. I've got these men on my
+hands. What did she tell you?"
+
+"Nothing!" harshly cried Hawke, "and I wash my hands of you and her.
+Settle your intrigues as you will!"
+
+Not a word was spoken, as Alan Hawke gravely opened the door to Madame
+Berthe Louison's reception room. Hugh Johnstone's yellow face paled as
+the Major breaking the silence, coldly said: "Madame! I have broken a
+friendship of fifteen years to-day! Please do consider me a stranger to
+you both after today!" And then he walked firmly out of the house with a
+warning glance to Jules Victor, lingering in the long hall.
+
+The quick Frenchman saw in Hawke's gesture the secret sign of a hidden
+friend, and he threw up his hand in a Parisian gesture of gratitude and
+comprehension, and failed not to report to his mistress, who saw Hawke's
+fine method with a secret delight.
+
+Hawke drove to Grindlay's agency, where, in a private room, he promptly
+cashed his check.
+
+"I'll take it in Bank of England notes!" he quietly said as the clerk
+lifted inquiring eyes. "I am going to transact some business for the
+lady."
+
+"Now, I can defy Fate!" he exulted, when he was safe out of the bank.
+"She will trust me now, and old Johnstone will fear me. A case of vice
+versa!" And, as he drove to the Club, he murmured, "I will never leave
+this fight now! Damme! I'll just go in and get the girl! Just to spite
+the old coward!"
+
+Within the dreaming shades of the gardens hiding the Silver Bungalow,
+there was no sign of clamor. The beautiful little jewel-box of a mansion
+was apparently deserted, but a duel to the death was going on within the
+great white parlor where Hugh Johnstone stood raging at bay. He leaped
+up in a mad outburst of passion, when Alixe Delavigne cuttingly broke
+the silence. The old nabob knew that the desperate woman in her reckless
+mood feared nothing.--
+
+"You have lied to me! You have tricked me! You have sent that girl
+away to Europe to hide her forever from me! I kept my pact, and,
+you deliberately lied!" She stood before him like an avenging fury,
+quivering in a passion which appalled him. But secure in his skillfuly
+executed maneuver, he reached for his hat and stick.
+
+"I defy you! I have no answer to your abuse! Draw off your fighting cur,
+Major Hawke, or I'll grind you and him in the dust!" The old man was
+frantic under the insult. He moved toward the door.
+
+"Stop! You go to your ruin!" cried the irate woman. "Will you give me
+full access to your daughter?"
+
+"Never! My Lady! Go and lord it over your whipped hounds in Poland--hide
+in your estates the price of the double shame of two most accommodating
+Frenchwomen!"
+
+"By the God who made me" she hissed, "I will bar your Baronetcy forever!
+I will find out that girl, and she shall learn to love me and despise
+your hated name and memory! It is open war now! and,--mark you--liar and
+hound, these two generals, the Viceroy, and, all India shall soon know
+what I know!" Then, with a clang of her silver bell, she called Jules
+Victor to her side. "Jules," she said, "If this person ever crosses the
+threshold of my door again, shoot him like the dog he is!"
+
+And then the black-browed Frenchman, holding open the door, hissed
+"ALLEZ!" as Hugh Johnstone saw for the last time the marble face of the
+woman who had doomed him to shame.
+
+"Go and send Ram Lal to me at once!" sternly said Berthe Louison. "Then
+to Major Hawke. Tell him that I want him to dine with me, and I shall
+need him all the evening. Order my carriage for five o'clock!"
+
+Alan Hawke had played his best trump card, and played it well, for the
+woman who had doubted him, gloried in his courage and hardihood. "I
+can trust him now!" she murmured when she drove to the Delhi agency
+of Grindlays and, two hours later, astounded the local manager by the
+executive rapidity of her varied business actions.
+
+"What's in the wind?" murmured the bank manager. "A sudden flitting!"
+He had been ordered to detail two of his best men to accompany Madame
+Louison to Calcutta, in a special car leaving at midnight. "Telegraph
+to your head office in Calcutta of my arrival. Major Alan Hawke will
+represent me here, under written orders to be left with your Calcutta
+manager. Send this on in cipher." She handed him a long dispatch to his
+chief.
+
+Madame Berthe Louison was seen in Delhi, in public, for the last time,
+as she gazed steadily at the brilliant throng on the lawns of the marble
+house. A fete Champetre had brought "all of Delhi" together, and the
+conspicuous absence of "the French Countess" was the reigning sensation.
+The tall, bent form of Hugh Fraser Johnstone was prominent reigning as
+host, under a great marquee. Neither of the great generals were there,
+however, for Simpson had drawn Major Hardwicke aside to whisper: "A
+captain's guard came here to-day and took an enormous treasure in
+precious stones up to Willoughby's Headquarters!" and the two commanders
+were even then busied in listing the recovered loot, with a dozen
+yellow-faced Hindus and several confidential staff officers. "It's the
+last act, Captain darlin'," said Simpson. "Old Hugh has given me secret
+orders to get ready to go on to London. He only takes his personal
+articles. Young Douglas Fraser will come here and manage the Indian
+estates."
+
+"Who's he?" eagerly cried Hardwicke.
+
+"The fellow who carried the women away--the old man's only nephew."
+
+"Ah! now I see!" heavily breathed Hardwicke. "I will take the previous
+boat, and wait for the old man at Brindisi! Post me! I'll keep mum!"
+
+"Depend on me for my life itself," said Simpson; "but be prudent! I
+don't want to lose my life pension. He's been a good master to me. We've
+grown old together!" sighed the gray-headed soldier.
+
+The frightened Ram Lal Singh was driven around Delhi this eventful day
+like a hunted rat. Suddenly summoned to General Willoughby's private
+rooms, escorted by a sergeant, who never left him a moment, the old
+Mohammedan was ushered into the presence of the two generals, who
+pounced upon him and showed him a great, assorted treasure in diamonds,
+pearls, pigeon rubies, sapphires, and emeralds of great size and
+richness. They were all duly weighed and listed, and duplicate official
+invoices lay signed upon the table.
+
+"You were Mirzah Shah's Royal Treasure Keeper? Tell me. Are all his
+jewels here? The treasure that disappeared at Humayoon's Tomb before
+Hodson slew the princes in the melee?"
+
+Ram Lal saw the frowns of men who had blown better men than himself
+from the guns in the old days, and he had a vivid memory of those same
+hideous scenes.
+
+"They are about half here in weight and number; about a quarter of the
+value. There is a hundred thousand pounds worth missing!" said the
+jewel dealer, gazing on the totals of numbers and weights. "The historic
+diamonds, the matchless pearls, the never-equaled rubies--all the
+choicest have been abstracted, and by a skillful hand!"
+
+"Go, then!" cried Willoughby. "Seal this in your breast! Speak to no one
+or you'll die in jail, wearing irons! Here!" A hundred-pound note was
+thrust into his hand, and he was whirled away to his shop.
+
+"Ah! The gray devil! he has stolen and hidden the best! I will watch him
+like a ghoul of Bowanee, and they shall be mine! He would turn tail
+now and steal away!" Ram Lal laughed an oily laugh, and going to an old
+cabinet, took out a heavy kreese. "The poisoned dagger of Mirzah Shah!"
+he smiled. "After many years!" It was Hugh Johnstone himself who sought
+Ram Lal in his pagoda that afternoon, and, after making some heavy
+purchases, finally drew out a list of jewels.
+
+"I wish you to certify, Ram Lal," he cautiously said, "that these
+are all the jewels of Mirzah Shah, that you handled as 'Keeper of the
+Prince's Treasure,' before the Meerut mutineers rushed down upon us."
+Slowly peering over the paper, the crafty Ram Lal said:
+
+"You forget, Sahib, that I was sent away to Lucknow and Cawnpore, by
+Mirzah Shah, with letters to Nana Sahib and Tantia Topee. I was shut out
+of Delhi till after the British were camped on the Windmill Ridge, and
+for months I never saw the royal jewels! Every moon the list was made
+anew. The mollahs and moonshees and treasurers took jewels for the
+Zenana every moon, and for the gifts of the princes. I could not testify
+to this!" The old man was on his guard.
+
+"I will pay you well, Ram Lal. It is my last little matter to settle
+with the authorities! Then my accounts are closed forever! As Treasurer
+you could do this!" Old Hugh Fraser Johnstone was ignorant of the veiled
+scrutiny of his stewardship.
+
+Ram Lal raised his head, at last, with something like defiance. "The
+better half is gone--the rarest--the richest! True, the princes may have
+divided them, they may have bribed their mutineer officers with some,
+but, a true list may be in the hands of these Crown officers here. They
+captured all the Palace papers. Now, I did not open them at Humayoon's
+Tomb. You know," he faltered, "how they passed through your hands!"
+
+Hugh Johnstone, for the last time tried to threaten and bully. "I will
+have you punished. I paid you well--you must lie for me! We both lied
+then."
+
+"Then the curse of Allah be upon the liar who lies now," solemnly said
+Ram Lal Singh. "I will not sign! I have the savings of years to guard.
+You will go away and the Crown will come upon me for the missing gems.
+I was absent five months from the Palace when you were in Brigadier
+Wilson's Camp! I will offer my head to these generals, but I will not
+sign! The Kaisar-I-Hind is just, and I will tell all!" With an oath of
+smothered rage, Hugh Johnstone strode away.
+
+"I must try and make a royal present to Willoughby's wife,--a timely
+one--and lose a half a lac of rupees to Abercromby. They may find a
+way to pass the matter over." He dared not press Ram Lal to a public
+exposition of all the wanderings of Mirzah Shah's jewels. "If I had not
+told them that fairy tale, I might hedge; but it's too late now. I will
+go down to Calcutta, see the Viceroy, and then clear out for good. And
+I must placate Alan Hawke. I was a fool to ignore him. But, to make an
+enemy of him, on account of that damned woman, would be ruin. He chums
+with Ram Lal. He might cable to Anstruther."
+
+In fact Alan Hawke's bold social revolt had imposed on Johnstone. "He
+might help to cover all up if I induced Abercromby to get him back on
+the staff once more. I was a fool to slight him." Hugh Fraser Johnstone
+was dimly conscious that his own line of battle was wavering, and that
+his flanks were unguarded--his rear unprotected. "I will only trust my
+homeward pathway to Simpson, and my health is a good excuse for clearing
+out for good. I can easily locate on the Continent--in Belgium, or
+Switzerland--and out of reach of any little trouble to come. They've no
+proof. This fellow has no list, thank Heaven. I'll slip down to Ceylon
+and catch the first boat there to Suez. Then ho for Geneva!"
+
+But Ram Lal Singh's slight defenses fell instantly before the golden
+battering-ram of Madame Berthe Louison's direct onslaught. "I was busied
+in the bazaars, buying jewels," he expostulated, when Jules Victor led
+him into Madame Louison's boudoir. Even then Major Hawke was curiously
+noting the dismantled condition of the reception-room, where Johnstone
+had at last thrown off the mask.
+
+"I leave Major Hawke here to close all my business, Ram Lal," she said.
+"I go to Calcutta. I may be gone for some months. But I have watched you
+and him. You are close friends--very close friends. Now, remember that
+I pay him and I pay you. I wish you to give me--to sell me--the list of
+the jewels which Johnstone took away from you and hid, when he was Hugh
+Fraser." The old scoundrel began to protest. Berthe Louison rang her
+silver bell. "Jules!" she said, "I wish you to go to General Willoughby
+with this letter, and tell him to send a guard here to arrest a thief
+who has government jewels."
+
+Ram Lal was on the floor at her feet, groveling, before she grimly
+smiled, as he held out a paper, quickly extracted from his red sash.
+"That will do, Jules." The Frenchman stood without the door. "You will
+not run away. You are far too rich, Ram Lal. And you will be watched
+every moment. Sign and seal the list, and date it to-day." The old
+craven begged hard for mercy. "Here is a hundred pounds. Hawke will pay
+you four hundred more when I am safely on the sea, but only then! He
+will close all my bills. Remember, I shall come back again. And," she
+whispered a word, "he will watch you closely." The jeweler sealed the
+document, and scribbled his certificate. "Not one word of my business,
+not even to Hawke, on your life," she said. "I shall come again! And
+General Willoughby will throw you in prison on a word from me."
+
+Major Alan Hawke was astounded, after an hour's yielding to the social
+charm of Madame Alixe Delavigne, when the happy woman led him away from
+the dinner table. "Now for a half-hour's business chat," she gayly said.
+"No, no notes. We shall next meet at No. 9 Rue Berlioz, Paris. You will
+receive my sealed directions from Grindlay's agent here, with funds to
+settle my affairs. I go to-night to Calcutta, and thence to Europe. Obey
+my orders. You will get them, sealed, from the agent here. You can
+come on, by Bombay, when I cable to you. I will cable direct here to
+Grindlay's. They'll not lose sight of you," she smiled.
+
+"And my relations with old Hugh?" he gasped in surprise.
+
+"Just watch him and follow him on to Europe. Neither you nor he can do
+me any harm, but your reward for your manly stand to-day will reach you
+in Paris. I knew of it."
+
+"Shall I not see you to the train?" Hawke stammered.
+
+"Ah!" she smiled, extending her hand warmly, "I have a double guard and
+my servants. I will be met at Calcutta, and I go on my way safely now to
+work a slow vengeance!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. A CAPTIVATED VICEROY.
+
+
+
+There were several "late parties" in sumptuous Delhi, on the evening
+when Madame Berthe Louison drove quietly to the railway station at two
+o'clock. A little knot of tired officials were still on duty, and when
+some forerunner had given a private signal, a single car, drawn by a
+powerful locomotive, glided out of the darkness.
+
+In a few moments a dozen trunks and a score of bags and bundles were
+tossed aboard the baggage van. Five persons stepped nimbly aboard, and
+then with no warning signal, the Lady of the Silver Bungalow was borne
+out into the darkness, racing on toward Calcutta with the swiftness of
+the wind.
+
+Jules Victor, vigorous and alert, after several cups of cafe noir, well
+dashed with cognac, disposed his two Lefacheux revolvers in readiness,
+and then betook himself to a nap. His bright-eyed wife was in the
+compartment with her beautiful mistress, and ready to sound a shrill
+Gallic alarm at any moment. She gravely eyed the two escorting officials
+of the bank. Marie said in her heart that "all men were liars," and she
+believed most of them to be voleurs, in addition. Jules, when the little
+train was whirling along a-metals a score of miles away from Delhi,
+relaxed his Zouave vigilance, and bade a long adieu to Delhi, in a
+vigorous grunt. "Va bene! Sacree Canaille!"
+
+There was silence at the railway station when the head agent wearily
+said, "I suppose the Bank is moving a lot of notes back to Calcutta!
+They are a rum slick lot, these money changers!" When all was left in
+darkness, save where a blinking red and white line signal still showed,
+Ram Lal Singh crept away from the line of the rails. The rich jewel
+vender clutched in his bosom the handle of Mirzah Shah's poisoned
+dagger, the deadly dagger of a merciless prince.
+
+He had long pondered over the sudden demand made upon him by the Lady of
+the Silver Bungalow. And he greatly desired to re-adjust his relations
+with Hugh Johnstone and Major Alan Hawke. The daily usefulness of "Lying
+as a Fine Art" was never before so apparent to Ram Lal. He slunk away on
+foot to his own bit of a zenana.
+
+"I must try to deceive them both! Fool that I was not to see it before!
+These two Generals are her friends, of old! The secret protector of the
+wonderful moon-eyed beauty here is General Willoughby, and the other
+General will secretly help her down at Calcutta. She came up here,
+secretly, to see her old lover Willoughby, and that is why she would be
+able to have a guard arrest me. For she said just what they said about
+the prison. Willoughby goes down often to Calcutta! Ah! Yes! They are
+all the same, these English! Fools! Not to lock their women up, when
+they have once bought them, with a secret price! And now, Hawke must
+never know of this paper I gave her. She would find out, and then have
+the General punish me. Now I know why she went not to the great English
+Mem-Sahibs here! And these two great General Sahibs have had her spy
+upon this old man, Hugh Fraser--the man who would steal away with the
+Queen's jewels. They would have them. By Bowanee! I will have them
+first! For I can hide them where they never will find them! I will trade
+them off to the Princes, who know the old jewels of Oude. They will
+give me double weight, treble value." Ram Lal crept into his hidden
+love nest, his skinny hand clutching the golden shaft of Mirzah Shah's
+dagger. "I might surrender them later and get an enormous reward from
+the Crown," he mused.
+
+At the Delhi Club, Major Alan Hawke, in a strange unrest, paced his
+floor half the night. "I stand now nearly eleven thousand pounds to
+the good, with outlying counties to hear from, as the Yankees say." He
+smiled, "that is, if the old fox does not stop these drafts. If he does,
+I'll stop him!" he swore. And yet, he was troubled at heart. "I know
+Alixe Delavigne will call me back and pay me well. How did she find out
+about my bold bluff to Johnstone? Some servant may have overheard, and
+she is a deep one. She may even have her own spies there!"
+
+"Justine, I can count on you to help me later. But, how to treat old
+Hugh?" His dreams of an army reinstatement came back to worry him. "I
+might go to Abercromby and warn him about Johnstone. Damn it! I've
+no proof as yet! Berthe Louison will fire the great gun herself." The
+renegade fell asleep, torturing himself about the needless breach with
+Johnstone. "All violence is a mistake!" he muttered, half asleep. "The
+angry old man will keep me away from the girl forever, and the old brute
+is going to Europe. I have spoiled one game in taking one trick too
+roughly."
+
+Another "late party" was at Major Hardwicke's quarters, where the loyal
+Simpson related to the lover all the gossip of Johnstone and General
+Abercromby, over their brandy pawnee and cheroots. Simpson was the eager
+servitor of the young engineer, whom he loved.
+
+General Willoughby had a little fit of "work" which seized upon him, and
+so he toiled till late at night, sending some cipher dispatches to the
+Viceroy. "I may make a point in this, perhaps a C. B.," said the old
+veteran, who was sharper when drunk than sober. "I'll put a pin in
+Johnstone's game, and get ahead of Abercromby." This last old warrior
+had secretly vowed to force Hugh Fraser Johnstone to present him to the
+"little party in the Silver Bungalow." The Calcutta general was a Knight
+of Venus, as well as a Son of Mars, and had guarded memories of
+some wild episodes of his own there in the halcyon days of the great
+chieftain who had builded it. A gay young staff officer whispered:
+
+"Alan Hawke is the only one who really has the 'open sesame.' He knows
+that 'little party.' Didn't you see Johnstone hurry her away? The old
+nabob, too, is sly."
+
+"Ah!" mused the General. "I'll make Johnstone have Hawke here to
+breakfast. Devilish clever fellow--and he'll take me there!" Alas! for
+these rosy anticipations. The "little party" was already at Allahabad
+before the gouty general awoke from his love dream.
+
+And, last of all the "late parties" on this eventful night was Hugh
+Fraser Johnstone's little solitary council of war. He had, with a
+prescience of coming trouble, detailed two of his own keenest personal
+servants to watch the Silver Bungalow, from daylight, relieving each
+other, and never losing sight a moment of the hidden tiger's den. "I'll
+find out who goes and comes there! By God! I will!" he raged. After a
+long cogitation, he evolved a "way out" of his quarrel with Hawke. "Damn
+the fellow! I must not drive him over into the enemy's camp. I'll have
+him here--to breakfast, to-morrow. The jewels are safely out of the
+way now. For a few pounds he will watch this she-devil, and that yellow
+thief, Ram Lal, for me. My only danger is in their coming together.
+I'll get a note to him early." Seizing his chit-book, he dashed off in
+a frankly apologetic way a few lines. "There! That'll do! Not too much!"
+He read his lines with a final approval.
+
+"Dear Hawke: I've been worried to death with a lot of people thrust on
+me. Mere figure-heads. You must excuse an old friend--an old man--and
+Madame Louison is like all women--only a bundle of nerves. Come over to
+the house to-day at noon and breakfast with Abercromby and myself alone.
+I'll send you back to Calcutta with him on a little run. I appreciate
+your manliness in keeping out of my little misunderstanding with the
+Madame. By the way, a few words from Abercromby to the Viceroy would
+put you back on the Army Staff, where you rightly belong. Let bygones be
+bygones, and you can make your play on the General, It's the one chance
+of a life. Come and see me. J."
+
+"There! He will never show that!" mused Hugh Johnstone. "It touches his
+one little raw spot!" And calling a boy the old Commissioner dispatched
+the note, carefully sealed, to the Club. The last one to seek his rest
+in the marble house, old Johnstone was strangely shaken by the events of
+the day.
+
+Berthe Louison's threats, Ram Lal's stubborn refusal, and the useless
+quarrel with Hawke had unmanned him. He drank a strong glass of grog and
+then sought his room. "All things settle themselves at last! This thing
+will blow over! I wish to God that she was out of the way! I could then
+handle the rest!" For in his heart he feared the defiant woman.
+
+There were two men equally surprised when gunfire brought the "day's
+doings" on again in lazy, luxurious Delhi. Over his morning coffee,
+Major Alan Hawke thankfully cried: "I am a very devil for luck! This old
+skinflint is opening his bosom and handing me a knife. By God! I'll have
+my pound of flesh!" He leaped from his couch as blithe as a midshipman
+receiving his first love letter from a fullgrown dame. There was great
+joy in the house of Hawke.
+
+But when Simpson entered his master's room he was followed by a
+wild-eyed returning emissary, who waited till the old soldier had left
+the room. Hugh Johnstone suddenly lost all interest in the breakfast
+tray, the letters and his morning toilet, when the Hindu fearfully said:
+"They are all gone--the Mem-Sahib, the two foreign devils, and all their
+belongings!"
+
+Johnstone was on his feet with a single bound. "Gone! What do you tell
+me, you fool?" He was shaking the slim-boned native as if he were a man
+of straw.
+
+"They went to the railroad at two o'clock at night, the coachman told
+me. We only began our watch by your orders at daybreak. She had been
+then gone four hours." Johnstone foamed in an impotent rage.
+
+"Who is left in the house?" he roared.
+
+"Nobody, Sahib." tersely said the Hindu.
+
+"Get out and send me Simpson!" the old man sternly said. "Go back and
+watch that house till I have you relieved. Tell me everyone who goes in
+or out!"
+
+And then the horrible fear that Willoughby or Abercromby had deceived
+him, began to dawn upon his excited mind. "Simpson," he cried, "there's
+a good fellow! Take the first trap and get over to Major Hawke. Tell him
+that I must see him here, at once, on the most important business. He
+must come. Then get to Ram Lal, and bring him yourself to your own room.
+Let me know, privately, when he is there. Never mind my dressing. Send
+me a couple of the others. Is the General awake?"
+
+"Just coming down for his ride! Horses ordered in half an hour!"
+
+Simpson fled away, muttering, "Hardwicke must know of this!"
+
+Hugh Johnstone fancied that he was dreaming when he met his official
+guest, refreshed and jovial, but still under the spell of Venus.
+
+"See here, Hugh!" said the gallant Abercromby. "I want you to present
+me to that stunning woman over there, at the Silver Bungalow, you know.
+They tell me she's the Queen of Delhi. You old rascal, I'm bound to know
+her! Can't we have a little breakfast there, under the rose?" A last
+desperate expedient occurred to Johnstone. His baronetcy was in danger
+now.
+
+"There's but one man in Delhi can bring you within the fairy circle.
+That's Hawke--a devilish good officer too, by the way! Ought to be back
+on the 'Temporary Staff,' at least! He comes here to breakfast! I'll
+turn you over to him. He manages all the lady's private affairs. He is
+your man."
+
+General Abercromby turned a stony eye upon his host. "Does Willoughby go
+there?" he huskily whispered.
+
+"Never crossed the line! Hawke is far too shy. You see, Willoughby has
+not recognized Major Hawke's rank and past services!"
+
+"Ah!" said the jealous warrior. "If Hawke is the man you say he is, I
+can get the Viceroy to give him a local rank, in two weeks! Send him
+down with me to Calcutta!" and the gay old would-be lover jingled away
+on his morning ride.
+
+"This may be my one anchor of safety!" gasped the wondering Johnstone,
+as Alan Hawke came dashing into the grounds. In half an hour, the
+broken entente cordiale was restored, and Johnstone had slipped away and
+questioned the wary Ram Lal.
+
+"All I know is that the lady hired the house temporarily from me, I am
+agent for Runjeet Hoy, who owns it now. She went without a word, and
+gave me three hundred pounds yesternight, for her rent and supplies. I
+asked the Mem-Sahib no questions. She went away all by herself, in the
+middle of the night."
+
+"Ah! You know nothing more?" sharply queried Johnstone.
+
+"Of course not! I thought you, or Hawke Sahib, or General Wilhoughby,
+was a secret friend." Slyly said Ram Lal.
+
+"She owes you nothing? You do not expect her to return?" the nabob
+cried.
+
+"I think she has gone to Calcutta! She came from there."
+
+"Come to-night, privately, Ram Lal. I'll show you how to get in. Just
+tap at my bedroom window three times. Come secretly, at eleven o'clock,
+and find out all you can. Wait in the garden till the house is dark.
+I'll pay you well," continued Johnstone, leading the old jeweler to his
+bedroom. "I will leave this one window unfastened. So you can come in!
+The room will be dark!"
+
+"The Sahib shall be obeyed!" said Ram Lal, salaaming to the ground, and
+he was happy at heart as he glided out of the garden. A ferocious smile
+of coming triumph gleamed in his dark face. "I have him now! He will
+never slip away in the night! But I must please him, and lie to him!" It
+was the chance for which he had vainly waited there many years, and Ram
+Lal prayed to great Bowaaee to aid him.
+
+"Hawke!" said Johnstone, when his astounded listener heard all of
+Johnstone's proposed infamy. "I have telegraphed to Allahabad and
+Calcutta. This strange woman has gone down there. Now, I want you to
+fall in with Abercromby. He will go down in a few days. Bring them
+together in any way you can. The General and the beauty. No fool like
+an old fool!" he grinned. "Watch them and post me! Abercromby is already
+well disposed to you. Make a play on him. He will get you a temporary
+rank from the Viceroy.
+
+"Your matchless knowledge of the Himalayas and the whole northern
+frontier will earn you a regular rank. Coddle Anstruther, too, and cling
+to the Vice-roy! I'll back you with any money you need. It's the one
+chance of a life!"
+
+"And what am I to do for you, Johnstone?" quietly said the delighted
+Hawke.
+
+"Just stand by me about this baronetcy, and bamboozle this damned
+foolish woman, while I slip quietly away to Europe! She is mercurial
+and vain. Abercromby will get her into the fast Calcutta set, after one
+necessary appearance at the Viceroy's! She is, after all, only a woman.
+You can catch them with a feather, if you can catch them at all! Once
+properly launched by Abercromby, you are a made man for life! He will
+not dare to 'go back on you!' as our Yankee cousins have it. The Viceroy
+will do anything for him!"
+
+"By God! Johnstone! I'm your man! Count on me in life and death!" warmly
+cried Hawke. The two men clasped hands.
+
+There was a clatter and a jingle. The old warrior was on his return.
+"Here he comes now! Fall in with his humor, and success to you at
+Calcutta," whispered Johnstone. There was the very jolliest breakfast
+imaginable at the marble house that day, and that same afternoon Major.
+Alan Hawke rode all over Delhi as volunteer aide to General Abercromby.
+
+Two nights later General Abercromby whispered to Hugh Johnstone, at a
+Grand Ball at Willoughby's Headquarters: "I've just had a telegram from
+the Viceroy to return at once. Your matter is now all right. I leave the
+property with Willoughby here. I'll go down in the morning, if you'll
+fix me up." And then, Johnstone signing to Major Alan Hawke, who had
+been the cynosure of all eyes, as he gracefully led Madame la Generale
+Willoughby through a lanciers, took the favorite of fortune aside.
+
+"Make your adieux! Get out of here! Settle all your little affairs! Send
+all your traps over to my house! General Abercromby wants to slip away
+quietly in the morning! No one is to know! And you go with him, at his
+urgent request."
+
+And that very evening at Calcutta, Alixe Delavigne would have laughed
+in triumph to know of Hugh Johnstone's strange eagerness to dispatch
+his amorous guest. For the lady--in the safe haven of the great banker's
+home--had just returned from a captivated Viceroy, who had instantly
+recalled Abercromby by a dispatch to be "obeyed forthwith."
+
+"You, Madame, have laid me under an obligation which I can never
+forget," said the graceful statesman. The list of Ram Lal was in his
+hands now! And so Hugh Johnstone was highly pleased, and Madame
+Berthe Louison, still in her masquerade, was happy, and the watchful
+Commanding-General Willoughby was more than pleased; and the now doubly
+hopeful Major Alan Hawke rejoiced, while General Abercromby knew that
+the "little party" was waiting him in Calcutta. But most of all pleased
+was Ram Lal Singh, clutching in his dreams at the dagger of Mirzah Shah,
+lying there by his bedside. "He will be left alone, and he knows my
+signal--his own device--THREE TAPS AT HIS WINDOW! In Delhi there only
+lingered, sad and lonely, Major Harry Hardwicke, whose sighs were echoed
+back from afar by a starry-eyed girl watching the sandy shores of the
+Suez Canal.
+
+"I dare not telegraph to him till we reach Brindisi," mused the loving
+girl. "After that our path will be plain, and Justine MUST help me! Then
+he can follow me--if he loves me!" She faltered, hiding her blushing
+face. The only comforter of the lonely Hardwicke was "Rattler Murray."
+Red Eric, of the Eighth Lancers, had just fallen into a pot of money.
+
+"Take your long leave, my boy!" he cried. "I've been nine long years
+a Lieutenant! I'll have my troop before my leave is out! And there's
+a loving lass awaiting me! One I love--one who loves me--one you must
+know, for you must be the 'best man'!"
+
+"Wait, only wait a couple of weeks, Eric!" said the Major, whose eyes
+were now turned daily to Simpson. "Then I'll put in my own application,
+and we'll go home together."
+
+This bright hope was duly pledged in many a loving cup.
+
+General Abercromby was far away on the road to Calcutta when
+Major-General Willoughby sent, posthaste, for Major Harry Hardwicke of
+the Corps of Engineers. The puzzled Commanding General was racking his
+brains to find out if his old friend Abercromby had committed any fatal
+error during his somewhat bacchanalian visit on "special duty."
+
+"I'm glad he is gone" mused the stout-hearted, thick-headed old
+Commander, as he read, over and over, the Viceroy's cipher dispatch to
+the departed General.
+
+"Do nothing further! Turn over all property, on invoice, to General
+Willoughby, and report here forthwith. Hold no communication with
+Johnstone, and guard an absolute silence. Report in person, instantly on
+your arrival."
+
+"Something has surely gone wrong!" at last decided Willoughby. "Old Hugh
+Fraser Johnstone may have been too much for him. Strange, the Viceroy
+says nothing of him!" And then he read a second dispatch, with the
+Viceroy's orders to himself. "Notify Major Harry Hardwicke, Royal
+Engineers, to report in person, to the Viceroy for special duty,
+prepared to go in a week to England on duty. Absolute secrecy required.
+His leave application will be approved for any period, to take effect on
+his completion of duties assigned, in London. Special cipher orders will
+be sent to him this A.M. Deliver them and furnish him the code No. 2.
+No copies to be retained. Furnish Major Hardwicke with a captain and
+ten picked men to escort the property received by General Abercromby to
+Calcutta. Invoices to you to be signed by him. Property to be sent
+down in sealed pay-chests, with your seal and Major Hardwicke's. Report
+compliance, and telegraph in cipher No. 2 Hardwicke's departure for
+Calcutta. Special transportation has been ordered."
+
+"There, my boy, you have your orders!" an hour later said General
+Willoughby when Major Hardwicke reported. "I am glad to have the
+whole thing off my hands. Here is the double-ciphered code. You are to
+translate for yourself, and, remember, then destroy your translation.
+Remember, also, one single whisper of your destination, and you are
+a ruined man! Evidently the Viceroy is bent on trapping old Hugh
+Johnstone. Damn him, for a sneaking civilian! I never trusted him!" And
+the old General rolled away for his family tiffin. "I'll see you when
+you have translated the private orders. Thank God, the Viceroy keeps me
+out of this dirty muddle! You see, I have no power over Johnstone--he
+is a blasted civilian." Two hours later, the grateful old General found
+Hardwicke pacing up and down impatiently. "I ought only to tell Murray,"
+he murmured, "if I could! He is going home to be married, and I am to
+stand up with him."
+
+"Just the thing!" gayly cried Willoughby. "Murray's captaincy is in the
+Gazette of to-day's mail. I will order him down with you, in command
+of the guard, and, at Calcutta, the Viceroy will release you from your
+promise, so as to let him know that you can meet him in London. His
+Excellency evidently wants to hoodwink all the gossips here, and, above
+all, to blind old Johnstone. Now, Harry, I feel like a brute to let you
+go without a poor send-off, but, by Heaven, the whole Willoughby clan
+will follow you in London, and pay off a part of our debt for that
+'run-under fire' with my wounded boy. Name anything you want. Do you
+want any help to watch Johnstone?" The old General was eager.
+
+"Ah! I fear that I must attend to him, alone!" sadly said Major
+Hardwicke, whose heart was racked, for a fair, dear face now afar must
+soon be clouded with sorrow and those dear eyes weep a father's shame.
+
+"Call, day and night, for anything you want!" heartily said the loyal
+old father of the rescued officer. "The day before you go you must dine
+with us, alone, and Harriet will give you her last greeting."
+
+As the day wore away, there was a jovial rapprochement in the special
+car where General Abercromby and Major Hawke were gayly extolling Madame
+Berthe Louison's perfections. "Mind you, General, I am no squire of
+dames," said the Major. "You must make your own running."
+
+"Ah! my boy, you have earned your temporary rank as a Major of Staff,
+when you've introduced me. I flatter myself that I know women!" cried
+Abercromby as they cracked t'other bottle of Johnstone's champagne.
+
+"Take me to her, and then, I'll take you to the Viceroy. I guarantee
+your rank!"
+
+"It's a bargain!" cried the delighted Hawke. While Abercromby dreamed
+of the lovely lady of the Silver Bungalow, Major Alan Hawke leisurely
+examined a sheaf of letters from Europe which had been thrust in his
+pocket by Ram Lal at parting.
+
+"Victory!" he cried, as he read a tender letter from Euphrosyne Delande,
+in which she promised her absolute compliance with his every wish.
+"Justine has written to me herself," was the underscored hint that the
+three might join fortunes. "It's about time for that Madras boat to
+get to Brindisi," mused Hawke, as they ran into Allahabad, "There may be
+telegrams here now." And, while General Abercromby jovially feasted,
+Hawke ran over to his secret haunt to which he had ordered Ram Lal to
+send any telegrams, for one day only, and then, the rest would be safe
+with Ram's secret agent in Calcutta. "My God! This is my fortune! Bravo,
+Justine!" cried Hawke, "True and quickwitted. I now hold Berthe Louison
+in my hand."
+
+He read the words--"Andrew Fraser, St. Agnes' Road, St. Heliers,
+Jersey." The dispatch was headed Brindisi, and signed "Justine." "A
+man might do worse than marry a woman as true and keen as that," smiled
+Hawke. "I am a devil for luck!" And then he gayly drank Justine's
+health, in silence, when he joined the amorous Abercromby at the table.
+
+But the "devil for luck" did not know of a little scene at Brindisi,
+where the blushing Nadine Johnstone hid her face in her friend's bosom.
+"It is my life, my very existence, Justine!" she pleaded. "I will never
+forget you; we are both women, and my heart will break if you refuse!"
+And thus Justine Delande had learned at last of Nadine's easy victory
+over the frank-hearted cousin's prudence.
+
+"What's the wrong--to tell her?" he had mused, under the spell of the
+loving eyes. "We go straight through, and I am in charge till my father
+takes her out of my hands! Poor girl, it will be a grim enough life with
+him. Not a man will ever set eyes on her face without old Hugh's written
+order!" And it was thus that Justine was enabled to warn her own lover
+when she had slipped away and cabled by her mistress's orders to the
+young Lochinvar at Delhi:
+
+"Captain Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers, Delhi: Letters for you at
+Andrew Fraser's, St Agnes Road, St. Heliers, Jersey. Come."
