The Adventures of Kathlyn

E-text prepared by Al Haines

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The Adventures Of Kathlyn

by

Harold Macgrath

Author of The Man on the Box, The Goose Girl, Half a Rogue, etc.

[Frontispiece: It will be a hard trek.]

Indianapolis The Bobbs-Merrill Company Publishers Copyright 1914 Harold MacGrath

To W. N. Selig

Contents

Chapter

I THE GOLDEN GIRL II THE UNWELCOME THRONE III THE TWO ORDEALS IV HOW TIME MOVES V THE COURT OF THE LION VI THE TEMPLE VII QUICKSANDS VIII THE SLAVE MART IX THE COLONEL IN CHAINS X WAITING XI THE WHITE ELEPHANT XII THE PLAN OF RAMABAI XIII LOVE XIV THE VEILED CANDIDATES XV THE SEVEN LEOPARDS XVI THE RED WOLF XVII LORD OF THE WORLD XVIII PATIENCE XIX MAGIC XX BATTLE, BATTLE, BATTLE XXI THE WHITE GODDESS XXII BEHIND THE CURTAINS XXIII REMORSE XXIV THE INVINCIBLE WILL XXV ON THE SLOOP XXVI THE THIRD BAR

Illustrations

It will be a hard trek (Frontispiece)

Where did you get this medal?

Ahmed salaamed deeply.

So they comforted each other.

You'll know how to soothe him.

My arm pains me badly.

And thus Umballa found them.

Kathyln turned the tide.

The Adventures Of Kathlyn

Chapter I

The Golden Girl

Under a canopied platform stood a young girl, modeling in clay. The glare of the California sunshine, filtering through the canvas, became mellowed, warm and golden. Above the girl's head--yellow like the stalk of wheat--there hovered a kind of aureola, as if there had risen above it a haze of impalpable gold dust.

A poet I know might have cried out that here ended his quest of the Golden Girl. Straight she stood at this moment, lovely of face, rounded of form, with an indescribable suggestion of latent physical power or magnetism. On her temples there were little daubs of clay, caused doubtless by impatient fingers sweeping back occasional wind blown locks of hair. There was even a daub on the side of her handsome sensitive nose.

Her hand, still filled with clay, dropped to her side, and a tableau endured for a minute or two, suggesting a remote period, a Persian idyl, mayhap. With a smile on her lips she stared at the living model. The chatoyant eyes of the leopard stared back, a flicker of restlessness in their brilliant yellow deeps. The tip of the tail twitched.

"You beautiful thing!" she said.

She began kneading the clay again, and with deft fingers added bits here and there to the creature which had grown up under her strong supple fingers.

"Kathlyn! Oh, Kit!"

The sculptress paused, the pucker left her brow, and she turned, her face beaming, for her sister Winnie was the apple of her eye, and she brooded over her as the mother would have done had the mother lived. For Winnie, dark as Kathlyn was light, was as careless and aimless as thistledown in the wind.

A collie leaped upon the platform and began pawing Kathlyn, and shortly after the younger sister followed. Neither of the girls noted the stiffening mustaches of the leopard. The animal rose, and his nostrils palpitated. He hated the dog with a hatred not unmixed with fear. Treachery is in the marrow of all cats. To breed them in captivity does not matter. Sooner or later they will strike. Never before had the leopard been so close to his enemy, free of the leash.

"Kit, it is just wonderful. However can you do it? Some day we'll make dad take us to Paris, where you can exhibit them."

A snarl from the leopard, answered by a growl from the collie, brought Kathlyn's head about. The cat leaped, but toward Winnie, not the collie. With a cry of terror Winnie turned and ran in the direction of the bungalow. Kathlyn, seizing the leash, followed like the wind, hampered though she was by the apron. The cat loped after the fleeing girl, gaining at each bound. The yelping of the collie brought forth from various points low rumbling sounds, which presently developed into roars.

Winnie turned sharply around the corner of the bungalow toward the empty animal cages, to attract her father and at the same time rouse some of the keepers. Seeing the door of an empty cage open, and that it was approached by a broad runway, she flew to it, entered and slammed the door and held it. The cat, now hot with the lust to kill, threw himself against the bars, snarling and spitting.

Kathlyn called out to him sharply, and fearlessly approached him. She began talking in a monotone. His ears went flat against his head, but he submitted to her touch because invariably it soothed him, and because he sensed some undefinable power whenever his gaze met hers. She snapped the leash on his collar just as her father came running up, pale and disturbed. He ran to the door and opened it.

"Winnie, you poor little kitten," he said, taking her in his arms, "how many times have I told you never to take that dog about when Kit's leopard is off the leash?"

"I didn't think," she sobbed.

"No. Kit here and I must always do your thinking for you. Ahmed!"

"Yes, Sahib," answered the head keeper.

"See if you can stop that racket over there. Sadie may lose her litter if it keeps up."

The lean brown Mohammedan trotted away in obedience to his orders. He knew how to stop captive lions from roaring. He knew how to send terror to their hearts. As he ran he began to hiss softly.

Colonel Hare, with his arm about Winnie, walked toward the bungalow.

"Lock your pet up, Kit," he called over his shoulder, "and come in to tea."

Kathlyn spoke soothingly to the leopard, scratched his head behind the ears, and shortly a low satisfied rumble stirred his throat, and his tail no longer slashed about. She led him to his own cage, never ceasing to talk, locked the door, then turned and walked thoughtfully toward the bungalow.

She was wondering what this gift was that put awe into the eyes of the native keepers on her father's wild animal farm and temporary peace in the hearts of the savage beasts. She realized that she possessed it, but it was beyond analysis. Often some wild-eyed keeper would burst in upon her. Some newly captive lion or tiger was killing itself from mere passion, and wouldn't the Mem-sahib come at once and talk to it? There was a kind of pity in her heart for these poor wild things, and perhaps they perceived this pity, which was fearless.

"She gets a little from me, I suppose," Colonel Hare had once answered to a query, "for I've always had a way with four footed things. But I think Ahmed is right. Kathlyn is heaven born. I've seen the night when Brocken would be tame beside the pandemonium round-about. Yet half an hour after Kit starts the rounds everything quiets down. The gods are in it."

The living-room of the bungalow was large and comfortable. The walls were adorned with the heads of wild beasts and their great furry hides shared honors with the Persian rugs on the floor. Hare was a man who would pack up at a moment's notice and go to the far ends of the world to find a perfect black panther, a cheetah with a litter, or a great horned rhinoceros. He was tall and broad, and amazingly active, for all that his hair and mustache were almost white. For thirty years or more he had gone about the hazardous enterprise of supplying zoological gardens and circuses with wild beasts. He was known from Hamburg to Singapore, from Mombassa to Rio Janeiro. The Numidian lion, the Rajput tiger, and the Malayan panther had cause to fear Hare Sahib. He was even now preparing to return to Ceylon for an elephant hunt.

The two daughters went over to the tea tabouret, where a matronly maid was busying with the service. The fragrant odor of tea permeated the room. Hare paused at his desk. Lines suddenly appeared on his bronzed face. He gazed for a space at the calendar. The day was the fifteenth of July. Should he go back there, or should he give up the expedition? He might never return. India and the border countries! What a land, full of beauty and romance and terror and squalor, at once barbaric and civilized! He loved it and hated it, and sometimes feared it, he who had faced on foot many a wounded tiger.

He shrugged, reached into the desk for a box of Jaipur brass enamel and took from it a medal attached to a ribbon. The golden disk was encrusted with uncut rubies and emeralds.

"Girls," he called. "Come here a moment. Martha, that will be all," with a nod toward the door. "I never showed you this before."

"Goodness gracious!" cried Winnie, reaching out her hand.

"Why, it looks like a decoration, father," said Kathlyn. "What lovely stones! It would make a beautiful pendant."

"Vanity, vanity, all is vanity," said the colonel, smiling down into their charming faces. "Do you love your old dad?"

"Love you!" they exclaimed in unison, indignantly, too, since the question was an imputation of the fact.

"Would you be lonesome if I took the Big Trek?" whimsically.

"Father!"

"Dad!"

They pressed about him, as vines about an oak.

"Hang it, I swear that this shall be the last hunt. I'm rich. We'll get rid of all these brutes and spend the rest of the years seeing the show places. I'm a bit tired myself of jungle fodder. We'll go to Paris, and Berlin, and Rome, and Vienna. And you, Kit, shall go and tell Rodin that you've inherited the spirit of Gerome. And you, Winnie, shall make a stab at grand opera."

Winnie gurgled her delight, but her sister searched her father's eyes. She did not quite like the way he said those words. His voice lacked its usual heartiness and spontaneity.

"Where did you get this medal, father?" she asked.

[Illustration: Where did you get this medal?]

"That's what I started out to tell you."

"Were you afraid we might wish to wear it or have it made over?" laughed Winnie, who never went below the surface of things.

"No. The truth is, I had almost forgotten it. But the preparations for India recalled it to mind. It represents a royal title conferred on me by the king of Allaha. You have never been to India, Kit. Allaha is the name we hunters give that border kingdom. Some day England will gobble it up; only waiting for a good excuse."

"What big thing did you do?" demanded Kathlyn, her eyes still filled with scrutiny.

"What makes you think it was big?" jestingly.

"Because," she answered seriously, "you never do anything but big things. As the lion is among beasts, you are among men."

"Good lord!" The colonel reached embarrassedly for his pipe, lighted it, puffed a few minutes, then laid it down. "India is full of strange tongues and strange kingdoms and principalities. Most of them are dominated by the British Raj, some are only protected, while others do about as they please. This state"--touching the order--"does about as it did since the days of the first white rover who touched the shores of Hind. It is small, but that signifies nothing; for you can brew a mighty poison in a small pot. Well, I happened to save the old king's life."

"I knew it would be something like that," said Kathlyn. "Go on. Tell it all."

The colonel had recourse to his pipe again. He smoked on till the coal was dead. The girls waited patiently. They knew that his silence meant that he was only marshaling the events in their chronological order.

"The king was a kindly old chap, simple, yet shrewd, and with that slumbrous oriental way of accomplishing his ends, despite all obstacles. Underneath this apparent simplicity I discovered a grim sardonic humor. Trust the Oriental for always having that packed away under his bewildering diplomacy. He was all alone in the world. He was one of those rare eastern potentates who wasn't hampered by parasitical relatives. By George, the old boy could have given his kingdom, lock, stock and barrel, to the British government, and no one could say him nay. There was a good deal of rumor the last time I was there that when he died England would step in actually. The old boy gave me leave to come and go as I pleased, to hunt where and how I would. I had a mighty fine collection. There are tigers and leopards and bears and fat old pythons, forty feet long. Of course, it isn't the tiger country that Central India is, but the brutes you find are bigger. I have about sixty beasts there now, and that's mainly why I'm going back. Want to clean it up and ship 'em to Hamburg, where I've a large standing order. I'm going first to Ceylon, for some elephants."

The colonel knocked the ash from his pipe. "The old boy used to do some trapping himself, and whenever he'd catch a fine specimen he'd turn it over to me. He had a hunting lodge not far from my quarters. One day Ahmed came to me with a message saying that the king commanded my presence at the lodge, where his slaves had trapped a fine leopard. Yes, my dears, slaves. There is even a slave mart at the capital this day. A barbaric fairy-land, with its good genii and its bad djinns."

"_The Arabian Nights_," murmured Winnie, snuggling close to Kathlyn.

"The Oriental loves pomp," went on the colonel. "He can't give you a chupatty----"

"What's that?" asked Winnie.

"Something like hardtack. Well, he can't give you that without ceremonial. When I arrived at the lodge with Ahmed the old boy--he had the complexion of a prima donna--the old boy sat on his portable throne, glittering with orders. Standing beside him was a chap we called Umballa. He had been a street rat. A bit of impudence had caught the king's fancy, and he brought up the boy, clothed, fed him, and sent him away down to Umballa to school. When the boy returned he talked Umballa morning, noon and night, till the soldiers began to call him that, and from them it passed on to the natives, all of whom disliked the upstart. Hanged if I can recall his real name. He was ugly and handsome at the same time; suave, patient, courteous; yet somehow or other I sensed the real man below--the Tartar blood. I took a dislike to him, first off. It's the animal sense. You've got it, Kit. Behind the king sat the Council of Three--three wise old ducks I wouldn't trust with an old umbrella."

Winnie laughed.

"While we were salaaming and genuflecting and using grandiloquent phrases the bally leopard got loose, somehow. Maybe some one let him loose; I don't know. Anyhow, he made for the king, who was too thunderstruck to dodge. The rest of 'em took to their heels, you may lay odds on that. Now, I had an honest liking for the king. Seeing the brute make for him, I dashed forward. You see, at ceremonials you're not permitted to carry arms. It had to be with my hands. The leopard knocked the old boy flat and began to maul him. I kicked the brute in the face, swept the king's turban off his head and flung it about the head of the leopard. Somehow or other I got him down. Some of the frightened natives came up, and with the help of Ahmed we got the brute tied up securely. When the king came around he silently shook hands with me and smiled peculiarly at Umballa, who now came running up."

"And that's how you got those poor hands!" exclaimed Kathlyn, kissing the scars which stood out white against the tan.

"That's how," raising the hands and putting them on Kathlyn's head in a kind of benediction.

"Is that all?" asked Winnie breathlessly.

"Isn't that enough?" he retorted. "Well, what is it, Martha? Dinner? Well, if I haven't cheated you girls out of your tea!"

"Tea!" sniffed Winnie disdainfully. "Do you know, dad, you're awfully mean to Kit and me. If you'd take the trouble you could be more interesting than any book I ever read."

"He doesn't believe his stories would interest vain young ladies," said Kathlyn gravely.

Her father eyed her sharply. Of what was she thinking? In those calm unwavering eyes of hers he saw a question, and he feared in his soul she might voice it. He could evade the questions of the volatile Winnie, but there was no getting by Kathlyn with evasions. Frowning, he replaced the order in the box, which he put away in a drawer. It was all arrant nonsense, anyhow; nothing could possibly happen; if there did, he would feel certain that he no longer dwelt in a real workaday world. The idle whim of a sardonic old man; nothing more than that.

"Father, is the king dead?"

"Dead! What makes you ask that, Kit?"

"The past tense; you said he was, not is."

"Yes, he's dead, and the news came this morning. Hence, the yarn."

"Will there be any danger in returning?"

"My girl, whenever I pack my luggage there is danger. A cartridge may stick; a man may stumble; a man you rely on may fail you. As for that, there's always danger. It's the penalty of being alive."

On the way to the dining-room Kathlyn thought deeply. Why had her father asked them if they loved him? Why did he speak of the Big Trek? There was something more than this glittering medal, something more than this simple tale of bravery. What? Well, if he declined to take her into his confidence he must have good reason.

After dinner that night the colonel went the rounds, as was his habit nightly. By and by he returned to the bungalow, but did not enter. He filled his cutty and walked to and fro in the moonlight, with his head bent and his hands clasped behind his back. There was a restlessness in his stride not unlike that of the captive beasts in the cages near by. Occasionally he paused at the clink clink of the elephant irons or at the "whuff" as the uneasy pachyderm poured dust on his head.