+
+The Swiss woman shuddered as she boldly signed Nadine! And this same
+dispatch when received by the young officer, now busied with the
+Viceroy's mandate, brought the sunlight of Love back into his darkened
+soul! The minutes seemed to lengthen into hours until the special train
+was ready. At the risk of his military future, the Major gave to the
+faithful Simpson his London Club address. "If anything happens here,
+you must go to General Willoughby. Tell him what you want me to know.
+He will send it on, and give you a five-pound note. Remember! Simpson,
+you'll die in my service if you stand true!"
+
+"That I will, for your brave father's sake, and for the young lady's
+bright eyes! Bless her dear, sunny face! Tell her that I will work for
+her in life and death!" And when, in a few days the lengthened absence
+of Major Harry Hardwicke and Red Eric Murray was noted, the groups only
+conjectured a little junket to some near-by station, or a long shikaree
+trip. But Simpson and General Willoughby knew better. Simpson was a
+"lord" in these days, in the quarter, for Hardwicke had not left Delhi
+with a closed hand.
+
+And old Hugh Johnstone, greatly relieved at heart, was now busied in
+secretly arranging for his own flitting. "I'll run down to Calcutta, see
+the Viceroy, give Abercromby a splendid dinner, and then slip off home,
+on the quiet, via Ceylon. I'll send Douglas back when I get to Jersey,
+and then I can put those jewels where no human being can ever trace
+them! Once that brother Andrew has my full orders as to Nadine, I will
+bar this she-devil forever from her side! On the excuse of a leisurely
+contemplated tour, I can have the rich Jew brokers of Amsterdam and
+Frankfort, with their agents in Cairo and Constantinople, divide up the
+jewels among the foreign crown-heads. I am then safe! safe! No human
+hand can ever touch me now," he gloated.
+
+There was a clattering of aides-de-camp and great official bustle at
+the Government House in Calcutta when General Abercromby reported to
+the great statesman Viceroy, dwelling in the vast palace, builded by the
+Marquis of Wellesley.
+
+General Abercromby, marveling at the abruptness of the Viceroy, was
+relieved to know that his "secret service" had been transferred to Major
+Hardwicke under the orders of Major-General Willoughby. His mind was
+intently occupied with the promised introduction to Madame Berthe
+Louison--"that little party"--and so he failed not to refer to the
+future value to the crown of Alan Hawke's services.
+
+"He is here with me, Your Excellency!" respectfully said Abercromby, who
+had already posted off his leporello to call in due form at the banker's
+mansion, where the disguised Alixe Delavigne had taken refuge. "Send him
+to me at once, General. I need him! I will give him the local staff rank
+of Major and immediate employment. Willoughby has also written to me
+especially about his wonderful knowledge of our northern lines. Stay!
+Bring him yourself, to-morrow, at ten o'clock."
+
+"Splendid! Splendid!" cried the love-lorn General, rubbing his hands,
+as he hastened away in his carriage to meet Alan Hawke! "I am ready for
+him, if he is ready for me! I wish she were at some one of the great
+hotels instead of being buried in the silver-gray respectability of the
+Manager's family circle. But--but--I will take her to the Viceroy.
+The bird shall then learn to test its wings. I will bring her out as a
+social star!"
+
+Major Alan Hawke, with a beating heart, recounted to Madame Berthe
+Louison all the occurrences in Delhi, when they were left alone in the
+great banker's vast parlors. "She is a puzzle, this strange woman!"
+mused Hawke, for a serene and stately triumph shone in her splendid
+eyes.
+
+Berthe Louison listened to all! "You will get your staff appointment,"
+she smiled, "and I will help you! Bring your friend General Abercromby
+to see me here to-morrow evening! I will be amiable to him, for your
+sake, and for the sake of my future interests!"
+
+The grateful young man, now on the threshold of reinstatement, in a
+sudden impulse cried, "I can, now, give you Nadine Johnstone's hiding
+place! You can trust to me and I will prove it, now! It is--"
+
+"With Andrew Fraser, retired Professor of Edinburgh University,
+historian and philologist, ethnologist, etc.; St. Agnes Road, St.
+Heliers, Jersey," laughingly rejoined Berthe Louison.
+
+"You are a--witch, woman! A wonder!" cried the astounded adventurer.
+
+"Ah! You see that I have trusted you!" she smiled. "Now, do as I bid
+you, and you will rise in the service! Remember! You are to do just what
+I say! The bank here, or in Delhi, will give you always my directions.
+Remember! I shall not lose sight of you for a moment, though near or
+far! And money and promotion will reward your good faith! Go now! my
+friend," she kindly said, extending her hand. "Bring the General, here,
+tomorrow evening, at eight! I will be busied till then! There is nothing
+for you to do now!"
+
+The astonished schemer was in a maze as he dashed away to the Calcutta
+Club to meet General Abercromby. "She is a very devil and a mistress of
+the Black Art!" he mused. "I will stand by her," he admiringly cried,
+"as long as it pays me." It was the honest tribute of a grateful
+scoundrel's heart!
+
+While the happy Abercromby dallied with Major Hawke over a claret cup,
+an official messenger sought him out, at the Club. "There, my boy! You
+see that I am a man of my word!" cried the would-be lover. Alan Hawke's
+lip trembled as he tore open an envelope directed to him and marked: "On
+Her Majesty's Service." The first in many years. The walls spun around
+before his eyes when he read his provisional appointment, with an order
+to report forthwith, to the Chief of Staff, for private instructions.
+"Ah! I congratulate you, my boy!" heartily cried the happy General. "You
+are a very devil for luck! One toast to the Viceroy! I'll meet you here
+to-night!"
+
+The happiest man in India sped away to his newly opened gate of Paradise
+Regained, while afar in the sweltering September sun, the gleam of
+rifles and red coats told of an armed escort on the train, bearing Major
+Hardwicke and Captain Eric Murray, on to Calcutta, with the swiftness
+of the wind. Neither of the officers for a moment quitted their
+compartment, and two chosen sergeants, revolver in hand, watched
+certain sealed packages lying beside them all there in plain view. Major
+Hardwicke's soul was now in his quest!
+
+There was a gleam of romance in the great Viceroy's morning duties,
+while Major Hawke had hastened to the Chief of Staff's office.
+
+Madame Berthe Louison, escorted by her guardian, the bank manager, had
+placed upon the Viceroy's table a little document which he studied with
+great care. "You are sure that there is no mistake?" the statesman said,
+gravely interrogating the banker. "I will guarantee it, Your Excellency,
+with its face value, fifty thousand pounds." answered the financier. It
+was the memorandum of a policy of assurance for a sealed package, on
+the steamer Lord Roberts, sent by Hugh Fraser Johnstone to Prof. Andrew
+Fraser, St. Agnes Road, St. Heliers, Jersey and now half way to England.
+
+"I will act, Madame, at once!" said the holder of a scepter by proxy.
+"You are to guard this secret, both, upon your honor. Send the dispatch,
+as you have proposed. My official action is to follow this up. I will
+let the game go on in silence just a little longer. And now--" the
+Viceroy led the lady aside, whispering a few private words, which left
+her a proud and happy woman. "My special aid will call at your residence
+as soon as it is dark. The consular officials at Aden, Suez, Port Said,
+and Brindisi will all have orders regarding you. I am ashamed that the
+prudence needed in the official side of this affair prevents me socially
+honoring you as I would. The French Consul-General has given to me his
+official guaranty for you, which," he smiled, "was not needed. We shall
+meet again, and your conduct will not be forgotten."
+
+Alixe Delavigne bowed with the grace of a queen and never lifted her
+eyes until her sober mentor had brought her to the shelter of his home.
+Before they were seated at tiffin the wires bore away this dispatch,
+which astounded its recipient:
+
+"CAP. ANSON ANSTRUTHER, JUNIOR UNITED SERVICE CLUB,
+
+LONDON.
+
+Meet me at Morley's Hotel, London. Will telegraph you from Brindisi.
+Official dispatches to you explain.
+
+BERTHE LOUISON."
+
+When the stars lit up the broad Hooghly that night, a swift Peninsular
+and Oriental Liner drew away down the river, with a smart steam-launch
+towing at her companionway. The woman who said adieu to the Viceroy's
+aid and her grave-faced banker in her splendid rooms had read the brief
+words of Captain Anstruther, telling her that the electric Ariel was
+true to his trust. "All right. Both dispatches received. Welcome.
+Anstruther." The official staterooms were a bower of floral beauty, and
+the gallant aid murmured: "I hope that nothing has been forgotten. The
+whole ship is at your disposal. The Commander has the Viceroy's personal
+orders. And, I was to give you the letter and this package!" When the
+banker had exchanged the last words of counsel and advice, he said:
+"Trust me! I know Hawke of old! We will let him go up the ladder of life
+a little, while the other fellow comes down!"
+
+When the little steam-launch was a black blur on the blue waters, then
+Alixe Delavigne, standing alone at the rail, smiled as she saw the lean,
+straggling shores sweep by. "I fear that General Abercromby will deem
+me discourteous! But time, tide, and the P. and O. steamers wait for no
+elderly beau, however fascinating!"
+
+It is a matter of local history in Calcutta that General Abercromby's
+remark: "Hawke! we have been a pair of damned fools! We are outwitted!"
+found its way at last into the clubs, and the attack of jaundice,
+followed up by a severe gout, which "laid out" the sighing lover for
+long months, proves, as of old, that stern Mars cannot cope with
+the bright and all-compelling Venus! But Major Alan Hawke, of the
+Provisional Staff, hearkened wisely to the banker's words: "Don't
+be fool enough to think that you can trifle with Madame Louison's
+interests. The noble Viceroy has placed you on duty, at her own personal
+request, to give you a last chance to regain all the promise of your
+youth. One word from her, and--and you will be suspended or, dropped!
+You will get your military orders from the Viceroy and her wishes from
+me."
+
+Alan Hawke was paralyzed with astonishment the next day, when the
+Viceroy ordered him to proceed at once to Delhi, to report to General
+Willoughby, and to hasten to London, via Bombay, on completion of his
+secret service at Delhi."
+
+"I am a devil for luck!" muttered Hawke. "But even the tide of Fortune
+can drive along too fast!" He had lost his head, and forgotten all
+his pigmy plans. A stronger hand than his own was secretly guiding his
+onward path, upward to the old status of the "British officer!" "What
+the devil do they want of me in London?" he mused.
+
+And, chuckling over how easily he had made the lovesick Abercromby
+help him into his "military seat" once more, Alan Hawke betook himself
+forthwith to Delhi, to report to General Willoughby for instant service.
+When he descended at Allahabad, his undress uniform of a major of the
+Staff Corps brought down on him a storm of congratulations from old
+friends gathered there. "Sly old boy you were!" the service men laughed,
+over their glasses, while wetting his new uniform. "A man must not tell
+all he knows!" patiently replied Major Hawke, with the sad, sweet smile
+of a man who had dropped into a good thing.
+
+As he rolled along toward Delhi, he seriously cogitated "playing fair"
+in his new capacity. "Perhaps it will pay!" he mused. "But I will even
+up with that old hog, Johnstone!" He dared not contemplate now any
+substantial treason to Madame Alixe Delavigne. "She is a witch woman!
+She seems to have an untold backing! The Bankers, even, the Viceroy, and
+the French Consul-General, too. She could crush me! I must serve My Lady
+Disdain, and I will fight and die in her army!" Arriving at Delhi, Major
+Alan Hawke's first visit was to Ram Lal Singh, as he prepared to "report
+forthwith," in "full rig," to the local Commander. There was a strange
+preoccupation in the old jeweler which baffled Hawke. Ram Lal only
+humbly begged to have all his lengthened accounts with Madame Berthe
+Louison arranged, and Alan Hawke, with a few words, calmed the
+Mussulman's fears.
+
+"I'll have it all attended to, to-morrow, when I look it over," said
+the Major, hastening away to the Club. "Ram has been at the hashish, or
+bhang, or the betel nut, or some of his recondite dissipations--perhaps
+he has enjoyed an opium bout in the Zenana," mused the new appointee, as
+he gayly "begged off" from a cloud of eager congratulations by
+promising to "blow off" the whole Delhi Club. "Business first, pleasure
+afterwards" said the resplendent Major Hawke, as he clattered away, a
+handsome son of Mars, to report to General Willoughby.
+
+Major Hawke was secretly delighted with his cordial reception. "Come to
+me to-morrow at ten, Major," said the Commander, "I will have your first
+instructions, but remember absolute secrecy. This is a very grave affair
+to both of us--your coming employment."
+
+"The tide of life is bearing me on, with a devilish rapidity, with
+favoring gales," the Major reflected. But beyond the clouds veiling the
+future he saw no farther shore.
+
+In the dim watches of the night for a week past, Simpson, secretly
+busied with preparing Hugh Johnstone's flitting, was perplexed at the
+sound of shuffling feet and whispered voices in the master's rooms
+opening into the splendid gardens. "Who the devil has he there? Some
+woman!" mused the old veteran servant. Simpson had his own little
+"private life" to wind up, and so he was charitably inclined. It was
+his custom when all was still to slip away "to the quarter" where some
+lingering cords were now slowly snapping one by one. The old servant
+noted with surprise a dark form gliding on his trail in several of these
+goings and comings. Being of a practical nature, the man who had faced
+the mad rebels at Lucknow only belted on a heavy Adams revolver, and
+concluded at last that some others of the household were busied
+in secret dissipation or nocturnal lovemaking. "No one man has a
+controlling patent on being a fool," mused Simpson. "Black and white,
+we're all of a muchness." And as he knew they might now leave at any
+moment he sped away to his last delightful nights in Delhi.
+
+On the night when Alan Hawke returned from Calcutta, the inky blackness
+of an approaching storm wrapped dreaming Delhi in an impenetrable
+mantle. Under the huge camphor tree where the cobra had risen in its
+horrid menace before the frightened girl, a dark figure waited till a
+man glided to his side. His head was bent as the spy reported "Simpson
+is gone to the quarter. Two of our men have followed him, and, if
+he returns, he will be stopped on the way." The only answer was an
+outstretched arm, and the whispered words, "Go, then, and watch."
+
+"It is the very night--the night of all nights!" muttered the watcher
+under the tree, and then, stealing forward, he tapped three times at the
+window where Hugh Johnstone stood with his heart beating high in all
+the pride of a coming triumph ready to open to the man who was settling
+his private affairs.
+
+"No one shall know that I have stolen away," he mused. "Forever and in
+the night."
+
+A light foot pressed the floor as the expected one glided over the low
+window sill. There was a night lamp burning dimly in a shaded corner.
+"Put out the light. I must tell you something. We are both watched and
+spied on!" whispered a well-known voice.
+
+As Hugh Johnstone turned from the corner, in the darkness, there was a
+gurgling cry--a half-smothered groan--as Mirzah Shah's poisoned dagger
+was driven to the hilt between his shoulders. His accounts were settled,
+at last!
+
+An hour later, a dark form crept through the gardens toward the gate
+where Harry Hardwicke had rode in to the rescue. There was a silent
+struggle as two men wrestled in the darkness, and one fled away into the
+shadows of the night. It was the chance meeting of a spy and a murderer.
+
+And then Major Alan Hawke stooped and picked up a heavy dagger lying at
+his feet. "I have the beggar's knife," he growled. And, with a sudden
+intention, he vanished toward the Club, for the knife of Mirzah Shah was
+reeking, and Hugh Johnstone had gone out on his darkened path alone. He
+had left Delhi--forever.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III. PRINCE DJIDDIN'S VISIT TO ENGLAND.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. "DO YOU SEE THIS DAGGER?"
+
+
+
+Morning in Delhi! The fiery sun leaped up, gilding once more the far
+Himalayas and lighting the bloodstained plains of Oude. The golden
+shafts twinkled on the huge colonnade, the vast ruined arch, the
+crumbling walls, and the huge castled oval of Humayoon's tomb. In the
+dark night, the monsoon winds wailed over the wreck of Hindu, Pathan,
+and Mogul magnificence. The dark demons of Bowanee rejoiced at a new
+sacrifice to the gloomy goddess; and the straggling jungle was alive
+again.
+
+In the vacant caverns, whence the sons of Mohammed Bahadur were
+once dragged forth to die by daring Hodson's smoking pistols, their
+slaughtered shades grinned over the ghastly vengeance of the barren
+years.
+
+The huge dome of the mosque hung in air over the vacant palaces of the
+great Moguls, and the far windmill ridge, and the bastioned walls of
+Delhi were bathed in golden light, while Alan Hawke slept the sleep
+of exhaustion. And while Ram Lal Singh, secure in his zenana, calmly
+greeted the cool morning hour with a smiling face and a happy heart, in
+the lonely marble house, stern old Hugh Fraser Johnstone slept the sleep
+that knows no waking.
+
+The Chandnee Chouk awoke to its busy daily chatter, and old
+Shahjehanabad sought its pleasures languidly again, or bowed its
+shoulders once more under the yoke of toil.
+
+The faithful sought the Jumna Musjid for morning prayer, and the
+nonchalant British officials began to straggle into the vacant Hall of
+the Peacock Throne.
+
+Far away, the Kootab Minar, rising three hundred feet in air, bore
+its mute witness to the splendor of the vanished rulers of Delhi, the
+peerless Ghori swordsmen of Khorassan. But, even as the soldiers of the
+old Pathan fort had marched out into the shadowless night of death to
+join Ghori and Baber and Nadir Shah, so the spirit of the lonely old
+miser nabob had sought the echoless shore.
+
+When Simpson had unavailingly endeavored to awaken his master, the
+locked doors were burst in at last by the anxious servants, and they
+found only the tenantless shell of the mighty millionaire, as cold and
+rigid as the iron pillar which veils to-day its mystery of a forgotten
+past, when the jackals howl in the ruins of old Delhi.
+
+Then rose up a wild outcry, and the sound of hurrying feet. The alert
+old veteran servitor, with instinctive military obedience, dispatched
+two messengers, on the run, to notify General Willoughby and Major Alan
+Hawke. And then, with quick wit, he forbade the gaping crowd to touch
+even a single article.
+
+Not even the stiffened body, as it lay prone upon its face, was
+disturbed. Simpson stood there, pistol in hand, on guard until properly
+relieved, and as silent as a crouching rifleman on picket. The whole
+room bore the evidence of a thorough ransacking, and the disordered
+clothing of the nabob proved, too, that the body had been rifled. The
+mysterious nocturnal visits returned to Simpson's mind. "Could it have
+been some once-wronged woman?" he mused while waiting for his "military
+superiors." For the simple old soldier scorned all civilian control.
+His keen eye had caught the strange facts of the fastened windows, the
+disappearance of the two mahogany boxes, and the startling absence of
+the key of the chamber door.
+
+"Whoever did this job knew what they came for and when to come!" mused
+Simpson. He gazed at the window sill. There was the mark of damp earth
+still upon it. "Just as I fancied!" growled Simp-son. "They came in at
+the window, and when their work was done, left by the door. There was
+more than one murderer in this job!" And, then, certain old stories of
+a mysterious Eurasian beauty returned to cloud the old man's judgment.
+"Was it robbery, or vengeance?" he grumbled. "The black gang are
+in this, but their secrets are safe forever! They are a close
+corporation--these devils!"
+
+With certain ideas of an endangered life pension, and a sudden yearning
+for the absent Hardwicke's counsel, stern old Simpson awaited the coming
+of his betters. And, the ghastly news of Johnstone's "taking-off" flew
+over Delhi to furnish a nine days' wonder.
+
+There was a great crowd gathered around the garden walls of the Marble
+House, as an officer of the guard galloped up with a platoon of cavalry.
+"The General will be here himself, soon! What's all this terrible
+happening?" said the young officer, as he took post beside Simpson. "You
+have done well!" the soldier said, on a brief report. "Let nothing be
+touched. My guard will prevent any one leaving the grounds!" There was a
+sullen apathy as regarded the unloved old egoist.
+
+Major Alan Hawke sprang to his feet, hastily, as the excited Club
+Steward, forgetting all his decorum, banged loudly upon the staff
+officer's bedroom door. The young man was still in the dress of night,
+as the Steward excitedly exclaimed: "Here's a fearful deed! Hugh
+Johnstone has been murdered in his bed, and--they've sent for you!"
+
+Alan Hawke was staggered. "Get me a horse, at once! I must report to the
+General! When, where, how? Tell me all! Send off a man for the horse!"
+And, as Hawke hastily donned his uniform, he heard the Hindu servant's
+story.
+
+"Be off! Tell Simpson I go first to the General, and, then, I will come
+over to the house!"
+
+As Major Hawke strode through the clubroom, a half-dozen half-dressed
+clubmen seized upon him. He waved off their inquiries, as an orderly
+dashed up to the door.
+
+"General Willoughby's compliments, Sir. You are to report to him
+instantly at the Marble House! You can take my horse, Major! I'll bring
+yours on." And so, lightly leaping into the saddle, the Major galloped
+away, with an approving nod. "There'll be a devil of a racket over this
+thing!" he reflected, as he dashed along. And he chuckled with glee at
+his prudence in hiding away the dagger which he had picked up in the
+garden. For, a moonlight-eyed Eurasian girl, hidden in a little cottage,
+was the only human being in Delhi who knew of the hasty visit her secret
+lover had made in the night. The jeweled dagger of Mirzah Shah was now
+securely locked in a little chest where Alan Hawke kept a few articles
+hidden away in the humble home of the passive plaything of his idle
+hours. As he caught sight of the Marble House, with its gathered crowds,
+he saw the gleam of musket barrels, as a company of foot were picketing
+the vast garden inclosure, and forcing back the excited crowd.
+
+A non-commissioned officer swung open the heavy gates which would only
+turn on their hinges once more for Hugh Johnstone going out on his last
+journey. "The General awaits you, Major," said the sergeant, touching
+his cap. "He has already asked for you." And as Hawke rode up to the
+front door he was suddenly reminded of his imperiled interests. "The
+drafts! They may be stopped now! By God! I must see Ram Lal! I need him
+now and he needs me."
+
+With an unruffled professional calm, however, Major Hawke reported to
+the visibly disturbed General commanding.
+
+With a single warning gesture of silence, General Willoughby drew the
+Major aside. "I shall put you in entire charge here. I have seen all
+the civil authorities. This is your affair. It touches your mission. The
+Viceroy has been telegraphed, and you are to guard the whole property
+here till we have his pleasure. Now come with me and let us question
+Simpson. The rest are merely a lot of apes."
+
+And so Major Alan Hawke had ample time to arrange his private plan
+of campaign as he guarded a respectful silence during Simpson's long
+relation, for his thoughts were now far away with Berthe Louison, and
+the lovely orphan, whose only confidante was his tender-hearted dupe
+Justine Delande. But the acute adventurer's mind returned to fix itself
+upon Ram Lal Singh, now blandly smiling in his jewel shop, where the
+morning gossips babbled over Johnstone Sahib's tragic death. "I must
+telegraph to Euphrosyne," thought the Major, "and to 9 Rue Berlioz,
+Paris, for my will-o-the-wisp employer. But, Mr. Ram Lal Singh, you
+shall pay me for what ruin Mirzah Shah's dagger has wrought!"
+
+The mantle of silence had fallen forever over the last night's rencontre
+in the garden. With dreaming eyes Hawke mused: "It would never do to
+tell any part of that story. What business had I there?" And, without
+a tremor, he stood by the General's side as they gazed on the dead
+millionaire's body still lying on the floor.
+
+"I will now send for the civil authorities, and you, Major Hawke, will
+represent me in the investigation. Your military future hangs on this.
+Remember, now, that the Viceroy looks to you alone! I will return here
+after tiffin. I will have some personal instructions for you." And Alan
+Hawke now saw the farther shore of his voyage of life gleaming out as
+General Willoughby left him to confer with the arriving magistrates and
+civil police. "I shall marry you, my veiled Rose of Delhi, and be master
+here yet, in this Marble House, and, by God, I'll die a general, too!"
+he swore, with which pleasing prophecy Major Alan Hawke calmly took up
+the varied secret duties which joined a Viceroy's secret orders to the
+will of the General commanding.
+
+"I am a devil for luck!" he mused as he gazed down on the old man's
+shrunken and withered dead face. "I will do the honors alone for you,
+my departed friend," he sneered, "for I am the master here now." The
+absence of all articles of value, the disappearance of Johnstone's
+three superb ruby shirt-studs, and his magnificent single diamond
+cuff-buttons, told of the greed of the robbers, presumably familiar with
+his personal ornaments, while the terrific stab in the back showed that
+the heavy knife had been driven through the back up to its very hilt.
+
+"We must find the dagger!" pompously said the civil magistrate.
+"Major Hawke, will you give orders to have the whole house and grounds
+searched?" And with a faint smile the Major politely rose and set all
+his myrmidons in motion.
+
+Even then the telegraph was clicking away a message to Johnstone's
+lawyer and bankers in Calcutta, and to his young relative, Douglas
+Fraser, of the great P. and O. steamship service. Before night the
+crafty Calcutta lawyer had notified Professor Andrew Fraser, in the
+far-away island of Jersey, and before Major Hawke himself received the
+Viceroy's orders, through General Willoughby, Mademoiselle Euphrosyne
+Delande, of Geneva, and the household at No. 9 Rue Berlioz, Paris, both
+knew that the defiant old nabob had sailed the dark sea without a shore.
+
+Most of all surprised was Captain Anson Anstruther in London, who
+pondered long at the United Service Club over an official message from
+the Viceroy, telling him of the startling murder. The young gallant's
+heart beat in a strange agitation as he examined the previous dispatches
+of both Berthe Louison and the Viceroy.
+
+"She had no hand in it, thank God!" mused the young aide-de-camp.
+"Perhaps he was paid off for some of his old Shylock transactions--some
+local intrigue, or the jealous lover of some Eurasian beauty, dragged to
+his lair, has finished all, and revenged the accumulated brutalities of
+thirty years."
+
+There was a loud outcry of horror and surprise sweeping on now from the
+social circles of Delhi to the clubs of Lucknow, Cawnpore, Allahabad,
+Benares, and Patna to Calcutta.
+
+In a day or two, men from Lahore to Hyderabad, from Bombay to Nagpore
+and Madras, and in all the clubs from Calcutta to Simla, had paused over
+their brandy pawnee to murmur, "Well! The poor old beggar is gone, and
+now he'll never get his Baronetcy! Some of the niggers did the trick
+neatly for him at last. They must have got a jolly lot of loot!"
+
+In which general verdict the glittering-eyed Ram Lal, hidden in his
+zenana, did not share. For, when he had rifled and destroyed the two
+mahogany boxes he summed all up his pickings with baffled rage. "A
+couple of thousand pounds of notes, a few scattered jewels, the sly old
+dog has spirited away his vast stealings! My work was all in vain, save
+the vengeance!" And the oily Ram Lal, in the zenana, drew a willing
+beauty of Cashmere to his bosom, and hid his face from the chatterers of
+street and shop. He was safe from all prying eyes in the Harem.
+
+But, while the triumphant English Mem-Sahibs, of Delhi, shuddered at the
+bloody details of old Hugh Johnstone's taking off, they found abundant
+reason to point a moral and adorn a tale.
+
+While the anxious Viceroy was busied at Calcutta, and General Willoughby
+and Hawke were engrossed with the pompous funeral preparations at Delhi,
+the ladies of the whole station unanimously condemned the departed. For
+a cold and brutal foe of womanhood had died unhonored in their midst,
+and none were left to mourn.
+
+With much pretentious wagging of shapely heads, and much mysterious
+innuendo, they spoke lightly of the departed one, and failed not to
+mentally unroof the Silver Bungalow. The baffled ladies scented a social
+mystery!
+
+Wild rumors of splendid orgies, strange tales of a wronged woman's
+vengeance, lurid romances of the flight of the French Countess with a
+younger lover, after despoiling her aged admirer; all these things were
+"put in commission" and vigorously circulated.
+
+The principal party interested in these slanders, was, however, now
+calmly gliding on toward Aden, while the dead millionaire was alike
+oblivious to the lovely daughter whom he had crushed as a bruised
+flower, the haughty woman who had defied him in his wrath, and the
+administration of the million sterling which was the golden monument
+over his yawning grave! The silk-petticoat Council of Notables in Delhi
+decided by a tidal-wave of womanly intuition, that the gallant and
+debonnair Major Alan Hawke would marry "the lovely and accomplished
+heiress," and so the white-bosomed beauties of the capital of Oude
+turned again lazily to their respective sins of omission and commission,
+and to the glitter of their respective booths in Vanity Fair!
+
+The club gossips waited in vain for the reappearance of Major Alan
+Hawke, whose entire personal effects were bundled hastily away to the
+marble house, where the adventurer now ruled pro tempore. It was late
+in the night when Major Hawke had achieved all the preparations for the
+funeral of the murdered man, upon the following day. Simpson and a squad
+of non-commissioned officers watched where the flickering lights gleamed
+down upon the dead nabob.
+
+Making his last rounds for the night, Major Hawke, with a soldier's
+cynical calmness, enjoyed a cheroot upon the veranda, as he bade his
+captain of the guard take charge until his return. The Major had most
+carefully examined the five bills of exchange which now occupied his
+attention, and his mind was now busied with the dead man's golden store.
+He now contemplated a visit to a man whose conscience bothered him not,
+but whose bosom quaked in fear when Hawke's letter, sent by a messenger,
+bade Ram Lal await him at midnight.
+
+"Does he know?" gasped Ram Lal, with chattering teeth, and yet he dared
+not fly.
+
+An early evening interview with General Willoughby had disclosed to the
+Major the inconvenient fact that the dead nabob had left a carefully
+drawn will, whereof Andrew Fraser, of St. Heliers, Jersey, and Douglas
+Fraser, of Calcutta, were executors. "There is a duplicate will here in
+the Bengal Bank," so telegraphed the solicitor, "and I have now notified
+both the executors. I presume that Mr. Douglas Fraser will return here
+at once, as he is absent in Europe on leave. It may be a week or more
+until he receives the sad intelligence."
+
+Alan Hawke softly smiled at those touching words, "Sad intelligence."
+It was only the perfunctory regret of the shark-like lawyer, and the
+secretly rejoicing heirs. "This is not a case where the one who goes is
+happier than the one that's left behind," mused Hawke. "I must settle
+matters rapidly with Ram Lal, for if the will leaves the property to
+Nadine, she must be mine at all costs!
+
+"Shall I not send a well-armed man with you, Major?" asked the Captain.
+"It is very late!"
+
+"Thanks, Jordan," lightly said the Major. "I've a good revolver and my
+service sword--a priceless old wootz steel tulwar. I'm good for a dozen
+Pandies! I'm used to Thug--and Dacoit, to bandit and ruffian. I have a
+little private business to attend to, and I'll come home in a trap!"
+
+By a strange chance, Major Alan Hawke, the distinguished favorite of
+fortune, slunk along in byway and shadow till he reached the cottage,
+where a lovely woman, flower wreathed, with child-like face and timid,
+mournful eyes, anxiously awaited him. "I'll be back in two or three
+hours," he carelessly said, as he tossed her a roll of rupees. Then,
+with a long, slender package hidden in his bosom, he stole out after a
+long circuit and entered Ram Lal's compound by the rear entrance, always
+at his use.
+
+"It is just as well not to make any little mistake just now," mused
+Hawke, as with cat-like tread he sped through the old jeweler's garden.
+And the "prevention of mistakes" consisted in the heavy Adams revolver
+which he carried slung around his neck and shoulder by a heavy cord, in
+the handy Russian fashion.
+
+His left hand steadied the peculiar parcel which he had so carefully
+hidden. An amused smile flitted over his face when old Ram Lal opened
+the door of the snuggery, where Justine had first listened to a lover's
+sighs. "Poor girl! I wish she were here to-night!" tenderly mused the
+sentimental rascal, as he waved away Ram Lal's bidding to a splendid
+little supper.
+
+"I came here to talk business, Ram, to-night" sternly said Hawke, who
+had inwardly decided not to taste food or drink with the past master
+of villainy. "He might give me a gentle push into the Styx," acutely
+reflected the Major. "Sit down right there where I can see you," said
+Hawke, his hand firmly grasping the revolver, as he indicated a corner
+of the table, after satisfying himself that the shop door was locked. He
+then quickly locked the garden door and pocketed both the keys.
+
+"What do you want of me?" murmured Ram Lal, who had noted the
+semi-hostile tone, and who clearly saw the butt of the revolver.
+
+"I want to talk to you of this Johnstone matter," said the soldier,
+ignoring all other reference to the "dear departed." This coolness
+unsettled the wily jeweler, who trembled as Hawke laid a long red
+pocketbook down on the table before him.
+
+The wily scoundrel shivered when the Major, with his left hand, pushed
+over to him five sets of Bills of Exchange for a thousand pounds each.
+Ram Lal's eyes dropped under the brave villain's steady gaze, and he
+slowly read the first paper. He well knew the drawer's writing:
+
+DELHI, August 15, 1890.
+
+L 1,000.
+
+Thirty days after sight of this first of exchange (second and third
+unpaid), pay to the order of Alan Hawke one thousand pounds sterling,
+value received.
+
+HUGH FRASER JOHNSTONE.
+
+To Messrs. Glyn, Carr and Glyn, London.
+
+"What do you wish me to do, Sahib?" tremblingly faltered the old usurer,
+as he carefully noted the fifteen papers. A sinking at the heart told
+him that he was in the power of the one man in India whom he knew to be
+as merciless as himself, for a kindred spirit had fled when the drawer
+of the Bills of Exchange died alone in the dark, his bubbling shriek
+stopped by his heart's blood. The Major sternly said in an icy voice, as
+he fixed his eyes full on his victim:
+
+"I wish you to indorse, every one of those papers. I wish you to make
+each one of them read five thousand pounds. You have done that trick
+very neatly before, and to put the additional Crown duty stamps upon
+them." Ram Lal had started up, but he sank back appalled as he looked
+down the barrel of Hawke's revolver.
+
+"Keep silence or I'll put a ball through your shoulder, and then drag
+you up to General Willoughby. He will hang you in chains if I say the
+word." Alan Hawke was tiger-like now in his rapacity.
+
+"I will leave the first set with you, and you will now give me your
+check on the Oriental Bank for five thousand pounds. The other drafts
+you will have all ready for me to-morrow and bring them to me at the
+Marble House."
+
+The jeweler groaned and swayed to and fro upon his seat in a mute agony.
+"I cannot do it. I have not the money," he babbled.
+
+"You old lying wretch. You have screwed a quarter of a million pounds
+out of Christian, Hindu, and Mohammedan here," mercilessly said the
+torturer.
+
+"I will not! I cannot! I dare not!" cried Ram Lal, dropping on the floor
+and trying to bow his head at Hawke's feet.
+
+"Get up! You old beast!" commanded Hawke. "By God! I'll shoot and
+disable you now and then arrest you! Tell me! Do you know that dagger?"
+With a quick motion, still covering the cowering wretch with his pistol,
+Hawke drew out the package from his bosom, clumsily tearing off a silk
+neck scarf-wrapper with his left hand. He laid down on the table the
+blood-incrusted dagger of Mirzah Shah. The golden haft, the jeweled
+fretwork and the broad blade were all covered with the life tide of the
+great man whom no one mourned in Delhi.
+
+"Mercy! Mercy!" hoarsely whispered Ram Lal, with his hands clasped, as
+in prayer.
+
+"I know whose it is!" pitilessly continued the tormentor. "You dropped
+it, you fool, when you ran against me in the garden in your mad haste to
+get away! One single rebellious word and I will march you to the nearest
+guard post! Now, will you do what I wish?"
+
+"Anything, anything, Sahib!" begged the cowering wretch. "Put it away,
+put it away!"
+
+"Now, quick!" said the Major. "First, give me the check! Then indorse
+all these drafts right here in my presence. I will negotiate the others
+myself. You can send on the first one through your bankers. Your name
+on all of them will make them go without question." The alert adventurer
+watched Ram's trembling fingers achieve the work. "Do not dare to leave
+your own inclosure till you come directly to me to-morrow, when you
+have altered all those drafts to read five thousand pounds each. I have
+charge of the estate of the man whom you butchered like a dog. I have
+a guard of two companies of soldiers, and you will be arrested as a
+murderer if you attempt to leave, save to come directly to me with these
+papers."
+
+Alan Hawke lit a cigar and then took a refreshing draught from a pocket
+flask.
+
+"Now open your strong box and show me your jewels! I want some of them!"
+The sobbing wretch at his feet demurred until the cold nozzle of the
+pistol was pressed against his forehead. "I will make the English
+bankers pay the other four bills; but, you brute, did you think that
+I would let you off with a poor five thousand pounds? Harken! I go to
+England in a week! Then you are safe forever! Bring out all your jewels!