Bah! It was madness. A parchment in Hindustani, given jestingly or ironically by a humorous old chap in orders and white linen and rhinoceros sandals. . . . A throne! Pshaw! It was bally nonsense. As if a white man could rule over a brown one by the choice of the latter! And yet, that man Umballa's face, when he had shown the king the portraits of his two lovely daughters! He would send Ahmed. Ahmed knew the business as well as he did. He would send his abdication to the council, giving them the right to choose his successor. He himself would remain home with the girls. Then he gazed up at the moon and smiled grimly.

"Hukum hai!" he murmured in Hindustani. "It is the orders. I've simply got to go. When I recall those rubies and emeralds and pearls. . . . Well, it's not cupidity for myself. It's for the girls. Besides; there's the call, the adventure. I've simply got to go. I can't escape it. I must be always on the go . . . since she died."

A few days later he stood again before the desk in the living-room. He was dressed for travel. He sat down and penned a note. From the box which contained the order he extracted a large envelope heavily sealed. This he balanced in his hand for a moment, frowned, laughed, and swore softly. He would abdicate, but at a snug profit. Why not? . . . He was an old fool. Into a still larger envelope he put the sealed envelope and his own note, then wrote upon it. He was blotting it as his daughters entered.

"Come here, my pretty cubs." He held out the envelope. "I want you, Kit, to open this on December thirty-first, at midnight. Girls like mysteries, and if you opened it any time but midnight it wouldn't be mysterious. Indeed, I shall probably have you both on the arms of my chair when you open it."

"Is it about the medal?" demanded Winnie.

"By George, Kit, the child is beginning to reason out things," he jested.

Winnie laughed, and so did Kathlyn, but she did so because occultly she felt that her father expected her to laugh. She was positively uncanny sometimes in her perspicacity.

"On December thirty-first, at midnight," she repeated. "All right, father. You must write to us at least once every fortnight."

"I'll cable from Singapore, from Ceylon, and write a long letter from Allaha. Come on. We must be off. Ahmed is waiting."

Some hours later the two girls saw the Pacific Mail steamer move with cold and insolent majesty out toward the Golden Gate. Kathlyn proved rather uncommunicative on the way home. December thirty-first kept running through her mind. It held a portent of evil. She knew something of the Orient, though she had never visited India. Had her father made an implacable enemy? Was he going into some unknown, unseen danger? December thirty-first, at midnight. Could she hold her curiosity in check that long?

Many of the days that followed dragged, many flew--the first for Kathlyn, the last for Winnie, who now had a beau, a young newspaper man from San Francisco. He came out regularly every Saturday and returned at night. Winnie became, if anything, more flighty than ever. Her father never had young men about. The men he generally gathered round his board were old hunters or sailors. Kathlyn watched this budding romance amusedly. The young man was very nice. But her thoughts were always and eternally with her father.

During the last week in December there arrived at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco an East Indian, tall, well formed, rather handsome. Except for his brown turban he would have passed unnoticed. For Hindus and Japanese and Chinamen and what-nots from the southern seas were every-day affairs. The brown turban, however, and an enormous emerald on one of his fingers, produced an effect quite gratifying to him. Vanity in the Oriental is never conspicuous for its absence. The reporters gave him scant attention, though, for this was at a time when the Gaikwar of Baroda was unknown.

The stranger, after two or three days of idling, casually asked the way to the wild animal farm of his old friend, Colonel Hare. It was easy enough to find. At the village inn he was treated with tolerant contempt. These brown fellows were forever coming and going, to and fro, from the colonel's.

At five o'clock in the afternoon of the thirty-first day of December, this East Indian peered cautiously into the French window of the Hare bungalow. The picture he saw there sent a thrill into his heart. She was as fair and beautiful as an houri of Sa'adi. She sat at a desk, holding a long white envelope in her hand. By and by she put it away, and he was particular to note the drawer in which she placed it. That the dark-haired girl at the tea tabouret was equally charming did not stir the watcher. Dark-haired women were plentiful in his native land. Yonder was the girl of the photograph, the likeness of which had fired his heart for many a day. With the patience of the Oriental he stood in the shadow and waited. Sooner or later they would leave the room, and sooner or later, with the deftness of his breed, he would enter. The leopard he had heard about was nowhere to be seen.

"Winnie," said Kathlyn, "I dread it."

Winnie set down the teacup; her eyes were brimming.

"What can it all mean? Not a line from father since Colombo, five months gone."

"Do you think----"

"No, no!" replied Kathlyn hastily. "Father sometimes forgets. He may be hunting miles from telegraph wires and railroads; it is only that he should forget us so long. Who knows? He may have dropped down into Borneo. He wanted some pythons, so I heard him say."

The elder sister did not care to instil into the heart of her charge the fear which was in her own.

"Who knows but there may be good news in the envelope? Dad's always doing something like that. New Year's!"

The collie, released from the kitchen, came bounding in. In his exuberance he knocked over a cloisonne vase. Both girls were glad to welcome this diversion. They rose simultaneously and gave chase. The dog headed for the outdoor studio, where they caught him and made believe they were punishing him.

Quietly the watcher entered through the window, alert and tense. He flew to the desk, found the envelope, steamed it open at the kettle, extracted the sealed envelope and Colonel Hare's note. He smiled as he read the letter and changed his plans completely. He would not play messenger; he would use a lure instead. With his ear strained for sounds, he wrote and substituted a note. This houri of Sa'adi would not pause to note the difference in writing; the vitalness of the subject would enchain her thoughts. It was all accomplished in the space of a few minutes. Smiling, he passed out into the fast settling twilight.

They were shipping a lion to San Francisco, and the roaring and confusion were all very satisfactory to the trespasser.

Midnight. From afar came the mellow notes of the bells in the ancient Spanish mission. The old year was dead, the new year was born, carrying with it the unchanging sound of happiness and misery, of promises made and promises broken, of good and evil.

"The packet!" cried Winnie.

Kathlyn recognized in that call that Winnie was only a child. All the responsibility lay upon her shoulders. She ripped the cover from the packet and read the note.

"Kathlyn: If not heard from I'm held captive in Allaha. Sealed document can save me. Bring it yourself to Allaha by first steamer.

"Father."

"I knew it," said Kathlyn calmly. The fear in her heart had, as the brown man had anticipated, blinded her to the fact that this was not her father's characteristic blunt scrawl.

"Oh, Kit, Kit!"

"Hush, Winnie! I must go, and go alone. Where's the evening paper? Ah, there it is. Let me see what boat leaves San Francisco to-morrow. The _Empress of India_, six a. m. I must make that. Now, you're your father's daughter, too, Winnie. You must stay behind and be brave and wait. I shall come back. I shall find father, if I have to rouse all India. Now, to pack."

When they arrived at the station the passenger train had just drawn out. For a while Kathlyn felt beaten. She would be compelled to wait another week. It was disheartening.

"Why not try the freight, then?" cried Winnie.

"You little angel! I never thought of that!"

But the crew would not hear of it. It was absolutely against the company's rules. Kathlyn could have cried.

"It isn't money, miss, it's the rules," said the conductor kindly. "I can't do it."

Kathlyn turned in despair toward the station. It was then she saw the boxed lion on the platform. She returned to the conductor of the freight.

"Why isn't that lion shipped?"

"We can't carry a lion without an attendant, miss. You ought to know that."

"Very well," replied Kathlyn. She smiled at the conductor confidently. "I'll travel as the lion's attendant. You certainly can not object to that."

"I guess you've got me," admitted the conductor. "But where the dickens will we put the cat? Every car is closed and locked, and there is not an empty."

"You can easily get the lion in the caboose. I'll see that he doesn't bother any one."

"Lions in the caboose is a new one on me. Well, you know your dad's business better than I do. Look alive, boys, and get that angora aboard. This is Miss Hare herself, and she'll take charge."

"Kit, Kit!"

"Winnie!"

"Oh, I'll be brave. I've just got to be. But I've never been left alone before."

The two girls embraced, and Winnie went sobbing back to the maid who waited on the platform.

What happened in that particular caboose has long since been newspaper history. The crew will go on telling it till it becomes as fabulous as one of Sindbad's yarns. How the lion escaped, how the fearless young woman captured it alone, unaided, may be found in the files of all metropolitan newspapers. Of the brown man who was found hiding in the coat closet of the caboose nothing was said. But the sight of him dismayed Kathlyn as no lion could have done. Any-dark skinned person was now a subtle menace. And when, later, she saw peering into the port-hole of her stateroom, dismay became terror.

Who was this man?

Chapter II

The Unwelcome Throne

Kathlyn sensed great loneliness when, about a month later, she arrived at the basin in Calcutta. A thousand or more natives were bathing ceremoniously in the ghat--men, women and children. It was early morn, and they were making solemn genuflections toward the bright sun. The water-front swarmed with brown bodies, and great wheeled carts drawn by sad-eyed bullocks threaded slowly through the maze. The many white turbans, stirring hither and thither, reminded her of a field of white poppies in a breeze. India! There it lay, ready for her eager feet. Always had she dreamed about it, and romanced over it, and sought it on the wings of her spirit. Yonder it lay, ancient as China, enchanting as storied Persia.

If only she were on pleasure bent! If only she knew some one in this great teeming city! She knew no one; she carried no letters of introduction, no letters of credit, nothing but the gold and notes the paymaster at the farm had hastily turned over to her. Only by constant application to maps and guide books had she managed to arrange the short cut to the far kingdom. She had been warned that it was a wild and turbulent place, out of the beaten path, beyond the reach of iron rails. Three long sea voyages: across the Pacific (which wasn't), down the bitter Yellow Sea, up the blue Bay of Bengal, with many a sea change and many a strange picture. What though her heart ached, it was impossible that her young eyes should not absorb all she saw and marvel over it. India!

The strange elusive Hindu had disappeared after Hongkong. That was a weight off her soul. She was now assured that her imagination had beguiled her. How should he know anything about her? What was more natural than that he should wish to hurry back to his native state? She was not the only one in a hurry. And there were Hindus of all castes on all three ships. By now she had almost forgot him.

There was one bright recollection to break the unending loneliness. Coming down from Hongkong to Singapore she had met at the captain's table a young man by the name of Bruce. He was a quiet, rather untalkative man, lean and sinewy, sun and wind bitten. Kathlyn had as yet had no sentimental affairs. Absorbed in her work, her father and the care of Winnie, such young men as she had met had scarcely interested her. She had only tolerated contempt for idlers, and these young men had belonged to that category. Bruce caught her interest in the very fact that he had but little to say and said that crisply and well. There was something authoritative in the shape of his mouth and the steadiness of his eye, though before her he never exercised this power. A dozen times she had been on the point of taking him into her confidence, but the irony of fate had always firmly closed her lips.

And now, waiting for the ship to warp into its pier, she realized what a fatal mistake her reticence had been. A friend of her father!

Bruce had left the Lloyder before dinner (at Singapore), and as Kathlyn's British-India coaster did not leave till morning she had elected to remain over night on the German boat.

As Bruce disappeared among the disembarking passengers and climbed into a rickshaw she turned to the captain, who stood beside her.

"Do you know Mr. Bruce?"

"Very well," said the German. "Didn't he tell you who he is? No? _Ach_! Why, Mr. Bruce is a great hunter. He has shot everything, written books, climbed the Himalayas. Only last year he brought me the sack of a musk deer, and that is the most dangerous of all sports. He collects animals."

Then Kathlyn knew. The name had been vaguely familiar, but the young man's reticence had given her no opportunity to dig into her recollection. Bruce! How many times her father had spoken of him! What a fool she had been! Bruce knew the country she was going to, perhaps as well as her father; and he could have simplified her journey to the last word. Well, what was done could not be recalled and done over.

"My father is a great hunter, too," she said simply, eying wistfully the road taken by Bruce into town.

"What? _Herr Gott_! Are you Colonel Hare's daughter?" exclaimed the captain.

"Yes."

He seized her by the shoulders. "Why did you not tell me? Why, Colonel Hare and I have smoked many a Burma cheroot together on these waters. _Herr Gott_! And you never said anything! What a woman for a man to marry!" he laughed. "You have sat at my table for five days, and only now I find that you are Hare's daughter! And you have a sister. _Ach_, yes! He was always taking out some photographs in the smoke-room and showing them to us old chaps."

Tears filled Kathlyn's eyes. In an Indian prison, out of the jurisdiction of the British Raj, and with her two small hands and woman's mind she must free him! Always the mysterious packet lay close to her heart, never for a moment was it beyond the reach of her hand. Her father's freedom!

The rusty metal sides of the ship scraped against the pier and the gangplank was lowered; and presently the tourists flocked down with variant emotions, to be besieged by fruit sellers, water carriers, cabmen, blind beggars, and maimed, naked little children with curious, insolent black eyes, women with infants straddling their hips, stolid Chinamen; a riot of color and a bewildering babel of tongues.

Kathlyn found a presentable carriage, and with her luggage pressing about her feet directed the driver to the Great Eastern Hotel.

Her white sola-topee (sun helmet) had scarcely disappeared in the crowd when the Hindu of the freight caboose emerged from the steerage, no longer in bedraggled linen trousers and ragged turban, but dressed like a native fop. He was in no hurry. Leisurely he followed Kathlyn to the hotel, then proceeded to the railway station. He had need no longer to watch and worry. There was nothing left now but to greet her upon her arrival, this golden houri from the verses of Sa'adi. The two weeks of durance vile among the low castes in the steerage should be amply repaid. In six days he would be beyond the hand of the meddling British Raj, in his own country. Sport! What was more beautiful to watch than cat play? He was the cat, the tiger cat. And what would the Colonel Sahib say when he felt the claws? Beautiful, beautiful, like a pattern woven in an Agra rug.

Kathlyn began her journey at once. Now that she was on land, moving toward her father, all her vigor returned. She felt strangely alive, exhilarated. She knew that she was not going to be afraid of anything hereafter. To enter the strange country without having her purpose known would be the main difficulty. Where was Ahmed all this time? Doubtless in a cell like his master.

Three days later she stood at the frontier, and her servant set about arguing and bargaining with the mahouts to engage elephants for the three days' march through jungles and mountainous divides to the capital. Three elephants were necessary. There were two howdah elephants and one pack elephant, who was always lagging behind. Through long aisles of magnificent trees they passed, across hot blistering deserts, dotted here and there by shrubs and stunted trees, in and out of gloomy defiles of flinty rock, over sluggish and swiftly flowing streams. The days were hot, but the nights were bitter cold. Sometimes a blue miasmic haze settled down, and the dry raspy hides of the elephants grew damp and they fretted at their chains.

Rao, the khidmutgar Kathlyn had hired in Calcutta, proved invaluable. Without him she would never have succeeded in entering the strange country; for these wild-eyed Mohammedan mahouts (and it is pertinent to note that only Mohammedans are ever made mahouts, it being against the tenets of Hinduism to kill or ride anything that kills) scowled at her evilly. They would have made way with her for an anna-piece. Rao was a Mohammedan himself, so they listened and obeyed.

All this the first day and night out. On the following morning a leopard crossed the trail. Kathlyn seized her rifle and broke its spine. The jabbering of the mahouts would have amused her at any other time.