+You got fifty thousand pounds from the old man! I know it!"
+
+Begging and beseeching in vain, Ram Lal crawled to his great iron strong
+box studded over with huge knobs, and, after a half an hour's critical
+selection, Alan Hawke had concealed on his person four little bags,
+in which he had made the shivering wretch place the choicest of his
+treasures.
+
+"Call up your man now. Do not stir for an instant from my side! If the
+drafts are not with me before sundown to-morrow, you will be hung in
+chains, and the ravens will finish what the hangman leaves! Remember--my
+boy! The rail and telegraph will cut off any little tricks of yours!
+And," he laughed, "you will not run away; you have too much here to
+leave. It would be a fat haul for the Crown authorities. I will keep
+my eye on you, near or far. I will be with you always. We have our own
+little secret, now!"
+
+"I will obey--only save me! Save me, Hawke Sahib. I will do all upon
+my head, I will!" pleaded Ram Lal, whose vast fortune was indeed at the
+mercy of the law.
+
+"Call up your servants. Get out the carriage. Go back to your women.
+Make merry. You are perfectly safe, but only if you obey me!" was the
+last mandate of the triumphant bravo. When he stepped out of the house,
+attended by the frightened murderer, Alan Hawke whispered from the
+carriage: "Your house is under a close watch--even now. Remember--I give
+you till sundown, and if you fail, I will come with the guard! I shall
+seal up the dagger and leave it here with a message to the General
+Willoughby Sahib to be given to him, at once, by one who knows you! So,
+I can trust you. Nothing must happen to your dear friend, you know!" he
+smilingly said in adieu, as Ram Lal groaned in anguish.
+
+Alan Hawke had closely examined the vehicle, and he sat with his drawn
+revolver ready as he drove down the still lit-up Chandnee Chouk. In a
+storm of remorse and agony, the plundered jeweler was now doubly locked
+up in his room. "I must do this devil's bidding!" he murmured. "Bowanee!
+Bowanee! You have betrayed your servant!" was his cry as he sought the
+safety of the Zenana.
+
+Major Hawke tasted all the sweets of a great secret triumph as he cast
+up his accounts. "The five thousand pounds frightened from this
+old wretch, Ram Lal, really squares me with the estate of the 'dear
+departed.' The jewels are worth twice as much more, and, with Ram Lal's
+indorsement all the other drafts on Glyn's bank are as good as gold.
+There is twenty thousand clear profit. I will send them on now for
+acceptance, openly, through the Credit Lyonnaise when I get to Paris.
+For Berthe Louison will give me, also, a good character. Old Ram's
+indorsements make them perfectly good anywhere. I had better hide the
+details of this windfall, out here. And, now, thank Heaven, I am 'fixed
+for life,' and I can go in boldly and play the Prince Charming to Miss
+Moneybags, the fair Nadine." He tossed a double rupee to the driver,
+as the sentry swung the gate, but, hastily called him back as Captain
+Jordan said, hastening from the house:
+
+"Orders are waiting for you now, with the General. Let me give you a
+trusty Sergeant. Drive right up there, Major. The General sent word that
+he awaits you." And so the Major sped away to his chief.
+
+No human being in Delhi ever knew the purport of the orders which
+General Willoughby handed to Major Hawke, on this eventful evening, but
+much marveled all Delhi that the favorite of fortune was absent from the
+funeral of the late Hugh Fraser Johnstone, Esq., of Delhi and Calcutta.
+He had vanished, with no P.P.C. calls, and a hundred-pound note tossed
+to the poor little Eurasian girl in the cottage was her whole fortune in
+life now.
+
+But a grave-faced civilian public official, with Major Williamson, of
+the Viceroy's general staff (a late arrival from Calcutta), ruled over
+the marble house in place of Major Alan Hawke "absent upon special
+duty." Only Ram Lal knew of the real destination of the lucky man,
+who was only free from care when he had sailed from Bombay direct for
+Brindisi, on the fleet steamer Ramchunder.
+
+"I am safe now," laughed Alan Hawke, who rejoiced in the easy tour of
+duty before him. "To repair to London and to report to Captain Anson
+Anstruther, A.D.C., for special duty." Such were the Viceroy's secret
+orders. It was General Willoughby who had absolutely invoked secrecy.
+"Wear a plain military undress, and you must avoid most men, and all
+women. Keep your mouth shut and you may find your provisional rank
+confirmed."
+
+To Berthe Louison's secret agents, the Grindlay Bank at Delhi, Major
+Hawke had delivered a sealed envelope. "Use this only at your sorest
+need. I will see Madame Louison probably before she has any orders for
+me, as to her private affairs." When the envelope was opened the words
+"Major Alan Hawke, Hotel Faucon, Lausanne, Switzerland," gave the only
+address which the adventurer dared to leave. And it was that which the
+cowering Ram Lal Singh copied when he brought to Alan Hawke the four
+sets of altered Bills of Exchange, and the Bank of England notes for the
+check of five thousand pounds.
+
+Major Hawke surveyed the skillfully raised Bills of Exchange and
+carefully examined them in a dark room with a light, and also before the
+glaring sun rays. "A splendid job, Ram Lal," he gayly said. "You must
+have given them a coat of size and then moistened and ironed them." The
+old rascal gloomily accepted the professional compliment. "I observe
+that you have labored to protect your own indorsement," sportively
+remarked the Major.
+
+"And now you will return to me my jewels?" timidly demanded Ram Lal.
+
+"Do you wish me to send the dagger of Mirzah Shah to General Willoughby?
+It is deposited here, with a sealed letter," coldly sneered Hawke.
+"Should anything happen to me or, to these drafts, it would be sent to
+the General, and you would hang. No, I will keep the jewels."
+
+And then Major Hawke thrust the shivering wretch out, having liberally
+paid to him, through Grindlay, the balance due by Berthe Louison.
+
+"I swear that I did not get a single jewel from--from him. He has hidden
+them," pleaded Ram Lal.
+
+"Ah! I must look to this" mused Hawke, when Ram Lal had been frightened
+away with a last stern injunction:
+
+"Obey my slightest wishes or you will hang! I will have you watched till
+I return! There are eyes upon your path that never close in sleep!" Ram
+Lal shuddered in silence.
+
+Delhi soon forgot the man whom the great stone now covered in the
+English cemetery, and only General Willoughby and the easy-going civil
+authorities knew of the cablegram: "Coming on with full power from
+Senior Executor.--Douglas Fraser, Junior Executor." The cablegram was
+dated from Milan, for two keen Scottish brains were now busied with
+plans to save and care for the worldly gear so suddenly abandoned to
+their care by Hugh Johnstone. Though Delhi was swept as with a besom,
+no trace of the cowardly assassins was ever found, and only old Simpson,
+waiting, in final charge as household major domo for Douglas Fraser's
+arrival, could enlighten the perturbed commanding General with certain
+vague suspicions. But Ram Lal slept now in a growing security.
+
+"It is clear that the master was watched in his secret preparations for
+the voyage home," said Simpson, "and some outsiders, with the help of
+some traitor among the blacks, paid off an old score. I could tell of
+many an old enemy which he gained in these twenty years." sadly said
+Simpson. "I feel they only mussed up the room to give an appearance of
+robbery. The mahogany boxes were merely part of master's old wedding
+outfit in London, and I know that they were only filled with toilet
+articles and little medical stores. They only lugged them off to make a
+show."
+
+And General Willoughby, following up Simpson's clues, easily discovered
+a shady side of Johnstone's past life, not compatible with the pompous
+panegyrics of the Indian press, the resolutions of a dozen clubs
+and societies, the minutes of the Bank of Bengal, and other mortuary
+literature of a complimentary nature. It was some old curse come down
+upon the defenseless man in his old age! And so no one ever sought for
+the solution of the mystery in the deep dejection of Ram Lal Singh, who
+vainly mourned for his lost jewels and money. Fear tied his hands, and
+his tongue was palsied by guilt. He vindictively, however, raised his
+customary "rate of usance," and swore in his own hardened heart that the
+needy borrowers of Delhi should recoup him fully before a year. The one
+Star gleaming in the dark night of financial blackness was the vengeance
+upon the man who had tricked and despoiled a fellow-robber thirty years
+before.
+
+Major Hawke on his homeward way counted up a goodly store of twelve
+thousand pounds in money, jewels of nearly the same value, and the
+skillfully raised and properly indorsed drafts on London for twenty
+thousand more. "If I can only get these passed by the executors I am a
+made man for life," mused the Major as the Ramchunder sped over the blue
+Arabian sea. "If I discover the secret of the stolen jewels, they must
+yield, to save both family honor and money; if I don't, then, Ram Lal
+must save his life and protect the drafts. I will negotiate them with
+the Credit Lyonnais, in Paris, and force Berthe to help me. No one shall
+rob me now," somewhat illogically mused the brilliant adventurer, proud
+of his life-work.
+
+At Calcutta, the noble Viceroy had already given to Major Harry
+Hardwicke and Capt. Eric Murray his orders for their performance of a
+delicate duty.
+
+"You will find Captain Anstruther to be my personal as well as official
+representative in London, and Her Majesty's service demands prudence in
+this grave affair. So but one set of confidential cipher dispatches
+have been sent on, and Captain Anstruther will have charge of the whole
+delicate affair. Should either of you meet Major Alan Hawke in London,
+or out of India, your commissions will depend on guarding an absolute
+silence as to the whole Johnstone affair. You are trusted, and not
+watched, gentlemen," said the great noble, "and he is watched, and not
+trusted. Now, I have done all I can for you, as this duty takes you home
+and brings you back at the expense of her Majesty's government. You will
+not fail to communicate with me from Aden, Suez, and Port Said, as well
+as Brindisi, and to report if Madame Louison has received at each place
+her telegrams and proceeded on her journey in safety. Her Majesty's
+consuls will, in each place, aid you in every way. Should I decide to
+drop or quash the whole affair, my young kinsman, Anstruther, represents
+me, personally as well as officially."
+
+And so the gay young bridegroom-to-be sailed from Calcutta
+light-hearted, while Harry Hardwicke counted each day's reckoning as
+bringing him, by leaps and bounds, nearer to the dark-eyed girl now left
+alone in the world. "There shall nothing come between us now, my darling
+one!" was the young Major's fond vow confided to the evening star,
+glowing in its trembling silver radiance over the spicy Indian Ocean.
+
+Alixe Delavigne was still "Madame Berthe Louison" to the glittering
+circle of passengers who envied her the state in which she traveled, the
+slavish obeisance of the ship's officers, and the deft ministrations
+of those admirable servants, Jules Victor and Marie. "A great personage
+incognito," was the general verdict, and so the luckless swains hovering
+around fell off one by one, as the beautiful woman seemed to be always
+wrapped in an unbroken reverie. There was an anxious gleam in the lady's
+eyes, for she felt that she was going home to the sternest battle of her
+life, and she brooded now only upon the trials of the future. She never
+knew how near the dark angel's wing had swooped over her own defenseless
+head.
+
+For the gray head now lying low had been secretly busied with plans for
+a huge bribe to Ram Lal which should buy him to the doing of a dark deed
+without a name. Only Berthe's determined attack on the granting of the
+baronetcy in London, and her own "lightning disappearance" had saved
+her from Ram Lal's cupidity. Master of the secrets of a dozen Eastern
+poisons, the artful confederate of her dark retinue in the silver
+bungalow, Ram Lal would have gladly worked Hugh Johnstone's will for his
+red gold. But the fierce quarrel and the precipitate flight of Berthe
+Louison had balked Johnstone, who fell by the very hand of the sly
+wretch whom he had designed to buy, as the murderer of another. The
+engineer hoist by his own petard. But, steadfastly looking to Valerie's
+child alone, she knew not the dangers which she had escaped.
+
+"I was afraid they would kill you, Madame. Thank God, we are now safe at
+sea!" said Jules Victor.
+
+"Who?" cried the startled woman.
+
+"Why, that old wretch; he had money, and his spies were all around you,"
+said Jules.
+
+"Yes! Thank God! We are safe now!" mused Berthe Louison, and she bade a
+long adieu to the strange scenes of her pilgrimage. "I shall never
+see India again!" she reflected, when she passed, in a mental review,
+Calcutta, holy Benares, smoky Patna, brisk Allahabad, Cawnpore, where
+the white-winged angel broods over the innocent dead, heroic Lucknow,
+and crime-haunted Delhi--all these rose up in a weird panorama of the
+mind. Strange tales of wild adventure told by Alan Hawke returned to her
+now--the mysteries of Thibet, the weird ferocity of Bhotan, the quaint
+tales of the polyandrous Todas, and the strange story of Vijaynagar, the
+desecrated city whose streets are peopled but ten days in the year! A
+lotos land where crime broods, where the cobra hides under the painted
+blossoms of Death!
+
+Glittering palaces of Agra, gloomy caves of Elephanta, the light and
+lovely Mohammedan architecture, the dark haunts of Kali and Bowanee,
+the thronged Ghats of the sacred rivers, the color medleys of the vast
+cities, all these busied her as she passed her days alone in study over
+the secretly gathered up collection of polychrome views which had taken
+her from the Neilgherries to Cape Comorin. Her dreams of all her subtle
+plans to counteract all of Johnstone's schemes, her tender intrigues to
+silently entrap Nadine Johnstone's girlish heart, her carefully plotted
+line of future action, all of these things vanished in a moment, at
+Aden, when a government launch steamed out, and an officer of the vessel
+led up Her Majesty's Consul to address the mysterious lady passenger.
+
+There was a rush of volunteers when the woman, always brave in sorrow
+and ever fate defying, fainted away in a deathly trance as her eyes
+eagerly scanned the brief dispatch of the Viceroy. They were underway
+again when she realized the fearful decrees of a merciless fate! She
+read with a shudder, the lines again and again, whispering: "Can it be?"
+
+"Hugh Johnstone murdered by persons--unknown at Delhi? Hasten on to
+London. Anstruther will have full details. Please acknowledge!"
+
+And it was half an hour before the beautiful Nemesis who had clouded
+Hugh Johnstone's life had penned her simple answer. Only at night, on
+the voyage afterward, did she ever leave her splendid staterooms,
+and when Brindisi was reached she vanished with her loyal servants so
+quickly that even the veriest fortune hunter could not follow on her
+trail. "Some terrible row--some sad family happening," was the general
+smoking-room verdict! But, with a heart strangely yearning to the
+orphaned child, Berthe Louison hastened, without stopping, by Venice to
+lovely Munich and on to gay Paris. "She shall be mine now--mine to love,
+to cherish, my poor darling!" vowed the woman whose eyes shown out in an
+infinite pity! The cup of vengeance was dashed away from her lips for,
+behind the arras, the waiting headsman of Fate had struck in the night
+and laid low the man who would have compassed her death!
+
+Madame Alixe Delavigne was only a gracious memory to the sympathetic men
+passengers who hastened on to London via Mont Cenis, but the chattering
+gossips of the Rue Berlioz noted, with an eager Gallic curiosity, the
+return of the mysterious occupant of No. 9. Jules Victor and his wife
+were seen, however, for only one day, busied about their usual household
+avocations, and then the returning travelers vanished once more to
+baffle the chatterers. "Diantre! Comme ils sont des voyageurs!" cried
+the coachman who took the wanderers to the Gare St. Lazare. There
+was need of haste now, for Madame Louison had received three foreign
+dispatches, besides a letter from Captain Anstruther, now waiting
+impatiently at London, and chafing over his unsuccessful queries
+at Morley's Hotel. The gallant Captain's letter was pregnant with
+governmental mysteries, and yet the beautiful woman sighed as she
+saw the vein of personal interest but too clearly evident in the long
+communication. A single glance at her tell-tale mirror reassured her,
+and she blushed, as she murmured:
+
+"He believes me younger than I am!" But her brow was grave as she
+revolved the situation. "There will be a long struggle, a fight of love
+against craft and and greed! Who will win?" The fact that the Government
+Secret Service had already traced the delivery of the heavily insured
+shipment, "ex. Str. Lord Roberts," to Professor Andrew Fraser, was
+a first victory for the enemy! "If the old nabob wrote directly via
+Brindisi to his brother, then the acute old Scotch Professor may be
+on his guard now! And--the will?--the will? What does it provide for
+Nadine's future? If he had already taken the alarm-then I may have yet
+to fight my way to my darling's side! The black curtain of the past
+shall never be lifted by my hand unless--unless Andrew Fraser forces
+me to strike hard at his dead brother's paper card house of honorable
+deeds!"
+
+As Madame Louison watched the rich moonlight silvering the broken
+wake of the channel steamer, she pondered over the telegrams. "Major
+Hardwicke and Alan Hawke are both en route to London, charged with
+different missions. And I am to beware of Hawke. They have only sent him
+away, perhaps, to veil the official game of the Indian authorities. And
+Alan Hawke truthfully warns me of his coming by private dispatch. Is he
+trying to regain his lost status? Douglas Fraser, the second executor,
+on his way back to India. He has passed Brindisi already. Ah! The
+sorrows for the dead are quickly assuaged when the 'property interests'
+furnish a fat picking to solicitors and the holders of dead men's gear.
+
+"Nadine is only eighteen--she has three years to remain under legal
+tutelage. Perhaps Andrew Fraser may have been already coached upon his
+course by his unrelenting kinsman. And there is a fortune waiting for
+father and son in the perquisites." Madame Louison fell asleep in a vain
+quandary as to the precise age when men ceased to value wealth and to
+sell their souls for gold. That question was still undecided when the
+steamer Sparrow Hawk sped into Dover harbor.
+
+The beautiful wanderer was now clearly resolved as to her future
+treatment of Alan Hawke. "My foe dead, the theater of war is transferred
+to Great Britain. He is not necessary to my own campaign, but, in
+watching him, I may be able to shield Nadine from his crafty plots. If
+he should try to secretly make friends with the Frasers, and to return
+to India, to aid the nephew, he might assist in robbing Valerie's child
+of this mountain of miserably gotten wealth.
+
+"Thank God, I can make her rich. But Captain Anstruther will know the
+Viceroy's whole mind, and I can trust to him." But her cheeks were rosy
+red and her dancing dark eyes dropped in a sudden confusion, as the
+handsome aid-de-camp leaped aboard the steamer at Dover Pier.
+
+"I did not expect you!" she murmured.
+
+"I knew, of course, from your dispatch when you would arrive, and so
+I came down to further the Viceroy's business!" the soldier said in a
+sudden confusion. In an hour, the two who had met in such strange manner
+at Geneva were seated alone in a first-class compartment, and were
+merrily whirling on to Lud's town. Captain Anstruther's ten shillings to
+the guard secured them from annoying intrusion. In another compartment,
+Jules and Marie Victor sagely exchanged their lightning glances of
+Parisian acuteness.
+
+"C'est un homme magnifique!" murmured Marie, and Jules gravely nodded,
+"Peut-etre, notre maitresse l'a connu longtemps. II est tres tendre!"
+The staff-officer "furthered the Viceroy's business" by clasping both
+of Alixe Delavigne's prettily-gloved hands. Her bosom heaved in a soft
+alarm, but she repulsed him not.
+
+"Why did you deceive me at Geneva?" he eagerly demanded, with a
+trembling voice. And Alixe Delavigne's eyes were downcast and dreamy, as
+she whispered:
+
+"Because I was only a poor pilgrim of Love--a lonely woman, heart hungry
+for the tidings of the girl whom you have brought back to me!" The young
+officer gazed out of the window, and in his heart, he already pardoned
+her.
+
+"To those who love much, much shall be forgiven!" he reflected, with a
+compassion growing momentarily, for he saw the shadow of tears in the
+beautiful dark brown eyes. And he forbore to question her as he gazed at
+her glowing face.
+
+With a sudden lifting of her stately head, the woman sitting there, her
+heart throbbing in a strange unrest, laid her hand lightly upon his arm.
+
+"Listen to the strange story of a woman's life!" she said slowly. "I
+promised His Excellency, the Viceroy, that you should know why I left
+the defensive lines of my sex at Geneva! For he has trusted to me, and
+I wish you to know--to know that--" and the sentence was never finished,
+for Captain Anstruther bent over her trembling hands.
+
+"I know that you are what I would have you ever be!" he simply said.
+And, with softly shining eyes, she told the soldier of her strange life
+path.
+
+It was strange that they had neared London before the whole story was
+concluded, and their voices had sunk into softened whispers. "You may
+rely upon me to the death! You may depend upon me whenever you may
+wish to call upon me!" he said, as the train rolled into Charing Cross
+station. "Major Hardwicke, of the Engineers, will be my chosen ally, and
+I alone am to trace out this mystery of the vanished jewels. You shall
+conquer! I will aid you! Amor omnia vincit! You are the only heart in
+the world now throbbing for that sweet girl."
+
+But when they drove to Morley's Hotel, far away on the sea, Harry
+Hardwicke's heart was beating fondly in all a lover's expectancy for the
+same friendless Rose of Delhi, and the debonnair Alan Hawke, in sight of
+Brindisi, mused in his deck-pacings: "I will placate Euphrosyne Delande.
+Justine, too, shall do my bidding, and my employer shall give me the key
+to this girl's heart. For I will marry Nadme Johnstone! I am a devil for
+luck."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. ON THE CLIFFS OF JERSEY.
+
+
+
+Captain Anson Anstruther, A. D. C., was the very happiest of men three
+days later, when he watched Madame Alixe Delavigne gracefully presiding
+over a pretty tea table, a la russe, in the quaint old mansion, bowered
+in a garden sloping down to the Thames, where Miss Mildred Anstruther, a
+venerable maiden aunt, had her "local habitation and, a name!" A lonely
+woman of colossal wealth and blue blood, high in rank, and decidedly of
+riper years.
+
+"By Jove! Dear old Aunt Mildred is a tower of strength to me, just now,"
+reflected the gallant Captain, when, as the soft shadows deepened
+on lawn and river, he lingered tenderly there in explanation of his
+official business. It was hardly "official" that Anson Anstruther had
+fallen into the habit of furtively addressing the now unveiled Madame
+Berthe Louison, as "Alixe", but it was even so. Acquaintance can ripen
+as rapidly on the Thames as by the Arno, given a certain impetus. And
+the Pilgrim of Love, though still Madame Berthe Louison in France, was
+Alixe Delavigne in the retreat chosen by the Viceroy.
+
+"Pazienza! Pazienza!" smiled the young soldier, as the impassioned Alixe
+eagerly demanded to be allowed to approach the orphaned Nadine, at
+St. Heliers. "You have been so noble, so untiring, do not ruin all by
+precipitancy now! You see I am already secretly watching over her. I now
+represent the whole interests of Her Majesty's Service! And you--only
+your own loving heart! I must first meet Major Alan Hawke, and send him
+away to be busied on some apparently important duty, which will keep
+him away from old Andrew Fraser. We know the old professor's cunning
+character. Miser and pedant, he is but a shriveled parchment edition
+of his heartless, dead brother. We must not alarm him. We have already
+traced the insured packet to his hands. Now, he properly has the custody
+of the dead nabob's will. He may soon have to bring the girl on to
+London, for the legal formalities of proving it. We do not wish him to
+send the stolen jewels away in a sudden fright, and so hide them from us
+forever. If he qualifies duly as executor, and then files the will, then
+the estate is responsible, through him.
+
+"We will soon know who controls your niece for the three years of her
+long minority. Hawke must be got out of the way. I will hoodwink him,
+and every British Consul in the continental towns which he visits will
+secretly watch him for me. Besides, Major Hardwicke and Murray will
+be here very soon, to aid me, and to watch Hawke. I wish Alan Hawke
+to blunder around, hunting for Major Hardwicke, and so give me an
+opportunity to do my duty secretly, and to aid you in your own labor
+of love. In the mean time--you must be content to rest tranquilly here;
+cultivate my dear old aunt, and I will come to you daily so that your
+quiet life in this 'moated grange' will be brightened up a bit. You
+see," thoughtfully said Anstruther, "whoever sent old Johnstone to his
+grave, he had previously spirited the heiress away--all his plans for
+the future were perfectly matured with all the craft of a man well
+versed in intrigue for forty years. His bitter hatred of you did not die
+with him. You may be assured that he has laid out a plan, both in his
+private letters and in the will to fence you forever out of this girl's
+life. So your work must be done in secret. If I can ever effectively
+help you, I must work on Andrew Fraser and not needlessly alarm both his
+greed and fear. As soon as it is safe, you shall take up your post near
+to her; but Hawke must come and go first. He must find no sign of
+your presence here." There was cogency in the sentimental soldier's
+reasoning.
+
+"He will surely come to my Paris home at No. 9 Rue Berlioz. He knows
+that address!" murmured Alixe Delavigne, her eyes dropping in a sudden
+confusion, as a flame of jealousy lit up the young soldier's fiery
+glances. For Anson Anstruther had posted there on his first voyage from
+Geneva to find the bird flown.
+
+"Then you may keep Marie, your maid, here," slowly replied Anstruther,
+"and send Jules over to Paris. Alan Hawke will surely seek for you
+there. Let Jules inform him that you have gone to Jitomir to attend to
+your Russian interests."
+
+Alixe Delavigne bowed her head in a mute assent. Day by day the proud
+self-reliant woman was yielding to the imperious will of the young
+soldier. It was a soft, self-deception that reassured her on the very
+evening when he left her.
+
+But there was one now weaving his webs at Lausanne whose fertile
+brain was busied with sly schemes of his own. Alan Hawke always first
+considered "his duty to himself" and so the acute Major decided to spy
+out the land before he precipitately appeared at London, or dared to
+risk himself at St. Agnes Road, St. Heliers.
+
+"It is just as well to know all that Justine can tell me before I see
+this young dandy Anstruther, and to find out what Euphrosyne knows
+before I interrogate her sister," he murmured; "I must make no mistake
+with the Viceroy's kinsman!"
+
+With much prevision he had telegraphed the date of his probable arrival
+in London to Captain Anstruther from Munich, adding that convenient
+fairy tale, "Delayed by illness" and he had also left this telegram
+behind, so as to be sent on to allow him four days leeway near Geneva.
+
+The signature bore also an injunction to answer to Hotel Binda, Paris.
+"This is no little card game," muttered Hawke. "It is for rank, wealth,
+and the hand of Miss Million, the rose of Delhi."
+
+Alan Hawke was practically received with open arms by the
+fluttering-hearted Euphrosyne, who nobly resigned herself to Justine's
+victory over Alan Hawke's heart. For the younger sister's letters had
+filled the elder's mind with rosy dreams of enhanced family prosperity.
+
+"Only this telegram. That is all!" murmured the preceptress, as she
+handed the Major a dispatch dated at St. Heliers, stating, "Arrived,
+well, news of Mr. Johnstone's assassination just received. Will write!"
+
+"This is all I know of this strange homecoming, as yet!" summed up the
+child of Minerva.
+
+Hawke softly delved into Mademoiselle Euphrosyne's inner consciousness
+until he knew all the corners of the simple woman's heart.
+
+"I am quite sure that she speaks the simple truth!" he decided, after
+he had informed the Swiss woman of his address, "Hotel Binda, Paris."
+"I must go on there by the night train," he at once resolved. "Here is
+a juncture where all our various interests are deeply involved. You
+and Justine may lose the well-earned reward of years. I must be near
+Justine, now, to protect you both. I fear this old mummy Fraser! If he
+controls the fortune, then he and his hopeful son will probably steal
+half of it. Thats a fair allowance for an ordinary executor! It is all
+for one, and, one for all, now! Write under seal to Justine that I am
+near--only do not mention names!" With an affected tenderness, Hawke
+kissed the pallid lips of the daughter of Minerva, and slipped away to
+Lausanne, whence he took the midnight train for Paris.
+
+"I might look around and dispose of my jewels in Paris," he thought as
+he neared that "gay and festive city." But his serious business with
+the Credit Lyonnais as to the negotiation of the four "raised" bills
+of exchange, and his desire to at once come to terms with Madame Berthe
+Louison, caused him to postpone the vending of the jewels so neatly
+extorted from Ram Lal.
+
+"I have lots of ready money now--too much, even, for safety in travel,
+and the jewels will keep." With a strange anxious craving to see his
+fair employer he drove directly to No. 9 Rue Berlioz on his arrival in
+Paris. The impassive face of Jules Victor met his gaze at the door.
+
+"Madame, suddenly summoned to Poland, had begged Monsieur le Major to
+address her by letter, as telegrams were most unreliable in Russian
+Poland. Monsieur would, however, surely find letters at his London
+address, and it was true that Madame had not expected Monsieur's arrival
+for a fortnight."
+
+"I don't believe a damned word of this fellow's yarn. There is some
+sly juggling here!" ejaculated the Major as he drove back to the Hotel
+Binda. His brow was black as he descended, and it grew blacker still
+when he read a telegram from Euphrosyne Delande. He studied over the
+unwelcome news while he made a careful business toilet to visit the
+Credit Lyonnais. And a white rage shone out upon his handsome face as he
+learned that Justine was useless to him now. "Discharged without even a
+reward! Thrust out like a beggar without a word of warning." "Justine on
+her way home. Passed through Paris last night. Can you not return?"
+The signature "Euphrosyne" was a guaranty of the unwelcome truth. Major
+Hawke swore a deep and bitter oath as he penned a telegram to the Swiss
+preceptress: "Coming to-night. Arrive to-morrow at ten o'clock. Keep
+all secret." And he boldly signed the name "Alan Hawke" to that and to a
+message to Captain Anson Anstruther: "Delayed four days here by private
+business."
+
+He raged as he hastily soliloquized: "I will at once present these
+drafts regularly through the Credit Lyonnais. I will go and get the
+whole story from Justine. I will pay off that tiger cat, Madame Louison,
+for her sneaking away. She fancies she has done with me now! Ah! By God!
+She thinks so? Wait! And this old Scotch saw-file! I'll break him up! If
+I can only trace those stolen jewels to him, I'll have them or send
+the old miser off in irons to a life transportation! I begin to see the
+whole game at last! And I swear that I'll get to the girl if I have to
+carry her off!"
+
+He went down to the Credit Lyonnais in an elegant "mufti" garb, and
+depositing a thousand pounds sterling to his credit, left the four
+drafts for five thousand pounds each for collection, carelessly
+referring to Messrs. Grindlay & Co., of Delhi, London, and many other
+places, and mentioning the name of that eminent private native banker,
+money-lender, and jeweler, the well-known Ram Lal Singh. "He shall back
+his indorsement!" laughed Alan Hawke.
+
+With a lordly insouciance, Major Alan Hawke then strolled out of the
+great bank and deliberately arranged his line of future action while he
+was taking his ease at his inn.
+
+"First, to pick up all the threads of this queer intrigue through
+Justine. I must go back to her at Geneva. Then, to be sure that Berthe
+Louison is not repeating her cunning Delhi tricks with the dead man's
+brother. She might frighten him. Then, armed at all points, I must
+hasten on to report to Anstruther. I must have him give me a short leave
+as soon as I can get it, but before I open my siege trenches I must
+develop all the enemy's strength. What the devil is Berthe Louison up to
+now?"
+
+In the night train, speeding back to Geneva, Major Hawke remembered
+some old desperate associates of an enforced "social eclipse" at
+Granville-sur-Mer. "With a half a dozen resolute fellows I might hang
+around Jersey and, perhaps, force my way into the stronghold. It depends
+on where the mansion is located. If the jewels are there, I will either
+have them or else bend the old man to my will by threatened disclosures.
+But I must first fool Anstruther and my pretty employer. If Justine had
+only remained at Jersey I might have easily won my way to the girl's
+side. And yet she will be under a long three years guardianship." Some
+busy devil at his side whispered: "She would be helpless if she were
+carried off." And as the enraged schemer finished the last of a dozen
+cigars and took a pull at his pocket flask, he disposed himself to
+sleep, grumbling.
+
+"They have upset all the chessmen. Old Fraser and the Louison, too, are
+playing at cross purposes--evidently. They have, however, spoiled my
+little game. I will spoil theirs!" He grinned as he decided "I will do
+a bit of the Romeo act with Justine, and come back by Granville to
+Boulogne. If the old gang is to be found there, I may get one of them
+to spy the whole thing out. All these Jersey people are half French in
+their birth and ways. I can sneak some fellow in from Granville. There
+might be a chance. I'll get to the old fellow, or the girl, or the
+jewels--by God! I will! For I hold the trump cards."
+
+And yet his flattering hopes of gaining a permanent rank returned to
+affright him in planning such a bold deed. "Ah! I must get some trusty
+fellow--perhaps, in London," he muttered as his head dropped, and the
+train bore him on to the halls of learning, where poor Justine was now
+weeping on her sister's bosom, and unveiling all the secrets of a hungry
+heart to the sympathetic Euphrosyne.
+
+But, saddest of all the coterie who had trodden the tessellated floors
+of the marble house at Delhi, was a lonely girl sobbing herself to
+sleep, that very night, in a gray castellated mansion house perched upon
+a sunny cliff of Jersey.
+
+The fair gardens and splendid halls of the luxurious home seemed but
+the limits of a cheerless prison to the broken-hearted girl who had
+been astounded when her one friend, Douglas Fraser, the companion of a
+thirty-five days' journey, left her without a word. Nadine Johnstone had
+opened her heart, shyly, to her manly young kinsman, Douglas Fraser.
+And yet she guarded, as only a maiden's heart can, the secret of the
+blossoming love for Hardwicke--the man who had saved her life. She asked
+her hungry heart if he would follow on her way, led by the appeal of her
+shining eyes.
+
+Worn, harassed, and wearied out by travel, she had sought a refuge in
+Justine Delande's clinging arms, on the night of their arrival from
+Boulogne, for the path from India had been but a series of shadow-dance
+glimpses of strange scenes. The ashen face of the tottering old pedant
+had offered her no welcome to a happy home.
+
+"How hideously like my father, this old bookworm," murmured the
+frightened girl in a strange repulsion, as she fled away to her room. It
+was a grateful relief when the servant maid announced that the travelers
+would be served in their rooms.
+
+"The Master lives entirely alone," the girl said shortly. Late that
+first night the lonely girl sat gazing at the windows rattling under
+the flying wrack, while Douglas Fraser and his father communed below her
+until the midnight hour. Suddenly Justine Delande was summoned to join
+them "on urgent business," and the heiress of a million sat with clasped
+hands, murmuring:
+
+"Will he ever find me out here? This is only a cheerless prison. I am,
+forever, lost to the world." There was that in Justine Delande's face on
+her return which startled the heart-sick wanderer.
+
+"Ask me nothing--nothing to-night. Only sleep, my darling," murmured the
+devoted Swiss. The shadows deepened over Nadine Johnstone as she fell
+asleep dreaming of her mother, the gentle vision, and, the absent lover
+of her girlish heart.
+
+Sunny gleams came with the dawn, and Nadine was already wandering in the
+beautiful gardens of "The Banker's Folly," as the home perched on the
+hill was termed. It was there that Douglas Fraser suddenly came upon
+her, walking with the white-faced Justine. Both women could see that
+he bore tidings of grave import, and another shadow settled on Nadine's
+heart, as she clasped Justine's hand.
+
+Her cousin's face was grave as he said, in a broken voice: "I
+must hasten away instantly to catch the boat, and I have to return
+immediately to India. There's no time for a word. My father will tell
+you all! It is a matter of life and death to our whole family interests.
+May God keep you, Nadine!" the young man kindly said, as he bent and
+kissed her hand. "I have tried to make your long journey bearable!" And
+then, a wrinkled face at a window appeared to end the coming disclosure,
+for Douglas was softening. A harsh voice rose up in a half shriek:
+
+"Douglas! Douglas!" and the young man turned back, without another word,
+springing away, over the graveled walks. Nadine's face grew ashen white,
+as the presage of coming disaster chilled her heart.
+
+Without a word, Justine Delande led the startled girl into the house.
+"You are to see your uncle at once! After our breakfast! And I will be
+with you." faltered Justine, with an averted face.
+
+The orphaned girl was now dimly conscious of some impending blow. She
+had been frightened at the solemnity of Douglas Fraser's hasty farewell,
+and, while Justine Delande affected to touch the breakfast spread
+in their rooms by the Swiss lady's maid, now gloomy in an attack of
+heimweh, Nadine saw a four-wheeler rattle away over the lawn, while
+old Andrew Fraser grimly watched it until the gates clanged behind the
+departing Anglo-Indian. Over the low wall, on the road, Douglas Fraser
+caught a last glimpse of the graceful girl standing there. He sadly
+waved an adieu, and Nadine Johnstone was left with but one friend in
+the world, save the silent Swiss governess. Though the two women were
+sumptuously lodged "in fair upper chambers," opening east and south,
+with their maid near at hand, the gloomy chill of the silent household
+had already penetrated the lonely girl's heart. No single sign of the
+warmer amenities. Only books, books, dusty books, by the thousand, piled
+helter-skelter in every available nook and cranny.
+
+The servants were slouching and sullen, and they moved about their
+duties with gloomy brows. Even the gardener and his two stout boys
+struck sadly away with mattock and spade as if digging graves. No chirp
+of bird, no baying of a friendly dog, no burst of childish merriment
+broke the droning silence. And this was the home to which a father had
+doomed his only child.
+
+When the frightened maid tapped at the door to summon her mistress, her
+feeble rapping sounded like a hammer falling sadly on the hollow coffin
+lid. The girl stammered, "The master would like to see you both in the
+library." And with a sinking heart Nadine Fraser Johnstone descended the
+stair.
+
+She had only cast a frightened glimpse at the yellowed, bony face,
+the cavernous eye sockets, the bushy eyebrows, beneath which a cold
+intellectual gleam still feebly flickered. Andrew Fraser had bent his
+tall form over her, and peering down at her had whispered after their
+few words of greeting:
+
+"Did ye gain aught in knowledge of Thibet in your Indian life? My life
+work lies there, and Hugh has sorely disappointed me. He was to send me
+books and maps and papers for my 'History of Thibet and the Wanderings
+of the Ten Tribes.'" With a confused negation the girl had fled away
+to the cheerless shelter of the great rooms whose drab and gray
+arrangements bespoke the Reformatory or a Refuge for the Friendless.
+
+And the stern old scholar waited for the fluttering bird whom adverse
+Fate had driven into his dismal lair with all the pompous severity of a
+guardian and trustee.
+
+Seated at a long desk littered with a multitude of papers, Professor
+Andrew Fraser coldly bowed the two women to convenient seats. The
+parvenu banker who had fled away after a bankruptcy due to the erection
+and embellishment of "The Folly," had approved a semi-medieval plan of
+construction which suggested a Norman stronghold or a Corsican mansion
+arranged for a stubborn defense. Books, globes, maps, and papers
+littered the floors, and were piled nearby in convenient heaps with
+tell-tale flying signals of copious note taking. It was a bristling
+Redoubt of Learning.
+
+But on this sunny morning the retired Professor of Edinburg University
+held sundry letters, dispatches, and legal papers clutched in his
+claw-like hands. His eye rested upon Justine Delande, in a semi-hostile
+glare, as he slowly said:
+
+"I've sent for ye, as in the place of your father's daughter, ye must
+know of the changes that come to us, with the chances of Life and the
+sair ways o' the world." He was nervously fumbling with a selection of
+the papers and he paused and coughed ominously. "There has come to us
+news which has posted my son Douglas hastily back to India, to do your
+father's last bidding."
+
+Nadine Johnstone's trembling hand clutched Justine Delande's still
+rounded arm.
+
+"Her father the double of this grim ogre?" There was horror in her
+conjecture, but no pang of affection at the easily divined disclosure.
+"The news came to us suddenly, yesterday, and Douglas and I are left now
+to screen ye from the robbers and cormorants of the world! Ye're one of
+the richest women in Britain now--Hugh Fraser's daughter--for yere guid
+father is no more! A sudden death--a sudden death! and his will leaves
+you to me as a legal charge, for yere body and yere estate, till ye come
+o' the legal age. T'hafs the next three years!"
+
+With a single glance of stern deprecation, Andrew Fraser saw the girl
+totter and her head fall upon the bosom of the woman who had "sorrowed
+of her sorrows" in all the years of the lonely colorless infancy,
+childhood, and budding womanhood! The old bookworm clung to the papers
+as if that "documentary evidence" was an absolute guaranty, and he
+held it ready to proffer in support of his theorem. His toughened
+heart-strings were silent at natural affection's touch, and only twanged
+to the never-dying greed for gold--useless gold!
+
+In an unmoved wonder, the senile scholar listened to the broken sobs
+of the child of Valerie Delavigne. He was astounded at her financial
+carelessness, when she moaned:
+
+"Let me go away! Let me go!" and then she cried, "What care I for all
+this money--this useless wealth. He is gone! I am now alone in the
+world! And--and, now I never will know the story of the past!" There was
+a stony gleam on the old Scotchman's face as the girl sobbed, "Mother!
+Mother! Lost to me forever, now." The cunning old Scotchman's face
+darkened at the mention of that long-forbidden name. The woman who had
+deserted the rich nabob.
+
+With uneasy, tottering steps the old scholar paced the room, watching
+the two women in a grim silence, until Justine Delande, with a woman's
+questioning eyes, pointed to the rooms above.
+
+"Before ye go, and I'll now give ye these whole papers and documents, I
+would say that my dead brother Hugh has here in his will laid out yere
+whole life for the three years of the minority. He has put on me the
+thankless labor and care of watching over yere worldly gear, and of
+keeping ye safely to the lines of prudence and of a just economy. And
+my duty to my dead brother, I will do just as his own words and hand and
+seal lay it down! To-morrow I will have much to say to you. If ye will
+come back to me here, Madame Delande, when my ward goes to her own room,
+I'll see ye at once on a brief matter o' business. And now I'll wait
+till ye take her away!" It was a half hour before Justine Delande
+descended to the rooms where the old egoist chafed at the loss of time
+stolen from the maundering researches on Thibet and the Ten Tribes.
+
+"Woman! woman! I sent up for ye twice!" he barked, as the half-defiant
+Swiss governess at length joined him.
+
+"I know my duty to my dear child, Nadine!" said the stout-hearted
+governess, with a crimsoning cheek. The old man opened a check-book, and
+sternly said:
+
+"Sit ye there! I'll arrange yere business in a few minutes! And, then,
+ye can find other duties, and know them as ye care to. I'll have none of
+yere hoity-toity airs here!" Regardless of the look of horror stealing
+over the face of Justine, the old man coldly proceeded as if receding
+from the pulpit. "My late brother, Hugh Fraser Johnstone, of Delhi and
+Calcutta, has sent me his own last instructions and orders. I have here
+the last receipt for the stipend which ye have been allowed--and, I'm
+duly following his orders, when I give ye this check for the six months
+that has yet too to run.
+
+"And-look ye here! A twenty-pound note to take ye back to Geneva! When
+ye sign this receipt for the stipend, ye are free to leave my house at
+once. There's some letters and a couple of telegrams for ye! Bring me
+the maid, now, and I'll pay her in the same way; and, moreover, I will
+give her ten pounds to take her home. Then, ye'll both remember ye
+are not to sleep another night here! I'll give ye the whole day to say
+good-bye and to make up yere boxes. There will be two four-wheelers here
+after yere dinner, and ye'll find the Royal Victoria Hotel suited to ye
+both, at St. Heliers. If ye choose to go, the morning boat takes ye to
+Granville. Bring the maid here now! Do you linger, woman? I'll be obeyed
+and forthwith!"
+
+With flashing eyes, Justine Delande sprang up, facing the flinty-hearted
+old Scotsman. "I will never abandon Nadine here! She will die in your
+cheerless prison!" she cried. But the old pedant glowered pitilessly at
+the startled woman, who cried: "To turn me away like a dog--after these
+many years!" And her sobs woke the echoes of the vaulted room.
+
+"Hearken, my leddy!" barked old Fraser, "One more word, and I'll have
+the gardener put ye off the premises! The girl ye speak of is young and
+strong. She'll have just what the Court gives her, and what her father
+laid out for her, and I'll work my will, and I'll do his will. Ye're
+speaking to no fule, here now! Take yere money and yere letters, and
+bring me the maid, or I'll bundle ye both in a jiffey into the Queen's
+highway. I'll have none but my own servants here--now!"
+
+Then Justine Delande, without another word, stepped forward, and,
+seizing the pen, signed her receipt for wages due, in silence. She
+defiantly gathered up her withheld letters and papers. She returned in
+a few moments with the maid, whose ox-like eyes glowed in the sudden joy
+of a return to Switzerland. For the ranz des vaches was now ringing in
+the stout peasant girl's ears. "There, that's all, now!" rasped the old
+man, when the maid had gathered up her dole. "The butler will go down to
+town with ye and see ye safe, and he will leave word at the bank to pay
+yere checks. I keep no siller here. It's a lonely house." And the dead
+tyrant worked his will through the living one, as his stony heart had
+laid out the future.
+
+Justine Delande faced the old miser pedant as she indignantly cried:
+"God protect and keep the poor orphan who has drifted out of one hell on
+earth into another! Your dead brother robbed her of a mother's love, and
+you--you old vampire--you would bury her alive! She shall know yet her
+dead mother's love, and--her brutal father's shame!"
+
+Before the excited woman could select another period of flowing
+invective from her thronging emotions, the gaunt old scholar had pushed
+her out into the hall and slid a bolt upon his door, with a vicious
+click. There were certain qualms of fear already unsettling his
+triumphant calmness.
+
+While Justine Delande, with flaming cheeks, sprang up the stair, and
+barricaded herself with the sobbing heiress, the old man, his eyes
+gleaming with all the conscious pride of tyranny, seated himself and
+indited a note directed to
+
+PROFESSOR ALARIC HOBBS, (of Waukesha University, U. S. A.), ROYAL
+VICTORIA HOTEL, ST. HELIERS, JERSEY.
+
+He had already dismissed from his mind the sorrows of the orphaned
+niece--he cared not for the spirited onslaught of the Swiss woman--and
+he rejoiced in his heart at the fact of Douglas Fraser's departure to
+gather up the loose ends of his dead brother's great fortune. "It's a
+vixenish baggage--this Swiss teacher! Hugh was right to bid me cut those
+cords at once and forever between them! The girl shall have discipline,
+and, that baggage, her mother, is well out of the world! I'll work
+Hugh's will! She shall come under!" With a secret glee he ran over a
+schedule of chapter headings upon Thibet, Tibet, Tubet--the land of
+Bod--Bodyul or Alassa. He was drifting back into the dreamland of the
+pedant, but a few hours deserted.
+
+"This Yankee fellow has a keen wit! His ideas on the Ten Tribes are
+wonderful! His life has been a study of the Mongolians, the Tartars,
+and the history of the American Indians! I will be a bit decent to the
+fellow, and I'll get at the meat of his knowledge! He's young and a
+great chatterer, maybe, but a help to me. Body o' me! But to get there
+myself--to Thibet.
+
+"Ah!" sighed the old misanthrope, "I'm too old now! And Hugh has failed
+me! Nothing from him. This sair blow cuts off the last hope! And no
+educated men of Thibet ever travel! Blindness--blindness everywhere!"
+he babbled on, while above him, two women, in an agonized leave-taking,
+were silently sobbing in each other's arms, while the happy Swiss
+servant made her boxes. Nadine Johnstone's utter wretchedness gave her
+no sense of a loss by the hand of Death. For a father's love she had
+never known, and her mother--a mystery!
+
+The two women cowering together above the old pedant's den with
+sorrowing hearts communed while Justine Delande directed the packing
+of her slender belongings. There was a new spirit of revolt stirring in
+Nadine Johnstone's breast, and her face glowed with the resentment of an
+outraged heart. When all was ready for Justine's flitting, the heiress
+of a million pounds finished a little memorandum, which she calmly
+explained to the Swiss preceptress. The sense of her future rights
+stirred her like a bugle blast, and with clear eyes, she looked beyond
+the three years toward Freedom.
+
+"It rests with you, Justine, as to whether I am left friendless for
+three years of a gloomy captivity. First you are to telegraph to Major
+Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers, Delhi, and if you receive no reply,
+then telegraph to General Willoughby for the Major's address. When at
+Granville, and, not before, send this letter to Major Hardwicke at the
+'Junior United Service Club, London'." The beautiful girl was blushing
+rosy red as the sympathetic Swiss folded her to her breast. "Then, when
+you get to Paris, go to No. 9 Rue Berlioz, and leave this letter there
+for Madame Berthe Louison. Go yourself. Trust no one. When you have
+conferred with dear Euphrosyne, you can send all your letters to Madame
+Louison at Paris under cover. She will find out a safe way to get
+them to me--even if she has to send her man, Jules, over here. He is
+quick-witted, and he will find a way to reach me."
+
+There was a dawning wonder in Justine's eyes.
+
+"Who is this strange Madame Louison? Can you trust her?"
+
+"Ah! Justine!" murmured Nadine, "She is only one who loves me, for
+love's own sake, but I know I can trust her. She knows something of my
+mother's past life--something that I do not know. This old tyrant
+will now try to cut me off from all the outside world. He has had some
+strange power given to him by the father who was only my father in name.
+
+"I will obey you. I swear it!" cried Justine. "And old Simpson will
+probably be coming on soon. He loves you. He will serve you."
+
+"Yes," joyously exclaimed Nadine, with a glowing face. "And he adores
+Major Hardwicke, whose father saved his life at Lucknow. There is one
+dawning hope. You are not to write one word till you hear from me. I
+know that Madame Louison will manage to send Jules to me in some safe
+disguise," she proudly cried, "and remember--I shall not be always a
+poor prisoner with her hands tied. The day of my deliverance comes. When
+I am twenty-one, I can reward both you and Euphrosyne. She shall have a
+home to live in ease. And you,--you shall go out into the world with me,
+and aid me to find my mother. Even in the tomb I shall find her. I
+shall know of her love. For I shall see her loving face, even only in a
+picture. The face that has blessed me in my dreams."
+
+Justine Delande saw a future reward awaiting the two faithful guardians
+of the childhood of Miss Million. With a sudden impulse, she cried:
+"There is one to aid even nearer to us now than Major Hardwicke. For I
+have a telegram from Euphrosyne, that Major Hawke is at Geneva."
+
+Nadine Johnstone rose and seized both of Justine's hands: "Promise
+me now, by my dead mother's grave, that you will never tell that man
+anything of our secret compact of to-day! I fear him! I disliked him
+from the first! He had strange dealings with the dead." The girl's face
+was stern. "If I am approached by him in any way, I will cease every
+communication with you forever! I will have no aid of Alan Hawke."
+
+And when the parting hour came, Justine Delande was amazed at the cold
+dignity with which Nadine Johnstone faced the grim old uncle. It was
+only at the gate of the "Banker's Folly," that the heiress for the last
+time kissed her friend in adieu. "Fear not for me. I have learned the
+lesson of Life. Remember!" she whispered. "Keep the faith! Guard my
+trusts!" and then, Justine sobbed: "Loyal a la mort!"
+
+The evening shades were darkening the sculptured shores of Rozel Bay,
+where clumsy luggers lay far below, high and dry on the beach, behind
+the great masonry pier. Skiffs and fishing-boats lined the shores, and
+the soft breeze moved the foliage of the luxuriant garden. The white
+stars were peeping out and twinkling in the gray and lonely sea, as
+Nadine shivered and walked firmly back to the portico, where the old
+recluse awaited her.
+
+With a stiff motion of perfunctory courtesy, he motioned the heiress
+into the frosty-looking drawing-room, now lit up with spectral gleams of
+wax candles. For he would treat his ward with a frozen dignity.
+
+Andrew Fraser coughed in a hollow warning and wasted no words in his
+first bulletin of "General Orders." "I have here a certified copy of
+your late father's will," he said, "for your perusal. You will see all
+the conditions of life which he has wisely laid down for you. I have
+telegraphed on to London for his solicitor to send a representative
+here, and the original testament will be duly filed at Doctors' Commons,
+at once. I shall at once provide you with suitable women attendants.
+I have already engaged a proper housekeeper, to whom you can state all
+your wishes. With regard to money matters and your correspondence, you
+must consult me! For the present, you will readily see that I deem it
+imprudent for you to leave these spacious and splendid grounds! But,
+ye'll find ways to busy yourself. Women always do!"
+
+The old pedant marveled at the young woman's composure, for she simply
+bowed and awaited a termination of the interview. Slightly disconcerted,
+he abruptly demanded: "Have you anything to say?"
+
+"Only this, Andrew Fraser," coldly replied the heiress. "Your sending
+away the only woman whom I know in the world has marked you as a tyrant
+and a jailer." Her spirit was as unyielding as his own, and he winced.
+
+"Ye'll find I had your father's warrant. I'll go on to the end and obey
+him! There are to be no old associations kept up, and when ye come to
+your own ye can do all ye will! I'll go my way in my duty and do it
+as it seems right!" When he finished he was alone, for the daughter of
+Valerie Delavigne had passed him with a glance of unutterable contempt.
+
+There was fire in the eye of the rebellious girl, and the elastic
+firmness of youth in her tread, but above stairs, in her own lonely
+rooms, her courage faded away quickly. But she wrapped her sorrows in
+her own proud young heart and turned her eyes to the far East. "Will he
+come?" she murmured.
+
+When the clumsy island serving girl had trimmed the fire and drawn the
+heavy curtains, Nadine Johnstone locked her doors. She sat spellbound,
+with a wildly beating heart, until she had read the last of the sixteen
+provisions of her father's vindictive will. Though the whole fortune
+was left absolutely to her, with the exception of twenty-five
+thousand pounds each to Andrew Fraser and his son, she was tied up by
+restrictions so infamously brutal, that her three years of minority
+stretched out before her as a death in life. Five hundred pounds a year
+of pin money were allowed to her until her majority, "to be expended
+with the approval of her guardian."
+
+In an agony of lonely sorrow she threw herself, dressed, upon her bed
+and sobbed herself into forgetfulness, her last cry for help mingling
+the names of Berthe Louison and Harry Hardwicke. "Will Justine be true
+to her oath?" she faltered, as she drifted into the blessed release of
+dreamland.
+
+As the night wore on, Justine Delande, tossing on her bed in the Royal
+Victoria Hotel, waited for the dawn, to sail for Granville. She had
+telegraphed in curt words her dismissal, and she burned to reach Geneva,
+for to her the sight of Alan Hawke's face was the one oasis in her
+desert of sorrow.
+
+Long after Nadine Johnstone had closed her tired eyelids, stern old
+Andrew Fraser cowered below, glowering over his library fire, clad in
+a huge plaid dressing gown. His greedy eyes watched the dancing flames,
+and he rubbed the thin palms in triumph, while he sipped his nightly
+glass of Highland whisky grog. It had been a famous secret campaign for
+the surviving brother.
+
+"If all goes on well; all goes well!" he crooned. "There's Douglas, gone
+for good! The boy is young and soft-like. He might fall into this pert
+minx's hands as young Douglas with Queen Mary of old. And, thank God,
+he knows nothing of the packet of jewels! Not a soul knows in the wide
+world! Why should I not save them for myself and turn them into gold?
+Yes, save them for myself. For the boy? But he never must know! Ah! I
+must hide them well! This stubborn girl knows nothing! That is right!
+Janet Fairbarn will be here in two days, and I'll have another man to
+keep watch; yes, and a good dog, too! For the gallants must never cross
+my wall!"
+
+"He! He! She'll no fule with Janet Fairbarn," he gloated, "and the will
+gives me every power. I must find a place of safety for the jewels," he
+mused. "I'm glad that I burned Hughie's letter, as he told me. There's
+nothing now to show for them. The bank would not be safe. Never must
+they go out of my hands. And, I can write a sealed letter for Douglas,
+to be opened by him alone, if I should be called away. I can put it in
+the bank, and take a receipt and send the boy the receipt. But, no
+human being must know that I have them." He tottered away to his sleep
+murmuring, "But safer still, to turn them into yellow gold. There's a
+deal of them. I must find out in time how to dispose of them, but never
+till the lass above is gone and my accounts all discharged." And the
+old miser, who had already robbed his dead brother, slept softly in love
+with his own exceeding cunning.
+
+Of all the loungers on the wind-swept wharf at Granville-sur-Mer next
+day, decidedly the most natty was Jules Victor, who was now awaiting the
+return of the little St. Helier's packet, to engage a special cabin
+for himself, with all a Gaul's horror of the stormy passage. He sprang
+forward, in a genuine surprise, as Mademoiselle Justine Delande, aided
+by the stout Swiss maid, tottered over the gangplank. "Madame is ill, a
+la bonne heure! Let me conduct you to the Hotel Croix d'Or, where Madame
+Louison is even now awaiting the Paris train." The ex-zouave was a
+miracle of politeness and, he proudly conducted Justine to a waiting
+fiacre, having deftly reserved himself the choice of staterooms. With
+the skill of his artful kind, Jules hastened upstairs at the Hotel Croix
+d'Or, to announce to his mistress the lucky find of a windy afternoon on
+Granville quay.
+
+That night, when Justine Delande reached Paris, she was assured in her
+heart that her own future fortunes were safe, and that her sister would
+surely be the recipient of Nadine Johnstone's future bounty. For Madame
+Berthe Louison, ever armed against possible treachery, announced her own
+instant departure for Poland. "But, I leave Jules in charge in Paris,
+and he will find the way to deliver your letters to your young friend."
+
+When Justine Delande was safely escorted to the train by the smiling
+Madame Berthe Louison, she proceeded to register a packet for London,
+addressed to "Major Harry Hardwicke."
+
+That young officer's heart was light, three days later, when he received
+the letter of Nadine which Madame Louison had cajoled easily from the
+Swiss woman. And the happy Major's heart was no lighter than Nadine's
+for the watchful Janet Fairbarn, now on duty, with her selected
+subordinates, wondered to see the pale-faced girl laugh merrily as she
+chatted over the garden wall with a strolling French peddler. "I may
+trade at the gate, may I not, Miss Janet," said Nadine, "or is that
+one of the crimes?" But Jules Victor had brought her a new life. She
+whispered, "He will come!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. AN ASIATIC LION IN HIDING.
+
+
+
+Madame Alixe Delavigne sat alone in her snug apartment of the Hotel
+Croix d'Or, at Granville-sur-Mer, four days after Justine Delande had
+been driven forth from the Banker's Folly! The perusal of a long letter
+from Jules Victor was interrupted by the arrival of a telegram from that
+rising young soldier, Captain Anson Anstruther. It needed but a single
+glance to call the resolute woman to action.
+
+Smartly ringing the bell, she ordered the maid, her bill, and a voiture
+to convey her to the Boulogne station. "So, Hardwicke and Captain Murray
+are safely in London! Major Hawke is at Geneva, and I am to hide
+at Rosebank Villa until he has reported and been sent away on his
+continental tour of the great jewel dealers!"
+
+With flying fingers the lady soon penned a letter addressed to "Monsieur
+Alois Vautier, Marchand-en-petit, Hotel Bellevue, St. Aubin, Jersey."
+"He can telegraph to me at Richmond, and one of us will soon be on
+the ground to aid him! Now, 'the longest way round is the nearest
+way home!'" laughed the ci-devant Madame Louison, as she departed for
+Boulogne, an hour later, having carefully mailed her letter personally,
+and sent a brief telegram to the active Jules Victor.
+
+The ex-Zouave had easily made the rounds of the pretty islet of Jersey,
+in his capacity of merchant of small wares, long before Alixe Delavigne,
+braving the stormy channel, had proceeded from Folkestone directly to
+Richmond, and hidden herself in the leafy bowers of Rosebank Villa.
+Smiling, gay and debonnair with all the women servants, he had a pinch
+of snuff, a cigar of fair quality, or a pipe full of tabac for coachman
+and groom, supplemented with many a petit verre from his capacious
+flask. His Gallic gallantry, with the gift of a trinket or ribbon, made
+him welcome with simple milk-maid or pert house "slavey," and the dapper
+little Frenchman was already an established favorite in the wine-room of
+the Hotel Bellevue.
+
+His greatest triumph, however, was the secret demonstration of the
+cheapness of Jersey prices to the London sewing woman and smart lady's
+maid, now chafing under Janet Fairbarn's iron rule at the "Banker's
+Folly." "Nom de pipe! But I have to make shameful rabaissements de
+prix," muttered Jules, as he adroitly worked upon the susceptibilities
+of the two new maid servants. While one or the other of these women
+always accompanied Miss Nadine Johnstone in her daily wanderings through
+the splendid gardens of the Folly, the merry voice of Jules Victor was
+often heard by them singing on his way down the road. The gift of a
+famous brule gueule had propitiated the simple Jersey gardener, whose
+stout boy rejoiced in a new leather jacket, almost a gift, and the
+second man, Andrew Fraser's reinforcement, a famous drinker, was soon
+a nightly companion of "Alois Vautier" at the one little "public," down
+under the scarped hill at Rizel Bay.
+
+Andrew Fraser, closeted with the London lawyer, had almost forgotten the
+existence of Nadine Johnstone.
+
+A formal interview as to the filing of her father's will, a mere mute
+exhibition of perfunctory courtesy, released Nadine to her own devices,
+while Professor Andrew Fraser returned to his afternoon studies with
+that famous young Yankee savant, Professor Alaric Hobbs, of Waukesha
+University.
+
+The beautiful captive was now happy in dissembling her contentment, for,
+though the sharp-featured Scotch housekeeper, Janet Fairbarn, keenly
+watched all her outgoings, sending always one of the women as an
+"outside guard," the heiress had learned some of woman's secret arts
+quickly. The peddler, Alois Vautier, brought to her letters and messages
+which made her lonely heart light, even in her stately semi-durance. And
+the epistles of Major Harry Hardwicke left her with a heart trembling in
+delight after their perusal.
+
+And so it fell out that four days after Alixe Delavigne had returned to
+Rosebank Villa, that a packet of important letters was smuggled past the
+droning Professor's picket line, one of which caused Nadine Johnstone to
+hide her tell-tale blushes in her room.
+
+"To-morrow I will come by, to deliver some little purchases of the
+maids! Have your answers all ready. I will be here at ten, at the garden
+gate!" Long after the Yankee Professor had left the "Folly" for St.
+Heliers that night, the lonely girl bent her beautiful head over the
+pages, destined to safely reach her lover's eyes in fair London town.
+And to Berthe Louison, she now poured out her loving heart, for she knew
+that her protecting friends would soon be near her.
+
+"We are waiting, watching, and planning," wrote Alixe Delavigne. "Be
+cheerful--silent--watchful! I must be near you, I must see you, face to
+face, to tell you all the story of the past! I will then tell you, my
+own darling child, of the mother whom you have never known. But, first,
+Major Hardwicke must open a way to your side! Beware of the schemes of
+Alan Hawke! He will be here to-morrow, and he may steal over to Jersey,
+though his duty takes him for a month to the Continent! You will surely
+see Major Hardwicke before you see me for Andrew Fraser might take alarm
+at a sight of my face and so hide you away from us all!"
+
+Miss Mildred Anstruther was a delicate symphony in gray, as she
+gracefully presided the next evening over the dinner table at which
+Alixe Delavigne, Captain Anstruther, Major Hardwicke, and Captain
+Murray merrily discussed the sudden hastening of Captain Eric Murray's
+nuptials. Hardwicke's duty as "best man" was now the only bar to the
+beginning of a campaign destined to foil Andrew Fraser's Loch Leven
+tactics of imprisoning his niece and ward.
+
+"You will have but a brief honeymoon, Eric!" laughed Hardwicke.
+
+"You have promised to stand by me, Harry," replied his friend. "See me
+married to-morrow, then a week's honeymoon at Jersey is all that I ask!
+I can bestow my wife there with a dear friend, who has the prettiest old
+Norman chateau-maison on the island, and after that be near you there at
+Rozel Bay to work up the final discomfiture of this old vampire. I
+only claim the attendance of the whole party at my wedding, then I will
+disappear and spy out the ground for you long before you are ready to
+astonish the dreamy old bookworm. I have made my own plans, and Flossie
+has agreed to our runaway trip 'in the interests of the service'! She
+is a soldier's daughter, remember!" Miss Mildred, wreathed in her soft
+laces, shimmering in her gray poplin, and bending her stately head in
+salutation, extended a delicate hand, loaded down with quaint old Indian
+rings, to each, when the coffee was served.
+
+"I will leave you now to the hatching of your famous conspiracy for the
+invasion of the Island of Jersey." The old gentlewoman passed smilingly
+through the door where the three knightly soldiers stood bowing low, and
+then the four conspirators sat down to arrange the dramatis persona of a
+little society play in "High Life," in which Professor Andrew Fraser was
+destined to be the central figure, and act without "lines" or rehearsal.
+
+The "leading lady" was at the present moment dreaming of a golden future
+in her own rooms at the "Banker's Folly." Nadine Johnstone had been
+allowed to make her apartments as bright and cheery as her buoyant
+nature suggested.
+
+For Andrew Fraser, after much discussion with Janet Fairbarn, had
+convoyed the heiress to St. Heliers for a day. The resources of all the
+local furnishers were taxed by the young prisoner's taste, and, the old
+executor, unbending a little, grimly vaunted his "dangerous liberality."
+"I'll be bail for the expenditure of five hundred pounds, as an extra
+allowance," he said. "Now make yourself snug here, for ye'll bide here
+the whole three years! As to the bookmen, music, and libraries, I'll
+give ye a free hand.
+
+"The yearly allowance of yere lamented father will cover all yere
+dealings with mantua-makers and milliners. That is yere own affair--all
+that sort of womanly gear. We will make one day of it, and if ye are
+lacking aught, then Miss Janet can bring ye to town, or the dealers can
+come." It was, thus self-deluded, that Andrew Fraser noted the coming
+cheerfulness of his defiant young charge. He fancied he had provided
+every wish of her lonely heart. But the trailing lines of smoke of
+the daily Southampton packets only spoke to Nadine of a growing
+correspondence with Major Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers. She waited
+now for Simpson's arrival for news of the Delhi mystery--the death of
+the unloving parent, who had been only her jailer.
+
+At Rosebank Villa, Major Hardwicke was busied with Captain Murray, while
+Anstruther drew Alixe Delavigne aside. "Listen to all Murray proposes,
+and agree to it. You may be astonished at our plans, but between you and
+I, alone, lies the deeper secret. My secret orders from the Viceroy
+are for your ear alone. Your life-quest to reach Nadine's side can
+only be taken up after Murray and Hardwicke have finished their little
+masquerade at the 'Banker's Folly.' Let this secret be ours, alone! Do
+you promise me, Alixe? I will aid you, heart, life, and soul!" And,
+with her eyes softly shining in a growing tenderness, Alixe Delavigne
+murmured: "I trust you in all things! It shall be as you wish."
+
+Captain Anstruther then led the way to the library, and closing the
+doors with the minute attention of a true conspirator, cried: "Murray,
+we will hear from you first!" Seated, with her lips parted in an
+expectant smile, Alixe Delavigne listened in amazement as "Red Eric"
+proceeded.
+
+"I got the little idea from Frank Halton, of the Globe. You may
+know that he was out at the Khyber Pass seven years ago, as the war
+correspondent of the Telegraph, and he ran over Cabul at the time of the
+Penj-Deh incident. He has prepared a series of varied skits and personal
+items covering the visit incognito of Prince Djiddin, a Thibetan noble
+of ancient and shadowy lineage. This 'Asiatic Lion' will be duly kept
+in the shadows of a mysterious seclusion in the Four Kingdoms until we
+introduce him to a small section of the British public.
+
+"The Globe, the Indian Mail, the Mirror, the Colonial Gazette, and other
+periodicals will darkly hint at his itinerary, and he will be paraded
+judiciously, and no vulgar eye must ever rest upon him. These items will
+be widely copied. A graceful, social phantom, a Veiled, mysterious young
+potentate is Prince Djiddin!" "The humbug will be easily discovered!"
+said Anstruther, still at sea.
+
+"Not if you flung your protecting mantle over him!" cried Murray. "We
+will shield him by a protecting Moonshee, who alone speaks his august
+master's language, a tongue not to be easily translated; in fact,
+perfectly proof against all prying outsiders. The one way to hoodwink
+old Fraser is to humbug him about the great work on Thibet. That is the
+one soft spot in the hide of this old alligator. We have gone carefully
+over the reports of your secret agent at St. Heliers. Make us square
+with him, Captain, let him have your orders to aid us, and he can get us
+first hooked on to this Yankee Professor Alaric Hobbs! We will jolly him
+a bit, and so, get an interview with old Fraser, and then fool the old
+chap to the top of his bent. We will supply him with theories enough to
+set every bee in his bonnet buzzing. Your man is already 'solid'
+with Professor Alaric Hobbs, who is a quaint genius, and withal, a
+hard-headed Yankee, but full of cranks and 'isms.'"
+
+Anson Anstruther exchanged doubtful glances with Alixe Delavigne, who
+was still very agnostic. "The real object is to spy out the interior
+of Fraser's household without alarming him, and to locate his hidden
+treasure, and, moreover, to open a safe, personal communication with
+Nadine Johnstone. Letters and messages finally go astray. And, at the
+very first sign of danger, old Andrew would clear out to the Continent,
+shut up the girl, get rid of that insured package, and cut all future
+communications! In the long three years, the girl might die, be
+estranged from you, or perhaps fall into the hands of some foreign
+fortune hunter. Human nature--woman nature--is a mutable quantity. But
+once we are in communication we can provide for future correspondence in
+any event.
+
+"And you, Anstruther, would be defeated in recovering the hidden
+property of the Crown. Moreover, these two Frasers are the only
+heirs-at-law.
+
+"Who knows what might not be done for a million, when a beggarly fifty
+pounds will buy a death certificate in many a little continental town?"
+They were all gravely silent as Murray soberly clinched his argument.
+"It is idle not to believe that old Hugh Fraser Johnstone laid out his
+brother's whole future course! He certainly has trusted him with his
+stealings, the lost crown jewels! He trusts his child's whole future to
+the care of these two cold Scotsmen, and gives the heiress over to old
+Andrew, to keep her safe from Madame," Murray bowed, "his only living
+enemy, and from all the other relatives of his long-hated dead wife.
+From your own disclosures and Madame's own words, we must all fear
+that her first appearance would be the signal for the spiriting away of
+Nadine until the minority is at an end. And it might invite some secret
+crime. She bears the hated face of her dead mother, you say!"
+
+"True," murmured Anstruther. "My solicitor tells me, too, that a
+guardianship by will is the very strongest tying-up of a rich young
+ward. We can follow on later, perhaps, if this opening could be
+made, but where have we a 'Prince Djiddin,' and where, the wonderful
+'Moonshee?'"
+
+"There is Prince Djiddin," laughed Captain Murray, pointing to Major
+Harry Hardwicke, "and here is the Moonshee," he tapped his own broad
+breast.
+
+"I fail to understand you," slowly replied Anstruther, now blankly
+gazing at the two men in a growing wonderment.
+
+"Nothing easier," briskly answered Murray. "I go quietly over to Jersey
+and spend a honeymoon week with Flossie. She is soldier enough to
+know that my little masquerade means full 'duty pay and traveling
+allowances.' I will hide her safely with my Jersey friends, and while
+Frank Halton works his secret Literary Bureau, I will steal over to
+Southampton and bring 'Prince Djiddin' over to St. Heliers. I will see
+that he naturally falls in with Prof. Alaric Hobbs, and then, 'fond
+of seclusion,' I will embower my 'Asiatic Lion' not a league from the
+'Banker's Folly.' I will be near my Flossie, and I propose to bring
+'Prince Djiddin' soon face to face with the heiress.
+
+"As the Prince speaks not a word of English, even old Fraser will be
+disarmed. Neither Hobbs, Alaric of that ilk, nor Fraser have ever been
+in India, and we can easily fool them. Neither of us have ever been
+in Jersey, and fortunately our figures, age, and complexions aid the
+makeup. I can do the Moonshee. It was my 'star' cast in many a garrison
+theatrical show. Remember, none of them have ever seen Hardwicke or
+myself--only Miss Nadine will know us."
+
+"But," faltered Alixe Delavigne, "Captain Murray makes no provision
+for me. Must I be hidden here always?" Her voice was trembling with the
+surging love of her longing heart.
+
+"Ah! dear Madame!" replied Murray. "Place aux dames. You can be later
+quietly escorted to St. Heliers. Old bookworm Fraser does not leave the
+'Folly' once in six months. You shall, on to-morrow, arrange with Mrs.