"Good, Mem-sahib," whispered Rao. "You have put fear into their devils' hearts. Good! Chup!" he called. "Stop your noise."

After that they gave Kathlyn's dog tent plenty of room.

One day, in the heart of a natural clearing, she saw a tree. Its blossoms and leaves were as scarlet as the seeds of a pomegranate.

"Oh, how beautiful! What is it, Rao?"

"The flame of the jungle, Mem-sahib. It is good luck to see it on a journey."

About the tree darted gay parrakeets and fat green parrots. The green plumage of the birds against the brilliant scarlet of the tree was indescribably beautiful. Everywhere was life, everywhere was color. Once, as the natives seated themselves of the evening round their dung fire while Kathlyn busied with the tea over a wood fire, a tiger roared near by. The elephants trumpeted and the mahouts rose in terror. Kathlyn ran for her rifle, but the trumpeting of the elephants was sufficient to send the striped cat to other hunting-grounds. Wild ape and pig abounded, and occasionally a caha wriggled out of the sun into the brittle grasses. Very few beasts or reptiles are aggressive; it is only when they feel cornered that they turn. Even the black panther, the most savage of all cats, will rarely offer battle except when attacked.

Meantime the man who had followed Kathlyn arrived at the city.

Five hours later Kathlyn stepped out of her howdah, gave Rao the money for the mahouts and looked about. This was the gate to the capital. How many times had her father passed through it? Her jaw set and her eyes flashed. Whatever dangers beset her she was determined to meet them with courage and patience.

"Rao, you had better return to Calcutta. What I have to do must be done alone."

"Very good. But I shall remain here till the Mem-sahib returns." Rao salaamed.

"And if I should not return?" affected by this strange loyalty.

"Then I shall seek Bruce Sahib, who has a camp twenty miles east."

"Bruce? But he is in Singapore!"--a quickening of her pulses.

"Who can say where Bruce Sahib is? He is like a shadow, there to-day, here to-morrow. I have been his servant, Mem-sahib, and that is how I am to-day yours. I received a telegram to call at your hotel and apply to you for service. Very good. I shall wait. The mahout here will take you directly to Hare Sahib's bungalow. You will find your father's servants there, and all will be well. A week, then. If you do not send for me I seek Bruce Sahib, and we shall return with many. Some will speak English at the bungalow."

"Thank you, Rao. I shall not forget."

"Neither will Bruce Sahib," mysteriously. Rao salaamed.

Kathlyn got into the howdah and passed through the gates. Bruce Sahib, the quiet man whose hand had reached out over seas thus strangely to reassure her! A hardness came into her throat and she swallowed desperately. She was only twenty-four. Except for herself there might not be a white person in all this sprawling, rugged principality. From time to time the new mahout turned and smiled at her curiously, but she was too absorbed to note his attentions.

Durga Ram, called lightly Umballa, went directly to the palace, where he knew the Council of Three solemnly awaited his arrival. He dashed up the imposing flight of marble steps, exultant. He had fulfilled his promise; the golden daughter of Hare Sahib was but a few miles away. The soldiers, guarding the entrance, presented their arms respectfully; but instantly after Umballa disappeared the expression on their faces was not pleasing.

Umballa hurried along through the deep corridor, supported by exquisitely carved marble columns. Beauty in stone was in evidence everywhere and magnificent brass lamps hung from the ceiling. There was a shrine topped by an idol in black marble, incrusted with sapphires and turquoises. Durga Ram, who shall be called Umballa, nodded slightly as he passed it. Force of habit, since in his heart there was only one religion--self.

He stopped at a door guarded by a single soldier, who saluted but spat as soon as Umballa had passed into the throne room. The throne itself was vacant. The Council of Three rose at the approach of Umballa.

"She is here," he said haughtily.

The council salaamed.

Umballa stroked his chin as he gazed at the huge candles flickering at each side of the throne. He sniffed the Tibetan incense, and shrugged. It was written. "Go," he said, "to Hare Sahib's bungalow and await me. I shall be there presently. There is plenty of time. And remember our four heads depend upon the next few hours. The soldiers are on the verge of mutiny, and only success can pacify them."

He turned without ceremony and left them. With oriental philosophy they accepted the situation. They had sought to overturn him, and he held them in the hollow of his hand. During the weeks of his absence in America his spies had hung about them like bees about honey. They were the fowlers snared.

Umballa proceeded along the corridor to a flight of stairs leading beneath the palace floor. Here the soldiers were agreeable enough; they had reason to be. Umballa gave them new minted rupees for their work, many rupees. For they knew secrets. Before the door of a dungeon Umballa paused and listened. There was no sound. He returned upstairs and sought a chamber near the harem. This he entered, and stood with folded arms near the door.

"Ah, Colonel Sahib!"

"Umballa?" Colonel Hare, bearded, unkempt, tried to stand erect and face his enemy. "You black scoundrel!"

"Durga Ram, Sahib. Words, words; the patter of rain on stone roofs. Our king lives no more, alas!"

"You lie!"

"He is dead. Dying, he left you this throne--you, a white man, knowing it was a legacy of terror and confusion. You knew. Why did you return? Ah, pearls and sapphires and emeralds! What? I offer you this throne upon conditions."

"And those conditions I have refused."

"You have, yes, but now----" Umballa smiled. Then he suddenly blazed forth: "Think you a white man shall sit upon this throne while I live? It is mine. I was his heir."

"Then why didn't you save him from the leopard? I'll tell you why. You expected to inherit on the spot, and I spoiled the game. Is that not true?"

"And what if I admit it?" truculently.

"Umballa, or Durga Ram, if you wish, listen. Take the throne. What's to hinder you? You want it. Take it and let me begone."

"Yes, I want it; and by all the gods of Hind I'll have it--but safely. Ah! It would be fine to proclaim myself when mutiny and rebellion stalk about. Am I a pig to play a game like that? Tch! Tch!" He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth in derision. "No; I need a buckler till all this roily water subsides and clears."

"And then, some fine night, Hare Sahib's throat? I am not afraid of death, Umballa. I have faced it too many times. Make an end of me at once or leave me to rot here, my answer will always be the same. I will not become a dishonorable tool. You have offered me freedom and jewels. No; I repeat, I will free all slaves, abolish the harems, the buying and selling of flesh; I will make a man of every poor devil of a coolie who carries stones from your quarries."

Umballa laughed. "Then remain here like a dog while I put your golden daughter on the throne and become what the British Raj calls prince consort. She'll rebel, I know; but I have a way." He stepped outside and closed the door.

"Umballa?"

"Well?"

"Kit, my daughter? Good God, what is she doing here when I warned her?" Hare tugged furiously at his chains. "Durga Ram, you have beaten me. State your terms and I will accept them to the letter. . . . Kit, my beautiful Kit, in this hellhole!"

"Ah, but I don't want you to accept now. I was merely amusing myself." The door shut and the bolt shot home.

Hare fell upon his knees. "My head, my head! Dear God, save me my reason!"

* * * * * *

The moment Kathlyn arrived at the animal cages of her father she called for Ahmed.

"My father?"

"Ah, Mem-sahib, they say he is dead. I know not. One night--the second after we arrived--he was summoned to the palace. He never came back."

"They have killed him!"

"Perhaps. They watch me, too; but I act simple. We wait and see."

Kathlyn rushed across the ground intervening between the animal cages and the bungalow. There was no one in sight. She ran up the steps . . . to be greeted inside by the suave Umballa.

"You?" her hand flying to her bosom.

"I, Miss Hare." He salaamed, with a sweeping gesture of his hands.

Sadly the wretch told her the tale; the will of the king, his death and the subsequent death of her father in his, Durga Ram's, arms. Yonder urn contained his ashes. For the first time in her young life Kathlyn fainted. She had been living on her nerves for weeks, and at the sight of that urn something snapped. Daintily Umballa plucked forth the packet and waited. At length she opened her eyes.

"You are a queen, Miss Hare."

"You are mad!"

"Nay; it was the madness of the king. But mad kings often make laws which must be obeyed. You will accuse me of perfidy when I tell you all. The note which brought you here was written by me and substituted for this."

Duly Kathlyn read:

"Kathlyn--if not heard from, I'm held captive in Allaha. The royal title given to me by the king made me and my descendants direct heirs to the throne. Do not come to Allaha yourself. Destroy sealed document herewith.

"Father."

The Council of Three entered noiselessly from the adjoining room. At the four dark, inscrutable faces the bewildered girl stared, her limbs numb with terror. Gravely the council told her she must come with them to the palace.

"It is impossible!" she murmured. "You are all mad. I am a white woman. I can not rule over an alien race whose tongue I can not speak, whose habits I know nothing of. It is impossible. Since my father is dead, I must return to my home."

"No," said Umballa.

"I refuse to stir!" She was all afire of a sudden: the base trickery which had brought her here! She was very lovely to the picturesque savage who stood at her elbow.

As he looked down at her, in his troubled soul Umballa knew that it was not the throne so much as it was this beautiful bird of paradise which he wished to cage.

"Be brave," he said, "like your father. I do not wish to use force, but you must go. It is useless to struggle. Come."

She hung back for a moment; then, realizing her utter helplessness, she signified that she was ready to go. She needed time to collect her stunned and disordered thoughts.

Before going to the palace they conducted her to the royal crypt. The urn containing her father's ashes was deposited in a niche. Many other niches contained urns, and Umballa explained to her that these held the ashes of many rulers. Tears welled into Kathlyn's eyes, but they were of a hysterical character.

"A good sign," mused Umballa, who thought he knew something of women, like all men beset with vanity. Oddly enough, he had forgot all about the incident of the lion in the freight caboose. All women are felines to a certain extent. This golden-haired woman had claws, and the day was coming when he would feel them drag over his heart.

From the crypt they proceeded to the palace zenana (harem), which surrounded a court of exceeding beauty. Three ladies of the harem were sitting in the portico, attended by slaves. All were curiously interested at the sight of a woman with white skin, tinted like the lotus. Umballa came to a halt before a latticed door.

"Here your majesty must remain till the day of your coronation."

"How did my father die?"

"He was assassinated on the palace steps by a Mohammedan fanatic. As I told you, he died in my arms."

"His note signified that he feared imprisonment. How came he on the palace steps?"

"He was not a prisoner. He came and went as he pleased in the city." He bowed and left her.

Alone in her chamber, the dullness of her mind diminished and finally cleared away like a fog in a wind. Her dear, kind, blue-eyed father was dead, and she was virtually a prisoner, and Winnie was all alone. A queen! They were mad, or she was in the midst of some hideous nightmare. Mad, mad, mad! She began to laugh, and it was not a pleasant sound. A queen, she, Kathlyn Hare! Her father was dead, she was a queen, and Winnie was all alone. A gale of laughter brought to the marble lattice many wondering eyes. The white cockatoo shrilled his displeasure. Those outside the lattice saw this marvelous white-skinned woman, with hair like the gold threads in Chinese brocades, suddenly throw herself upon a pile of cushions, and they saw her shoulders rock and heave, but heard no sound of wailing.

After a while she fell asleep, a kind of dreamless stupor. When she awoke it was twilight in the court. The doves were cooing and fluttering in the cornices and the cockatoo was preening his lemon colored topknot. At first Kathlyn had not the least idea where she was, but the light beyond the lattice, the flitting shadows, and the tinkle of a stringed instrument assured her that she was awake, terribly awake.

She sat perfectly still, slowly gathering her strength, mental and physical. She was not her father's daughter for nothing. She was to fight in some strange warfare, instinctively she felt this; but from what direction, in what shape, only God knew. Yet she must prepare for it; that was the vital thing; she must marshal her forces, feminine and only defensive, and watch.

Rao! Her hands clutched the pillows. In five days' time he would be off to seek John Bruce; and there would be white men there, and they would come to her though a thousand legions of these brown men stood between. She would play for time; she must pretend docility and meet quiet guile with guile. She could get no word to her faithful khidmutgar; none here, even if open to bribery, could be made to understand. Only Umballa and the council spoke English or understood it. She had ten days' grace; within that time she hoped to find some loophole.

Slave girls entered noiselessly. The hanging lamps were lighted. A tabouret was set before her. There were quail and roast kid, fruits and fragrant tea. She was not hungry, but she ate.

Within a dozen yards of her sat her father, stolidly munching his chupatties, because he knew that now he must live.

* * * * * *

One of the chief characteristics of the East Indian is extravagance. To outvie one another in celebrations of births, weddings, deaths and coronations they beggar themselves. In this the Oriental and the Occidental have one thing in common. This principality was small, but there was a deal of wealth in it because of its emerald mines and turquoise pits. The durbar brought out princes and princelings from east, south and west, and even three or four wild-eyed ameers from the north. The British government at Calcutta heard vaguely about this fete, but gave it scant attention for the simple fact that it had not been invited to attend. Still, it watched the performance covertly. Usually durbars took months of preparation; this one had been called into existence within ten days.

Elephants and camels and bullocks; palanquins, gharries, tongas; cloth of gold and cloth of jewels; color, confusion, maddening noises, and more color. There was very little semblance of order; a rajah preceded a princeling, and so on down. The wailing of reeds and the muttering of kettle drums; music, languorous, haunting, elusive, low minor chords seemingly struck at random, intermingling a droning chant; a thousand streams of incense, crossing and recrossing; and fireworks at night, fireworks which had come all the way across China by caravan--these things Kathlyn saw and heard from her lattice.

The populace viewed all these manifestations quietly. They were perfectly willing to wait. If this white queen proved kind they would go about their affairs, leaving her in peace; but they were determined that she should be no puppet in the hands of Umballa, whom they hated for his cruelty and money leeching ways. Oh, everything was ripe in the state for murder and loot--and the reaching, holding hand of the British Raj.

As Kathlyn advanced to the canopied dais upon which she was to be crowned, a hand filled with flowers reached out. She turned to see Ahmed.

"Bruce Sahib," she whispered.

Ahmed salaamed deeply as she passed on. The impression that she was dreaming again seized her. This could not possibly be real. Her feet did not seem to touch the carpets; she did not seem to breathe; she floated. It was only when the crown was placed upon her head that she realized the reality and the finality of the proceedings.

[Illustration: Ahmed salaamed deeply.]

"Be wise," whispered Umballa coldly. "If you take off that crown now, neither your gods nor mine could save you from that mob down yonder. Be advised. Rise!"

She obeyed. She wanted to cry out to that sea of bronze faces: "People I do not want to be your queen. Let me go!" They would not understand. Where was Rao? Where was Bruce? What of the hope that now flickered and died in her heart, like a guttering candle light? There was a small dagger hidden in the folds of her white robe; she could always use that. She heard Umballa speaking in the native tongue. A great shouting followed. The populace surged.

"What have you said to them?" she demanded.

"That her majesty had chosen Durga Ram to be her consort and to him now forthwith she will be wed." He salaamed.

So the mask was off! "Marry you? Oh, no! Mate with you, a black?"

"Black?" he cried, as if a whiplash had struck him across the face.

"Yes, black of skin and black of heart. I have submitted to the farce of this durbar, but that is as far as my patience will go. God will guard me."

"God?" mockingly.

"Yes, my God and the God of my fathers!"

To the mutable faces below she looked the Queen at that instant. They saw the attitude, but could not interpret it.

"So be it. There are other things besides marriage."