+Flossie Murray to share 'those days of absence' with her, while I am
+playing the 'Moonshee' to 'Prince Djiddin's' leading part. With your own
+sly man-of-all-work, then how easy for the acute Jules Victor to
+lead you into the extensive grounds, where you may often meet Nadine
+Johnstone when all is safe. He has the friendly entree, and can hoodwink
+the attendants of the garden, while your own ingenuity will enable
+you to have stolen interviews in the splendid rambles of the 'Banker's
+Folly.' Old Andrew never quits his study, and all we have to do is to
+watch Miss Janet Fairbarn. Jules Victor can guard against a surprise by
+her."
+
+"It is an ingenious plan, but, a dangerous one," mused Anstruther.
+
+"Not so," boldly replied Murray. "Remember that old Fraser is crazy on
+his bookwork. Hobbs is his only male visitor. He has not a relative,
+a friend--no one to watch on the outside while we hold the old chap at
+bay. Miss Janet watches in the house." Anstruther had been carefully
+studying the two men's faces. "'Prince Djiddin' will be all right, with
+a little makeup, using walnut juice and a proper costume. His Indian
+brown is quite the thing. But you, my boy, must be an Eurasian, the son
+of a high English official and a native woman of rank. You were carried
+away to Thibet by your beautiful Cashmere mother when she was abandoned.
+The usual sad story will go. She, driven out by her family, refuges
+finally in Hlassa, and your English was, of course, learned before
+the death of your father, when you were eighteen. Your usefulness as
+interpreter caused you to attach yourself to 'Prince Djiddin's' noble
+family.
+
+"Yes," said Hardwicke. "A couple of days spent in the British Museum,
+and with your fertile imagination, Eric, you will be enabled to describe
+the mysterious, lonely city on the Dzangstu, and even the gilded temples
+of Mount Botala. You can easily book up all about the Dalai Lama. Make a
+voyage a la Tom Moore to Cashmere!"
+
+"Right you are!" laughed Eric Murray. "Frank Halton stole into the town
+of Hlassa and he now offers to me his sketchbooks and private notebooks.
+Foreigners from the south have occasionally been allowed to go into
+Thibet since the Nepauese were driven out, but only very rarely. I will
+have all the rig and quaint outlandish gear that Halton brought away. So
+you see we are the 'Ever Victorious Army.' Yes. Prince Djiddin will be
+a go." And the others were fain to agree in the plausibility of the
+scheme.
+
+It was midnight when the quartette separated to meet at the quiet
+wedding of the morrow. Alixe Delavigne had finally approved the plan,
+when Anson Anstruther drew her away to confer upon the risk. "You see,"
+he pleaded, "Murray will never even speak to Miss Johnstone. All that
+pleasing task is left to Prince Djiddin, who can and will, of course,
+choose any unguarded moment. Captain Murray will hold old Fraser
+personally in limbo, while you and Prince Djiddin can meet the pretty
+captive in alternation. At any danger signal, the Prince and Moonshee
+can quit Jersey at once." Then the lightning thought came to the lady:
+"She already loves him! It must be so! He is the only young officer who
+was ever allowed to enter the Marble House in that long year of golden
+bondage. It shall be so! I can trust to him for her sake, if he loves
+her for Love's own sake. I can remain near Nadine then, even if they
+have to disappear, for Jules will keep the pathway open." And yet,
+shamefaced in her own growing tenderness for her mentor, Anstruther, she
+took these wise counsels away to hide them in her own happy heart. "It
+will make us then, Captain Murray," she said, as she extended her hand
+in good night, "a little circle of five, gathered around this motherless
+and fatherless girl to save her from the secret schemes of tyrant and
+fortune hunter."
+
+"Precisely so, Madame," laughed Murray, "when I have sworn in my
+beautiful recruit to-morrow. Then we will be five in very truth." There
+was a flying early morning visit to Hunt and Roskell's on the morrow,
+which greatly astonished Captain Anstruther, who had escorted Madame
+Alixe Delavigne down on her way to the pretty chapel at Kew, where
+Captain Murray duly "swore in his beautiful recruit," with bell, book,
+and candle. The parure of diamonds which the lady of Jitomir gave to
+Mrs. Flossie Murray caused even the eyes of "The Moonshee" to open in
+wonder at the little campaign breakfast of the leaders of this Crusade
+of Love. "Only suited to the wife of Prince Djiddin's High Chamberlain,"
+laughed Alixe Delavigne, as the happy Captain departed on his honeymoon
+tour, escaping showers of rice, to "move upon the enemy's works in
+Jersey."
+
+"Thank God that I have got that sharp-eyed Hawke safely out of town,"
+cried Captain Anstruther to his beautiful confidante, as they escorted
+Miss Mildred back to beautiful Rosebank. The "lass o' Richmond Hill" was
+no fairer than the happy woman who had seen Major Hardwicke depart for
+a long conference with that all powerful sprite of the magic pen, Frank
+Halton, who was now busied in launching his creation, Prince Djiddin.
+"A single word at the 'F. O.' will legalize our useful myth, 'Prince
+Djiddin,' and I hope that Hardwicke and Murray will succeed. They can
+surely lose nothing by the attempt. I am known to be the Viceroy's
+aide-de-camp 'on leave,' a near kinsman, and I am sure that old Fraser
+would take alarm at the first visit or written communication from me.
+Once startled, he would soon be off to hide the jewels on the Continent,
+and then only laugh at our efforts. Of course he will swear that the
+insured packet only contained family papers or some of the estate's
+securities. Yes! Alan Hawke is the only man whom I fear now as to the
+safety of either the girl or the jewels. He seems to have had many old
+dealings with Hugh Johnstone, too!" They were silent as they threaded
+the beautiful Surrey garden lanes of the old burgh of Sheen. Loved by
+the bluff Harrys of the English throne, its beauties sung by poet and
+deputed by artist, the charming declivities of Richmond gained a new
+name from Henry VII, and its bosky shades once saw a kingly Edward, a
+Henry, and a mighty Elizabeth drop the scepter of Great Britain from the
+palsied hand of Death. Its little parish church to-day hides the ashes
+of the pensive pastoral poet Thomson, and the bones of the great actor
+Kean. But, Anstruther's active mind was only dwelling in the present, as
+Miss Mildred nodded in the carriage. He saw again the simple wedding
+of the morning, and heard once more those touching words "I, Eric, take
+thee, Florence." Then his eyes sought the face of Alixe Delavigne in a
+burning glance, which caused that lady to seek her own bower in Rosebank
+villa, and hide her blushes from "Him Who Would Not Be Denied." Miss
+Mildred smiled and nodded behind her fan, for she heard the Bells of the
+Future sounding afar off.
+
+The graceful woman escorted Captain Anstruther to the river's edge that
+night, when he departed to a conference of moment with Hardwicke and
+Halton. She fled back, like the swift Camilla, to her own nest, as the
+Captain went forth upon the river. Only the listening flowers heard her
+startled answer when Anstruther had found a voice to tell the Pilgrim
+of Love his own story in a soldier's frank way. "Wait, Anson! Wait, till
+you know me better, till our quest is done; wait till the roses bloom
+here once more," she had whispered.
+
+"And if I do wait, Alixe--if I ask you again?" Anstruther cried as he
+kissed her slender hand.
+
+"Then you shall have my answer," she faltered, but her eyes shone like
+stars as she lightly fled away.
+
+Captain Anson Anstruther had reckoned without his host when he rejoiced
+over Alan Hawke's departure. As the aide-de-camp sped down the darkened
+river, he still saw Alixe Delavigne's eyes gleaming down on him in every
+tender twinkling star, but the wily agent whom he had dispatched to the
+Continent four days before, was near him yet, and comfortably dining in
+a little snug public in the Tower Hamlets, on this very night. He was
+looking for tools suited to a dark game which busied his reckless heart.
+
+Major Alan Hawke (temporary rank) had passed two days at Geneva in a
+serious conference with the sorrowing sisters Delande. His meeting with
+the softhearted Justine had brought the color back to the poor woman's
+face, and she shyly held up the diamond bracelet to his view, murmuring,
+"I have thought of you and kissed it every night and morning, for your
+sake, Alan!"
+
+With a glance of veiled tenderness, the acute schemer took his fair dupe
+out upon the lake, while Euphrosyne directed the slow grinding of the
+mills of the gods. "I must lose no time," Hawke pleaded, "as I have to
+report for duty in London." And so, he gleaned the story of the hegira
+and the situation at the Banker's Folly. He heard all, and yet felt that
+there was a gap in the story. Justine was true to her plighted word.
+
+He instinctively felt that Justine was holding back something of moment,
+and yet in his heart he felt that the price of that disclosure would
+be his formal betrothal to the loving Justine. But he dared not vow to
+marry, and the Swiss woman was loyally true to her oath. He remained
+"their loving brother" as yet, and when two days later, Alan Hawke
+departed for London direct, he mused vainly over the tangled problem
+until he reported to Captain Anson Anstruther. "If this greenhorn girl
+has any designs of her own she has not told them yet to Justine. I must
+get a man to help me to work my scheme, or go over to Jersey myself,"
+he at last decided. He was secretly happy at Captain Anstruther's prompt
+injunctions to make ready for a tour of two months upon the Continent.
+"I shall have all your detailed instructions prepared tomorrow, Major
+Hawke," said the young aide-de-camp. "Meet me, therefore, at the Junior
+United Service at ten o'clock; you can take a couple of days to look
+over London, and then proceed at once to the delicate duty which I will
+give to you. And, remember, the Viceroy's orders are that you are to
+report to me alone, and also to preserve an absolute secrecy. Your
+future rank will depend upon your discretion." Major Alan Hawke was not
+as cheerful, however, when he opened his private mail at Morley's Hotel,
+as when he had bade adieu to Captain Anstruther. A formal communication
+from the Credit Lyonnais informed him that Monsieur le Professeur Andrew
+Fraser had formally forbidden Messrs. Glyn, Carr & Glyn to pay the four
+bills of exchange, acting in his capacity of executor of a will duly
+filed at Doctor's Commons, and that the four drafts must be proved as
+debts against the estate, and so paid later, in due process of law
+on proof of the claim. The refusal was due to the death of the drawer
+before presentment.
+
+"Damn it! I must play a fine game now!" he glowered. "Anstruther I must
+obey in all! Once back in India with rank, however, I can force old Ram
+Lal to pay these drafts. He dare not resist--there's the rope for him!
+
+"And I must find a fellow to spy out the situation in Jersey. I
+certainly dare not linger here!" He be-took himself to an old haunt in
+Tower Hamlets, where the first stars of the "swell mob" were wont to
+linger, a haunt where he had once taken refuge in his changeling days,
+years before.
+
+A glance at a man seated enjoying a good cigar at a table caused his
+heart to leap up in joy. "Jack Blunt--of all men! By God! this is luck!"
+he cried. When the happy Alan Hawke tapped the smoker smartly on the
+shoulder he first laid a finger on his own lip and then hastily said:
+"Get a private room, Jack, I want you at once. I've a special bit of
+business in your line." Major Alan Hawke, Temporary Rank, unattached,
+hastily bade the boni-face serve the best supper available for two.
+"Mind you, no poison in the wine!" he sharply said.
+
+"We've the best vintages of London Docks," grinned the happy host, as he
+sped away and left the two scoundrels alone.
+
+"What are you doing now, Jack?" queried Hawke.
+
+"Nothing," sullenly replied the middle-aged star of the swell mob. "My
+eyes! you are in great form," he admiringly commented.
+
+"Can you leave town for a week or so, on a little job for me?" briskly
+continued the Major.
+
+"Ready money?" said "Gentleman Jack" Blunt, stroking out a pair of
+glossy side whiskers.
+
+"Yes, cash in plenty on hand, and lots more in sight," imperatively
+replied the Major.
+
+"Do I work with you, or alone?" asked Blunt.
+
+"It's a little private investigation," replied Hawke, "and as I have to
+leave town to-night, and spend a couple of months on the Continent, you
+are the very man. I am afraid to appear in the thing myself, as I am
+well known to the other parties, and so I fear being followed over
+the Channel. I'm back again in the army." Jack's eyes grew larger in a
+trice.
+
+"Here comes the grub," gayly said Blunt. "You can trust the wine here.
+The crib is square, too. Now, my boy, fire away. We are alone, and
+no listeners here." Before Jack Blunt had put away a pint of best
+"beeswing" sherry, he was aware of all Alan Hawke's intentions. His keen
+brain was working all its "cylinders."
+
+"Give me just five minutes to think it over, Governor," said the
+sparkling-eyed, dark-faced, swell cracksman. "I know Jersey like a
+book. I worked the 'summer racket' there once. The excursion boats, the
+farmers' races, the Casino balls, the Military games, and the whole lay.
+I think I can cook up a plan. You don't show up just yet. I am to do the
+'downy cove.'"
+
+"Not till I can double on my track, and you have piped the whole
+situation off," said Hawke. "The game is a queer one. I may want to come
+over later and show up and make a little society play on the girl. I
+may, however, join you and help you secretly, or I may have to stay away
+altogether. But I must act at once. There's money in it. If you have to
+make the running yourself, you can get your own help."
+
+"And, you have the real stuff?" agnostically demanded Jack Blunt.
+
+"What do you want for a starter as your pay for the report to be sent
+to me at the Hotel Faucon, Lausanne, Switzerland?" Hawke was eager and
+disposed to be liberal.
+
+"Oh! A hundred sovs for the job, as you lay it out--and fifty for my
+little incidentals," laughed Jack Blunt. "Of course, if it goes on to
+anything serious, you'll have to put away the real 'boodle,' where
+I have something to run with, if I have to cut it. I might run up a
+dangerous plant!"
+
+"Bah!" decisively said Hawke. "Only an old fool to dodge, who is
+over seventy--a dotard--and a foolish girl of eighteen--a simple
+boarding-school miss!"
+
+"Yes, but she has a million, you say. There's always some one to love
+a girl with that money! Love comes in by the door, and the window, too,
+you know!"
+
+"She has never been five minutes alone with a man in her life!" cried
+Hawke. "You are safe--dead sure safe!" Blunt's roving black eyes rested
+on Hawke's eager face as he laughed.
+
+"And you want to marry her, to keep others from her, or run her off at
+the worst, you say? That's your little game."
+
+"I will have either the girl, or those jewels! By God! I will! I've got
+money to work with, plenty of it--not here," cautiously said Hawke, "but
+there's your hundred and fifty. Do you stand in?"
+
+"To the death--if you do the handsome thing, my boy!" said the handsome
+ruffian, pocketing the notes. "When do I start?"
+
+"Take the midnight train to Southampton, and go at work at once. I fear
+they may send some damned spies over there! Now, what's your plan?"
+Major Hawke watched his old pal in a brown study.
+
+Jack Blunt had smoked half his cigar, when he brought his white hand
+down with a whack. "I have it! A combination of gentleman artist and
+literary gent! 'The Mansion Homes of Jersey,' to illustrate a volume for
+the use of tourists--London and Southwestern Railway's enterprise. I'll
+sneak in and do the grand. You want a correct sketch and map of house
+and grounds, and the whole lay out?" Artist Blunt was delightfully
+interested in his Jersey tour now.
+
+"Yes!" cried Alan Hawke, his eyes growing wolfish, and he leaned over
+to his companion and whispered for a few moments. "That's the trick,
+Governor," nodded Jack Blunt, "You work on the double event. And--I get
+my money--play or pay?"
+
+"Yes. Put up in good notes--only you are not to bungle!"
+
+"Do you think I would fool around with a 'previous conviction' against
+me? The next is a lifer, and I've got to use the knife or a barker, if
+I run up against trouble, for I'll never wear the Queen's jewelry again!
+I've sworn it!" The man's eyes were gleaming now like burning coals,
+"I'll do the grand, and then, take off my beard and change my garb! I
+look twenty years older in a stubble chin. I can watch them from the
+public at Rozel Pier. I used to do a neat little bit of cognac, silk,
+and cigar smuggling. I know every crag of Corbiere Rocks, every shady
+joint in St. Heliers, every nook of St. Aubin's Bay. Oh! I'm fly to the
+whole game!"
+
+"Could you not get a good boat's crew there?" anxiously demanded Major
+Hawke.
+
+"Ah! My boy! I am 'king high' with a set of daring fishermen, who can
+smell out every rock from Dover to Land's End; and, from Calais to
+Brest, in the blackest night of the channel, if it pays."
+
+"Then, Jack, your fortune is made, if you stand in. We'll pull it
+off, in one way or the other. You've got an easy job for a man of your
+ability. I'll meet you at Granville! Now, get over to St. Heliers, and
+work the whole trick in your own way! Send me your secret address in
+Jersey at once to Hotel Faucon, Lausanne, and run over to the French
+coast at Granville and find a safe nest there for us. There we are
+within seventeen miles of each other, with two mails a day, and the
+telegraph. It's a wonderful plant, so it is."
+
+"Yes, Governor! And old Etienne Garcia, at the 'Cor d'Abondance' in
+Granville, is the very slyest rogue in France. When you find a Crapaud
+who is dead to rights, he is always an out and outer. I'll square you
+with my old pal, Etienne, who slyly makes 'floaters' and then gets the
+government cash reward for towing them in. He has always a half dozen
+pretty girls hanging around there, and many a good looking stranger has
+ended his 'tour' by a sudden drop through the flow of the drinking room
+over the wharf where Etienne keeps his 'boats to let.'"
+
+"How does he do it?" mused Alan Hawke. "It's a risky game in France."
+
+Jack Blunt laughed.
+
+"A few puffs of smoke in a cognac glass, and the subject is knocked out
+for an hour after drinking from the nicotine-filmed crystal, bless you,"
+laughed Blunt, "there's never a mark on Etienne's victims. He is too
+fine for that, only cases of plain, simple, 'accidental drowning.'
+
+"You may as well address me as 'Joseph Smith, Jersey Arms, Rozel Pier,
+Jersey.' I am solid with Mrs. Floyd, the landlady there," said the
+scoundrel mobsman, anxious to spend some of his cash.
+
+"All right, then, Jack! Go ahead!" cheerfully cried Major Hawke. "Don't
+overgo my instructions a single hair! I'll either join you in the grand
+stroke, or else meet you at Granville and there tell you what to do.
+Remember that I'll settle all your Jersey bills, and I will send a post
+order for ten pounds extra to you at the 'Jersey Arms,' to give you a
+local standing with the postman.
+
+"That you can spend on the underlings around the Banker's Folly, but
+beware of an old body servant named Simpson--an old red-coat who may
+turn up any day now from India! He was Johnstone's own man, and he hates
+me, at heart, I know! Now, if you can do the 'artist act,' you must find
+out where the old man keeps his stuff! I don't know yet whether we want
+him first or the girl; or to crack the whole crib! If we ever do, then,
+Simpson must get the--" Hawke grimly smiled, as he drew his hand across
+his throat! "I must be off!" he hastily said as he noted the time.
+
+On his way over to Folkestone, Major Alan Hawke mused over his great
+coup, as he lay at ease, wrapped up in a traveling rug, and now
+resplendent in a fur-trimmed top coat, befrogged and laced, which
+indicated the officer en retraite.
+
+"I will first do up Holland, Belgium, and Denmark, and take a little
+preliminary look around Paris," mused the Major, studying a list of the
+missing jewels which Captain Anstruther had artfully arranged. Sundry
+deductions and additions, with an admirable disorder in the items
+(judiciously divided and reclassified) served to guard against any old
+confidences exchanged between Ram Lal and his secret friend Hawke. The
+real list in the original was now in the private pocket-book of the
+Viceroy.
+
+"Each of our Consuls at the cities you are to visit has this list," said
+Anstruther to the Major, "and you can vary your travel as you choose,
+but visit all these jewel marts, and report to the local Consuls. If
+they have further orders for you, you will get them there, at first
+hands. Should you find that any of the jewels have been offered for
+sale, simply report the facts to the local Consul, and write under seal
+to me at the Junior United Service, then go on and examine further at
+once! You are to take no steps whatever to recover them, or to alarm
+the thieves! All your expenses and your pay will be advanced by me!" The
+acute schemer decided not to risk any suspicions by marketing his own
+jewels. "They might bounce me for the murder," fearfully mused the
+Major. "I could show no honest title through Ram Lal. They might arrest
+him, and I need him to pay the protested drafts--later, when I go back
+on the Viceroy's staff!" He smiled and wove his webs like a spider in
+his den.
+
+On his arrival in Paris, from a run to the Low Countries, a week later,
+Major Alan Hawke betook himself at once to No. 9 Rue Berlioz. And there
+Marie Victor greeted him, handing him a letter which was dated from
+Jitomir, Volhynia. "How is your mistress?" he affably demanded.
+
+"She is well, and will remain for several months longer in Russia!"
+politely answered Marie, bowing him out.
+
+"By God, then, she has given up the chase! I see it all!" mused Hawke,
+as he pored over the letter on his way to the Hotel Binda. "The trump
+card she wished to play was to blast the old fellow's hopes of a
+baronetcy. Death has struck down her prey, and, she will now wait till
+the girl is free! She is too sly to face old Fraser; his brother has
+warned him. But she says she will need me in the winter, on her return."
+
+The deceived scoundrel laughed. "The coast is left clear for me now!
+I'll telegraph to Joseph Smith, run on to Geneva, deposit my own
+jewels there, in the agency of the Credit Lyonnais, and then return the
+notifications of protest of the Bills of Exchange to Ram Lal.
+
+"I wonder if I can steal those jewels, get my Major's rank as a reward
+from the Viceroy, and marry the girl? It would be the luck of a life!"
+he dreamed.
+
+Two days later, on the terraces of Lausanne, he laughed over Jack
+Blunt's cheeky campaign.
+
+"The 'artist dodge' worked to a charm," wrote Jack. "I used the Kodak,
+and I have a dozen good views of the house, and as many more of the
+grounds. My chapter on the 'Artistic Homes of Jersey,' will be a
+full one! I soon jollied a couple of the London maid servants into my
+confidence. By the way, send me, at once, another 'tenner' for expense,
+and some money for my own regular bills. I can make great play on the
+two frolicsome maids. They are up for a lark. The shy bird keeps her
+rooms; and there really seems to be no young man around. Devilish
+strange! A room is being got ready for the old body servant who is now
+on his way from India. He might fall over Rozel cliff some night, when
+half seas over! That's a natural ending for him! Maps, sketches, and all
+will be ready for you at the place we agreed. It's all lying ready to
+our hand, and ten minutes of a dark night is all I want. The old chap
+is always mooning alone in his study, till the midnight hours, over his
+books, and he has the whole ground floor to himself. The men are in the
+gardener's house, ten rods away, and all the women sleep upstairs.
+He sees no one but a half crazy Yankee professor, who drops in of a
+morning. But, the shy bird keeps in her cage, and lives in great state,
+upstairs. More when you send the money."
+
+On his way to say adieu to Justine, before departing to Vienna, Alan
+Hawke smiled grimly. "I can strike now, when I will, and as I will! But,
+first to race around a little, and then, having fulfilled my mission, to
+get a couple of weeks' furlough, to go about my own affairs. The coast
+is clear. Jack Blunt's plan is right. Simpson must be first put out of
+the way. He would fight like a rat on general principles."
+
+At Rosebank Villa, Madame Alixe Delavigne was nightly busied now in
+official conferences with Major Harry Hardwicke, who had lingered in
+the concealment of Anstruther's home. The Captain found abundant time
+to prosecute his "official business" with his lovely aid in the secret
+service. And he had learned all of Alixe Delavigne's lessons now,
+save to acquire the patience to wait. But a growing album of newspaper
+clippings was daily augmented by Frank Hatton's artfully disseminated
+items regarding "Prince Djiddin of Thibet," the first visitor of rank
+from that land of shadows. The warring journals who wrangled over
+the rich young visitor's "stern retirement" from all public intrusion
+referred to the political coup de main to be looked for in "the near
+future." From various parts of the United Kingdom, the mysterious
+princely visitor's trail was daily telegraphed, and a hearty laugh
+from all three of the conspirators of Rosebank Villa greeted the final
+article in the St. Heliers Messenger, stating that a learned Moonshee
+or Pundit, "the only Asiatic attendant of Prince Djiddin of Thibet" was
+arranging for a brief visit of a descendant of the Dalai-Lamas.
+
+Anstruther and Hardwicke laughed merrily at Frank Halton's last graceful
+touches. "A romantic gratitude to a retired British officer, who had
+once befriended the Prince's august father, was the one impelling cause
+of a visit, in which the strictest retirement would be guarded by
+the dweller on the Roof of the World," etc., etc. So read out Madame
+Delavigne, closing with the remark that the "Moonshee had already
+visited the Royal Victoria Hotel at St. Heliers to arrange for the
+coming of his friend, and to the regret of the authorities, the Prince
+would decline all the hospitality due to his exalted rank."
+
+"Captain Murray must be even now at work," anxiously said the fair
+reader.
+
+"We will hear at once," said Anstruther. "Prince Djiddin, you must now
+materialize! For Murray's letter tells me that he is already in full
+communication with Jules Victor at the Hotel Bellevue. So the 'Moonshee'
+has one faithful friend near at hand. If there is any shadowing of
+either of you, Jules Victor is an invincible avant garde. He knows the
+faces of all the dramatis personae. You see, Douglas Fraser is gone to
+India and old Andrew has never seen any of our 'star actors.' We are
+absolutely safe!"
+
+"It seems that fortune favors us," tremblingly said Alixe Delavigne.
+"This prying and curious Yankee, Professor Hobbs, also seems to have
+fallen at once into the trap! Captain Murray's description of his
+'interview,' at the Royal Victoria, with Alaric Hobbs, is a crystallized
+work of humorous art!"
+
+"Of course the Yankee savant will write columns to the Waukesha Clarion,
+describing this Asiatic lion, Prince Djiddin, and exploit him in the
+States as an 'original discovery' of his own. His eagerness to arrange
+an interview between the Prince and Professor Fraser is most ludicrously
+fortunate for us," said Captain Anstruther.
+
+The entrance of the butler with a telegram disturbed "Prince Djiddin"
+and his lovely confidential staff officer. "An answer, please, Captain,"
+formally continued the household factotum.
+
+"Hurrah!" cried Hardwicke, when the little conclave gathered around the
+red light. "Simpson has arrived, and now Nadine and I have some one whom
+we can both trust!" The further information that the "Moonshee" would
+arrive forthwith to conduct "Prince Djiddin" to the safe haven where
+that fascinating bride, Mrs. Flossie Murray, awaited her beloved
+truant, was a call to prompt action. "I am ready! I shall drop the Royal
+Engineers and live up to my 'blue china' as a Prince!" cried Hardwicke.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. THE COUNCIL AT GRANVILLE.
+
+
+
+When Major Alan Hawke returned, three weeks later, to the Hotel Grand
+National, at Geneva, he was sorely wearied and dispirited. A round of
+inspection of all the principal jewel marts of the continent had been
+only a fruitless, solitary tourist promenade. And the ominous silence of
+Captain Anson Anstruther, A. D. C., boded no good to the military
+future of the adventurer. "Damn me, if I don't think that I have been
+hoodwinked!" growled Major Hawke, on his re-turn from Moscow and St.
+Petersburg, whither he had been ordered, as a last resort, to see the
+Court jewelers.
+
+From Warsaw, he wrote to the Hotel Faucon, at Lausanne, to send all
+his letters to meet him at Berlin, where Jack Blunt had given him the
+address of the safest "fence" in all Kaiser Wilhelm's broad domain. He
+had his own jewels valued there in Russia, but dared not sell them.
+
+With a sudden inspiration, born of a growing fear for the stability of
+his house of cards, so flimsy in construction, he ran down to Jitomir,
+and the half-crazed adventurer only lingered an hour with the Intendant
+of Madame Alixe Delavigne's grand old domain. He found the bird flown.
+Had he been duped? A permission to view the old chateau was courteously
+accorded, and then Alan Hawke soon realized that he was betrayed. For
+the fact that Madame was still absent, "traveling around the world," and
+had not visited her Volhynian estate for a year, proved to him now that
+he had been doubly tricked. "Ah! By God! I have it!" he cried, as he set
+his teeth in a white rage. "That fool, Anstruther, is bewitched by her
+Polish wiles, the mongrel inheritance of La Grande Armee's visit to
+Russia!" Straight as the crow flies, Alan Hawke then pressed on to
+Lemberg, and hastened to Berlin, having sent on his last official report
+to Captain Anstruther, at London. In Berlin, a letter from Jack Blunt
+decided his whole career. There was news of moment, which set his hot
+blood boiling in his veins.
+
+"Simpson, the old body servant, has arrived from India," wrote the
+disguised ex-convict. "And he's mighty thick with your shy bird, too.
+There is some strange game going on here, which I can't make out. The
+cute Yankee professor is furious, for old Fraser has temporarily given
+him the 'dead cut.' The American is totally neglected, for the old idiot
+spends half his time, now, shut up in his study with a visiting nigger
+prince from India, and the yellow fellow's half-breed interpreter. I
+send you a dozen cuttings from the papers. The Prince, however, seems
+to be all O. K. He never even notices the shy bird. He probably buys his
+women at home. How could he, for he does not speak a single damned word
+of English. But I've caught sight of this Moonshee fellow trying to do
+the polite to the heiress. Old Simpson keenly watches the whole goings
+on, and I've tried to pull him on! No go! But he sneaks off himself,
+gets roaring full, down at Rozel Pier, with a little French peddler
+fellow, that he has picked up. And, I don't like this French chap's
+looks. Too fly, and far too free with his money. There's no one else
+who has, as yet, showed up here. Not a woman, no other human being but
+a London lawyer. And I'm told now the guardian and niece are soon going
+over to London to deposit all the papers that Simpson brought home and
+to do 'a turn' at Doctor's Commons. Now's your very time--the dark of
+the moon. Better cut your job and come over to me at Granville; and why
+can we not turn the place up-while they are away? To do that, we must do
+Simpson 'for fair,' and I now know his nightly trail. Send money, plenty
+of it, and come on. I am 'on the beachcomber's lay,' now, down at
+the Jersey Arms, Rozel Pier. Write or telegraph me a line, and I'll
+instantly meet you at Granville, at the Cor d'Abondance."
+
+A loving letter from Justine Delande inclosed a notice of a registered
+letter waiting at the Agence du Credit Lyonnais, Geneva. It is marked
+"Tres Important," she wrote, and then added: "I have received a
+letter from Nadine, who says that her guardian is now half crazy with
+excitement over the finishing of his 'History of Thibet, and Memoir Upon
+the Lost Ten Tribes,' for he has an Indian visitor of princely rank, and
+he even proposes to take this Prince Djiddin and his 'Moonshee' into the
+house, so as to shut the world out from the wonderful disclosures of the
+only visitor of rank who ever left Thibet."
+
+Alan Hawke's brow was gloomy when he read the last letter, which was
+a brief note from Captain Anstruther, informing him that his final
+instructions would be forwarded "in a week." The ominous silence of
+"Madame Berthe Louison," the living lie of her pretended visit to
+Russia, the trick of the letters sent on from Jitomir to his Parisian
+address, now only confirmed his jealous rage.
+
+"They are living in a fool's paradise together, this dapper aide and the
+wily woman, hiding in England! One has betrayed me, and the other will
+now coldly abandon me! I'll soon raise a hornets' nest about their
+ears!" So, with a simple telegraphed word "coming," dispatched to
+"Joseph Smith," he sped on to Geneva from his "Leipsic defeat" at
+Berlin, but only to meet a ghastly "Waterloo" at the Grand Hotel
+National. He had ordered the letters from the Hotel Faucon to be sent on
+there to Miss Justine, and when he had freed himself from her clasping
+arms he read a curt official note from the Viceroy's aid-de-camp which
+left him livid in a paroxysm of fury. On his way from the station he had
+only stopped long enough at the Agence du Credit Lyonnais to receive an
+official-looking document. "My accounts, I presume," he had muttered,
+thrusting them in his pocket. But, when he had read Captain Anstruther's
+formal note, he tore open the letter of the great French Banking
+Company. The two letters curtly illustrated the old saw, that "it never
+rains, but it pours!" With a fluttering heart poor Justine Delande
+watched her undeclared lover's blackening face.
+
+"Hell and furies!" he cried, "the whole world is leagued against me.
+I've got to go back to India now, Justine, and go alone. Luck is dead
+against me now." And the whitening face of the woman who hung on his
+every glance made the infuriated man even more reckless. "Damn them,
+I'll grind them all to powder!" he growled. For the tide was on the
+turn, and it was dead water again at Geneva, the tide fast receding,
+and the man who was "a devil for luck" was soon left on the rocks of a
+silent despair.
+
+Alan Hawke's eyes gleamed out with a murderous sheen as he scanned both
+letters carefully. "It is his work--the low dog--and he shall die.
+Wait till Jack Blunt and I get a hack at him," he mused, with a sudden
+conviction that he dared not now show himself at St. Heliers, nor openly
+approach the Banker's Folly. "I stand to lose all and win nothing. I
+must work in the dark. I cannot dare to brave this Anstruther. They
+would simply drive me from India. But, Simpson and Ram Lal shall pay!
+And, Berthe Louison--Ah! By God! I will strike her to the heart now! I
+see the way!"
+
+The official words of Captain Anstruther were few but crushing in there
+stern brevity. And Alan Hawke's heart sank as he read them over again.
+"By the orders of His Excellency, the Viceroy, I have the honor to
+inform you that he has withdrawn your temporary rank, and all powers
+heretofore delegated to you will cease on the receipt of this letter,
+which please acknowledge. On reporting to me in London in person, you
+will receive the payment of all your accounts with your back pay
+and transportation back to Calcutta, the place of your temporary
+appointment. All the Consuls in continental Europe have now been
+notified of the cessation of your powers, and you will therefore, in
+no way act in the future in regard to the confidential business once in
+your hands. The inquiry has been finally abandoned by the order of the
+Indian Government.
+
+"Please do report as soon as possible, and deliver over all papers
+and vouchers now remaining in your hands. With assurance of my
+consideration, Yours,
+
+"ANSON ANSTRUTHER, Captain and A. D. C."
+
+"Official,
+
+"Confidential."
+
+The letter of the Credit Lyonnais was even more menacing in its tone.
+The Direction Centrale referred to a formal letter of the solicitors of
+the estate of Hugh Fraser Johnstone, deceased, totally repudiating
+the four unaccepted drafts of five thousand pounds sterling each, and
+legally notifying the Direction of an intended suit to recover from the
+payee and the in-dorser, the first draft for five thousand pounds paid
+before Executor Andrew Fraser had filed his objections with Messrs.
+Glyn, Carr & Glyn. "The arrival from India of the papers of the
+deceased, and the testimony of his body servant Simpson, as well as
+the Calcutta Banker and solicitors, proves that no such considerable
+withdrawals as twenty-five thousand pounds were ever contemplated by
+the deceased, who had sent the most minute business instructions to his
+agent and later executor."
+
+"I shall have to throw this all back on Ram Lal." mused Alan Hawke, who
+hastily bade Justine an adieu, until he could conjure up an explanation
+for the Geneva agents of the Credit Lyonnais. The closing words of the
+Paris Derection were semi-hostile. "Be pleased. Monsieur, to call at
+once upon our Geneva branch and explain these imputations. We are forced
+to withhold your present deposits to cover any reclamation and legal
+expenses, and we therefore beg you to discontinue the drawing of any
+drafts upon us until the solicitors of Messrs. Glyn, Carr & Glyn and the
+Executor notify us of the settlement of this distressing imputation upon
+the regularity of our actions as your business agents."
+
+"That leaves me only the jewels, and about a thousand pounds ready cash
+on hand, and that is due from Anstruther," gloomily decided Alan Hawke,
+when he was safely locked in his rooms at the National.
+
+"Tricked by this double-faced devil Louison-Delavigne, thrown out of my
+future rank, held for the five thousand pounds already advanced, and,
+with eleven thousand embargoed in that Paris pawnbroker shop of a Credit
+Lyonnais, I've but one course left to me now."
+
+He took counsel of the brandy bottle, and then, ignoring all else, he
+sent off a careful letter to Joseph Smith. "I'll jolly poor Justine a
+bit, so as to leave one faithful friend to watch and get all my letters
+here. Jack can raise money on the jewels now for us both. I must tell
+these fellows of the French Bank here that I go to London to see my own
+lawyers. I'll go over, settle with Anstruther, and then just quietly
+disappear. The next blow shall come out of the blackness of night, and
+I'll strike them all at once!"
+
+In the evening, Major Alan Hawke drove with Justine Delande to the
+restaurant garden, where, long months before, he had first learned the
+daring hardihood of his fair employer--the acute woman who had fooled
+him at every turn. His heart was saddened with all the fresh hopes which
+had failed him. He had frankly told Euphrosyne Delande that a return
+journey to India, and a long and bitter struggle now lay between him and
+the rank and competence which he would need to make her loving sister
+his wife.
+
+Three hours later Justine Delande's arms clung desparingly around the
+handsome outcast, as he was leaving her to be escorted home by the
+adroit Francois, already in waiting without the restaurant with a closed
+carriage. The presage of sorrow weighed upon her loving heart.
+
+"Alan, My God, I can not let you go. You are the one brightness of my
+life. My heart of hearts. My very soul," sobbed the wretched woman. "I
+have fears for you. They will kill you in that far land, these powerful
+enemies. That mysterious devil woman who bends all to her will will ruin
+you." And then, really touched at heart, the desperate trickster drew
+off his finger a superb diamond, the nonpareil, the choicest stone
+of Ram Lal's unwilling tribute. "Wear this always, and think of me,
+Justine," he said. "You are the only woman who ever loved me, and, if I
+succeed, I swear you shall share my better fortunes--if not, then--" he
+crushed her to his breast and ran out of the room, before she could
+drag him back. "Go in, Francois, quickly to Miss Justine," cried Hawke,
+thrusting a hundred-franc note in the butler's open hand. The rattle of
+departing wheels was heard as Francois supported the half-fainting woman
+to her carriage.
+
+"Now for London," growled Major Hawke as the train dashed down the Rhone
+valley. "I've got a clear alibi here. All my letters sent to Justine
+will be forwarded to the Delhi Club. One day in London, then to
+Granville, and Jack Blunt. They will only get Justine's story if they
+shadow me, and if I can only hit it off right, at Calcutta. Yes! there
+is the king luck of all. To give the whole thing away to the baffled
+Viceroy. Then denounce Ram Lal to him as the early confederate and later
+assassin of Hugh Fraser Johnstone! These jewels that I have 'innocently
+received' will connect old Ram Lal with Hugh Fraser's betrayed trust. I
+will hold the murder business back at first.
+
+"Ram Lal or his estate will be finally forced to cash my drafts. It
+is clear that Johnstone and Ram Lal have either divided or hidden the
+jewels. Yes! By God! I have it. If I can wring them out of the old
+professor, or find them, I will then hide them away and secretly report
+the whole affair to the Viceroy, in my chosen colors as a friend of the
+Crown, and they'll give me a huge reward; my permanent army rank will
+soon follow. So, if Justine only holds to my alibi, by God! I will
+marry her, for she would be a badge of respectability. I'll take no more
+chances after this--not another single chance! I've got money enough to
+satisfy Jack Blunt. He shall secretly sell the jewels for me--a small
+lot, here and there, a few at a time."
+
+"There is just one frightful risk to run," he muttered, as he reached
+out for his brandy flask. "Ram Lal might go in to save his twenty-five
+thousand pounds, for the Johnstone estate will never pay these disputed
+claims which I cannot prove in law. Good in honor, but bad in law! And
+if he should denounce me privately to the Viceroy, as the real murderer
+of Hugh Fraser? He is there on the ground. I did not denounce him. I did
+not produce the dagger. I dare not to explain why I concealed the crime.
+An accessory! He might seek to turn Queen's evidence, and even try to
+hang me. He is rich, sly, smart. By God! they may even now be shadowing
+me. Once on English soil, I am at Anstruther's mercy." He was still
+white-faced and unmanned as he took the Boulogne boat the next evening.
+"I must face Anstruther, get my money, and then telegraph to Justine my
+departure for India from London. I'll wire the poor woman from here now.
+A few loving words will cheer her. Her true heart is the only jewel I
+have that I have not stolen. Poor girl! she will miss me sorely!" And
+the handsome blackguard sighed over the ruin he had wrought--an honest
+woman's shattered peace of mind. It weighed heavily upon him now.
+
+For there came back to him now strange shadowy glimpses of his own
+stormy past! Dashing on, to face unknown dangers, the dauntless
+adventurer, with a softened heart, recalled the days when he could gaze,
+without a secret shudder, upon the battle-torn colors of the regiment
+from which he had been chased by that suddenly discovered sin, once so
+sweet!
+
+He "looked along life's columned years, to see its riven fane--just
+where it fell." And, sadly alone in life now, his heart gnawed with a
+growing remorse, he saw in the mirror of memory, once more, the bright
+faced boy who had "filled the cup, to toast his flag and land." Alan
+Hawke, in all the bright promise of his youth, the darling of women, the
+envy of men!
+
+Under the swiftly gliding current of his tortuous past, he plainly saw
+now the fanged reefs which had wrecked him! With a smothered groan, he
+recalled all that he had lost, and this bitter introspection brought
+up to him, among his deeds of passion, the one needless cruelty of his
+reckless life! "Poor Justine! There is such a thing as woman's love
+after all!" he sighed, for he knew that the steadfast woman had poured
+out the wine of her life all in vain. "She loves me!" he cried!
+
+Woman, born to be man's sport and plaything, is doomed to be the
+unconscious avenger of her sex in every tragedy of the heart! The
+treason of some callous lover is repaid with vengeance meted out to
+some defenseless man who comes all unguarded "into the arid desert
+of Phryne's life, where all is parched and hot." And, Alan Hawke, the
+innocent Lancelot, had suffered for some recreant's past crime!
+
+Among the visions of the burning Lotos Land, the bright phantasmagoria
+of his unstained youth, there came back now to Alan Hawke all the
+glories of his first Durbar, the unforgotten day when he had fallen
+under the spell of the woman whose fatal touch had withered the "very
+rose and expectancy" of his brilliant promise. His mind strayed backward
+through all the misty years to that gorgeous scene of Oriental pomp. He
+closed his eyes and pictured again the brilliant pageant.
+
+The huge masses of serried troops, the lines of stately elephants, the
+castled background of the temples of Aurungzebe. The blare of trumpets
+smote once more upon his ear, and hordes of jewel-decked Asiatics swept
+along before the pompous military representatives of the Empress, who
+wears the Crown of the Seas.
+
+There was a quickening of "Love's extinguished embers" as he lived over
+again the moment, when "side by side, with England's pride," he rode
+with his sword lowered in knightly salute before the clustered banners
+of the Imperial military throne. And the hour of his fate sounded when
+the eyes of a woman rested upon him in a mute appeal! Their glances told
+him all.
+
+For, then and there, the young officer had seen the wonderful beauty
+of the woman who had lured him on and then, in after days, sold his
+unstained soul to shame! A fair-faced Lilith, her glowing beauty
+enshrined in all the borrowed splendor of majesty, a woman of gleaming
+golden hair, a later, all too willing, Guenevere! The soft subtle
+invitation of her eyes of sapphire blue had called him to her side, in
+that unspoken pact which needs no words! He was her slave from the first
+moment! With a last pang of his quivering heart, Hawke recalled the sly
+skill of the faithless wife who had drawn the young officer into her
+net, for the passing amusement of her idle hours! Too late he knew all
+the artful craft of his being bidden to the Grand Ball, of the
+"veiled interest" which had "detailed him, for special duty," of the
+self-protecting maneuvers which had placed him on the staff of the faded
+valetudinarian general who had given his spotless name to the woman
+whose lava heart glowed under a snowy bosom. It was the wreck of a soul!
+
+And then, with a gasp, he recalled his mad fever to win every honor
+under her glowing eyes. The forgotten deeds of desperate valor--all
+useless now, and stained forever with the bar sinister of his treason.
+He shuddered at the unforgotten delights of the hour when they had met
+in her seraglio bower of shaded luxury, and "the fairest of Laocoons"
+had answered his passionate whisper, "Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere
+I die," with the faltered words: "Alan, you are all the world to me!"
+
+Fondly blind, he had drifted along in a Fool's Paradise, at her bidding,
+until the crash came! He never knew the military Sir Modred, who had
+betrayed the open secret, but his blood boiled when he recalled the
+cruel abandonment to the rage of a jealous and awakened spouse!
+
+All in vain had been his manly sacrifice to save the woman whom he had
+loved more than life. He had cast away every protection for himself.
+Duped and tricked, he had remained mute before the storm of abuse heaped
+on him by the General, and his papers sent in, at a momentary summons,
+had carried him in dishonor out of the band of laureled soldier knights,
+to dream no more "the dream that martial music weaves!" And the smiling
+woman Judas tricked him to the very last!
+
+How hollow her faith, how lying the mute pleading of her eyes, he knew
+now, for had he not paused at the door for one despairing glance of
+farewell, to hear her murmur to her placated lord: "After all your
+goodness to him, to dare to offer me insult! You have punished him
+rightly, but, he is a fascinating traitor, after all!" Deprived of his
+sword, shunned by his associates, and lingering near her in hopes of
+the last interview pledged him by her lying eyes, he had only been
+undeceived when he vainly tried to reach her carriage for a last
+farewell on a star-lit lonely drive.
+
+The cold cutting accent of her voice smote him as the edge of a sword.
+"Drive on, Johnson!" she sharply cried. "These vagabond people must
+face the General himself." Then came the insane self-sacrifice of his
+reckless downfall, but he had spared her to the very last.
+
+He bowed his head in his hands, and a storm of agony swept over him
+as he recalled the word "traitor," branded upon his brow as a badge of
+shame, and again he wandered along that devious path which had led him
+year by year downward. Too bitterly self-accusing to palliate his past,
+he only knew that in all the long years of social pariahhood he had
+learned to despise all men and to trust no woman! For had not Friendship
+been a lie to him, Love only a hollow cheat, and woman's vows of
+deathless loyalty but writ in sand to be washed out by the next wave of
+passion?
+
+And yet, stained with crime, there was one breath of truth which swept
+over his soul as fresh as the voice of the "pines of Ramoth Hill!"
+His eyes were misty and his breath choked in a sorrowing gasp of manly
+remorse, as the winsome face of the true-hearted Justine rose up before
+him in this hour of lonely agony! Her devotion had touched the wayworn
+wanderer, and, pure and unselfish, her love had been the one bright star
+of all these darkened years!
+
+"By Jove! She is a royal soul! If I could only save her the shock of the
+awakening," he murmured. His heart beat generously in a thrill of pride
+recalling Justine's steadfast devotion to the motherless girl whom he
+had sought to entangle. "Far above rubies!" he cried, and the memory
+of the fond woman who was watching for him at Lausanne, swept over his
+stormy soul to bring unbidden tears to eyes which had never flinched
+before the red flash of the grim cannon.
+
+"There are still good women in the world!" he muttered, "and, God bless
+you, you have taught me this, Justine!" Drawing her picture from his
+bosom, he gazed fondly at the face of the gentle-hearted daughter of the
+Alps. A vain and passionate regret racked his bosom--the last struggle
+of his wavering soul! "Shall I turn back?" he doubtfully cried. And then
+in the rush of his onward course, a dull hopeless feeling came over him.
+"Kismet!" he cried. "It is too late now. If they had only trusted me! If
+they had told me all and given my fighting soul a chance to redeem the
+lost promise once written on my brow. I have played a man's part before!
+I might, perhaps, have won this girl's gratitude and earned Justine's
+love to be a shield and a buckler to me. But--" his head, overweaned
+with care, drooped down, and in the company of strange visions and and
+dreams of ominous import, the hunted soldier of fortune forgot alike the
+echoing voice of his better angel, and lost from view, the shadowy
+faces of both the woman who had lured him to a living death, and the
+tender-hearted one whose heart was glowing at Lausanne in all the fervor
+of her unrequited devotion. Over Alan Hawke, sleeping there, as he
+was swiftly borne away, hovered, in sad regret, his good angel, with
+sorrowing eyes, for the stern, self-accusing man had not sought, in the
+last hours of this sorrow, even the poor consolation that his life had
+been wrecked to feed the fires of vanity burning in the jaded heart
+of the beautiful Faustine, whose cold desertion had sold his youth to
+shame!
+
+Twenty-four hours later Major Alan Hawke was again a stormy petrel on
+Life's trackless ocean. The cold politeness of Captain Anson Anstruther
+at the brief interview at the Junior United Service Club in London at
+once decided the wanderer to make for India as soon as his "pressing
+engagements" would allow. There was no seeming menace, however, in
+Anstruther's wearied air of perfunctory courtesy.
+
+"The whole affair being officially dropped, Major Hawke," said
+Anstruther, "I only ask for your personal receipt for my individual
+check. You will observe that this eleven hundred pounds is not in any
+way government funds. And, on behalf of the Viceroy himself, I thank
+you for your energy shown in the inquiry, which is now permanently
+abandoned." To Major Hawke's murmured request, Anstruther replied:
+
+"Certainly! Drive around to Grindlay's in Parliament Street with me and
+they will at once give you notes or their own circular check for this
+money." In ten minutes, when Hawke had lightly announced his intention
+to return to India, the Captain observed: "I may not meet you for some
+years. If the Viceroy returns to England, my promotion will probably
+carry me with his Embassy to Paris as Major and Military Attache." And
+then they parted as mere casual acquaintances.
+
+"Damn his cool impertinence," mused Alan Hawke, as he caught a passing
+cab, after telegraphing his greetings and intended departure to Justine
+Delande.
+
+"Write one letter to Hotel Binda, Paris, then all to the P. & O. Agency,
+Brindisi; after that, to Delhi," were the lying words which reached
+the Swiss woman, whose loving breast was now given over to a tumult of
+sighs.
+
+Major Hawke was not free from secret apprehensions until he landed at
+Calais, upon the next morning. "Now for a last 'throw off' at Paris!"
+he exclaimed. "Damn England! I hope I shall never see it again!" he
+growled, unmindful of the pitiless Fates ever spinning the mysterious
+web of Destiny. "I'll first show up at Berthe Louison's, at No. 9 Rue
+Berlioz. They shall have my next address given to them as Delhi. The
+real Major Hawke dives under the troubled sea of Life at Paris, only to
+emerge at Calcutta! Ram Lal is like all his kind, a coward at heart!
+He has not denounced me, for, if he had, Captain Anstruther would have
+nabbed me in England. He acts by the Viceroy's private cabled orders.
+No! The coast is all clear for my dash at the enemy's works!"
+
+Before the morning dawned on the sea-girt coast of La Manche, Marie
+Victor had duly telegraphed Major Hawke's impending departure for
+India to the beautiful recluse who now cheered the lonely bride of "the
+Moonshee," at the old Norman chateau, embowered in its splendid gardens,
+within a league of the Banker's Folly.
+
+Alan Hawke, closely shaven, and masquerading in a French
+commis-voyageur's modest garb, was seated at ease in Etienne Garcin's
+death-trap at the Cor d'Abundance, in foggy Granville. His darkened
+locks and nondescript garb thoroughly effaced the "officer and
+gentleman." One of the old French villain's wickedest and prettiest
+woman decoys was coquettishly serving Hawke's breakfast as he read the
+burning words of Justine Delande's message from the heart. The last
+greeting, tear-blotted, and promptly sent to the Hotel Binda.
+
+"It's a wild day, a wild-looking place, and a wild enough sea," grumbled
+Major Hawke, gazing out of the grimy window at the rolling green surges
+breaking, white-capped, far out beyond the new pier, where the black
+cannon were drenched and crusted with the salty flying scud. Far away,
+a little side-wheel steamer was laboring along over the strait from
+the blue island of Jersey, rising and dipping half out of sight, with a
+trail of intermittent puffs of dense black smoke.
+
+"There is the enemy's stronghold, and now for Jack Blunt's plan of
+campaign! I wonder if he'll come over to-day, or to-morrow? He must have
+had my telegram last night!" Alan Hawke amused himself with the bold,
+black-eyed French girl's vicious stories of olden deeds done there
+in Etienne Garcin's gloomy spider's den. He even laughed when
+the red-bodiced she-devil laughingly pointed down at the loosened
+floor-planks in the back room, underneath which mantrap the swish of the
+throbbing waves could be heard.
+
+Then the sheeted, cold driving rain hid the promontory, with its
+heavy, lumpy-looking fort, the old gray granite parish church, and the
+clustered ships of the harbor, now dashing about and tugging wildly at
+their doubled moorings, soon to be left high and dry on the soft ooze
+when the thirty-foot tide receded. "There's where we find our best
+customers," laughed the French wanton, as Alan Hawke drew her to his
+knee, and they laughed merrily over the golden harvest of the sea, the
+price of the recovered dead. Through the narrow stone fanged streets
+lumbered along the heavy French hooded carts, driven by squatty men in
+oil skins and sou'westers, and laden down with the spoils of the whale,
+cod, and oyster fisheries. Stout women in huge blue aprons, with baskets
+on their rounded arms, gossiped at the protecting corners, while the
+shouts of Landlord Etienne Garcin's drunken band of sea wolves now began
+to ring out in the smoky salle a boire.
+
+It was two o'clock when the burly form of Etienne Garcin was propelled
+unceremoniously into Alan Hawke's room. A grin of satisfaction spread
+over the bullet-headed old ruffian's face, and his round gray pig eyes
+twinkled, as he noted the already established entente cordiale between
+Jack Blunt's pal and the wanton spy who was the absent Jack's own
+especial pet. But, Alan Hawke was temporarily blind to the universally
+offered charms of the soubrette as he read Joseph Smith's careful
+report.
+
+"That's the talk!" joyously cried Hawke. His heart bounded in a fierce
+thrill. "By God! Simpson shall be 'done up' in short order. The drunken
+old dog. He cut off the payment of my drafts with his blabbing tongue!
+
+"Yes, over the cliffs he goes, and we will make sure of
+him--forever--before he takes his last tumble! Jack! Jack! You are a
+hero!" he mused, as the triumphant words of Jack Blunt's great discovery
+were read again and again. And then, he carefully burned the letter,
+before the astonished eyes of the tempting companion of his waiting
+hours. "These fools of employers!" cheerfully muttered Alan Hawke. "They
+always think that 'Servant's Hall' has no eyes. That the maid in her cap
+and apron has not the same burning passions as idle Madame in her silks
+and laces. That the man has not his own easy-going vices just as alive
+and masterful as the base appetites of the swell master."
+
+While Alan Hawke thus exulted at Granville, there was gloom and jealousy
+in the heart of Prof. Alaric Hobbs, of Waukesha University, Wisconsin,
+U. S. A.
+
+A tall, lank, bespectacled "Westerner," nearly thirty-five years of age,
+the blue-eyed country boy had dragged himself up from the obscurity of
+a frontier American farm into the higher life. Uncouth, awkward, and
+yet resolute and untiring, he had justified his first instructor's
+prediction:
+
+"He has the head of a horse, and will make his mark!" Newspaper
+trainboy, chainman, assistant on Government frontier surveys, and
+frontier scout, he early saved his money so as to complete a sporadic
+university curriculum. A trip to Liberia, a dash down into Mexico, and a
+desert jaunt in Australia, had not satisfied his craving for adventure.
+With the results of two years of professional lectures, he was now
+imbibing continental experiences, and plotting a bicycle "scientific
+tour of the world." Hard-headed, fearless, devoted, and sincere, he was
+a mad theorist in all his mental processes, and had tried, proved,
+and rejected free love, anarchy, Christian science, and a dozen other
+feverish fads, which for a time jangled his mental bells out of tune.
+A cranky tracing of the lost Ten Tribes of Israel down to the genial
+scalpers of the American plains had thrown him across the renowned
+Professor Andrew Fraser, who had, on his part, located these same
+long mourned Hebrews in Thibet, ignoring the fact that they are really
+dispersed in the United States of America as "eaters of other men's
+hard-made 'honey'" in the "drygoods," clothing, and "shent per shent"
+line. For, a glance at the signs on Broadway will prove to any one that
+the "lost" have been found in Gotham.
+
+Smoking his corncob pipe the Professor paced his rooms at the Royal
+Victoria, and mentally consigned Prince Djiddin and his indefatigable
+Moonshee to Eblis, the Inferno, Sheol, or some other ardent corner of
+Limbo. "How long will these two yellow fellows keep poor old Fraser
+enchanted?" mused the disgruntled American, mindful of his hotel bill
+running on. "The old man is crazy after the two Thibetans, and I can't
+see his game. He does not wish me to publish my own volume first. That
+is why he has given me the 'marble heart,' and taken them into his
+house. Their wing of the Banker's Folly is now an Eastern idolaters'
+temple. If I could only hook on to the 'Moonshee,' I might make a
+'scoop'--a clean scoop--on old Fraser. God! how my book would sell if I
+could only get it out first. And yet I dare not offend this old scholar,
+Andrew Fraser. He must be true to me. He has read to me all the original
+manuscript of his own half-finished work. He must trust to me, and he
+has promised to give me a resume of their disclosures also after they
+leave. The Thibetan Prince will only be here two weeks longer."
+
+"Then old Fraser will take me to his heart again." Alaric Hobbs
+reflected on his vain attempt to try the Tunguse, Chinook, Zuni, Apache,
+Sioux, and Esquimaux dialects on the handsome Prince Djiddin, whose
+Oriental magnificence was even now the despairing admiration of the two
+pretty housemaids.
+
+"My august master cannot speak to any one but the great scholar whom he
+came here to see. He soon returns to his retirement in his palace in the
+Karakorum Mountains. And he never will emerge thence!" solemnly said
+the Moonshee, adding in a whisper: "He may, by the grace of Buddha, be
+re-incarnated as the Dalai-Lama. He springs from the loins of kings. I
+dare not break in upon his awful silence." The Moonshee's significant
+gesture of drawing a hand across his own brown throat had silenced the
+pushing American professor.
+
+"By hokey!" he groaned, "it is hard to have to play second fiddle to
+this purblind old Scotchman." Alaric Hobbs had been a reporter upon that
+dainty sheet, The New York Whorl, in one of his "emergent" periods, and
+so he writhed in agony at being left at the post. "I must be content
+to tap old Fraser when he comes back from London with that embarrassing
+lump of beauty, his millionaire niece. She would make a fitting spouse
+for this Prince Djiddin, for she never speaks a word--at least to me.
+And this swell Prince, who comes 'only one in a box,' gets the same
+'frozen hand.' Funny girl, that. But I must yield to old Fraser's
+moods." Alaric Hobbs then descended to the tap-room and instructed the
+pretty barmaid in the manufacture of his own favorite "cocktail," an
+American drink of surpassing fierceness and "innate power," which had
+once caused "Bald-headed Wolf," a Kiowa chieftain, to slay his favorite
+squaw, scalp a peace commissioner, and chase a fat army paymaster till
+he died of fright in his ambulance, after Alaric Hobbes had incautiously
+left a bottle of this "red-eye" mixture with his aboriginal host on
+one of the "exploring tours." A powerful disturbing agent, the American
+cocktail!
+
+But for all Miss Nadine Johnstone's seeming aversion to men, and in
+spite of Prince Djiddin's inability to utter a word of any jargon save
+ninety-five degree Thibetan, "far above proof," on this very morning
+while the "Moonshee" was transcribing under the watchful eyes of the
+excited Andrew Fraser the disclosures of the evening before, the young
+millionairess was "getting on" very well in exhibiting the glories of
+the tropical garden to the august tourist from the lacustrine Himalayas.
+
+Jules Victor adroitly busied the maid whom Janet Fairbarn had dispatched
+to "play propriety," and the other London girl had quietly stolen away
+to her own last rendezvous with her mysterious London lover, "Mr. Joseph
+Smith," otherwise "Jack Blunt, Esq., of the Swell Mob of the Thames."
+
+The whispers of the stately young Prince brought crimson blushes to the
+face of the glowing girl, whose answering murmurs were as low as the
+siren voice of Swinburne's "small serpents, with soft, stretching
+throats." They had a double secret to keep now. A momentous, a dangerous
+one; for in the depths of the Tropical Gardens of Rozel, the passionate
+hearted Alixe Delavigne was hidden, waiting this very morning to clasp
+again the beautiful orphan to a bosom throbbing in wildest love. Prince
+Djiddin, always on his guard, artfully turned back and busied the maid,
+when she was released from Jules Victor's vociferous bar-gaining, with
+a half-hour's choosing her "fairing," out of the lively peddler's pretty
+stock. The woman's vanity made her an easy victim. The "descendant of
+Thibetan Kings" could not, of course, speak intelligibly, but the yellow
+sovereigns which he carried were the magic talisman which opened at once
+the pretty maid servant's softened heart.
+
+It was a long half hour before the happy Nadine Johnstone returned to
+join the kinsman of the Maharajah of Cashmere. Her eyes were gleaming
+in a tender, dawning lovelight, her lips still thrilling with Alixe
+Delavigne's warm kisses. In her heart, there still rang out her
+mysterious visitor's last words: "Wait, darling! My own darling! Before
+another month the secret Government agent will have officially visited
+Andrew Fraser. We are all ready to act with crushing power when the
+happy moment safely arrives. And you shall then hear all the story
+of the past on my breast. You shall know how near you have been to
+my loving heart in all these weary years. The story of your own dear
+mother's life shall be my wedding present to you. Yet, a few days more
+of watchful patience," softly sighed Alixe.
+
+"For we must not let Andrew Fraser wake for a moment from his frenzy of
+Thibetan study until we can force from him the permission which we will
+demand to visit you, and to free you from his control."
+
+Prince Djiddin paced solemnly back toward the Banker's Folly, leaving
+the overjoyed maid to bundle up all her many gifts. A grateful wink to
+Jules Victor from the Prince rewarded the disguised valet, as he gayly
+sped away to meet his mistress, and to obtain her orders for the next
+day. This artful game of mingled Literature and Love had so far been
+safely played, but Jules Victor had secretly warned Nadine Johnstone
+against any confidences with her pretty London sewing woman. "She has
+found a sweetheart here. He is a curious looking fellow, he has money
+and is liberal, and, so, what you tell her she will surely tell her
+sweetheart. Trust to no one but the other maid, who is devoted to me,"
+proudly said the dapper little Frenchman. Nearing the mansion, on this
+eventful morning, Prince Djiddin, at a hidden bend of a leafy path,
+whispered to his fair conductress, "For God's sake, darling Nadine, do
+not betray yourself! Those sweetly shining eyes are tell-tale stars!
+Your heart happiness will struggle for expression. Go to your rooms at
+once. Pour out your happy heart in song, lift up your voice. But, watch
+over your very heart-throbs! Only a single fortnight more, darling,
+and we will clip the claws of this old Scottish lion who has you in his
+clutches!
+
+"Anstruther will soon make his coup de main, for Hawke has at last gone
+back to India, and we will have a deadly grasp soon on the frightened
+Andrew Fraser. He must either give up his legal tyranny and yield you to
+us, or else face a future which would appall even a braver man. I dare
+not to tell you our secret yet. Only the Viceroy and Anstruther know it.
+And, now, darling, above all, be sure not to betray yourself, in London.
+Remember that Anstruther will have you secretly watched, from this gate
+to the very moment when you return to it! Any false play of old Fraser
+would lead to his detention by the authorities, and you would be freed
+at once by the law!"
+
+In the three weeks of their long masquerade, neither Prince Djiddin,
+his scribe and interpreter, or else the two, as studious visitors, never
+left Andrew Fraser alone a single moment! The old scholar was thrilled
+at heart with Eric Murray's solemn rehearsing of Frank Halton's valuable
+notebooks and ingenious theories. He eagerly enforced Prince Djiddin's
+request that no curious strangers should be allowed to force themselves
+on him, no matter of what lofty rank. Prince Djiddin was wrapped in the
+veil of a solemn personal seclusion.
+
+And to this end Simpson, now the butler of the "Banker's Folly," was
+especially assigned to wait upon the austere "Prince Djiddin" as his
+"body servant." Only one visit of state was exchanged between "Prince
+Djiddin" and General Wragge, Her Majesty's Commander of the Channel
+Islands. The "Moonshee," with a sober dignity, had interpreted for the
+British Commander of the Manche, and in due state, a return visite de
+ceremonie to General Wagge's mansion and headquarters strangely found
+Captain Anson Anstruther, A.D.C. of the Viceroy of India, a pilgrim to
+St. Heliers, to arrange secretly for "Prince Djiddin's" safe conduct and
+return to Thibet. The curious society crowd and St. Heliers's beautiful
+women envied Captain Anstruther his three hours conference with the
+"Asiatic lion."
+
+By day, in the vaulted library, Andrew Fraser pored over the weird
+stories of Runjeet Singh, of Aurung zebe, of King Dharma, and the
+Cashmerian priest who came with Buddha's first message to Thibet! The
+story of the marvelous royal babe found floating in the Ganges, in a
+copper box, a century before Christ, the tales of the "Konchogsum," the
+"Buddha jewel," the "doctrine jewel," and the "priesthood jewel" fed the
+burning fever of old Fraser's senile mind. He now felt that he lived but
+only in the past. At night, he labored alone till the wee sma' hours,
+depositing his precious manuscript in a secret hiding-place, where he
+now scarcely glanced at the "insured packet," which had been such a
+dangerous legacy of his dead brother. He had forgotten all his daily
+life and even his fears for the future in the fierce exultation of
+concealing his strangely gotten Thibetan lore from his rival, Alaric
+Hobbs.
+
+"A remarkable mind," growled old Fraser, "but a Yankee--and so
+untrustworthy." At last, unwillingly, with a quaking heart, lest Prince
+Djiddin should decamp in his absence, he obeyed an imperative legal
+summons and proceeded to London with Nadine Johnstone, leaving his house
+under the charge of that sphinx-eyed Scottish spinster, Janet Fairbarn.
+
+To the "Moonshee," and to the rubicund veteran Simpson, the departing
+Andrew Fraser said solemnly, "The Prince is to be the master here until
+my return." With a joyous heart the London sewing girl embarked as Miss
+Johnstone's one personal attendant, forgetful of her devoted lover,
+Joseph Smith, who had temporarily disappeared, gone over to France "on
+business." For she was herself going back to the dear delights of her
+beloved London, and her liberal lover had already given her his address
+at the Cor d'Abondance.
+
+"You must telegraph to me, Mattie, where you are staying, and when you
+leave London to return. I may run over to Southampton and come back on
+the same boat with you. Write to me, my own girl, every day, and here's
+a five-pound note to buy your stamps with." On his sacred promise of
+honor to write to her himself every day, and to let no black Gallic eyes
+eclipse her "orbs of English blue," Mattie Jones allowed her lover an
+extra liberal allowance of good-bye kisses.
+
+While Professor Andrew Fraser, Miss Nadine Johnstone, and the lovelorn
+Mattie Jones, were escorted to London by a head clerk of the estate's
+solicitors, Prince Djiddin and the "Moonshee" unbent their brows
+and rested from the nervous strain of the three weeks of continued
+deception.
+
+While the happy "Moonshee" escaped to his own fair bride, Prince
+Djiddin, under Simpson's guidance, examined minutely the superb modern
+castle, and even microscopically examined all the beautiful surroundings
+of Rozel Head. "It may come in handy some day," mused Major Hardwicke,
+"especially if we have to aid Nadine Johnstone to escape." The
+pseudo-Prince was glad to often steal out alone to the headland
+overlooking Rozel Pier, and there watch the French luggers beating to
+seaward sailing like fierce cormorants along the wild coast of St. Malo.
+He was glad to fill his lungs with the fresh, crisp, salt air, and to
+commune in safety at length with the faithful Simpson.
+
+Securely hid in an angle of the cliff, they talked over all the mystery
+of Hugh Fraser's bloody "taking off," and of the dreary three years of
+Death in Life left before Nadine.
+
+"As for the old master, he was an out and out hard 'un," stolidly said
+Simpson. "Who killed him, nobody knows and nobody cares. I've always
+suspicioned that there Ram Lal and yer fancy friend, this Major Alan
+Hawke."
+
+Hardwicke started in a sudden alarm. "Why so?" he demanded.
+
+"I believe that they tried to blackmail him about some of his old
+Eurasian love affairs, or else some official secret they had spied out.
+You see the niggers in the marble house were all Ram Lal's friends, and
+any one of them could have left the murderers alone to do their work and
+then let 'em out of the house. I believe that Hawke did the job, and Ram
+Lal got away with some of the missing crown jewels. I'll tell you, Major
+Harry, General Willoughby and the magistrates had me under fire there
+for many a day."
+
+"See here, Simpson," said Major Hardwicke, "a man who would murder the
+father, would rob the daughter! I'll give you a thousand pounds if you
+instantly notify me, if Hawke ever is found creeping around here. There
+may be some ugly old family secrets, you know."
+
+"I'm your man! Pay or no pay!" cried Simpson. "Only they think of giving
+me a three months' leave on pay to visit my people."
+
+"Don't go! Don't go! till I tell you!" cried the Major.
+
+"I am glad this fellow Hawke, whom you say has been dropped, is now on
+his way back to India," said Simpson.
+
+"Yes, but he might show up here devilish strangely," mused Hardwicke.
+"He is just the fellow for a dirty fluke. Watch over Nadine, Simpson,"
+cried Hardwicke, "for I've sworn to make her my wife, within three
+months, uncle or no uncle!"
+
+"I will," growled Simpson. "I've an old grudge to settle with the Major,
+and I'll tell you some day," said the veteran. "Let us go in. There are
+some curious people here. I'll tell you all when I'm your own man, and
+the young mistress is Mrs. Major Hardwicke!"
+
+On this very evening, as the gray mists hid the Jersey outline from the
+windows of Etienne Garcin's den, Jack Blunt and Major Alan Hawke were
+seated in the Major's bedroom in the cabaret. They were cheerfully
+discussing two steaming "grogs," but there was doubt and a shifty lack
+of thorough confidence between the two scoundrels as yet.
+
+"So you think the boat will do?" flatly demanded Jack Blunt, offering
+some exceptional cigars.
+
+"Just the thing," carefully replied the Major. "And your terms for a two
+weeks charter?"
+
+"Twenty-five hundred francs for the boat and outfit--the same sum for
+the gang, cash down. Two weeks, with the privilege of renewal for two
+more-at the same rate," doggedly said Blunt. "Now, you've got to make
+up your mind soon, Hawke," said Jack Blunt roughly. "I've told you the
+whole lay, and so far, have given you the worth of your money. If you
+can't 'come up,' then I'm going to run a lugger load of brandy and
+'baccy over to the Irish coast. She's a sixty tonner and by God! fit
+to cross the Atlantic! Old Garcin, too, is getting impatient. Our being
+here, stops his 'regular business,'" gloomily said Blunt.
+
+Hawke's impassive face angered Jack Blunt as he continued: "And you say
+that I can trust Garcin's brother Andre down at Isle Dial."
+
+"Yes. Even if we had to stow one or both of these fools away down
+there."
+
+"I am sure that Angelique and I could hide them away for a year or else
+safely forever there," cried Jack Blunt, in a hoarse whisper. "It's only
+a matter of money and damme if I believe you've got any! If you fool
+us, you'll never get out of here alive!" Major Hawke only smiled, and
+dropped his hands lightly on the butts of two heavy bull-dog revolvers
+ready there in his velveteen trousers' pockets.
+
+"Jack! Don't be an ass!" he said. "I play this game to win. Do you think
+that I would bring my ready money into this murder pen? Now, tell me
+what you will take in cash, to tell me where the old miser has hidden
+the stuff I want? And how much will you take to do the job? I want to
+know when they return, and I want your help and the aid of the gang. You
+are to crack the crib--alone--while they are away, and then we, perhaps,
+may meet them, on their way home. The lugger lying off in that cove to
+the north of Rozel Head, below the old martello tower."
+
+"Have you been over there?" amazedly cried Blunt.
+
+"Oh! I know every inch of the place of old," laughed Hawke, still with
+his hands on his revolvers.
+
+"Well, Major," said Jack, pouring out a cognac, "I'll take, first, five
+hundred pounds cash for the information. Another five hundred for the
+job, with a quarter of what we get. And this second sum you can put up
+with Etienne Garcin. You can pay him now the two hundred for the men
+and the boat, out of that, and give me the rest of the odd change later.
+We'll never lose sight of each other after we start. For the Hirondelle
+will not leave me in the lurch. I've sworn never to wear the widow's
+jewelry again." Jack Blunt's eyes were devilish in their glare.
+
+"So, it's five hundred pounds down now, and I can order the expedition
+on, after the payment. You'll give me on the instant all the news from
+Mattie Jones of the intended return, for I propose to have some fun with
+the Professor."