"Yes," she replied proudly; "there is death."

Chapter III

The Two Ordeals

Umballa was not a coward; he was only ruthless and predatory after the manner of his kind. A thrill of admiration tingled his spine. The women of his race were chattels, lazy and inert, without fire, merely drudges or playthings. Here was one worth conquering, a white flame to be controlled. To bend her without breaking her, that must be his method of procedure. The skin under her chin was as white as the heart of a mangosteen, and the longing to sweep her into his arms was almost irresistible.

A high priest spoke to Kathlyn.

"What does he say?" she asked.

"That you must marry me."

"Tell him that I refuse!"

Umballa shrugged and repeated her words. Here the Council of Three interposed, warning Kathlyn that she must submit to the law as it read. There was no appeal from it.

"Then I shall appeal to the British Raj."

"How?" asked Umballa urbanely.

Swiftly she stepped to the front of the platform and extended her arms. It was an appeal. She pointed to Umballa and shook her head. Her arms went out again. A low murmur rippled over the pressing crowd; it grew in volume; and a frown of doubt flitted over Umballa's brow. The soldiers were swaying restlessly. Kathlyn saw this sign and was quick to seize upon its possibilities. She renewed her gesture toward them. It seemed that she must burst forth in their maddening tongue: "I appeal to the chivalry of Allaha! . . . Soldiers, you now wear my uniform! Liberate me!" But her tongue was mute; yet her eyes, her face, her arms spoke eloquently enough to the turbulent soldiers. Besides, they welcomed the opportunity to show the populace how strong they were and how little they feared Umballa. At a nod from their leader they came romping up the steps to this dais and surrounded Kathlyn. A roar came from the populace; an elephant trumpeted; the pariah dogs barked.

Umballa stepped back, his hand on his jeweled sword. He was quite unprepared for any such flagrant mutiny--mutiny from his angle of vision, though in law the troopers had only responded to the desire of their queen. He turned questioningly to the council and the priests. He himself could move no further. His confreres appreciated the danger in which their power stood. They announced that it was decreed to give the queen a respite of seven days in which to yield. It would at least hold the bold troopers on the leash till they could be brought to see the affair in its true light by the way of largess in rupees. Umballa consented because he was at the bottom of the sack. A priest read from a scroll the law, explaining that no woman might rule unmarried. Because the young queen was not conversant with the laws of the state she would be given seven days. Thus the durbar ended.

With a diplomacy which would have graced a better man Umballa directed the troopers to escort Kathlyn to her chamber in the zenana. He had in mind seven days. Many things could be accomplished in that space of time.

"For the present," he said, smiling at Kathlyn, "the God of your fathers has proven strongest. But to-morrow! . . . Ah, to-morrow! There will be seven days. Think, then, deeply and wisely. Your khidmutgar Rao is a prisoner. It will be weeks ere your presence is known here. You are helpless as a bird in the net. Struggle if you will; you will only bruise your wings. The British Raj? The British Raj does not want a great border war, and I can bring down ten thousand wild hillmen outlaws between whom and the British Raj there is a blood feud; ten thousand from a land where there is never peace, only truce. In seven days. Salaam, heaven born!"

She returned his ironical gaze calmly over the shoulder of a trooper.

"Wait," she said. "I wish you to understand the enormity of your crime."

"Crime?" with elevated eyebrows.

"Yes. You have abducted me."

"No. You came of your own free will."

"The white men of my race will not pause to argue over any such subtlety. Marry you? I do not like your color."

A dull red settled under Umballa's skin.

"I merely wish to warn you," she went on, "that my blood will be upon your head. And woe to you if it is. There are white men who will not await the coming of the British Raj."

"Ah, yes; some brave hardy American; Bruce Sahib, for instance. Alas, he is in the Straits Settlements! Seven days."

"I am not afraid to die."

"But there are many kinds of death," and with this sinister reflection he stepped aside.

The multitude, seeing Kathlyn coming down from the dais, still surrounded by her cordon of troopers, began reluctantly to disperse. "Bread and the circus!"--the mobs will cry it down the ages; they will always pause to witness bloodshed, from a safe distance, you may be sure. There was a deal of rioting in the bazaars that night, and many a measure of bhang and toddy kept the fires burning. Oriental politics is like the winds of the equinox: it blows from all directions.

The natives were taxed upon every conceivable subject, not dissimilar to the old days in Urdu, where a man paid so much for the privilege of squeezing the man under him. Mutiny was afoot, rebellion, but it had not yet found a head. The natives wanted a change, something to gossip about during the hot lazy afternoons, over their hookas and coffee. To them reform meant change only, not the alleviation of some of their heavy burdens. The talk of freeing slaves was but talk; slaves were lucrative investments; a man would be a fool to free them. An old man, with a skin white like this new queen's and hair like spun wool, dressed in a long black cloak and a broad brimmed hat, had started the agitation of liberating the slaves. More than that, he carried no idol of his God, never bathed in the ghats, or took flowers to the temples, and seemed always silently communing with the simple iron cross suspended from his neck. But he had died during the last visitation of the plague.

They had wearied of their tolerant king, who had died mysteriously; they were now wearied of the council and Umballa; in other words, they knew not what they wanted, being People.

Who was this fair-skinned woman who stood so straight before Umballa's eye? Whence had she come? To be ruled by a woman who appeared to be tongue-tied! Well, there were worse things than a woman who could not talk. Thus they gabbled in the bazaars, round braziers and dung fires. And some talked of the murder. The proud Ramabai had been haled to prison; his banker's gold had not saved him. Oh, this street rat Umballa generally got what he wanted. Ramabai's wife was one of the beauties of Hind.

Through the narrow, evil smelling streets of the bazaars a man hurried that night, glancing behind frequently to see if by any mischance some one followed. He stopped at the house of Lal Singh, the shoemaker, whom he found drowsing over his water pipe.

"Is it well?" said the newcomer, intoning.

"It is well," answered Lal Singh, dropping the mouthpiece of his pipe. He had spoken mechanically. When he saw who his visitor was his eyes brightened. "Ahmed?"

"Hush!" with a gesture toward the ceiling.

"She is out merrymaking, like the rest of her kind. The old saying: if a man waits, the woman comes to him. I am alone. There is news?"

"There is a journey. Across Hind to Simla."

"The hour has arrived?"

"At least the excuse. Give these to one in authority with the British Raj, whose bread we eat." Ahmed slid across the table a very small scroll. "The Mem-sahib is my master's daughter. She must be spirited away to safety."

"Ah!" Lal Singh rubbed his fat hands. "So the time nears when we shall wring the vulture's neck? Ai, it is good! Umballa, the toad, who swells and swells as the days go by. Siva has guarded him well. The king picks him out of the gutter for a pretty bit of impudence, sends him afar to Umballa, where he learns to speak English, where he learns to wear shoes that button and stiff linen bands round the neck. He has gone on, gone on! The higher up, the harder the fall."

"The cellar?"

"There are pistols and guns and ammunition and strange little wires by which I make magic fires."

"Batteries?"

"One never knows what may be needed. You have the key?"

"Yes."

"Hare Sahib's daughter. And Hare Sahib?" with twinkling eyes.

"In some dungeon, mayhap. There all avenues seemed closed up."

"Umballa needs money," said Lal Singh, thoughtfully. "But he will not find it," in afterthought.

"To-morrow?"

"At dawn."

These two men were spiders in that great web of secret service that the British Raj weaves up and down and across Hind, to Persia and Afghanistan, to the borders of the Bear.

Even as Lal Singh picked up his mouthpiece again and Ahmed sallied forth into the bazaars Umballa had brought to him in the armory that company of soldiers who had shown such open mutiny, not against the state but against him.

Gravely he questioned the captain.

"Pay our wages, then, heaven born," said the captain, with veiled insolence. "Pay us, for we have seen not so much as betel money since the last big rains."

"Money," mused Umballa, marking down this gallant captain for death when the time came.

"Ai, money; bright rupees, or, better still, yellow British gold. Pay us!"

"Let us be frank with each other," said Umballa, smiling to cover the fire in his eyes.

"That is what we desire," replied the captain with a knowing look at his silent troopers.

"I must buy you."

The captain salaamed.

"But after I have bought you?" ironically.

"Heaven born; our blood is yours to spill where and when you will."

From under the teak table Umballa drew forth two heavy bags of silver coin. These he emptied upon the table dramatically; white shining metal, sparkling as the candle flames wavered. Umballa arranged the coin in stacks, one of them triple in size.

"Yours, Captain," said Umballa, indicating the large stack.

The captain pocketed it, and one by one his troopers passed and helped themselves and fell back along the wall in military alignment, bright-eyed and watchful.

"Thanks, heaven born!"

The captain and his troopers filed out. Umballa fingered the empty bags, his brow wrinkled. Cut off a cobra's head and it could only wriggle until sunset. Umballa gave the vanishing captain two weeks. Then he should vanish indeed.

The next morning while the council and Umballa were in session relative as to what should be done with Kathlyn in the event of her refusal to bend, two soldiers entered, bringing with them a beautiful native young woman, one Pundita, wife of Ramabai, found in murder.

Umballa wiped his betel stained lips and salaamed mockingly. Not so long ago he had been attentive to this young woman--after her marriage. She had sent him about his business with burning ears and a hot cheek, made so by the contact of her strong young hand. Revenge, great or small, was always sweet to Umballa.

To the slave girl who attended Pundita he said: "Go summon the queen. It is for her to decide what shall be done with this woman."

Through the veil Pundita's black eyes sparkled with hatred.

When Kathlyn came in it was at once explained to her that the woman's husband had been taken for murder; by law his wife became the queen's property, to dispose of as she willed. The veil was plucked from Pundita's face. She was ordered to salaam in submission to her queen. Pundita salaamed, but stoutly refused to kneel. They proceeded to force her roughly, when Kathlyn intervened.

"Tell her she is free," said Kathlyn.

"Free?" came from the amazed Pundita's lips.

"You speak English?" cried Kathlyn excitedly.

"Yea, Majesty."

Kathlyn could have embraced her for the very joy of the knowledge. A woman who could talk English, who could understand, who perhaps could help! Yes, yes; the God of her fathers was good.

Umballa smiled. All this was exactly what he had reason to expect. Seven days of authority; it would amuse him to watch her.

"Tell me your story," urged Kathlyn kindly. "Be not afraid of these men. I shall make you my lady in waiting . . . so long as I am queen," with a searching glance at Umballa's face. She learned nothing from the half smile there.

Pundita's narrative was rather long but not uninteresting. She had learned English from the old white priest who had died during the last plague. She was of high caste; and far back in the days of the Great Mogul in Delhi her forebears had ruled here; but strife and rebellion had driven them forth. In order that her immediate forebear might return to their native state and dwell in peace they had waived all possible rights of accession. They had found her husband standing over a dead man in the bazaars. He was innocent.

Umballa smoothed his chin. Pundita had not told her queen how he, Umballa, had made the accusation, after having been refused money by Ramabai. He secretly admired the diplomacy of the young woman. He did not at this moment care to push his enmity too far. As a matter of fact, he no longer cared about her; at least, not since his arrival at the Hare wild animal farm in California.

"Where is this man Ramabai confined?" demanded Kathlyn.

"In the murderers' pit in the elephant arena."

"Send and bring him here. I am certain that he is innocent."

So they brought in Ramabai in chains. Behind him came a Nautch girl, at whom Umballa gazed puzzledly. What part had she in this affair? He soon found out.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I am Lalla Ghori, and I live over the shoemaker, Lal Singh, in the Kashmir Gate bazaar. I dance."

"And why are you here?"

"I saw the murder. Ramabai is innocent. He came upon the scene only after the murderer had fled. They were fighting about me," naively. "I was afraid to tell till now."

"Knock off those chains," said Kathlyn. Of Pundita she asked: "Does he, too, speak English?"

"Yes, heaven born."

"Then for the present he shall become my bodyguard. You shall both remain here in the palace."

"Ah, Your Majesty!" interposed Umballa. Pundita he did not mind, but he objected to Ramabai, secretly knowing him to be a revolutionist, extremely popular with the people and the near-by ryots (farmers), to whom he loaned money upon reasonable terms.

"If I am queen, I will it," said Kathlyn firmly. "If I am only a prisoner, end the farce at once."

"Your majesty's word is law," and Umballa bowed, hiding as best he could his irritation.

The next afternoon he began to enact the subtle plans he had formed regarding Kathlyn. He brought her certain documents and petitions to sign and went over them carefully with her. Once, as she returned a document, he caught her hand and kissed it. She withdrew it roughly, flaming with anger. He spread his hands apologetically. He was on fire for her, but he possessed admirable control. He had the right to come and go; as regent he could enter the zenana without being accompanied by the council. But, thereafter, when he arrived with the day's business she contrived to have Pundita near and Ramabai within call. On the sixth day he cast all discretion to the winds and seized her violently in his arms. And, though she defended her lips, her cheeks and neck were defiled. She stepped back; the hidden dagger flashed.

"A step nearer," she cried, low voiced, "and I will strike."

Umballa recoiled. This was no longer Sa'adi's houri but the young woman who had mastered the lion in the railway train. Rage supplanted the passion in his heart. Since she would not bend, she should break. As her arm sank he sprang forward like a cat and seized her wrist. He was not gentle. The dagger tinkled as it struck the marble floor. He stooped for it.

"Since you will not bend, break!" he said, and left the chamber, cold with fury.

Kathlyn sank weakly upon her pillows as Pundita ran to her side.

"What shall I do, Pundita?"

"God knows, Mem-sahib!"

"Are you a Christian?"

"Yes."

And so they comforted each other.

[Illustration: So they comforted each other.]

There was a garden in the palace grounds, lovely indeed. A fountain tinkled and fat carp swam about in the fluted marble basin. There were trellises of flowers, too. Persian roses, despite the fact that it was still winter. It was called the garden of brides.

Kathlyn, attended by Pundita, awaited there the coming of Umballa and the council. Her heart ached with bitterness and she could not think clearly. The impression that all this was some dreadful nightmare recurred to her vividly. What terrors awaited her she knew not nor could conceive. Marry that smiling demon?--for something occult told her that he was a demon. No; she was ready to die . . . And but a little while ago she had been working happily in the outdoor studio; the pet leopard sprawled at her feet; from the bungalow she heard the nightingale voice of Winnie, soaring in some aria of Verdi's; her father was dozing on the veranda. Out of that, into this! It was incredible. From time to time she brushed her forehead, bewildered.

In this mood, bordering on the hysterical (which is sometimes but a step to supreme courage), Durga Ram, so-called Umballa, and the council found her. The face of the former was cold, his eyes steady and expressionless.

"Has your majesty decided?" asked the eldest of the council.

"Yes," quietly.

"And your decision is?"

"No, absolutely and finally. There is no reason why I should obey any of your laws; but there is a good reason why all of you shall some day be punished for this outrage."

"Outrage! To be made queen of Allaha?" The spokesman for the council stamped his foot in wrath.

"Think!" said Umballa.

"I have thought. Let us have no more of this cat-and-mouse play. I refuse to marry you. I'd much prefer any beggar in the street. There is nothing more to be said."

"There are worse things than marriage."