+
+"Honor bright," said Jack forcibly. "For we will all hang or 'go to
+quod' together, if there's a break once that we begin. We had better
+start when I get her next letter, for Mattie is to write me to the
+Jersey Arms and then telegraph there, too, from Southampton. I'll have
+one of the crew pipe them off from the pier home to the Tolly, and a
+half dozen of the boys will be in hiding, ready for work. So you can
+work your scheme as you will."
+
+"It's a go, then. Come on, now, and get your money," said Hawke, as
+he led the way to the nearest fiacre. In ten minutes, Alan Hawke
+disappeared into the railway waiting-room, and returned after a visit to
+the luggage store-room. Jack Blunt was astonished at his pal's evident
+distrust. "Here you are, Jack," the Major cordially cried, as they
+sought the rear room of the neat cafe opposite the gare. "Now, count
+over your five hundred pounds. I'll give Garcin the other sum in your
+presence. Then, I suppose that I am safe," he coldly smiled. "Tell me
+now where has old Fraser hidden the stuff."
+
+"In his study on the first floor, in a secret hiding place. The girl
+Mattie has watched the old fellow through the keyhole. I know just where
+to easily break in on the ground floor. These damned Hindus are far away
+in the other wing, so there's only Simpson to hinder. Now, I'll have a
+couple of the boys pipe him off at the Jersey Arms. Old Janet Fairbarn's
+strait-laced ways make him sneak out late at night for his toddy. When
+he is 'well loaded' and tired with climbing up the cliff, they will
+follow him and fix him, for good. One of the boys will come along with
+me, to my hiding place, and be 'outside fence' while the two others
+will watch the road and the gardener's quarters. The three men are two
+hundred yards away, in the porter's lodge. The old Scotch woman
+sleeps like a post. Then I make my way when I've done, at once to the
+Hirondelle, alone and hide my plant. The men relieved can rally on your
+party at the old martello tower, and so we will be ready to sail when
+your part of the job is done. Two on board, three with me, nine with
+you, will be plenty! My work is a quiet job! I can do the whole trick in
+five minutes! Yours, I leave for yourself. I know just where to lay my
+hand."
+
+"But, should any trouble occur?" said Alan Ha wke, "any outcry, any
+pursuit?"
+
+"Then I will bury the stuff on the shore, saunter back openly to the
+Jersey Arms, and just stay there as friend Joseph Smith, till I can get
+over to Granville by the steamer. The Hirondelle will not be seen by any
+one; there are fifty luggers always hovering around. She will first land
+us all in Bouley Bay in the morning, or drop half the men off at St.
+Catherine's Bay in the early afternoon. They all know every inch of
+the ground." In half an hour the chums in villainy dined gayly with
+"Angelique," and a running mate, rejoicing in the cognomen of "Petite
+Diable Jaune." The next day, a secret meeting with a confidential Jewish
+money-lender, enabled Major Alan Hawke to safely market the half of the
+jewels which he had extorted from Ram Lal Singh. In a waist belt, he
+wore a thousand pounds of Banque of France notes neatly concealed. Jack
+Blunt and Garcia had earned an extra bonus of a hundred pounds each in
+the jewel sale, and Alan Hawke laughed, as he laid away four thousand
+pounds in his safely deposited luggage, in the railway office. "I can
+trust to the French Republic--one and indivisible," he said, as he sent
+a loving letter to Justine Delande, and then mailed her the receipt
+for his valuable package, with his last wishes, "in case of accident."
+"These fellows might kill me for this, if they knew of it!" he growled.
+
+Three days later, the stanch Hirondelle was beating up and down
+Granville Bay, while Alan Hawke awaited the letter of the faithful
+Mattie Jones. He had furnished the twenty-pound note which made that
+natty damsel doubly anxious to meet her faithful lover "Joseph Smith,"
+to whom she now dispatched the news of the immediate return of the
+anxious Professor. Fraser was burning to take up the gathering of
+Thibetan pearls of hidden knowledge, while the artful and restless
+Professor Alaric Hobbs was stealthily waiting Prince Djiddin's
+departure, but kept busied with some personal tidal and magnetic
+observations on Rozel Head. In the deserted second floor of an old
+martello tower, he had made a lair for his evening star and planetory
+researches, and the ingenious Yankee concealed a rope ladder in the
+clinging ivy which enabled him to cut off all intrusion on his eyrie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. THE FRENCH FISHER BOAT, "HIRONDELLE."
+
+
+
+It was four o'clock of a wild November afternoon when Major Alan
+Hawke, cowering in a hooded Irish frieze ulster, crawled deeper into a
+cave-like recess in the little path leading from the Jersey Arms up to
+Rozel Head. The blinding rain was thrown in wild gusts by the howling
+winds, now lashing the green channel to a roughened foam. A sudden and
+terrific storm was coming on.
+
+Half an hour before the disguised adventurer could see the ominous
+double storm signals flying in warning on the scattered coast guard
+stations, a signal of danger sent on from the Corbieres Lighthouse. But
+now not a single sail was to be seen, and huge banks of heavy blackening
+mists were rolling over the stormy channel. Not a stray sail was in
+sight!
+
+"Where in hell is Jack?" raged the excited conspirator, swallowing half
+the contents of his brandy flask. As he returned it, the butts of his
+two revolvers and the handle of a huge couteau de chasse were plainly
+visible. "The fiends seem to be let loose to-day," he growled. "It would
+be the night of all nights! Ha!" The discharged officer noted two men in
+sou'westers and oilskins now toiling up the path. And his heart leaped
+up in a wild joy.
+
+In another moment, he half dragged his drenched companions into the
+weather-worn cave. "What news?" he hoarsely demanded of Blunt, as he
+extended his flask.
+
+"The best of all news," cheerily replied the mobs-man. "Here is Antoine.
+He raced down from St. Heliers, in a covered fly, and has brought the
+very latest news from Fort Regent. The Stella has lost the tide, cannot
+enter, and has, therefore, turned south, running down the channel.
+She can not dare to enter St. Heliers now till between ten and eleven
+to-night. Of course, she will not put back to Southampton, in the teeth
+of this southwest gale, the very heaviest known for twenty years. She
+has signaled the 'Corbieres,' and they have telegraphed over to the
+office at the pier. There's Mattie Jones's telegram. The three we want
+are on board, sure enough. And, thank God! the Hirondelle is riding safe
+and easy around the point. It's the one night of a million for my job
+and for yours."
+
+"What's your final plan? We must get out of here soon," growled Hawke,
+shaking off the pouring rain like a burly water dog. "I have my two
+men already watching the little gardener's hut in the Tropical Gardens,
+where I hid my cracksman's outfit. Old Simpson is boozing away down at
+the Jersey Arms. I heard him tell pretty Ann, the barmaid, that he would
+have to be home by midnight, for the 'old man' would surely arrive in
+the morning. Now, will you stay here with this man, and 'do up' old
+Simpson? Mind you, there must be no stab or bullet wound. The 'life
+preserver,' and, then over with him! They will only think that rum and
+the fall did the business.
+
+"I will make straight for the Hirondelle when I am done, and send a man
+to report to you at the old martello tower, where your gang are to meet
+you. This man can get over to the boat now and warn them to show up,
+carefully, one by one, and hide around there till dark. Not in the tower
+itself, for some of the coast-guard roundsmen might take shelter there
+and pitch into them for smugglers. I'll stay here till he comes back. If
+old Simpson should come along too early, why, you and I could hide him
+away here till it is dark enough to throw him over. And you'll surely
+catch old Fraser and the two women on the road between eleven and two.
+It will take over an hour to drive from the pier in this weather.
+
+"All right!" sternly said Hawke. "Send your man right away. I will tell
+them what to do later, when I meet them. Let him send the boatswain and
+two men to meet us here, and wait and hide with the others around the
+tower. I will hunt in the bushes till I run on them. Stay! He can come
+back here to me with the three!"
+
+It was already dark when the four men returned to where Alan Hawke lay
+perdu with his murderous mate. Not a light was now to be seen but the
+one glimmer below in the "Public," on the Rozel pier. And the very last
+words had been spoken between "Gentleman Jack Blunt" and his crafty
+employer. "Now, remember," said Jack, "Antoine here goes down with
+orders to come up the cliff ahead of old Simpson. You'll surely be
+warned of his approach. You can give the boatswain his orders; there'll
+be three to one. Your man leads you to your men at the tower. And I am
+to crack that crib and make for the Hirondelle!
+
+"If chased, the boat runs out to sea, and you are both only honest,
+French fishermen storm-driven ashore in search of supplies!"
+
+"That's it, Jack! You are to wait for me, if the house is not alarmed.
+I'll bring some 'passengers,' perhaps, on board. If I fail, you are just
+to run for Granville. We will all meet at Etienne's. I've got money to
+take care of all my men. You are to make no miss. I can wait and try
+again if I am disappointed. I'll take no chances. With your success,
+I can hold the old miser down, and your two thousand pounds is safe;
+besides, the swag is your security. You see, he will never dare to make
+any public outcry, for he secretly fears the Government! We take only
+the safest chances. He may stay down there all night at St. Heliers, and
+your lucky chance will never come again. Go ahead, and do not fail!"
+
+The two men grasped hands in an excited clinch. "Do up Simpson for a
+dead man, and no mistake!" hoarsely whispered Jack Blunt.
+
+"I'll fix the old blanc-bec," growled the boatswain, as the spy slid
+down the hill toward Rozel Pier.
+
+"Take my flask, Jack!" said Alan Hawke.
+
+"I don't drink on duty!" simply replied Blunt. "I shall get at work by
+eleven, and you'll hear from me by midnight! Then, look out only for
+yourself! The boat is mine, if there's any alarm. I'll send her back
+soon to Rozel Pier, if I have to run out to sea, and you are to be only
+honest fishermen. How long shall I wait in the cove for you?"
+
+"Sail at three o'clock, if I'm not on board! Remember the hail, 'Saint
+Malo, Ahoy!'"
+
+"This is dead square, for life and death!" cried Blunt.
+
+"Dead square," echoed the renegade officer. Darkness now doubled its
+black folds, and the roar of the surf boomed sullenly upon the rocky
+Rozel beach. Crouching in their cave, the two French thugs eagerly
+watched the winding path below, and gathered a resentful vulpine
+ferocity in their hearts. With knife in one hand, and the heavy
+lead-weighted blackjacks in readiness, they cowered upon the path,
+waiting for the old soldier, whose thickened eyes were still sullenly
+gazing at the dingy clock in the Jersey Arms. He hated to leave the
+pretty, white-armed Ann.
+
+Ten o'clock! The red-coated soldiery of Fort Regent and Elizabeth
+Castle, the guardians of Mont Orgueil, were all wrapped in slumber, save
+the poor, shivering sentinels. Ten o'clock! The drenched tide waiters
+at St. Heliers pier anathematized the still distant Stella, whose lights
+now blinked feebly, laboring far out at sea. "An hour yet to wait!"
+growled the bedraggled customs officers. Ten o'clock! The good burghers
+of St. Heliers had given up their whist, and taken their last drop of
+"hot and hot." In St. Aubin's Bay, from Corbin's Light, from mansion in
+town, and cot among the Druidical rocks, anxious eyes now gazed out on
+the wild sea, where Andrew Fraser tried to calm the terrified Nadine
+Johnstone.
+
+Mattie Jones was lying senseless, a helpless mass of cowering humanity,
+while the anxious captain and pilot vigorously swore, as became hardy
+British seamen. The "Chief" had piped up "that the engines would be out
+of her," if they shipped another sea like the last. Prayer in the cabin,
+curses on the deck, fear in the hold, and misery everywhere; the stout
+Stella struggled shoreward, toward her dangerous landing at the pier,
+whose sheer sixty feet of masonry wall was now lashed by the wild waves.
+Black waters rose and fell in great surges. The shivering coastguards
+in the line of garrisoned martello towers, vowed that no such night had
+ever been seen since the "Great Storm."
+
+Prince Djiddin had also given up all hope of the return of the faithful
+Moonshee whose plea of "business," had led him away to the society of
+his brave and beautiful bride. There was but one more day of "home life"
+before resuming the hoodwinking of the mentally excited historian of
+Thibet. "It's a fearful night on the Channel," thought Major Hardwicke
+as he waited in vain for Simpson's return to act as valet de chambre.
+
+"God help all at sea! It's a fearful night," Prince Djiddin murmured
+as he closed his eyes, little reckoning that the beautiful girl whom he
+loved more than life was tempest-tossed off the Corbieres, while poor
+Mattie Jones literally "sickened on the heaving wave."
+
+The great house was lone and still, and for the first time Prince
+Djiddin reflected upon the exposed situation of the old miser's home.
+"Poor old chap," he muttered, as he closed his eyes. "Somebody might
+come in and throttle him some night! No one would be here to stop it.
+I must speak to Simpson, yes, speak to Simpson--that is, if he is ever
+sober enough to listen. Poor old soldier! He will have his drink!"
+
+There was a singular improvised bivouac going on in the ruined martello
+tower where Professor Alaric Hobbs had set up his instruments to take
+some interesting observations upon an occultation of Venus.
+
+A coast-guard station at Bouley Bay and St. Catherine's Head rendered
+the further occupancy of the old martello tower at Rozel Head
+unnecessary, and only a few rats and bats now resented Alaric Hobbs'
+sequestration of the second story. He meditated a comparative memoir
+upon the "Tides of Fundy Bay, and the Channel Islands," with a treatise
+upon "Contracted Ocean Surface Currents." Astronomer, hydrographer,
+geologist, and all-round savant, his lank form was already familiar to
+the Channel Islanders. And, like the wind, he veered around "where he
+listed."
+
+"Great Jupiter aid us!" cried the son of Minerva, "Venus is unpropitious
+to-night. All my trouble is vain." For when the black storm broke upon
+the little channel islet, Alaric Hobbs saw no way of a comfortable
+return to the Royal Victoria at St. Heliers. "I might leave all here
+and claim old Fraser's hospitality for a night. No one can get up to the
+second story," mused Hobbes, who now regretted having ordered the fly to
+come for him only at day-break. "Here is a wild night of inky darkness.
+The star occults only at three A.M. This hurricane ruins all. And old
+man Fraser may not have returned from London." So with a basket of
+luncheon, a roll of blankets, and a bottle of cocktails, the volunteer
+astronomer reluctantly sought the dryest corner of the second floor
+of the old tower for a night's camp. A square trapdoor hole whence the
+moldering ladder had fallen away, was in the middle of the old barrack
+room floor over the four embrasured gun room below. "I'll just draw
+up my ladder, have a pipe, and take a nap. It may clear off. If so the
+observation goes, and then the highest tide of the year, I can get the
+register in the morning."
+
+He had brought down his light instrument from the battlemented parapet
+for safety, and now, pulling up his rope ladder, he coiled it on the
+floor. "I can drop down below if I wish to if the rain should drive me
+out of here," he cried as he curled up like a sleeping coyote.
+
+Below him the heavy door of the tower swung on its massive hinges,
+banging and creaking mournfully when a swirling gust set it swinging.
+The man who had slept out on the Lolo trail and bivouacked alone in the
+canyon of the Colorado, laughed the howling storm to scorn. "Better than
+being out in a blizzard in the Bad Lands!" he gayly cried, as he dozed
+away, having finished a good meal and lowered the level of the "Lone
+Wolf" cocktails. From sheer frontier habit, he laid his heavy revolver
+near at hand, and his old-time hunting knife. "You see, you don't
+know what emergencies may arise," often sagely observed Alaric Hobbes.
+"Thrice is he armed that hath two six shooters and a knife!"
+
+When half-past ten rang out from the old French hall clock at the
+Banker's Folly, Janet Fairbarn, a gray ghastly figure, made her last
+timid rounds of the lower part of the mansion. Her maids were all snugly
+nested for the night. Simpson, the erring one, she believed to be in
+close attendance upon that foreign heathen, Prince Djiddin, in their
+second-story wing. Miss Nadine and her maid had locked their apartments
+on departure, the Professor's study was the only room open and vacant,
+and so with a last timid glance at the darkened halls and great salons
+of the main floor, the Scotch spinster retired to her rooms adjoining
+the Master's study and bedrooms on the ground floor.
+
+Minded to "read a chapter" and to "compose herself for the night," the
+housekeeper sat late rocking alone in her rooms, while the hollow tick
+of the hall clock sounded doubly lonely in the cheerless night. The
+modern castle's walls were proof against the wildest rain and even the
+blows of a catapult, and so the dashing storm never even stirred the
+heavy leaded diamonded panes. "Thanks be to God, auld Andrew never
+ventured to cross on this raging sea! He'll no be here the morrow,
+neither. I must send down for telegrams in the morning," she mused when
+she had finally laid her spectacles across her Bible.
+
+It was nearing eleven o'clock when the two half-drowned thugs hiding on
+Rozel Head were roused by their returning mate stumbling wildly into
+the muddy cavern in the cliff. They sprang up as he muttered, "On vient,
+tout pres d'ici! Soyous tous prets!" A bottle extended was half drained
+by the two ruffians, who then eagerly loosened their black jaws with a
+mad desire to revenge their cheerless vigil.
+
+"Lei has," whispered the spy, pointing to a black object creeping
+unsteadily up the steep path--Simpson, dreaming still of pretty
+Ann's rounded white arms! It was indeed Simpson, with unsteady
+steps, breasting the hill. A fear of Andrew Fraser's arrival led the
+half-fuddled old veteran to hasten homeward now. "I can say the telegram
+was late," he chuckled. "They never will know." And then feeling for his
+pocket-flask, filled by handsome Ann, "as a last night-cap," he turned
+into the little cavern, where the school-boys, on a Saturday outing,
+often played "pirates," for his breath was gone and his eyes were
+drenched with salt scud.
+
+Then, a half smothered cry arose, as the three waiting thugs leaped
+upon their prey. Simpson was taken off his guard! His muscles were all
+relaxed by drink. He fell prone as the heavy black jacks descended upon
+his head, muffled in the hood of his "dreadnaught."
+
+"Ah! V'la un affaire bien fini! Allons! Jettez-le!" growled the grim
+boatswain, dropping his loaded club, as all three spurned the prostrate
+body, and then, with a heavy lurch, it bounded off the sodden bank
+plunging downward, over the cliff.
+
+For a moment, there was no sound! Then skirting the furze bushes of the
+headland, the three assassins dragged their stiffened limbs along in the
+darkness, hastening to where the stout Hirondelle rocked easily in the
+dead water of the one protected cove to the north of Rozel Point.
+
+They were all safely stowed away in the forecastle before half an
+hour, and, with grunts of satisfaction, examined the largess of their
+mysterious employer, "C'est un gaillard--un vrai coq d'Anglais!" growled
+the boatswain, as his chums produced another bottle, and the three
+doffed their drenched clothing. Then cognac drowned their scruples
+against murder--for the price was in their pockets.
+
+It was half past eleven o'clock when gaunt old Andrew Fraser led his
+half-fainting ward ashore from the Stella, at St. Heliers pier. But
+one covered carriage had remained on the storm-beaten pier, braving the
+rigors of this terrible night. "Never mind the luggage, man," shouted
+the Professor to the driver. "Here's ten pounds to drive us over to
+Rozel, to my home! And, I'll bait yere horses, put ye up, and give ye
+a tip to open yere eyes." The hardy islander whipped up his horses,
+and soon cautiously climbed the hill of St. Saviours, crawling along
+carefully over the wind-swept mows toward St. Martin's Church. The
+exhausted maid was fast asleep. Nadine Johnstone herself lay in a
+semi-trance, while the fretful old scholar consulted his watch by the
+blinking carriage lights, and then wildly urged the driver on. It was
+long after midnight when they reached St. Martin's Church, with three
+miles yet to go. A dreary and a dismal ride!
+
+And all was silent, in the Banker's Folly where the old hall clock
+loudly rang out twelve, rousing Mistress Janet Fairbarn from her first
+beauty sleep. She started in terror as an unfamiliar sound broke upon
+the haunting stillness of the night. The hollow sound of a smothered
+cough in the Master's study, a man's deep-toned cough, unmistakably
+masculine, aroused the spinster whose whole life had been haunted by
+phantom burglars.
+
+For the first time since her coming to the Folly, her loneliness
+appalled her. "My God! There is the plate! The master away, and no
+one near." Her nerves were thrilling with nature's indefinable protest
+against the dangers of the creeping enemy of the night. A sudden ray of
+hope lit up her heart. "Had the Professor returned?" He had the keys.
+It would be his way. Yes, there was the sign of his presence. And,
+so, timorously moving on tip-toe, she crept down the hall in her white
+robes, and barefooted. Yes, he had returned, for she had left the
+study door open. It was closed now. There was a pencil of light shining
+through the keyhole, and, yet, silently she stood at the door, and
+listened. There was the sound of muffled blows within. A panic seized
+upon her. "Thieves, thieves--at last!"
+
+Scarcely daring to breathe, she fled, ghostlike, up the stair, and in
+a wild paroxysm of fear dashed into the room at the angle of the hall,
+where "Prince Djiddin" lay extended upon his couch of Oriental shawls
+and cushions. He was restless, and still dreaming, open-eyed, of his
+absent love.
+
+The young man leaped to his feet as the frantic woman, with affrighted
+gestures, besought his aid and protection, pointing down to the
+stairway. Hardwicke's ready nerve failed him not.
+
+Grasping a heavy revolver from under the pillow, a mechanical
+arrangement, a memory of his Indian life in the midst of untrusted
+subordinates, the officer seized in his left hand the Sikh tulwar,
+which was his own "property saber" of Thibetan royalty. Its naked,
+wedge-shaped blade was as keen as that of a razor.
+
+Pointing to the key, he mutely signed to the woman to lock herself in.
+Then down the stair he crept, ready to face any unseen enemy. The light
+streamed out from Janet Fairbarn's open door. "Perhaps it was only old
+Simpson, drunk, or trying to gain a surreptitious entrance," he mused.
+But the woman had pointed to the light and the keyhole of the door.
+"Some one is in the old man's study!" Yes! There was the little
+tell-tale pencil of light flickering on the darkened wall opposite. And
+Hardwicke scented danger. "Was it Alan Hawke?"
+
+Light-footed as the panther, the young soldier crept to the heavy oaken
+door. A moment in his crouching position showed to him a man, with his
+back toward him, raising one of the great red tiles of the study floor.
+Yes! There was only a moment of suspense, for the tile was slid aside,
+and a package was then eagerly clutched. With one mighty leap, the Major
+bounded to the man's side as the door swung open. The cold steel
+muzzle pressed the ruffian's temple as Hardwicke's hand closed upon
+the burglar's throat. There lay the sealed canvas package, covered
+with official Indian seals. In an instant, the Major's knee was on the
+scoundrel's breast.
+
+"One single sound, and I blow your brains out!" hissed the disguised
+Englishman. And, astounded at the apparition of a stalwart Hindu
+warrior, Jack Blunt's teeth chattered with fear. Dragging the
+half-throttled wretch to his feet, Hardwicke tore off the sash of his
+Indian sleeping robe and bound the villain's arms behind him. Picking up
+his saber, he then cut the bell cord and lashed the fellow's legs to a
+chair. Then, giving the canvas package a closer glance of inspection,
+Hardwicke pressed the edge of his tulwar to Jack Blunt's throat, when
+he had closed the window, half raised, and shut the shutter so neatly
+forced with a jimmy. "What's in that package?" he said, with a sudden
+divination of Alan Hawke's overmastering influence.
+
+"A lot of valuable jewels," the sneaking ruffian answered. "If you'll
+turn me loose, I'll now save what's dearer to you than all this diamond
+stuff that I was sent for. I've watched you here for three weeks. You're
+after the girl. By God! Hawkes got her now!"
+
+"Do you speak the truth?" said Hardwicke. "If you deceive me, I'll
+butcher you! Speak quickly! You've got just one chance to save
+transportation for life now!"
+
+The coward thief muttered: "The old man is on his way back from St.
+Heliers, and Hawke's got a dozen French fellows to run the girl off and
+perhaps 'do up' the old man. But he wanted this same stuff. He's a downy
+cove!"
+
+While Jack Blunt worked upon the lover's fears, "Prince Djiddin's"
+hands, on an exploring tour, drew out a knife and two revolvers from the
+captured burglar's wideawake coat. He picked up the bulky bundle which
+the thief had dropped, and saw the bank seals of Calcutta and the
+insurance labels thereon. "I'll give you a show. Keep silent!" cried
+Hardwicke as he cut the cords on the fellow's legs. Then grasping him
+by the neck, he dragged him bodily to the door of the "Moonshee's" room,
+where he thrust him in. Then he locked the door, and knocking on his
+own, induced the frightened Janet Fairbarn to open at last. The poor
+woman screamed as "Prince Djiddin" calmly said: "Go and rouse up the
+girls. Send one of them to bring the gardener and his two men over here.
+I've got the thief locked up."
+
+"My God! who are you?" screamed the affrighted Scotswoman, as the Prince
+dropped into English.
+
+"I'm an English officer, madam. Don't be a fool. Rouse these people.
+There's been one crime already committed, and there may be another.
+There's no one else in the house. Get the three men over here at once to
+me. I'll stand guard over this thief." Then as Janet Fairbarn fled away
+shrieking and yelling, Harry Hardwicke locked the recovered package in
+his own trunk, which stood in his room. Bounding across the hall, he
+then dragged his captive over the way and thrust him in a helpless heap
+into a chair. Before Hardwicke was dressed, he had extorted the secret
+of the rendezvous at the old Martello tower.
+
+"Now, sir, no one has seen you yet," said Hardwicke. "If you guide me
+there and save her, you shall cut stick. If you betray me, then, by God,
+you shall die on the spot." A groan of acquiescence sealed the bargain,
+as the three gardeners, armed with bili-hooks and pruning-knives, now
+burst into the room. "One of you stay here with the women. Light up the
+whole house now. Let no one leave it till I return. Now, you two, each
+take a pistol. Get your lanterns, at once, and a good club each. Come
+back instantly here."
+
+The procession was descending the stair, when there was heard a vigorous
+knocking on the front door. As it opened, the excited "Moonshee"
+leaped into the hallway. "What's up?" he cried, forgetting his assumed
+character. "I came over, for I had a telegram that the Stella was in
+with old Fraser and Nadine. The General sent a special messenger to me."
+
+"Run up and get my saber and your own pistol and join me! There's foul
+play here! The house is all right! Come on, for God's sake!" shouted
+Harry Hardwicke. He led his captive by the trebled bell cord passed with
+double hitches around the burglar's pinioned arms, and the Moonshee
+now leaped back--ready to take a man's part--for he easily divined the
+treachery.
+
+Out into the wild night they hurried, leaving behind them the barricaded
+"Banker's Folly," now gleaming with lights. "Where in hell is Simpson?"
+demanded Eric Murray, as he struggled along clutching the gleaming
+tulwar tightly in his hand.
+
+"Drunk at Rozel Pier, I suppose!" bitterly answered Hardwicke. "Come
+here and just prick this fellow up into a trot!"
+
+As they hastened on, Prince Djiddin succeeded at last in convincing the
+two gardeners that he was not a ghost, but a reincarnated Englishman who
+had been larking disguised as a Hindu Prince. "What's the devilish game,
+anyway?" puffed out Captain Murray, still in the dark, as they struggled
+on in the darkness along the road.
+
+"Hawke has tried to kidnap Nadine!" hastily cried Hardwicke.
+
+"My God! what's that?" They soon came up to an overturned carriage. The
+traces had been cut, and the horses and driver were not visible. The
+gardener's lantern showed to them only the insensible form of the maid,
+Mattie Jones, who lay moaning in a sheer exhaustion of terror. "How far
+is it to the tower?" almost yelled Hardwicke, his heart frozen with a
+new terror. "They have murdered her, my poor darling!"
+
+"The tower is now about three hundred yards away!" said the gardener, as
+Hardwicke sternly dragged his reluctant prisoner along.
+
+"On, on!" he cried. "We may even now be too late!" They were only a
+hundred yards from the tower, when the sound of rapid pistol shots was
+heard, wafted down the wind, and a confused sound of cries on the cliff
+was wafted to them, as a dozen twinkling lantern lights appeared on the
+brow of the bluff.
+
+"It's a rescue party!" joyously cried Murray. "Hurry! hurry on to the
+tower!"
+
+With cheering cries, the pursuers neared the old Martello tower, and
+a clump of dark forms vanished quickly into the shrubbery as the three
+lanterns were flashed full upon the door. Eric Murray, sword in hand,
+was the first man at the entrance, as a desperate assailant leaped from
+the narrow door and sprang upon him, pistol in hand. There was the
+snap of a clicking lock and then the sound of a hollow groan, for the
+robber's pistol had missed fire, and Captain Murray ran the wretch
+through the body with the razor-bladed tulwar!
+
+There was a silence broken only by the trampling of approaching feet, as
+Red Eric flashed the light in the face of his fallen foe, for the storm
+had spent its fury and the stars were gleaming out at last.
+
+"By God! It's Hawke, himself!" he shrieked. "Alan Hawke, a midnight
+robber!" But, Harry Hardwicke, with the two men at his back, had dashed
+on into the gun-room of the old tower, leaving Murray with his prostrate
+foe--empty, not a sign of any human presence.
+
+With one wild cry Hardwicke turned to the door, "Nadine! Nadine!" he
+yelled, and his voice sounded unearthly in the night winds.
+
+And then, from over their heads, a cheery hail replied, "All right,
+on deck! The lady is safe up here with me. I am Professor Hobbs, the
+American. Who are you?"
+
+"Friends! friends!" cried Hardwicke. "The house was attacked! Where is
+the Professor?"
+
+"I reckon they have carried him off!" the nasal voice of the American
+answered. "If they've killed him it's a great loss to science, you bet!
+I'm coming down." And while the gun-room was soon filled with a motley
+crowd from Rozel Pier, Professor Alaric Hobbs long legs dropped dangling
+down his rope ladder. He gazed, open-mouthed, at the anglicized Prince
+Djiddin.
+
+"Who are you--friends, also?" now demanded the astonished "Prince
+Djiddin" of the rescuers.
+
+"We are friends of Simpson!" cried the nearest. "The smugglers
+bludgeoned him and then threw him off the cliff, but the banks were soft
+and wet, and his heavy coat saved him. He sent us up here to the rescue,
+for he crawled half a mile on his hands and knees. We've found the old
+Professor tied to a tree over there in the bushes. They are bringing him
+here. Simpson is at the 'Jersey Arms,' all safe."
+
+"See here, stranger!" demanded the American, still standing amazed,
+pistol in hand, "I winged a couple of these damned robbers; they tried
+their best to get the girl away from me. I'm a pretty good shot. Now,
+are you a prince or a fraud? I suspicioned you from the first! If you
+are a fraud, then the History of Thibet is all damned rot! I suppose
+that you were just 'girl hunting.' The girl's yere sweetheart. I see it
+all now. Hoodwinked the old man! Who's this fellow that you've got tied
+up there, anyway? One of the Johnny-Bull-Jesse-James gang?"
+
+"Why! It's Joe Smith, our friend!" chimed out a dozen friendly voices.
+Then Harry Hardwicke stepped up to the shivering wretch who stood gazing
+on Alan Hawke, now propped up on a doubled-up coat, and rapidly bleeding
+to death. "I'll keep your secret, and save you yet, if you will disclose
+the whole, and keep mum!" Jack Blunt nodded, and hung his head in shame.
+
+But, on his knees beside the dying man, Eric Murray bent down his head
+to listen to the final adieu of the dying wanderer, whose luck had
+turned at last. "Justine Delande is to have all! The drafts, and my
+money, at Granville. Murray, I'll tell you everything now. Ram Lal Singh
+murdered old Hugh Johnstone to get the jewels that Johnstone stole. The
+same ones that this old scoundrel, Fraser, here, is hiding." The red
+foam gathered thickly on Hawke's trembling lips. "Tell Major Hardwicke
+all! He's a good fellow! The knife that Ram Lal killed old Fraser with
+is in my own trunk at Granville, stored in Railroad Bureau. He got in
+through the window. I was in the garden, and caught him coming out. I
+was watching old Johnstone, for fear he would give me the slip. I didn't
+tell--I wanted to come over here and get the jewels myself. Hang old Ram
+Lal! He's a cowardly murderer! Telegraph to the Viceroy to arrest the
+jewel seller; he will break down and confess at once. Make him pay poor
+Justine Delande all my drafts--Johnstone gave him that money for me to
+keep me silent about the stolen crown jewels. Now--now, all grows dark!
+Lift me up high--higher!" he gasped. "I played a hard game, but the luck
+turned--turned at last! That woman, Berthe Louison was too much--too
+much for me! Poor Justine! Tell her--tell her--" His voice grew fainter
+and fainter.
+
+"Do you know this man, Hawke?" whispered Hardwicke, forcing Jack Blunt's
+face down to the dying renegade's glance.
+
+"Never--saw him--before!" gasped Alan Hawke. "Poor Justine, tell her--"
+and with a sighing gasp, his jaw dropped, and at their feet, the fool of
+fortune lay dead, with a last lie on his lips.
+
+"By God! He was dead game!" muttered Jack Blunt, kneeling there, by the
+stiffening form of the wreck of a once brilliant Queen's officer. He
+dared not lift his craven eyes!
+
+"He had the making of a gallant soldier in him!" cried Hardwicke, as he
+turned to the American, and motioned to the rope ladder. "We must not
+let Miss Johnstone see the body. Some of you run and get a ladder or
+some other means to aid her descent. And rouse up the nearest farm
+people. Get a carriage and bring the old Professor and maid here!"
+
+While a dozen volunteers darted away to bring a conveyance, the rest
+hastily covered Hawke's body with their coats. The gun-room was now lit
+up, and in five minutes the waylaid carriage was drawn by hand to the
+door of the lonely tower. Within it lay the bruised and exhausted
+old scholar, bareheaded and ghastly, in the light of the flickering
+lanterns, while pretty Mattie Jones, with a shriek of terror, ran to the
+side of her sweetheart, his arms still bound with Prince Djiddin's sash.
+Jack Blunt's "swell mob" assurance stood him in good stead.
+
+"It's all a mistake, my girl," bluntly said the mobs-man, feeling safe
+now that Alan Hawke's lips were sealed in death. While the old Professor
+was revived with copious draughts of "usquebaugh," Jack Blunt saw the
+flash below him, on the darkened seas, of a red light above a white one.
+And he heaved a great sigh of relief,
+
+"There goes the Hirondelle now, driving along out to sea with the whole
+gang," he murmured. "Now, by God, I am safe if this yellow masquerader
+only plays the man!" There was a hubbub of cackling voices, as on the
+night when the geese saved Rome! Above them, on the barrack room floor
+of the Martello tower, Harry Hardwicke was already holding Nadine
+Johnstone's drooping head upon his breast, while the lanky American
+gazed at the strange picture before him. The girl's arms were clasped
+around her lover's neck. "Do not leave me--not a moment!" she moaned.
+Alaric Hobbs, with quick forethought, tossed his blankets down below,
+with a significant gesture.
+
+"Darling! You will be mine for life, now!" cried the happy soldier, as
+he covered her shivering form with his coat. Alaric Hobbs had promptly
+descended and hastened the necessary preparations for departure. "Damn
+the explanations. Let's get the whole party out of this!" he said to
+Captain Murray, and then rejoined Hardwicke.
+
+"Tell me all, quickly!" said Hardwicke. "I am a Queen's officer and
+shall telegraph to the Home Guards and send for General Wragge. I must
+report this by cable to the Indian Government. There is justice yet to
+be done!"
+
+"I was taking some private star observations here," whispered Hobbs,
+bending down at Hardwicke's warning signal. "Storm bound, I waited for
+the return of my wagon at dawn. I was aroused from sleep by the sounds
+of a struggle below.
+
+"Some one had dragged this young woman screaming and wailing into the
+tower below. She soon fainted. I heard the followers tell the leader of
+the gang that the coachman had just cut the traces and decamped with the
+horses. He then bade them gather all the gang waiting in hiding so as to
+carry her down to some boat below, and then closing the door, he stood
+on guard outside. They were, however, baffled. Some of the scoundrels
+had taken the alarm and fled, seeing the lights of the other party
+moving up from the pier. Then the desperate leader tried to lead a party
+to steal a horse from the nearest farmhouse. They were busied in their
+quarreling. I dropped my ladder down, and while they wrangled, cried
+softly to the imprisoned woman to mount the ladder. She knew my voice
+at once, as I had been a visitor at her uncle's house. With my help, she
+got up into the barrack room, and, you bet, I quickly pulled up my
+rope ladder. In ten minutes more, the door was opened. The trick was
+discovered. They tried a pyramid of men to reach the nine feet. But I
+waited till they were all good and blown with their exertions and then,
+shot a couple of them! You'll find those fellows lingering somewhere in
+the bushes. I had stowed the girl safely away in the middle of the pier,
+over the doorway, between two pillars. She was game enough. I let them
+just shoot away a bit. I kept my powder and lead to kill. I've even now
+four cartridges left.