"What manner of indignities have you arranged for me?" Her voice was firm, but the veins in her throat beat so hardily that they stifled her.

Said the spokesman of the council: "We have found a precedent. We find that one hundred and ninety years ago a like case confused the council of that day. They finally agreed that she must submit to two ordeals with wild beasts of the jungle. If she survived she was to be permitted to rule without hindrance. It would be a matter for the gods to decide."

"Are you really human beings?" asked Kathlyn, her lips dry. "Can you possibly commit such a dreadful crime against one who has never harmed you, who asks for nothing but the freedom to leave this country?"

Pundita secretly caught Kathlyn's hand and pressed it.

"Once more!" said Umballa, his compassion touched for the first time. But he had gone too far; for the safety of his own head he must go on.

"I am ready!"

The four men salaamed gravely. They turned, the flowing yellow robes of the council fluttering in the wind, the sun lighting with green and red fires the hilt of Umballa's sword. Not one of them but would have emptied his private coffers to undo what he had done. It was too late. Already a priest had announced the ordeals to the swarming populace. You feed a tiger to pacify him; you give a populace a spectacle.

That night Umballa did not rest particularly well. But he became determined upon one thing: no actual harm should befall Kathlyn. He would have a marksman hidden near by in both ordeals. What a woman! She was a queen, and he knew that he would go through all the hells of Hind to call her his. Long ere this he would have looted the treasure chests and swept her up on his racing elephant had he dared. Sa'adi's houri!

A thousand times he heard it through the night:

"I am ready!"

Chapter IV

How Time Moves

Meantime Lal Singh was hurrying on a racing camel toward the railway, toward Simla, more than a thousand miles away. He was happy. Here was the long delayed opportunity for the hand of the British Raj: a captive white woman. What better excuse was needed? There would be armed Sikhs and Gurhas and Tommies near Rawal Pindi. Ai! how time moved, how fate twisted! How the finest built castle in schemes came clattering down! At the very moment when he had secretly worked upon the king to throw himself into the protecting arms of the British Raj--assassinated! The council? Umballa? Some outsider, made mad by oppression? The egg of Brahma was strangely hatched--this curious old world!

Ahmed remained hidden in the bazaars, to await the ordeals. Nothing should harm his mistress; he was ready now and at all times to lay down his life for her; in this the British Raj came second. He had sent a courier to Bruce Sahib's bungalow, but the man had returned to report that it was still unoccupied.

And while he bit his nails in futile wrath and smoked till his tongue grew bitter, some miles away there was much confusion in the jungle by the water. Tents were being set up, native bearers and coolies were running to and fro, building fires, carrying water, hobbling the pack elephants. Wandering in and out of this animated scene was a young man, clean shaven, deeply tanned, with blue eyes which were direct, small pupiled, yet kindly. Presently he called to one of the head men.

"Ali, you might send three or four men on to the bungalow to clean up things. We shall make it tomorrow. It's but two hours' ride, but there's no hurry; and besides there's a herd of elephants behind us somewhere. They've come up far for this time of year."

"Any news worth while?"

"Yes, Sahib."

Ali made a gesture; it signified a great many things.

"Bruce Sahib will not believe."

"Believe what?" said Bruce, emptying his pipe against his heel.

"There is a white queen in the city."

"What? What bally nonsense is this?"

"It is only what I've been told, Sahib. Hare Sahib is dead."

Bruce let his pipe slip through his fingers. "Hare? Good lord!"

"Yes, Sahib. But that is not all. It seems the king went mad after we went to Africa. You remember how Hare Sahib saved him from the leopard? Well, he made Hare Sahib his heir. He had that right; the law of the childless king has always read so in Allaha. The white queen is Hare Sahib's daughter."

Bruce leaned against a tent pole. "Am I dreaming or are you?" he gasped.

"It is what they tell me, Sahib. I know it not as a fact."

"The king dead, Hare dead, and his daughter on the throne! How did she get here? And what the devil is a chap to do?" Bruce stooped and recovered his pipe and swore softly. "Ali, if this is true, then it's some devil work; and I'll wager my shooting eye that that sleek scoundrel Umballa, as they call him, is at the bottom of it. A white woman, good old Hare's daughter. I'll look into this. It's the nineteenth century, Ali, and white women are not made rulers over the brown, not of their own free will. Find out all you can and report to me," and Bruce dismissed his servant and fell to pacing before his tent.

The native who had spread this astounding news in Bruce's camp was already hastening back to the city, some fourteen miles away. He had been a bheestee (water carrier) to the house of Ramabai up to the young banker's incarceration. To him, then, he carried the news that a white hunter had arrived outside the city--"Bruce Sahib has returned!"

Ramabai lost no time in taking this news to Kathlyn.

"Ramabai, I have saved your life; save mine. Go at once to him and tell him that I am a prisoner but am called a queen; tell him I am Colonel Hare's daughter, she who traveled with him on the same ship from Hongkong to Singapore. Go! Tell him all, the death of my father and Umballa's treachery. Hasten!"

Bruce was eating his simple evening meal when Ramabai arrived.

"Bruce Sahib?"

"Yes. Your face is familiar."

"You have been twice to my bank. I am Ramabai."

"I remember. But what are you doing here?"

"I have come for aid, Sahib, aid for a young woman, white like yourself."

"Then it is true? Go ahead and let me have all the facts. She is Hare Sahib's daughter; Ali told me that. Precious rigmarole of some sort. The facts!"

"She is also the young lady who traveled in the same boat from Hongkong to Singapore." Ramabai paused to see the effect of this information.

Bruce lowered his fork slowly. The din about him dwindled away into nothing. He was again leaning over the rail, watching the phosphorescence trail away, a shoulder barely touching his: one of the few women who had ever stirred him after the first glance. In God's name, why hadn't she said something? Why hadn't she told him she was Colonel Hare's daughter? How was he to know? (For Hare, queerly enough, had never shown his young friend the photographs of his daughters.) Perhaps he had been at fault; he, too, had scarcely stirred from his shell. And where was that scoundrel Rao?

"I shall enter the city as soon as I can settle my bungalow. This rather knocks me out."

"No, Sahib; don't wait: come back with me!" Quickly he outlined the desperate straits in which Kathlyn stood. "To-morrow may be too late."

"Ali!" called Bruce, rising.

"Yes, Sahib."

"The Pasha. No questions. Give him water. Use the hunting howdah. Both guns and plenty of cartridges. That's all." The young man ran into his sleeping tent and presently came forth with a pair of ugly looking Colts; for this was before the days of the convenient automatics. "All aboard, Ramabai!" Bruce laughed; the sound was as hard and metallic as the click of the cartridge belt as he slung it round his waist; but it was music to Ramabai's ears. "Trust me. There shan't be any ordeals; not so you would notice it. . . . Great God! A white woman, one of my kind! . . . All right, Ali; quick work. Thanks!"

"There will be many pitfalls, Sahib," said Ramabai.

"Indeed!"

"I have some influence with the populace, but Umballa has the army, paid for. The priests and the council are back of him. And, after all, the priests are most to be feared. They can always sway the people through fear."

Bruce laughed again. "Either Kathlyn Hare will be free to-morrow or Umballa and the council meat for the jackals . . . or I shall be," he added, in afterthought. "Now, do not speak till I speak. I wish to think, for I've got to act quickly; I can't make any mistakes when I get there."

Far away a brown figure in clout and drab turban watched the young man. When he saw the elephant with the hunting howdah he knew that he had the information for which his master had detailed him to follow, night and day, the young banker Ramabai. The white hunter was coming hot-foot to the city. He turned and ran. Running was his business; he was as tireless as a camel and could run twenty and thirty miles at a stretch. The soles of his feet were as tough as elephant's hide. Thus he reached the city an hour before Bruce and Ramabai.

When Bruce and the native banker arrived at the gate coolies stood about with torches. Suddenly beyond the gate half a regiment drew up. The officer in charge raised his hand warningly.

"The white hunter is Bruce Sahib?"

"Yes." Bruce spoke the dialects with passable fluency.

"Good. The Sahib will be pleased to dismount."

"I am on my way to the palace."

"That is impossible, Sahib." At a sign from the officer the troopers extended their guns at half aim. It was a necessary precaution. These white sahibs were generally a mad people and were quick to shoot. "Please dismount, Sahib. It is the orders."

Bruce's mahout, who was a Rajput Mohammedan, turned his head to learn what his master had to say. Bruce, pale under his tan, nodded. The mahout reached down with his silver tipped goad and touched the elephant on the knee. The big brute slowly and ponderously kneeled. Bruce stepped out of the howdah, followed by Ramabai, who saw that in some unaccountable manner they had been betrayed. He was sick at heart.

Two troopers stepped forward and took possession of the rifles which were slung on each side of the howdah. Bruce accepted the situation philosophically; argument or protest was futile. Next they took away his cartridge belt. He trembled for a moment with apprehension, but the troopers did not search him further; and he thanked God for the wisdom which had made him strap his revolvers under his armpits.

"What now?" he demanded.

"The Sahib will be given his guns and ammunition the hour he starts back to camp."

"And in the meantime?"

"The Sahib is free to come and go about the city so long as he does not approach the palace. If he is found in the vicinity of the zenana he will be arrested and imprisoned."

"This is all very high-handed."

"Sahib, there is no British Raj here. The orders of the regent and the council are final. Submit."

"Very well."

"Ramabai!"

Ramabai stepped forward. By a kind of clairvoyance he saw what was coming.

"Ramabai, the orders are that you shall retire to your house and remain there till further orders."

"I am the queen's body-guard."

"Ai! Well said! But I do not take my orders from the queen--yet. Obey. The Sahib may accompany you if he wishes; there are no orders against that. The Sahib's elephant will be lodged in the royal stables; the mahout will see that he is fed and watered."

"We have been betrayed," said Ramabai. "I know not how."

"You were followed. A moment," said Bruce, turning to the officer. "I have a servant by the name of Rao. I believe he acted as bearer to the young lady at the palace. What has become of him?"

The officer smiled and shook his head.

"Rao is a prisoner, then," thought the young man. "That black scoundrel Umballa is at least thorough." Aloud he said: "We shall go at once to your house, Ramabai."

And all through the night they planned and planned, but not knowing where the first ordeal was to take place, nor the hour, they found themselves going round in a circle, getting nowhere. To a man of action like Bruce it was maddening. He walked out of the house into the garden and back again at least a dozen times, always to find Ramabai with his head held despairingly in his hands. Another time Bruce opened the door to the street; two troopers squatted on each side of the threshold. Umballa was in earnest. The rear gate was also guarded. How to get Ramabai out, that was the problem.

He slept a little before dawn, and was aroused by voices below. He listened.

"I am Jawahir Lal, the water carrier. Each day at dawn I water the garden of Ramabai to pay a debt."

Bruce looked toward Ramabai, who slept the sleep of the profoundly wearied. A bheestee, perhaps a messenger.

"Go around to the rear gate, which can be opened," said the trooper.

Bruce went to the window overlooking the garden. He saw the water carrier enter through the bamboo gate, heard the water slosh about jerkily as the bheestee emptied his goatskin. He watched the man curiously; saw him drop the skin and tiptoe toward the house, glance to right and left alertly. Then he disappeared. Presently at the head of the stairs Bruce heard a whisper--"Ramabai!"

"Who is it?" Bruce whispered in the dialect.

"Ahmed."

Ahmed. Who was Ahmed?

Bruce shook Ramabai. "Ahmed is here. Who is he?" he asked softly.

"Ahmed?" drowsily. Then, wide awake enough: "Ahmed? He was Hare Sahib's head animal man. Where is he?"

"Hush! Not so loud. Come up, Ahmed; I am Bruce. Let us speak in English."

"Good!" Ahmed came into the chamber. "To see Bruce Sahib is good. To-morrow my master's daughter is to be carried into the jungle. The Mem-sahib is to be tied inside a tiger trap, bait for the cat. That is the first ordeal."

"Shaitan!" murmured Ramabai.

"Go on, Ahmed."

"The cage will be set near the old peepul tree, not far from the south gate. Now, you, Sahib, and you, Ramabai, must hide somewhere near. It is the law that if she escapes the ordeal from unexpected sources she is free, at least till the second ordeal. I know not what that is at present or when it is to take place. The troops will be there, and the populace, the council, the priest and Umballa. I shall have two swift camels near the clump of bamboo. I may not be there, but some one will. She must be hurried off before the confusion dies away. Must, Sahib. There must be no second ordeal."

"But how am I to get out of here?" asked Ramabai. "Guards all about, and doubtless bidden to shoot if I stir!"

"Tch! Tch!" clicked Ahmed. He unwound his dirty turban and slipped out of the ragged shirtlike frock. "These and the water skin below. A bheestee entered, a bheestee goes out. What is simpler than that? It is not light enough for the soldiers to notice. There is food and water here. Trust me to elude those bhang-guzzlers outside. Am I a ryot, a farmer, to twist naught but bullocks' tails?"

"Ahmed," said Bruce, holding out his hand, "you're a man."

"Thanks, Sahib," dryly. "But hasten! At dawn to-morrow, or late to-night, Ramabai returns with a full water skin. The Mem-sahib must at least stand the ordeal of terror, for she is guarded too well. Yet, if they were not going to bind her, I should not worry. She has animal magic in her eye, in her voice. I have seen wild beasts grow still when she spoke. Who knows? Now, I sleep."

Bruce and Ramabai had no difficulty in passing the guards. The white hunter was free to come and go, and the sleepy soldiers saw the water skin which Ramabai threw carelessly over his head. They sat down against the wall again and replenished the dung fire. Bruce and Ramabai wisely made a wide detour to the peepul tree, which they climbed, disturbing the apes and the parrakeets.

Somewhere near eight o'clock they heard the creaking of wheels and a murmur of voices. Shortly into their range of vision drew a pair of bullocks, pulling a tiger trap toward the clearing. This cage was of stout wood with iron bars. The rear of the cage was solid; the front had a falling door. The whole structure rested upon low wheels, and there was a drop platform which rested upon the ground. An iron ring was attached to the rear wall, and to this was generally tied a kid, the bleating of which lured the tiger for which the trap was laid. The moment the brute touched the bait the falling door slid down, imprisoning the prowler.

When Bruce saw this damnable thing he understood, and he shook with horror and voiceless rage. He caught Ramabai by the arm so savagely that a low cry came from the brown man's lips.

"Patience, Sahib!" he warned. "Without you what will the Mem-sahib do? They will tie her in that and liberate a tiger. The rest lies with you, Sahib."

"Ramabai, as God hears me, some one shall pay for this! . . . The nineteenth century, and I am wide awake! I may not be able to kill the brute with these revolvers, but I'll stop him, even if I have to use my bare hands. . . . Kathlyn Hare!"

"Hush!" again warned Ramabai, hugging his perch.

Later by half an hour Bruce witnessed a spectacle such as few white men, happily for their reason, are permitted to see. Kathlyn, in her royal robes (for ordeals of this character were ceremonials), a necklace of wonderful emeralds about her throat, stepped from her palanquin and stood waiting. From other vehicles and conveyances stepped Umballa, the council and the yellow robed priests. Troops also appeared, and behind them the eager expectant populace. They were to be amused. There were many of them, however, who hoped that a miracle would happen.

"Ramabai," whispered Bruce, "she is as beautiful as a dream. If I had only known! Well, there's going to be a miracle. See how straight she stands; not a sign of fear in her face. There's a woman . . . a woman for me!" he added under his breath.

He saw the bejeweled turban of Umballa bend toward the girl, and it was hard to resist taking a pot at the man. Kathlyn shook her head. Thereupon she was led to the trap, her hands bound and the rope round her waist attached securely to the ring.

Ah, they talked about it that night in the surging bazaars, in the palace, wherever two persons came together: how the white hunter had appeared from nowhere, rushed toward the trap as the tiger approached, entered and dropped the door, blazed away at the beast, who turned tail and limped off into the jungle. Ai! It was a sight for eyes. They could laugh behind Umballa's back, the gutter born, the iron heeled upstart; they could riddle (confidentially) the council with rude jests. The law was the law; and none, not even the priests in their shaven polls and yellow robes, might slip beyond the law as it read. The first ordeal was over. Nor, as the law read, could they lay hands upon this brave young man. Ai! it was good. Umballa must look elsewhere for his chief wife; the Mem-sahib would not adorn his zenana. It was more than good, for now there would be a second ordeal; more amusement, perhaps another miracle. True, they had taken away the pistols of the white Sahib, but he had his hands.

"Thank you," Kathlyn had said. "Somehow I knew you would come." And what she had seen in his eyes had made her tremble visibly for the first time that day.

She was conducted back to the palace. The populace howled and cheered about her palanquin to the very gates. Not in many a big rain had they had such excitement.

The fury in Umballa's heart might have disquieted Bruce had he known of its existence.

Kathlyn, arriving in her chamber, flung herself down upon her cushions and lay there like one dead, nor would she be comforted by the worshiping Pundita. Bruce had saved her this time, but it was not possible that he could repeat the feat.

Having convinced Umballa and the council that she would not marry her persecutor, the council announced to the populace that on the next fete day the queen would confront the lions in the elephant arena. What could one man do against such odds? Lions brought from the far Nubian deserts, fierce, untamable.

That night there was a conference between Bruce, Ahmed and Ramabai.

"They have taken my guns away, and God knows I can't do the impossible. Where the devil were your camels, Ahmed?"

"Umballa has his spies, Ramabai," said Ahmed, smiling, as he got into his bheestee rags, which Ramabai had surrendered willingly enough: "Ramabai, thou conspirator, what about the powder mines you and your friends hid when the late king signified that he was inclined toward British protectorate? Eh? What about the republic thou hadst dreams of? Poor fool! It is in our blood to be ruled by kings, oppressed; we should not know what to do with absolute freedom. There! Fear not. Why should I betray thee? The mines. The arena is of wood."

"But there will be many of my friends there," said the bewildered Ramabai. Who was this strange man who seemed to know everything?

"Put the mines in the center of the arena. What we want is merely terror and confusion. Pouf! Bang! There's your miracle. And a little one under the royal pavilion. And Umballa and the council sleep in Shaitan's arms. Welcome, my lambs!" And Ahmed laughed noiselessly.

"By the lord!" gasped Bruce. "But the fuses? No, no, Ahmed; it can not be done."

"In the house of my friend Lal Singh there is a cellar full of strange magic--magic with copper wires that spit blue fires. Eh, Sahib? You and I know; we have traveled."

"Batteries, here, in this wilderness?"

"Even so. To you, Ramabai, the powder; to me, the spitting wires; to you, Bruce Sahib, patience. Umballa shall yet wear raw the soles of his feet in the treadmill. He shall grind the poor man's corn. I know what I know. Now I must be off. I shall return to-morrow night and you, Ramabai, shall gather together your fellow conspirators (who would blow up the palace!) and bring the mines to the arena."

And while Kathlyn gazed through the marble lattice at the bright stars another gazed at the sunny heavens in a far country, a sprite of a girl with dark tearful eyes. Father gone, sister gone; silence.

But a few yards away from Kathlyn a man plucked at his chains, praying to God that he might not lose his reason. With the finished cruelty of the East, Umballa had not visited Colonel Hare again. There is nothing like suspense to squeeze hope and courage from the heart of man.

* * * * * *

On the night before the ordeal men moved cautiously about the elephant arena. It was only after much persuasion and argument could Bruce hold the men. At the testing of Lal Singh's wires and batteries they had started to fly. This was devil's fire.

At the end of the arena, in a box which Bruce was to occupy, by order of the council (where they proposed to keep an eye upon Umballa and to wring his heart), the key to the wires was laid. This box was directly over a wooden canopy where the mahouts loafed between fights. Back of this canopy was a door which led outside. Through this Bruce proposed to lead Kathlyn during the confusion created by the explosion. They had carried off the keeper (who was also guardian of the arena), and the key to this door reposed in Bruce's pocket.

On the day of the ordeal only the bedridden remained at home. The temples, the palaces, the bazaars, all were deserted as thoroughly as if the black wings of the plague had swept through the city. Even the crows and the kites were there, the one chattering; the other soaring high above.

Ramabai was forced to sit with the council, much to his terror. After much pleading the council was prevailed upon to permit him to sit with Bruce. A cordon of soldiers was accordingly detailed to surround Bruce's box at the rear.

When Kathlyn arrived she was placed under the canopy: another bit of kindly attention on the part of Umballa to twist the white man's heart. But nothing could have happened more to the satisfaction of Bruce.

"Kathlyn Hare," he called out softly in Spanish, "do you hear and understand me?"

"Yes," she replied in the same tongue. "Do nothing desperate. Don't throw away your life. I have a sister in America. Will you tell her?"

"Listen. Under no circumstances leave the canopy. The lions come from the other side. We are not only going to rescue but save you. Attend me carefully. Behind you is a door. There will be an explosion in the center of the arena. There was to be another under our friend Umballa, but the battery was old. Press over toward that door. I have the key."

"Ah, Mr. Bruce!"

"Kathlyn, my name is John."

"The lions, the lions!" howled the populace.

It seemed to Bruce that he had been suddenly flung back into antiquity and that Nero sat yonder, squinting through his polished emerald. The great, tawny African brutes blinked and turned their shaggy heads this way and that, uneasily. Kathlyn stood very still. How, how could they save her? At length the lions espied her, attracted by the white of her robe. One bounded forward, growling. The others immediately started in pursuit.

Suddenly the center of the arena opened and a tremendous roar followed. A low wail of terror ran round the arena. Surely this Mem-sahib had all the gods with her. A great crevice had opened up between Kathlyn and the lions, one of which lay dead. Then came the rush toward the exits, a mad frantic rush. Not even Umballa, who knew that not the gods, but man had contrived this havoc, not even Umballa waited, but fled, beating down all those who blocked his path.

Bruce and Ramabai dropped over the railing to Kathlyn's side. But the key upon which their escape depended would not unlock the door.

Chapter V

The Court Of The Lion

When Bruce dropped down into the arena to Kathlyn's side he had never given a thought to the possibility of the key not being the right one. Trapped!--and Ahmed but a few yards away with a zenana gharry, ready to convey them to the camp, freedom! It took the heart out of him for a moment. The confusion all about, the pall of dust, the roaring of the frightened lions which had escaped destruction, the shrill cries of the panic-stricken populace, who now looked upon the white Mem-sahib as the daughter of Shaitan, these dulled his inventive faculties for the nonce. Here was the confusion, properly planned, and he could not make use of it. Possibly, when no further explosion shook the air, the mob and the soldiers would return out of curiosity. And then, good-by!

But the sight of a lion emerging from the murk, the wrong side of the crevice, roused him thoroughly.

"Save yourself!" said Kathlyn in despair: "there is no possible way of saving me. I have never in all my life injured any one, and yet God makes me go through all this. . . . I am mad, you are, the whole world is! . . . Run!"

Bruce laughed; it was that kind of laughter with which men enter battle. He drew Lal Singh's revolvers and thrust one into her hand.

"Shoot at the keyhole. Leave the lion to me. With the pandemonium no one will note the shots, or if they do, will think that more explosions are on the way. I'll get you out of this nightmare; that's what I was born for."

"Nightmare!"

"There, now!"--as Kathlyn leaned dizzily against one of the supports.

"I've gone through a good deal," she said. Without more ado she pressed the muzzle of the revolver into the keyhole and fired. She heard a shot behind her, another and another; but she kept on firing into and about the keyhole till the revolver was empty.

A firm hand drew her aside.

"The lion?"

"Gone to sleep. Let me have a whack at that door."

"Where's Ramabai?"

"Went back over the wall. Probably to warn Ahmed; maybe gone directly off toward camp. Anyhow, he has faith in me."

"And, oh! so have I, so have I!"

Bruce bore his weight savagely against the door, once, twice, thrice; and pitched forward on his knees, outside. He was up instantly. He caught Kathlyn by the hand and hurried her along; and all she could think of was Winnie romping toward the canopied studio, her father half asleep on the veranda and the leopard cat sprawled on the divan!

"Sahib! Huzoor!" a voice called. "This way!"

"Ahmed! Ahmed!" cried Kathlyn.

"Yes, heaven born; but hurry, hurry! Umballa will return to search as soon as he can get the better of his legs. Siva take that battery that was worn out! Heaven born, you are now a queen in fact. . . ."

"I want to go home, Ahmed, home!"

"Here's the gharry. Here, Sahib!" He held out a handful of cartridges toward Bruce. "These fit Lal Singh's pistols. Hurry, hurry!"

Bruce helped Kathlyn into the vehicle and jumped in beside her, and Ahmed struck the horse. The gharry was a rickety old contrivance, every hinge creaking like some lost soul; but Ahmed had reasoned that the more dilapidated the vehicle, the less conspicuous it would be. He urged the horse. He wanted the flying mob to think that he was flying, too, which, indeed, he was. The gharry rolled and careened like a dory in a squall. A dozen times Bruce and Kathlyn were flung together, and quite unconsciously she caught hold of his lean, strong brown hand. It would not be true to say that he was unconscious of the act.

Presently they entered the paved streets of the bazaars, and the going improved. Kathlyn leaned back.

"I am Kathlyn Hare, and this is the year . . ."

"Come now, Miss Kathlyn, no thinking; leave the whole business to me, the worry and the planning. If we can reach my elephants, all right; we'll be in Delhi within seven days. The rest of the going will be as simple as falling off a log."

That Yankee phrase did more to rehabilitate her than all his assurances.

From time to time Bruce stole a glance through the curtained window. Stragglers were hastening along close to the walls, and there were soldiers who had forgot to bring their guns from the elephant arena. Once he heard the clatter of hoofs. A horseman ran alongside the gharry, slowed up, peered down and shrugged. Kathlyn shrank toward Bruce. The rider proceeded on his way. Ahmed recognized him as the ambassador from the neighboring principality, ruled by a Kumor, who was in turn ruled by the British Raj. Kathlyn could not shut out the leer on his face.

By midafternoon the gharry reached Bruce's camp. Ramabai and Pundita greeted Kathlyn with delight. All their troubles were over. They had but to mount the elephants and ride away.

"Ahmed," urged Kathlyn, "leave the gharry and come with us."

"No, Mem-sahib,"--Ahmed gazed at her strangely--"I have work to do, much work. Allah guard you!" He struck the horse with his bamboo stick and careened away.

"Let us be off!" cried Bruce. "We have sixty miles to put between us and freedom in fact. We can not make the railway. Ali, pack! Go to the bungalow and remain there. You will be questioned. Tell the truth. There is not an elephant in the royal stables that can beat Rajah. All aboard! No stops!"--smiling as he helped Kathlyn into the howdah. "We shall be forced to ride all night."

The elephants started forward, that ridden by Bruce and Kathlyn in the lead, Ramabai and Pundita following a few yards in the rear.

"Mr. Bruce, I am sure Ahmed has some information regarding father. I don't know what. Who knows? They may have lied to me. He may be alive, alive!"

"I'll return and find out, once I've got you safe. I don't blame you for thinking all this a nightmare. God knows it is nightmarish. Do you know, I've been thinking it over. It appears to me that the king latterly took a dislike to his protege, Umballa, and turned this little trick to make him unhappy. I dare say he thought your father wise enough to remain away. Umballa hangs between wind and water; he can go neither forward nor backward. But poor Ramabai back there will lose his gold for this."

"Ramabai has always been very kindly to the poor, and the poor man generally defends his benefactor when the night-time comes. To Umballa I was only a means to the end. If he declared himself king, that would open up the volcano upon which he stands; but as my prince consort, that would leave him fairly secure."

"Only a means," mused Bruce inwardly, stealing a glance at her sad yet lovely profile. Umballa was a man, for all his color; he was human; and to see this girl it was only human to want her. "Your father was one of the best friends I had. But, oddly enough, I never saw a photograph of you. He might have been afraid we young chaps . . ." He paused embarrassedly. "If only you had taken me into your confidence on board the _Yorck_!"

"Ah, but did you offer me the chance?" she returned.

"I never realized till now that a chap might be too close lipped sometimes. Well, here we are, in flight together!"

That night for the first time in many hours Kathlyn closed her eyes with a sense of security. True, it was not the most comfortable place to sleep in, the howdah; there were ceaseless rollings from side to side, intermingled with spine racking bumps forward, as the elephant occasionally hastened his stride. Kathlyn succeeded in stealing from the god of sleep only cat naps. Often the cold would awaken her, and she would find that Bruce had been bracing her by extending his arm across the howdah and gripping the rail.

"You mustn't do that," she protested feebly. "You will be dead in the morning."

"You might fall out."

"Then I shan't go to sleep again till the journey ends. You have been so good and kind to me!"

"Nonsense!"

They came out into the scrub jungle, and the moonlight lay magically over all things. Sometimes a shadow crossed the whitened sands; scurried, rather; and quietly Bruce would tell her what the animals were--jackals, with an occasional prowling red wolf. They were not disturbed by any of the cat family. But there was one interval of suspense. Bruce spied in the distance a small herd of wild elephants. So did Rajah, who raised his trunk and trumpeted into the night. The mahout, fully awake to the danger, beat the old rascal mightily with his goad. Yet that would have failed to hold Rajah. Bruce averted the danger by shooting his revolvers into the air. The wild elephants stampeded, and Rajah, disgruntled, was brought to the compass.

"Strange thing about a gunshot," said Bruce. "They may never have heard one before; but instinct tells them quickly of the menace. Years ago at home, when I used to fish for bass, during the closed season I'd see thousands of duck and geese and deer. Yet a single gunshot when the season opened and you never could get within a mile of them."

"That is true. I have fished and hunted with father."

"Surely! I keep forgetting that it's ten to one you know more about game than I do."

Silence fell upon them again. On, on, without pausing. Bruce was getting sleepy himself, so he began munching biscuits. Lighter and lighter grew the east; the moon dimmed, and by and by everything grew gray and the chill in the air seemed sharpest yet.

They were both awake.