+
+"But when you came on the ground, the whole coward gang skedaddled at
+once, and the brave chap you killed got his dose for good, for he stood
+his ground like a man! The girl didn't bother me. She fainted in good
+shape when the close fighting began. I was a dead winner from position.
+I could have stood them off for hours!"
+
+"You are a hero!" warmly cried Harry Hardwicke.
+
+"Let's all get out of this!" replied Alaric, modestly.
+
+The American offered Hardwicke his cocktail bottle. "Let's get her down.
+I hear carriage wheels now. Would you just tell me your real name,
+now, the name you use when you are not doing your 'character' song and
+dance." The young officer smiled at the American's rough address.
+
+"Major Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers, and, this lady's future
+husband," confidently remarked Prince Djiddin.
+
+"Oh, yes," grinned Alaric Hobbs, "the last part I'll take for
+gospel truth. Well, Major, I'm glad to know you." And he then, very
+practically, aided the descent of Miss Nadine Johnstone, for a dozen
+stout arms now held up the ponderous old ladder which had been purposely
+dislodged by the Coast Guardsmen. Alaric Hobbs surveyed his battle
+ground.
+
+"If they had only dared to use lights, I might have had a harder fight,"
+chuckled Alaric Hobbs, as he descended the very last one. "Major," said
+he huskily, "I've got my things corraled up there, and the instruments,
+and so on. Leave me a couple of men, and get your own people back now
+to the Folly. I'll 'hold the fort' here, till you bring the proper
+authorities. Our man won't run away now. He is 'permanently fixed' for a
+long repose from 'further anxieties.'"
+
+But fiercely bristling up, old Andrew Fraser now loudly demanded to be
+allowed the ordering of all. "This is an outrage," he babbled. "You are
+a cheat, a fraud, an impostor, in league with the robbers." So, fiercely
+addressing Major Hardwicke, he tried to drag away Miss Nadine Johnstone,
+at whose feet the stout Mattie Jones was blubbering and wailing.
+
+"Captain Murray," sternly cried Major Hardwicke, "take Miss Nadine and
+her maid to the Folly. Leave the two gardeners on guard. Return here
+as soon as you can, for the Professor and myself. I will come over with
+him. Have a horse at once saddled and bring a man to take my dispatches
+to General Wragge and for London. Bring me some writing materials. This
+must be reported at once."
+
+"Go now, dearest Nadine," her lover implored. "I will join you at once.
+Trust to me, all in all. I will never leave you again," and then and
+there, before her astounded guardian, Nadine Johnstone threw her ams
+around her lover in a fond embrace. "You will come?"
+
+"At once," cried the Major, as he cried out hastily, "Drive on!"
+
+Old Andrew Fraser writhed in vain in Hardwicke's grasp. "Be quiet, you
+damned old fool!" pithily said Alaric Hobbs. "They saved your life for
+you!"
+
+"You shall never darken my doors," raged Andrew Fraser.
+
+"I will go there to-night, and at once remove my property," coldly
+answered Hardwicke. "After that I care not to visit you, save to lead
+your niece to the altar. But I will have a reckoning with you! Don't
+fear!"
+
+"You shall never marry her," the old pedant cried. "You shall answer to
+me for this whole dastardly outrage."
+
+"All right," coolly said Hardwicke. "It's man to man, now. I will marry
+your niece within a month, and, with your written permission!" And
+not another single word would the disgusted Hardwicke utter--while old
+Fraser clung to Alaric Hobbs, whining in his wrath. In an hour, a motley
+cortege slowly left the door of the martello tower. Murray and Hardwicke
+walking, armed, beside the carriage, where Mr. Jack Blunt, still bound,
+was the sullen companion of the half-crazed Professor Fraser.
+
+To the demands of "Joseph Smith's" friends Hardwicke replied: "He will
+undoubtedly be released tomorrow by the proper authorities if there is a
+mistake."
+
+A smart groom was already half-way to St. Heliers, galloping on with
+a sealed letter to General Wragge, the commander of the Channel Island
+forces. "That will bring Anstruther over at once. He must act now!" said
+Hardwicke. "In two days Ram Lal will be in irons at Delhi, and I think
+that we will prepare a crushing little surprise for this defiant old
+fool and miser, Professor Andrew Fraser." And Red Eric Murray now
+inwardly rejoiced to see the end of all his masquerading as the
+Moonshee. He received a parting salute, also. "You are no gentleman, a
+vile swindler, sir," raved old Andrew, as Captain Murray allowed him to
+descend and enter his own door. The "History of Thibet" fraud rankled in
+old Fraser's mind.
+
+But the "ex-Moonshee" only smiled and politely bowed, while "Prince
+Djiddin" sternly marched with his prisoner, Jack Blunt, upstairs
+and then locked the doors of his apartments. It was an "imperium in
+imperio."
+
+In the hall, he had turned and faced Andrew Fraser only to say: "I shall
+await here, sir, the orders of the civil and military authorities; yes,
+here, in my own room. The very moment that they take charge, I shall,
+however, leave your roof. But not until then! And for your future
+safety, I warn you to moderate your ignorant abuse."
+
+There was no sleep in the house until the gray dawn at last straggled
+through the mists of night. And the sound of outcry and excited alarm
+long continued, for Professor Andrew Fraser and Janet Fairbarn were
+excitedly wailing over the easily detected work of the burglar, in the
+old pedant's study. The aged Scotsman ran up and down the hall, tearing
+his hair and bemoaning his lost manuscripts and papers. For, he dared
+not announce the loss of the stolen crown jewels!
+
+The family coachman had already departed for Rozel Pier, to bring home
+the wounded Simpson, while a doctor, summoned by the messenger from St.
+Heliers, was led by Janet Fairbarn to the apartments of the heiress.
+Murray and Hardwicke rejoiced in secret over the recovery of the key to
+the whole deadlock--from Delhi to London! The game was now won!
+
+At ten o'clock, a staff officer of General Wragge joined Major Hardwicke
+and Captain Murray in their room, while one of the terrible army of
+twelve policemen of an island populated with "three thousand cooks"
+watched over the "Banker's Folly," and another garrisoned the old
+martello tower, where Alan Hawke lay alone in the grim majesty of death.
+The fox-eyed American professor "invited himself" to breakfast with
+Professor Andrew Fraser and cheered the broken old man.
+
+"Never mind, we will finish up the 'History of Thibet' together," he
+cried, "when these two swashbucklers are gone, and the house will be
+much quieter when the girl is married off and out of the way." But
+old Andrew Fraser refused to be comforted. He sternly forbade all
+communication with his ward and bitterly bewailed a further personal
+loss, which he dared not explain!
+
+"There was a suspicious French fishing-boat lately seen knocking around
+Rozel," acutely said Alaric Hobbs. "We also found the bloody trail where
+they dragged their wounded away down to the beach. And so they are off
+on the sea, with your valuable plunder. No one knows the dead scoundrel
+up there."
+
+"But we will finish the Thibet history, if I have to go out there myself
+and get the honest information." Whereat old Fraser feebly smiled
+and opened his heart to Alaric Hobbs at once. When a bustling country
+magistrate arrived to potter around, Andrew Fraser was astounded to see
+the General's aid-de-camp lead out the man whom the two officers had
+guarded, and send him off to St. Heliers under a military guard.
+
+"Hold this man only as a suspicious person. There may be some mistake.
+They say he is known at Rozel Pier as an honest man," said the aide.
+"The real robbers seem to have escaped in the boat. The dying robber did
+not seem to know this person, who has undoubtedly borne a good character
+for a month past at the Jersey Arms as a lodger." It was true, and even
+the befuddled Simpson, on his questioning, only could falter that he had
+been attacked by three unknown footpads. He failed to make any charge
+against the mute Jack Blunt. "This man is a proper, decent fellow
+enough," kindly testified the old soldier.
+
+In vain Andrew Fraser raved to the Magistrate, demanding that Major
+Hardwicke and Captain Murray should explain their past conduct. "I
+am directed by General Wragge to say that he will visit you, himself,
+officially, to-morrow, Professor Fraser, and he will have an important
+governmental communication for you. Until then, I desire these two
+gentlemen to be allowed to remain in your house. They will remove all
+their luggage this evening." And then, old Fraser, with a presage of
+coming trouble, shivered in a sullen silence. Conscience smote him,
+sorely.
+
+"The lost jewels!" In fact, a handsomely appointed carriage and a
+van, in the afternoon, removed all of the effects of the two pseudo
+"orientals," who, half an hour after the carriage had arrived, appeared
+in their respective undress uniforms of the Royal Engineers and the
+Eighth Lancers, to the dismay of old Fraser--now affrighted at his
+dangerous position. There was gloom in the house now, for Miss Nadine
+Johnstone flatly refused to even see her guardian a single moment! And
+Simpson, alone, sat in conclave with Major Hardwicke, who had learned
+privately of the secret removal of Alan Hawke's body to St. Heliers.
+Messengers, in uniform, coming and going rapidly, were hourly admitted
+to Major Hardwicke's presence, and already a pale-faced woman was on
+her way from Geneva to rejoin Madame Alixe Delavigne, at the old chateau
+mansion where Captain Murray only awaited the arrival of Anstruther
+now ready to open his siege batteries on the man who had covered up
+his brother's crime. There was not a word to be gleaned from the
+authorities, and St. Heliers was simply convulsed in a useless fever
+of curiosity. Even Frank Hatton, representing the London press, was
+muzzled. Not a soul was, as yet, permitted to approach the old martello
+tower, where Alan Hawke had faced the Moonshee, "man to man." A squad of
+coast guardsmen sternly picketed the vicinity of Rozel Head. And a great
+smuggling raid was the only accepted explanation to the public.
+
+Captain Murray had duly reported the completion of all the Major's
+carefully matured preparations, and fled away to await the arrival of
+Justine Delande and Captain Anson Anstruther.
+
+It was a sunny morning, two days later, when Major Hardwicke descended
+at Simpson's summons, dressed in his full uniform, to the great library,
+where several grave-faced visitors were now awaiting a formal interview
+with the agitated Professor Andrew Fraser. The young Major's face was
+simply radiant, for Mattie Jones had just given him a letter and a
+nosegay, sent by the young heiress, who had already read a dozen times
+her lover's smuggled love missive of this fateful morning.
+
+"To-day will decide all. And you will be to-morrow as free as any bird
+of the air. Then, darling, it will be only you and I, all in all to each
+other forever more! I will send for you. Wait for me. Our hold on Andrew
+Fraser is the deadly grip of the criminal law. He must yield."
+
+"The flowers are from Miss Nadine's breast; she sent them to you, with
+her dearest love," cried Mattie, who rejoiced in the private assurance
+that her own liberal-minded sweetheart was soon to be discharged
+'for lack of evidence.' Captain Eric Murray had obtained a complete
+deposition, which the magistrate representing the Parliament of Jersey
+had accepted as State's evidence, under the special orders of the Home
+Office.
+
+In Andrew Fraser's study, the sallow face of Professor Alaric Hobbs was
+seen bending over many documents and papers. He was not only busied as
+a volunteer lawyer for Fraser, but was now the commentator and
+collaborator of that famous interrupted work, "The History of Thibet."
+"Say! Go light now on the old man!" prayerfully whispered Alaric Hobbs,
+drawing Major Hardwicke into the study. "Captain Murray is a devilish
+good fellow. He is going to make this great traveler, Frank Hatton,
+my friend. And you'll both be benefactors to 'Science,' if you drop
+masquerading and post me honestly on Thibet. You are a dead winner in
+the little social game here. You get the girl--that's all you want.
+She's a nice girl, too! I'll make the old boy come down and be
+reasonable. I helped you out, you know. You owe me a good turn, you do."
+
+"All right, Professor Hobbs. I believe I do owe you my wife to be. They
+would have carried her off or injured her in some way," said the now
+anxious Hardwicke.
+
+"You bet your sweet life they would!" said the strange Western savant,
+more forcibly than elegantly. "They would have had the ransom of a
+prince, or else they would have chucked her in the channel! That was
+their game!"
+
+In the library, General Wragge, Captain Anstruther and Captain Murray
+faced Professor Andrew Fraser, whose face was as set as a stone sphinx.
+His feeble heart was thumping, for the stolen jewels were not his to
+return now. He cursed the day he had lied about them.
+
+The old General gravely said: "Professor Fraser, I desire to say that
+Captain Anson Anstruther represents both her Majesty's Government and
+His Excellency, the Viceroy of India. There is a magistrate waiting in
+the house even now, and I recommend you to seriously consider the words
+of the Captain. If you are officially brought to face your past refusal
+to his just demands, I fear that you will be left, Sir, in a very
+pitiable position. I will now retire until you have conferred with the
+representative of the Indian Government. Remember! Once in the hands of
+the authorities, your person and estate will suffer grievously if you
+have conspired against the Crown."
+
+Andrew Fraser's eyes were downcast as Captain Anstruther, with a last
+glance at his friend, then locked the door. "Now, Sir, I repeat to you
+for the last time the official demand which I made in London upon you as
+executor of the late Hugh Fraser Johnstone, to surrender certain jewels
+wrongfully withheld, a list of which I have furnished you, as the
+property of Her Majesty's Indian Government, and which stolen property I
+now demand on this list."
+
+There was a long pause. "I cannot! They are not in my possession! I know
+nothing whatever of them," faintly replied the startled old miser.
+
+"I warn you that I have a search warrant, particularly describing the
+articles stolen and the place of their concealment, and a magistrate now
+awaits my slightest word," said the aid-de-camp sternly.
+
+"Do with me as you will. You will not find them! I know nothing about
+them," faltered the desperate old man. He was safe against arrest, he
+hoped.
+
+"Then, I will serve the warrant," remarked the Captain, as Andrew
+Fraser's head fell upon his breast. A fortune lost, and now, shame and
+perhaps prison awaited him.
+
+"One moment," politely said Major Hardwicke. "Do not serve the warrant.
+I will surrender the Crown's property, which I have discovered under the
+floor of this man's study, where he feloniously hid them after denying
+their possession."
+
+"Thief and deceiver!" shrieked Andrew Fraser. "You lied your way into my
+house! You have now conspired against my dead brother's estate!" He was
+shaking as with a palsy in his impotent rage. "And you would rob me!"
+
+"You hardened old scoundrel! I will give you now just half an hour,"
+sternly said Major Hardwicke, "to consider the propriety of resigning
+instantly your executorship of your brother's estate in favor of your
+son, Douglas Fraser. He is honest! You are unfit to control your ward!
+You can also first file your written consent to the immediate marriage
+of your ward, Nadine Fraser Johnstone, to myself, and apply to have your
+accounts passed and approved upon your discharge as guardian upon her
+marriage. This alone will save you from a felon's cell. She shall be
+free. Douglas Fraser may be made the sole trustee of her estate until
+the age of twenty-one. On these two conditions alone will I consent to
+veil the shame of your brother and spare you, for we have traced the
+stolen jewels, step by step, with the list, the insurance, and the
+delivery by Hugh Johnstone to you. If you wish to stand your trial for
+complicity in the theft and concealing stolen goods, you may. General
+Willoughby, General Abercromby, and the Viceroy of India have watched
+these jewels on their way. And I came here only to recover them, and to
+free that white slave, your poor niece!"
+
+There was the sound of broken wailing sobs, and the three officers left
+their detected wrong-doer alone. Out on the lawn, the young soldiers
+joined General Wragge, who now looked impatiently at his watch. It was
+but a quarter of an hour when old Andrew Fraser tottered to the front
+door. "What must I do? I care not for myself!" he cried plucking at
+Major Hardwicke's sleeve. "Only save Douglas, my boy, this public
+shame!"
+
+"It rests all in your hands, Sir," gravely answered the lover. "Shall I
+call Miss Johnstone down now to have you express your consent and sign
+these papers in the presence of the General?" Major Hardwicke saw his
+enemy weakening, even as a child.
+
+"Yes, yes, anything, only get her away out of my sight--out of my life!"
+groaned the broken old miser, whose sin had found him out. "But, you'll
+keep all this from Douglas--the story of a father's disgrace? I did it
+all for Hugh!"
+
+"The family honor is mine, now, Sir! I will save your niece all
+suffering!" stiffly replied the Major, as he boldly mounted the stair.
+Captain Anstruther led Andrew Fraser aside. "I had the papers drawn up
+at once so that you would not be humiliated in public by your
+obstinacy, and General Wragge will now witness them. He has offered the
+hospitalities of his family to your niece until she is made a wife."
+
+"I am ready," tremblingly said Professor Fraser, and in haste a singular
+group soon gathered in the library. A notary and the magistrate entered
+with due professional decorum.
+
+And then, Captain Anstruther, addressing the executor, in the presence
+of the gray-bearded old General, repeated the words of voluntary
+resignation and surrender of all rights as guardian over Nadine
+Johnstone, first taking his written consent to the marriage. There was
+not a word spoken as the trembling old scholar hastily signed the papers
+presented to him. Then he turned to the sweet woman clinging to Major
+Hardwicke's arm. "I'll be thankful to ye if ye leave my home to me in
+peace, as soon as ye can! Janet Fairbarn will be my representative!"
+With a last glance of cold aversion at Hardwicke, he bowed to the
+Commander of the forces, and then tottered across the hall to his study,
+when the tall form of Alaric Hobbs hovered at the door.
+
+"My dear child," kindly said the old veteran General, lifting her
+trembling hand to his lips, and bowing reverently, "Let me be, this day,
+your father, as you are soon to be born into the service. Here, Major
+Hardwicke, I give her to you to keep against the whole world, if the
+lady so consents." Nadine's answer was an April smile, when her lover
+clasped her hand, and then she hid her blushes on Hardwicke's breast.
+
+"Take me away forever from this horrible prison-house," she whispered.
+
+"Mrs. Wragge's carriage will be here at four for you, and we will have a
+little dinner en famille at seven, Miss Nadine, for you," said the happy
+General, as he jingled away, his dangling sword, jingling medals, and
+waving white plume, making a gallant show. It was truly "an official
+capture."
+
+"Now," whispered Captain Murray to Hardwicke, "I will clear out with
+Anstruther, and at once deliver over the unlucky jewels to him to be
+sealed up and deposited with General Wragge until the Viceroy's orders
+are received. I've a cablegram that Ram Lal has been arrested.
+
+"And I fancy Miss Nadine will be astonished at seeing two new faces
+at the dinner table. Let Simpson and the maid at once pack all her
+belongings, for we can not trust her with this old wreck of humanity.
+He is half crazed already. I will cable and write to Douglas Fraser that
+'ill health' forces the old gentleman to at once give up his trust. Now,
+I belong, in future, only to Mrs. Eric Murray, of the Eighth Hussars. I
+throw up my job as an all-round Figaro!"
+
+"Stay a moment," said Major Hardwicke to Captain Anson Anstruther,
+when Nadine had fled away to prepare for her flitting from the unloved
+granite fortress.
+
+"When do you go over to London, Anstruther?" said Major Hardwicke, for
+he now nourished a scheme of "social employment" for the brilliant staff
+officers. He was short only a groomsman.
+
+"Not till after I am married," remarked the relative of the great
+Viceroy. "I have done my duty to Her Majesty," he laughed, "and now, I
+am going to do my duty to myself!" Whereat Harry Hardwicke was suddenly
+aware that Cupid carries a double-barreled gun, sometimes. In her own
+apartment, Nadine Johnstone listened to Janet Fairbarn's sobbing plaint,
+as the heart-happy Mattie Jones flew around the rooms making her young
+mistress's boxes. Nadine was still in an entrancing dream of freedom,
+life, and love, and the cunning Scotswoman's plaint was all unheeded.
+Major Hardwicke was announced, "upon urgent business."
+
+"I cannot tell you yet, darling, just how we vanquished the old
+ogre," said he. "Be brave, and remember that a feast of long-deferred
+love-tidings awaits you to-night. I have already sent away all my own
+luggage. A horse and a well-mounted orderly will be here at four, and
+so I shall not lose you from sight even a moment until you are safe
+in General Wragge's home at Edgemere. Let the maid return alone here
+to-morrow and remove all your effects we may overlook. I will dispatch
+the luggage and ride after your carriage."
+
+"The proprieties, you know," he laughed, as he vanished, after stealing
+a kiss.
+
+"The master's in a woeful way," mourned Janet. "To think of your
+father's only bairn leaving her ain house so! The master's half daft
+with his troubles, for they've scattered and lost the bit bookie--the
+work of years!
+
+"Though there's the braw American scholar, tho', to aid him now.
+He hates you, my poor bairn, for your poor dead mother's sake! It's
+afearfu' hard heart these Frasers carried. I know them of old!"
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that the 'Banker's Folly' is really my own
+house?" said Nadine, her cheek flushing crimson at the insult to the
+memory of her beloved dream mother.
+
+"In truth, it's yer very ain, my leddy. Old Hugh bought it for his last
+home," whimpered the housekeeper.
+
+"Then you may tell Andrew Fraser," the spirited girl cried, "that I will
+never cross the threshold again, where I have been kept under a
+jailer's lock under my own roof tree! Let him write his wishes to
+Douglas--Douglas is a gentleman. I will keep silent for the sake of the
+man who was a kindly brother to me on my voyage. But to Andrew Fraser,
+I am dead for evermore! My life of the future has no place for a
+half-crazed tyrant--the man who tried to bruise the broken heart of an
+orphan of his own blood. We are strangers forevermore. And I will leave
+old Simpson here as my agent to keep the possession of this place in my
+name. I will write Douglas, so that his old father may live out his days
+here in peace!"
+
+With a stately tread, the lonely girl descended the stair, when Major
+Harry Hardwicke tapped at her door, gently saying: "The carriage waits
+below. And--some one waits there to cheer you on your way onward to
+Life and Love! Remember, I follow on at once." Nadine Johnstone sprang
+lightly into the carriage. With a gentle art, the soldier turned away
+his head and quickly cried, "Drive on!" when the door closed. The
+orderly at a sign followed the closed vehicle. It was a sweet surprise.
+Love's coup de main!
+
+Nadine Johnstone never turned her head toward the dark martello tower,
+for a woman's arms were now clasped around her, and loving lips pressed
+her own. "Free at last, my own darling! Free!" cried Alixe Delavigne, as
+she strained her gentle captive to her bosom. "My own poor darling! Now,
+we shall never be parted! My darling! My Valerie's own image!"
+
+"And, my mother?" faltered the lovely girl, the sunrise of hope flooding
+her cheek with affection's glow of dawn. "My sister--your mother--looks
+down from Heaven upon us, joined after many years!" sobbed Alixe. A
+softer pillow never had maiden's head than Alixe Delavigne's throbbing
+bosom.
+
+"Did you not feel in your heart that love led me to your side, my
+darling? That I crossed the wide world to find you, and to fight my way
+to your heart?" murmured Alixe.
+
+"Ah! Justine always said there was a marvelous resemblance!" faltered
+Nadine. "She must be sent for now! At once! Poor Justine!"
+
+"She waits for you, even now, at Edgemere! I must save you, now, from
+hearing the story of strangers!" said Alixe, taking the girl's trembling
+hands. "Major Hardwicke telegraphed to her at Geneva, in your name, to
+come on here at once. For, while we have sunshine mantling around us,
+she, alone, must follow Alan Hawke's body to an unknown grave."
+
+"Is he--that terrible man--indeed dead?" gasped Nadine.
+
+"You passed his body that night when they led you from the tower,"
+gravely said Alixe. "He fell, fighting as a criminal, by the hand of
+Captain Murray, who struck only to save your liberty, and his own life.
+The civil authorities will not unveil the dark past of a man who once
+wore the Queen's uniform in honor. General Wragge and the authorities
+have softened the blow to Justine Delande, whom he would have made his
+dupe. You must only know this, darling, from me--from me, alone! And
+so, to shield poor, faithful Justine, we will all leave Jersey at once.
+Strange irony of fate. The Viceroy has cabled that Ram Lal Singh has
+paid over twenty thousand pounds, to be held for Justine Delande, to
+whom Alan Hawke left all his dearly bought bribes; and also the money he
+left hidden at Granville--jewels and notes to the value of ten thousand
+pounds more. The wages of sin, even death, was all he gained, and,
+strangely, through him, Justine will be shielded from penury; for she
+bears a broken heart. All that she knows is of his sudden death.
+
+"And now, darling, for I must tell you, the assassin of your father
+has saved his miserable life by a full confession made to General
+Willoughby. None but myself must ever tell you that your father's
+memory, your uncle's liberty were all involved in a tangled story
+of olden greed, intrigue, shame, and crime. Let the dead past rest
+unchallenged. The seal of the tomb will be unbroken. And it is your
+mother's tender love that will gild your bridal. Let me be your sister
+forever. None but you and I must know the history until others have a
+right to it."
+
+"Has--has Harry told you of our coming marriage?" faltered Nadine,
+hiding her head in her kinswoman's breast. There were fleeting blushes
+as rosy as the Alpenglow now tinging her pale cheek. Nadine Johnstone
+saw her new-found sister now glowing in a woman's gentle triumph. She
+had a secret of her own!
+
+It was Alixe's turn to beg a fond heart's throbbing sympathy when she
+whispered, "General Wragge advises and the Viceroy insists that we
+leave the island at once. Captain Anstruther must soon report to His
+Excellency the Viceroy at Calcutta, for his promotion to a Majority
+takes him back to his kinsman's suite. The Earl has been honored with
+the control of Her Majesty's Embassy at Paris. And so," the words came
+slowly in trembling whispers, "both Anson and Harry have applied for
+'special licenses,' and there will be two marriages at Edgemere, instead
+of one. Anson gave you to me, through a strange romance, and he demands
+to be my loving jailer!
+
+"In three days we can all leave for London. Justine Delande has finished
+her solemn duty even now, with General Wragge as sole escort. It was the
+only way to hoodwink useless public gossip."
+
+"And will we be then so soon separated?" cried Nadine, clinging to her
+kinswoman, in a tremble of yearning love. "For you must go out with your
+husband to India. You must tell me of my mother, her life, her home, and
+I must see where she lies."
+
+"Ah, my darling," said Alixe, "we will all go on to my home--your home,
+at Jitomir, my castle in Volhynia. Your own yet to be. There, Anson
+and I will leave you and Major Hardwicke for your honeymoon. There, my
+dearest child, where your own mother's sweet face still looks down from
+the walls. Where the Russian violets and Volhynian forget-me-nots bloom
+around her tomb, where you will see her name carved in the memorials of
+a princely line as 'Valerie, Princess Troubetskoi.' There, I will tell
+you the whole story."
+
+An April rain of loving tears silenced the girl's voice, as she looked
+out of the carriage window, and saw Major Hardwicke riding after them.
+"Tell me no more, now, Darling Alixe," murmured Nadine, "I must have
+peace--even in this moment of happiness!" Her thoughts went back to the
+day when Harry Hardwicke had ridden "Garibaldi" straight to the rescue,
+in her moment of deadly peril, and his saber had fended off the huge
+cobra. And so, they journeyed on silently-linked in love, dreaming
+tender dreams.
+
+In the western skies, the sun was sinking over the purpled sea, as they
+drove down to Edgemere, and the glow of the dying day lingered upon the
+beautiful hills of Jersey. For the wild storm was quieted and the sea
+shone as a sapphire zone. Golden gleams lit up stern old Mount Orgueil
+and gray Fort Regent, and tenderly tinted the rugged outlines of the
+moss-grown Elizabeth Castle. All nature dreamed in the peaceful, even
+fall. On the sea, white sails were flitting afar, and the swift steamers
+passed grandly on toward their distant havens. There was a group
+gathered in the splendid gardens of Edgemere as General Wragge gallantly
+advanced.
+
+The silver-haired veteran graciously surrendered his command, as he
+aided his guests to alight. "This is to be 'Bride's Hall,' and not a
+'place of arms'! You are now joint commanders, and so make the best use
+of your three days liberty! I give up my sword!"
+
+That night, while Nadine Johnstone sat in a heart exchange of confidence
+with Justine Delande and the fair woman--no longer Berthe Louison--while
+Flossie Murray was playing hostess with Mrs. Wragge, General Wragge,
+Major Hardwicke, Captain Anstruther, and the now full-fledged Benedict,
+Eric Murray, gave some pithy parting counsels to Jack Blunt, "Gentleman
+Jack," of the London Swell Mob. "Only a mere fluke, and, our desire to
+save a family needless pain, protects you," said Hardwicke. "These five
+hundred pounds will enable you to reach America. I venture to advise you
+to avoid landing on English soil hereafter! You certainly owe something
+to your plucky, dead comrade, who generously lied, even in death, to
+save you from transportation!" With a sullen brow, Jack Blunt departed
+the next morning on the Granville steamer, and, only when in the safe
+hiding of Etienne Garcin's Cor d'Abondance did he dare to breathe
+freely. There were two sorely wounded lodgers already lying there, who
+cursed the unerring aim of the vivacious and eccentric Alaric Hobbs
+of Waukesha. They had told the landlord their tales over cognac
+and absinthe, and Jack Blunt vainly tried to comfort the sloe-eyed
+Angelique, who mourned for the unreturning visitor who had sprung over
+the easily-stormed battlements of her mobile heart. "Il etait bien beau,
+cet homme la! Il m'aimait beaucoup! Je le regretterai toujours! C'etait
+un vrai gaillard!"
+
+Which heartfelt tribute from a nameless wanton served for epitaph to the
+man lying in an unmarked grave in the soldiers plot at Fort Regent. With
+gnashing of teeth did Garcin and Jack Blunt discover that H. R. M.'s
+Consul had officially aided Justine Delande to remove the valuable
+deposits of the dead adventurer.
+
+"The whole thing was a dead plant on us. Luck turned against him at
+last!" growled Blunt, as they counted up the cost of the bootless cruise
+of the Hirondelle. And only Justine Delande's bitter tears flowed in
+silence to lament the bold adventurer who had lost the game of life!
+
+It was at Rosebank that the three brides were assembled for a sweet
+review after the quiet double marriage at Edgemere, which caused General
+Wragge's rugged face to wreathe in honest smiles of delight.
+
+And there was no rice left in the General's military supplies, "when the
+bridal parties drove away in great state to the Stella."
+
+A curious congratulatory visit from Professor Alaric Hobbs led to the
+extending of an invitation by Captain Anstruther for the lanky American
+scientist to visit him in India.
+
+"We owe you a debt of gratitude," laughed Anstruther, "for you helped
+Hardwicke to his wife. She helped me to mine, and I will see that the
+Indian Government gives you an official safe conduct to Thibet, where
+you can see the real line of the Dalai-lamas, and I'll furnish you a
+veritable 'Moonshee' free of charge. You shall be the very 'Moses' of
+Yankee investigators! You deserve it!"
+
+"Now you talk horse sense," said the alert Yankee. "I'm going out to
+'square things' with old Andrew Fraser's son. Don't ever kick a man when
+he's down! The old boy has had a very 'rough deal.' That 'fake' about
+Thibet nearly broke him up. And I've a commission from the Buggin's
+Literary Syndicate, of Chicago, to 'write up India.' I shall take a hack
+at Egypt on my way home, and perhaps ride over to Persia, then get into
+Merv and Tashkend, and come back by Astrakhan into 'darkest' Russia, and
+return home. I shall also write some spicy letters to the Chicago Howler
+and the New York Whorl. I tell you, Cap," said Alaric Hobbes, slapping
+Anstruther familiarly on the back, "you three military men have
+certainly fitted yourselves out with tiptop wives! I am going to make
+a pretty good money haul myself on this trip. I'll look you up later in
+Calcutta. Would like to see the Viceroy. He was a 'brick' when he was
+Governor-General of Canada. So I'll get young Douglas Fraser fixed
+up all in good trim, and when I get home and have published my books,
+settle down and marry a little woman I've had my eye on for some time. I
+will go in for a family life, you bet!"
+
+"Look out that you don't lose her," laughed Hardwicke.
+
+"I will not get left, you bet!" cried Hobbes. "Now, I'm going to vamoose
+the ranch. I think that I may have killed one or two of that gang, and I
+don't fancy the 'monotonous regularity' and 'salubrious hygiene' of your
+English prisons."
+
+And so, "his feet were beautiful on the mountains," as he went out on
+his queer life pathway.
+
+After the week of quiet at Rosebank, Captain Eric Murray was hugely
+delighted to receive his orders to take charge of all Anstruther's
+confidential work, in England, until the Viceroy should be pleased to
+otherwise direct. "I think that a garrison life here, with Miss Mildred
+as commander, will just suit you and Madame Flossie?" laughed the kindly
+conspiring aide-de-camp, anxious to be away on his road to Jitomir,
+"personally conducted" by the brilliant Alixe.
+
+The Horse Guards were "pleased to intimate" that Major Harry Hardwicke,
+Royal Engineers, should be allowed "such length of leave" as he chose to
+apply for, and a secret compliment upon his "gift to the Crown" of the
+recovered property was supplemented by a request to name any future
+station "agreeable at present" to the young Benedict. And the solicitors
+had now deftly arranged the complete machinery of the care of the great
+estate, until the orphan claimed her own.
+
+While Jules Victor and Marie prepared Madame Anstruther for her state
+visit of triumph to Volhynia, Hardwicke and Anstruther soon closed up
+all their reports to Calcutta. With due cordiality, the unsuspicious
+Douglas Fraser had wired his congratulations to his gentle cousin; and
+General Willoughby, and His Excellency, the Viceroy, were also heard
+from, in the same way. It was the gallant General Abercromby who spread
+the news of Anstruther's marriage in the club. "Ah!" he enthusiastically
+cried, "A monstrous fine woman--came near marrying her myself!" which
+was a gigantic "whopper!"
+
+Justine Delande accompanied the happy quartet to Paris, and there, being
+joined by her sister, the faithful Swiss sisters remained as guests
+of Madame Berthe Louison, awaiting the return of the wanderers from
+Jitomir. The Murrays gayly escorted the quartet of lovers to Paris, and,
+the laughing face of the gallant "Moonshee" was the very last the four
+lovers saw, as the Berlin train left the "Gare St. Lazare."
+
+Mr. Frank Halton, in his capacity of "journalist in general," had neatly
+stifled all comment upon the strange events in Jersey, with the aid of
+the stern General Wragge and the startled civil authorities. "I think
+that I had better present you with all the property costumes of Prince
+Djiddin and the 'Moonshee,'" laughed Halton. "We accept on the sole
+condition that you will make us a visit at Jitomir, and experience a
+Russian welcome," cried the Anstruthers in chorus. "The Russian bear has
+a gentle hug, when his fur is stroked the right way!"
+
+Justine and Euphrosyne Delande drove back happy-hearted to No. 9 Rue
+Berlioz, for the beautiful brides had claimed them both as future
+colonists of Volhynia, when the mill of Minerva ceased to grind to their
+turning.
+
+"We have agreed to own Jitomir in common, as we have both 'joined the
+army,'" laughed the kinswomen. "There is a permanent home for you both,
+already awaiting you, and a welcome which time will not wear out. For
+Jitomir shall be, now and in the future, a temple of Life and Love, the
+headquarters of a happy clan."
+
+And, so, linked in love, the kinswomen voyaged to the far domain where
+a mother had sobbed away her life, hungering for a sight of her child's
+face. The men, grave with the secrets of the troubled past, wondered
+over the strange meeting at Geneva which had undone all of Hugh Fraser's
+secretly plotted wiles. "We must never cast a shadow upon Douglas
+Fraser," they mused. "Let the dead past bury its dead, and all sin,
+shame, and sorrow be forgotten. For this once, the innocent do not
+suffer for the guilty."
+
+There was only left behind them a broken old man, wandering
+disconsolately around the halls of the Banker's Folly and vainly turning
+the leaves of his unfinished "History of Thibet."
+
+Janet Fairbarn, tenderly nursing the now childish old pedant, vainly
+soothed him, and fanned his flickering lamp of life in the silent
+wastes of the Banker's Folly. But the half-crazed scholar refused to be
+comforted and called in his mental despair ever for "the Moonshee."
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Fascinating Traitor, by Richard Henry Savage
+
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