Sunup they stopped by a stream. Bruce dismounted without having the elephant kneel and went to the water to fill his canteen. The hunter in him became interested in the tracks along the banks. A tiger, a leopard, some apes, and a herd of antelopes had been down to drink during the night. Even as he looked a huge gray ape came bounding out, head-on toward Rajah, who despised these foolish beasts. Perhaps the old elephant missed Ali, perhaps he was still somewhat upset by his failure to join his wild brothers the night before; at any rate, without warning, he set off with that shuffling gait which sometimes carried him as swiftly as a horse. An elephant never trots nor really runs according to our conception of the terms; he shuffles, scarcely lifting his feet off the ground.

The mahout yelled and belabored the elephant on the skull. Rajah did not mind this beating at all. Whatever his idea was, he evidently proposed to see it fulfilled.

Cunningly he dashed under some branches, sweeping the mahout off his neck. The branches, with a crash as of musketry, struck the howdah, but it held, thanks to the stoutness of the belly bands and the care with which they had been adjusted round the huge barrel.

Bruce stood up, appalled. For a time he was incapable of movement. Short as the time was, it was enough to give Rajah such headway as he needed. He disappeared from sight. Bruce saw the futility of shooting at the beast. The only thing he could do was to mount up beside Ramabai and Pundita and give chase; and this he did in short order, dragging up the bruised and shaken mahout with him. The pursuing elephant, with this extra handicap, never brought Rajah into sight. But the trail was clear, and they followed.

Surely that poor girl was marked for misfortune. In all the six years Bruce had possessed Rajah he had never exhibited anything but docility. The elephant was not running amuck, though he might eventually work himself into that blind ungovernable rage. Off like that, without the slightest warning! If Kathlyn could only keep him clear of the trees, for the old rogue would do his best to scrape off the irksome howdah.

Kathlyn heard the shouts from behind, but she could not understand whether these were warnings or advice. Could they overtake her before she was flung off? She tried to recall the "elephant talk" Ahmed had taught her in the old days at the farm, but just now she was too dazed. At the end of an hour all sounds from the rear ceased; no more pistol shots to encourage her with the knowledge that friends were near. Rajah must have outstripped them two or three miles.

At length she came into a small clearing amid the tall jungle grass, a dead and brittle last year's growth. She saw two natives in the act of kicking out a dung fire. Rajah headed directly toward them, the fire evidently being in the line of path he had chosen. This rare and unexpected freedom, this opportunity to go whither he listed, was as the giant fern he used to eat in the days when he was free and wild in Ceylon.

Kathlyn called out to the men, but they turned and fled in terror. To them Rajah was amuck. The elephant passed the fire so closely that the wind of his passing stirred the fire into life again; and this time it crept toward the highly inflammable grass. A few hundred yards beyond Kathlyn turned to see the flames leaping along the grass. Rajah, getting a whiff of the acrid smoke, quickened his stride. The fire followed with amazing rapidity and stopped only when it reached the bed of a trickling stream, no doubt a torrent during the big rains. A great pall of smoke blotted out everything in the rear; blotted out hope, for Bruce could never pick up the trail now.

Kathlyn's eyes were feverishly dry and bright. It was only a matter of time when the howdah would slip down the brute's side. She prayed that she might die instantly. Strange fancies flitted through her mind, disordered by all these days of suspense and terror. . . .

And suddenly the jungle came to an end, and a long plowed field opened into view. Beyond this field rose a ruined wall, broken by a crumbling gate, and lounging in the gateway were soldiers. Near by were two elephants employed in piling logs.

Rajah, perforce, slackened his gait. The soldiers became animated. Immediately the two mahouts charged their brutes toward Rajah, who stopped. He had had his sport. He swayed to and fro. One of the mahouts reached forward and clouted Rajah on the knee. He slowly kneeled. The soldiers ran forward to help Kathlyn out of the howdah. At the sight of her skin their astonishment was great.

She was very weak and faint, and the increasing babel of tongues was like little triphammers beating upon her aching head. One of the soldiers gave her a drink of water. He held his canteen high, so that the water trickled into her mouth; no lips but his own must touch the nozzle, otherwise, being a Brahmin, he would be denied. Natives instantly flocked about, jabbering in wonder. Some of the bolder touched her bare arms. The soldiers drove them back angrily. Through the press a horseman pushed forward. The rider stared at the strange captive, started and uttered an astonished cry.

"The white queen of Allaha, whom mine own eyes saw crowned at the durbar there!" he murmured. "By the shroud of the prophet what can this mean? Stop!" he called to the soldiers. Kathlyn looked up dully. "Convey her to his highness the Kumor!" The prince should decide what should be done with her.

The Kumor was big and lazy and sensual. He gazed upon Kathlyn with eyes which sparkled evilly, like a cat's.

"Who is this woman?" he demanded.

"Highness, she is the white queen of Allaha, but who may say that she is here?" with a smile as evil as his master's.

"But how came she here?"

The horseman briefly recounted the events as he had seen them in the capital of Allaha.

"Who are you, maiden?" the Kumor asked in English, for, like all potentates, little or great, in India, he spoke English. It presented the delectable pastime of conspiring in two languages; for, from Bombay to Calcutta, from Peshawar to Madras, India seethes, conspires and takes an occasional pot shot at some poor devil of a commissioner whose only desire is to have them combine religion and sanitation.

"I am an American. Please take me to the English commissioner." Somehow instinct told her that she might not expect succor from this man with the pearls about his gross neck.

"I regret that his excellency the commissioner has gone to Bombay. Besides, I do not know that you tell the truth. Still, I can offer you what pearls and emeralds you may find to your liking."

"Your Highness, there are those whose coming shortly will cause you much annoyance if you refuse to give me proper aid. There is no possible way for you to cover up my appearance here. Send me to the commissioner's bungalow, where I may await the coming of my friends."

"Indeed!" The Kumor saw here a conflict not altogether to his liking. He was lazy, and there was the damnable, unrelenting hand of the British Raj looming in the distance. He shrugged. "Achmet, call the captain of the guard and have him convey this runaway queen to Allaha. Surely, I may not meddle with the affairs of a friendly state." With a wave of his fat bejeweled hand he appeared to dismiss the matter from his mind.

Kathlyn was led away. The human mind can stand only so many shocks.

Outside the palace courtyard stood Rajah, the howdah securely attached once more, Kathlyn was bidden to mount. A water bottle and some cakes were placed in the howdah beside her. Then a drunken mahout mounted behind Rajah's ears. The elephant did not like the feel of the man's legs, and he began to sway ominously. Nevertheless, he permitted the mahout to direct him to one of the city gates, the soldiers trooping alongside.

It appeared that there was a much shorter route to Allaha. Time being essential, Bruce had had to make for the frontier blindly, as it were. The regular highway was a moderately decent road which led along the banks of one of those streams which eventually join the sacred Jumna. This, of course, was also sacred. Many Hindus were bathing in the ghats. They passed by these and presently came upon a funeral pyre.

Sometimes one sleeps with one's eyes open, and thus it was with Kathlyn. Out of that funeral pyre her feverish thoughts builded a frightful dream.

* * * * * *

The drunken mahout slid off Rajah; the soldiers turned aside. Hired female mourners were kneeling about, wailing and beating their breasts, while behind them stood the high caste widow, her face as tragic as Dido's at the pyre of Aeneas. Suddenly she threw her arms high over her head.

"I am suttee!"

Suttee! It was against the law of the British Raj. The soldiers began arguing with the widow, but only half heartedly. It was a pious rite, worthy of the high caste Hindu's wife. Better death on the pyre than a future like that of a pariah dog. For a wife who preferred to live after her husband was gone was a social outcast, permitted not to wed again, to exist only as a drudge, a menial, the scum and contempt of all who had known her in her days of prosperity.

The widow, having drunk from a cup which contained opium, climbed to the top of the pyre where her husband lay, swathed in white. She gazed about wildly, and her courage and resolve took wings. She stumbled down. A low hissing ran about.

"Make the white woman suttee in her place!" cried the drunken mahout.

The cry was taken up by the spectators. Kathlyn felt herself dragged from the elephant, bound and finally laid beside the swathed figure. There could be no horror in the wide world like it. Smoke began to curl up from the underbrush. It choked and stifled her. Sparks rose and dropped upon her arms and face. And through the smoke and flame came Rajah. He lifted her with his powerful trunk and carried her off, for hours and hours, back into the trackless jungle. . . .

Kathlyn found herself, all at once, sitting against the roots of an aged banyan tree. A few yards away an ape sat on his haunches and eyed her curiously. A little farther off Rajah browsed in a clump of weeds, the howdah at a rakish angle, like the cocked hat of a bully. Kathlyn stared at her hands. There were no burns there; she passed a hand over her face; there was no smart or sting. A dream; she had dreamed it; a fantasy due to her light-headed state of mind. A dream! She cried and laughed, and the ape jibbered at her uneasily.

In reality, Rajah, freed of his unwelcome mahout, had legged it down the road without so much as trumpeting his farewell, and the soldiers had not been able to stop him.

How she had managed to get down would always remain a mystery to her. Food and water, food and water; in her present state she must have both or die. Let them send her back to Allaha; she was beaten; she was without the will to resist further. All she wanted was food and water and sleep, sleep. After that they might do what they pleased with her.

For the first time since the extraordinary flight from Allaha Kathlyn recollected the "elephant talk" which Ahmed had taught her. She rose wearily and walked toward Rajah, who cocked his ears at the sound of her approach. She talked to him for a space in monotone. She held out her hands; the dry raspy trunk curled out toward them. Rajah was evidently willing to meet her half-way. She ordered him to kneel. Without even pausing to think it over Rajah bent his calloused knees, and gratefully Kathlyn crawled back into the howdah. Food and water: these appeared at hand as if by magic. So she ate and drank. If she could hold Rajah to a walk the howdah would last at least till she came to some village.

Later, in the moonshine, she espied the ruined portico of a temple.

Chapter VI

The Temple

In the blue of night the temple looked as though it had been sculptured out of mist. Here and there the heavy dews, touched by the moon lances, flung back flames of sapphire, cold and sharp. To Kathlyn the temple was of marvelous beauty. She urged Rajah toward the crumbling portico.

It was a temple in ruins, like many in Hind. Broken pillars, exquisitely carved, lay about, and some of the tall windows of marble lace were punctured, as if the fist of some angry god had beaten through. Under the decayed portico stood an iron brazier. Near this reposed a cracked stone sarcophagus: an unusual sight in this part of the world. It was without its lid. But one god now brooded hereabouts--Silence. Not a sound anywhere, not even from the near-by trees. She saw a noiseless lizard slide jerkily across a patch of moonshine and dissolve into the purple shadow beyond.

What was this temple? What gods had been worshiped here? And why was it deserted? She had heard her father tell of the ruined city of Chitor. Plague? . . . Kathlyn shuddered. Sometimes villages, to the last soul in them, were brushed from existence and known no more to man. And this might be one of them. Yet indications of a village were nowhere to be seen. It was merely a temple, perhaps miles from the nearest village, deserted save by prowling wild beasts, the winds, the sunshine and the moonshine. She looked far and wide for any signs of human habitation.

She commanded Rajah to kneel. So held by the enchanting picture was Kathlyn that the elephant's renewed restlessness (and he had reason, as will be seen) passed unobserved by her. He came to his knees, however, and she got out of the howdah. Her legs trembled for a space, for her nerves were in a pitiable condition. Suddenly Rajah's ears went forward, he rose, and his trunk curled angrily. With a whuff he wheeled and shuffled off toward the jungle out of which he had so recently emerged.

"Halt!" cried Kathlyn. What had he heard? What had he seen? "Halt!" But even as she called the tall grass closed in behind the elephant. What water and food she had disappeared with him.

She paused by the brazier, catching hold of it for support. She laughed hysterically: it was so funny; it was all so out of joint with real things, with every-day life as she had known it. Weird laughter returned to mock her astonished ears, a sinister echo. And then she laughed at the echo, being in the grip of a species of madness. In the purple caverns of the temple she suddenly became conscious of another presence. A flash as of moonlight striking two chrysoberyls took the madness out of her mind. This forsaken temple was the haunt of a leopard or a tiger.

She was lost. That magnetism which ordinarily was hers was at its nadir. She hesitated for a second, then climbed into the empty sarcophagus, crouching low. Strangely enough, as she did so a calm fell upon her; all the terrors of her position dropped away from her as mists from the mountain peaks. She had, however, got into the hiding-place none too soon.

She heard the familiar pad-pad, the whiff-whiff of a big cat. Immediately into the moonlight came an African lion, as out of place here as Kathlyn herself; his tail slashed, there was a long black streak from his mane to his tail where the hair had risen. Kathlyn crouched even lower. The lion trotted round the sarcophagus, sniffing. Presently he lifted his head and roared. The echoes played battledore and shuttlecock with the sound. The lion roared again, this time at the insulting echoes. For a few minutes the noise was deafening. A rumble as of distant thunder, and the storm died away.

By and by she peered out cautiously. She saw the lion crossing the open space between the temple and the jungle. She saw him pause, bend his head, then lope away in the direction taken by Rajah.

To Kathlyn it seemed that she had no longer anything to do with the body of Kathlyn Hare. The soul of another had stepped into this wearied flesh of hers and now directed its physical manifestations, while her own spirit stood gratefully and passively aloof. Nothing could happen now; the world had grown still and calm. The spirit drew the sleeves of the robe snugly about her arms and laid Kathlyn's head upon them and drew her down into a profound slumber.

Half a mile to the north of the ruined temple there lay, all unsuspected by Kathlyn, a village--a village belonging solely to the poor, mostly ryots or tillers of the soil. The poor in Asia know but two periods of time--for rarely do they possess such a thing as a watch or a clock--sunset and sunrise. Perhaps the man of the family may sit a while at dusk on his mud door-sill, with his bubbling water pipe (if he has one), and watch the stars slowly swing across the arch. A pinch of very bad tobacco is slowly consumed; then he enters the hunt [Transcriber's note: hut?], flings himself upon his matting (perhaps a cotton rug, more likely a bundle of woven water reeds) and sleeps. No one wakes him; habit rouses him at dawn. He scrubs his teeth with a fibrous stick. It is a part of his religious belief to keep his teeth clean. The East Indian (Hindu or Mohammedan) has the whitest, soundest teeth in the world if the betel-nut is but temperately used.

Beyond this village lay a ruined city, now inhabited by cobras and slinking jackals.

Dawn. A few dung fires smoldered. From the doorway of one of the mud huts came a lean man, his naked torso streaked with wet ashes, his matted hair hanging in knots and tangles on his emaciated shoulders. His aspect was exceedingly filthy; he was a holy man, which in this mad country signifies physical debasement, patience and fortitude such as would have adorned any other use. A human lamprey, sticking himself always at the thin and meager board of the poor, a vile parasite, but holy!

The holy man directed his steps to the narrow beaten pathway which led to the temple, where, every morning, he performed certain rites which the poor benighted ryots believed would some day restore the ruined city and the prosperity which attends fat harvests. The holy man had solemnly declared that it would take no less than ten years to bring about this miracle. And the villagers fell down with their foreheads in the dust. He was a Brahmin; the caste string hung about his neck; he was indeed holy, he who could have dwelt on the fat of the land, in maharajahs' courts. The least that can be said is that he performed his duties scrupulously.

So, then, the red rim of the March sun shouldered up above the rolling jungle as he came into the beaten clay court which fronted the temple. The lion stalked only at night, rarely appearing in the daytime. Once a month he was given a bullock, for he kept tiger and leopard away, and the villagers dwelt in peace. The lion had escaped from Allaha, where the species were kept as an additional sport. Since he had taken up his abode in the temple there had been fewer thefts from the cattle sheds.

The holy man was about to assume his squatting posture in the center of the court, as usual, when from out of the sarcophagus rose languidly a form, shrouded in white. The form stretched its lovely arms, white as alabaster, and presently the hands rubbed a pair of sleepy eyes. Then the form sat down within the sarcophagus, laid its arms on the rim, and wearily hid its face in them.

The watcher was the most dumfounded holy man in all India. For the first time in his hypocritical life he found faith in himself, in his puerile rites. He had conjured up yonder spirit, unaided, alone. He rose, turned, and never a holy man ran faster. When he arrived, panting and voiceless, at the village well, where natives were coming and going with water in goatskins and jars and copper vessels, he fell upon his face, rose to his knees, and poured hands full of dust upon his head.

"Ai, ai!" he called. "It is almost done, my children. The first sign has come from the gods. I have brought you in human form the ancient priestess!" And he really believed he had. "O my children, my little ones, my kids! I have brought her who will now attend to the sacred fires; for these alone will restore the city as of old, the fat corn, the plentitude of fruit. Since the coming of the lion two rains ago the leopard and the striped one have forsaken their lairs. One bullock a month is better than fire, together with the kids and the children. Ai!" More dust.

Naturally the villagers set down their water skins and jars and copper vessels and flocked about this exceptional holy man. They wanted to believe him, but for years nothing had happened but the advent of the lion, whence no one exactly knew, though the holy man had not been backward in claiming it was due to his nearness to the god Vishnu.

They followed him eagerly to the temple. What they beheld transfixed them. A woman with skin like the petals of the lotus and hair like corn sat in the sacred sarcophagus and braided her hair, gazing the while toward the bright sun.

The intake of many breaths produced a sound. Kathlyn turned instantly toward this sound, for a moment expecting the return of the lion. Immediately holy man and villagers threw themselves upon the ground, striking their foreheads against the damp clay. The alien spirit still ruled the substance; Kathlyn eyed them in mild astonishment, not at all alarmed.

"Ai!" shrilled the holy man, springing to his feet. "Ai! She is our ancient priestess, rising from her tomb of centuries! Ai, ai! O thou unholy children, to doubt my word! Behold! Henceforth she shall share the temple with the lion, and later she will give us prosperity, and my name shall ever be in your households."

Having secured a priestess, he was now determined that he should not lose her. The future was roseate indeed, and when he took his next pilgrimage to holy Benares they would bestrew his pathway with lotus flowers.

"Wood to start the sacred fires!" he commanded.

The villagers flew to obey his orders. He was indeed a holy man. Not in the memory of the oldest had a miracle such as this happened. Upon their return with wood and embers the holy man built the fire, handing a lighted torch to Kathlyn and signifying for her to touch the tinder. The spirit in Kathlyn told her that these people meant her no immediate harm, so she stepped out of the sarcophagus and applied the torch. The moment the flames began to crackle the villagers prostrated themselves again and the holy man besmeared his bony chest with more ashes.

A second holy man appeared upon the scene, wanting in breath. His jaw dropped and his eyes started to leave their sockets. Knowing his ilk so thoroughly well, he flung himself down before the brazier and beat his forehead upon the ground; not in any chastened spirit, but because he had overslept that morning. This glory might have been his! Ai, ai!

Later the two conferred. During the day they should guard the priestess, because, having taken human form, she might some day tire of this particular temple. At night she would be well guarded by the lion.

Several awestricken women came forward with bowls of cooked rice and fruits and a new copper drinking vessel. These they reverently placed at Kathlyn's feet.

Gradually the spirit which had comforted Kathlyn withdrew, and at length Kathlyn became keenly alive. It entered her mind clearly that these poor foolish people really believed her a celestial being, and so long as they laid no hand upon her she was not alarmed. She had recently passed through too many terrors to be disturbed by a bit of kindness, even if stirred into being by a religious fanaticism.

Kathlyn ate.

By pairs the villagers departed, and soon none remained save her self-appointed guardians, the two holy men. Kathlyn felt a desire to explore this wonderful temple. She discovered what must have been the inner shrine. The chamber was filled with idols; here and there a bit of gold leaf, centuries old, glistened upon the bronze, the clay, the wood. The caste mark on the largest idol's head was a polished ruby, overlooked doubtless during the loot. She swept the dust from the jewel with the tip of her finger, and the dull fire sent a shiver of delight over her. She was still a woman.

As she wandered farther in her foot touched something and she looked down. It was a bone; in fact, the floor was strewn with bones. She quickly discerned, much to her relief, that none of these bones was human. This was, or had been, the den of the lion. There was an acrid unpleasant odor, so she hurried back to the brazier. Vaguely she comprehended that she must keep the fire replenished from time to time in order to pacify the two holy men. At night it would fend off any approach of the lion.

Where was Bruce? Would he ever find her? That philosophy which she had inherited from her father, that quiet acceptance of the inevitable, was the one thing which carried her through her trials sanely. An ordinary woman would have died from mere exhaustion.

Bruce, indeed! At that very moment he was rushing out of the Kumor's presence, wild to be off toward the road to Allaha, since Kathlyn had not been seen upon it. He found where Rajah had veered off into the jungle again, and followed the trail tirelessly. But it was to be his misfortune always to arrive too late.

To Kathlyn the day passed with nothing more than the curiosity of the natives to disturb her. They brought her cotton blankets which she arranged in the sarcophagus. There were worse beds in the world than this; at least it shielded her from the bitter night wind.

She ate again at sundown and builded high the sacred fire and tried to plan some manner of escape; for she did not propose to be a demi-goddess any longer than was necessary. From Pundita she had learned many words and a few phrases in Hindustani, and she ventured to speak them to the holy men, who seemed quite delighted. They could understand her, but she on her part could make little or nothing of their jabbering. Nevertheless, she pretended.

Finally the holy men departed, after having indicated the sacred fire and the wood beside it. This fire pleased Kathlyn mightily. While it burned brightly the lion would not prowl in her immediate vicinity. She wondered where this huge cat had come from, since she knew her natural history well enough to know that African lions did not inhabit this part of the globe. Doubtless it had escaped from some private menagerie.

The fire, then, giving her confidence, she did not get into the sarcophagus, but wandered about, building in her fancy the temple as it had stood in its prime. The ceilings had been magnificently carved, no two subjects alike; and the walls were of marble and jasper and porphyry. A magic continent this Asia in its heyday. When her forefathers had been rude barbarians, sailing the north seas or sacrificing in Druidical rites, there had been art and culture here such as has never been surpassed. India, of splendid pageants, of brave warriors and gallant kings! Alas, how the mighty had fallen! About her, penury, meanness, hypocrisy, uncleanliness, thievery and unbridled passions. . . . What was that? Her heart missed a beat. That pad-pad; that sniffling noise!

She whirled about, knocking over an idol. It came down with a crash and, being of clay, lay in shards at her feet. (Unfortunately it was the holy of holies in this temple.) How she gained the shelter of the sarcophagus she never knew, but gain it she did, and cowered down within. She could hear the beast trotting round and round, sniffling and rumbling in his throat. Then the roaring of the preceding night was repeated. The old fellow evidently could not find those other lions who roared back at him so valiantly. Evidently fire had no terrors for him. For an hour or more he patrolled the portico, and all this time Kathlyn did not stir, hardly daring to breathe for fear he might undertake to peer into the sarcophagus.

Silence. A low roar from the inner shrine told her that for the present she was safe. To-morrow she must fly, whither did not matter. Toward four o'clock she fell into a doze and was finally awakened by the sound of voices raised in anger.

Poor sheep! They had discovered the shattered idol. It did not matter at all that the return of their ancient goddess was to bring back prosperity. She had broken their favorite idol. Damnation would come in a devil's wind that night.

The holy man who had missed the chance of claiming the miraculous appearance of Kathlyn as a work of his own now saw an opportunity to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of those who had made his holiness a comfortable existence. With a piece of the idol in his hand, he roused Kathlyn and shook the clay before her face, jabbering violently. Kathlyn understood readily enough. She had unwittingly committed a sacrilege.

The natives gathered about and menaced her. Kathlyn rose, standing in the sarcophagus, and extended her hands for silence. She was frightened, but it would never do to let them see it. What Hindustani she knew would in this case be of no manner of use. But we human beings can, by facial expression and gesture, make known our messages with understandable clearness. From her gestures, then, the holy men gathered that she could recreate the god. She pointed toward the sun and counted on her fingers.

The premier holy man, satisfied that he understood Kathlyn's gestures, turned to the justly angered villagers and explained that with his aid their priestess would, in five suns, recreate Vishnu in all his beauty. Instantly the villagers prostrated themselves.

"Poor things!" murmured Kathlyn.

The holy men sent the natives away, for it was not meet that they should witness magic in the making. They then squatted in the clay court and curiously waited for her to begin. There was a well in the inner shrine. To this she went with caution. The lion was evidently foraging in the jungle. Kathlyn filled the copper vessel with water and returned. Next, she gathered up what pieces of the idol she could find and pieced them together. Here was her model. She then approached one of the fakirs and signified that she had need of his knife. He demurred at first, but at length consented to part with it. She dug up a square piece of clay. In fine, she felt more like the Kathlyn of old than she had since completing the leopard in her outdoor studio. It occupied her thoughts, at least part of them, for she realized that mayhap her life depended upon her skill in reproducing the hideous idol.

As the two old hypocrites saw the clay take form and shape and the mocking face gradually appear, they were assured that Kathlyn was indeed the ancient priestess; and deep down in their souls they experienced something of the awe they had often inspired in the poor trusting ryot.

Kathlyn had talent bordering on genius. The idol was an exact replica of the original one; more, there was a subtle beauty now where before there had been a frank repulsiveness. It satisfied the holy men, and the unveiling was greeted by the villagers with such joy that Kathlyn forgave them and could have wept over them. She had made a god for them, and they fell down and worshiped it.

Five more days passed. On the afternoon of the fifth day Kathlyn was feeding the fire. The holy men sat in the court at their devotions, which consisted in merely remaining motionless. Kathlyn returned from the fire to see them rise and flee in terror. She in turn fled, for the lion stood between her and the sarcophagus! The lion paused, lashing his tail. The many recent commotions within and without the temple had finally roused his ire. He hesitated between the holy men and Kathlyn, and finally concluded that she in the fluttering robes would be the most desirable.

There was no particular hurry; besides, he was not hungry. The cat in him wanted to play. He loped after Kathlyn easily. At any time he chose a few swift bounds would bring him to her side.

Beyond the temple lay the same stream by which, miles away, Kathlyn had seen the funeral pyre and about which she had so weird a fantasy. If this stream was deep there was a chance for life.

Chapter VII

Quicksands

When Kathlyn came to the river she swerved toward the broadest part of it. Twice she stumbled over boulders, but rose pluckily and, bruised and breathless, plunged into the water. It was swift running and shoulder deep, and she was forced to swim strongly to gain the opposite shore. She dragged herself up to the bank and, once there, looked back. What she saw rather astonished her. She could not solve the riddle at first. The lion seemed to be struggling with some invisible opponent. He stood knee deep in the sands, tugging and pulling. He began to roar. Even as Kathlyn gazed she saw his chest touch the sand and his swelling flanks sink lower. Fascinated, she could not withdraw her gaze. How his mighty shoulders heaved and pulled! But down, down, lower and lower, till nothing but the great maned head remained in view. Then that was drawn down; the sand filled the animal's mouth and stopped his roaring; lower, lower . . .

Quicksands! The spot where he had disappeared stirred and glistened and shuddered, and then the eternal blankness of sand.

She was not, then, to die? Should she return to the temple? Would they not demand of her the restoration of the lion? She must go on, whither she knew not. She regretted the peace of the temple in the daytime. She could see the dome from where she stood. Like Ishmael, she must go on, forever and forever on. Was God watching over her? Was it His hand which stayed the onslaught of the beast and defeated the baser schemes of men? Was there to be a haven at the end? She smiled wanly. What more was to beset her path she knew not, nor cared just then, since there was to be a haven at the end.

Perhaps prescience brought to her mind's eye a picture; she saw her father, and Bruce, and Winnie, and her sweetheart, and they seemed to be toasting her from the end of a long table, under the blue California sky. This vision renewed her strength. She proceeded onward.

She must have followed the river at least a mile when she espied a raft moored to a clump of trees. Here she saw a way of saving her weary limbs many a rugged mile. She forded the stream, freed the raft, and poled out into the middle of the stream.

It happened that the Mohammedan hunters who owned the raft were at this moment swinging along toward the temple. On the shoulders of two rested a pole from which dangled the lifeless body of a newly killed leopard. They were bringing it in as a gift to the head man of the village, who was a thoroughgoing Mohammedan, and who held in contempt Hinduism and all its amazing ramifications.

The white priestess was indeed a puzzle; for, while the handful of Mohammedans in the village were fanatical in their belief in the true prophet and his Koran, and put little faith in miracles and still less in holy men who performed them, the advent of the white priestess deeply mystified them. There was no getting around this: she was there; with their own eyes they saw her. There might be something in Hinduism after all.

When the hunters arrived at the portico of the temple they found two greatly terrified holy men, shrilling their "Ai! Ai!" in lamentation and beating their foreheads against the earth.

"Holy men, what is wrong?" asked one of the hunters, respectfully.

"The lion has killed our priestess; the sacred fires must die again! Ai! Ai!"

"Where is the lion?"

"They fled toward the river, and there he has doubtless destroyed her, for in evil, Siva, represented by the lion, is more powerful than Vishnu, reincarnated in our priestess. Ai! Ai! She is dead and we are undone!"

"Come!" said the chief huntsman. "Let us run to the river and see what these queer gods are doing. We'll present the skin of Siva to our master!" He laughed.

The leopard carriers deposited their burden and all started off at a dog-trot. They had always been eager regarding this lion. In the temple he was inviolable; but at large, that was a different matter.

Arriving at the river brink, they saw the foot-prints of the lion on the wet sand which ran down to the water. To leap from this spot to the water was not possible for any beast of the jungle. Yet the lion had vanished completely, as though he had been given wings. They stood about in awe till one of the older hunters knelt, reached out, and dug his hand into the innocent looking sand. Instantly he leaped to his feet and jumped back.

"The sucking sand!" he cried. "To the raft!"

They skirted the dangerous quicksands and dashed along the banks to discover that their raft was gone. Vishnu, then, as reincarnated, required solid transportation, after the manner of human beings? They became angry. A raft was a raft, substantial, necessary; and there was no reason why a god who had ten thousand temples for his own should stoop to rob a poor man of his wherewithal to travel in safety.

"The mugger!" exclaimed one, "let the high priestess beware of the mugger, for he is strong enough to tip over the raft!"

Nearly every village which lies close to a stream has its family crocodile. He is very sacred and thrives comfortably upon suicides and the dead, which are often cast into the river to be purified. The Hindus are a suicidal race; the reverse of the occidental conception, suicide is a quick and glorious route to Heaven.

The current of the stream carried Kathlyn along at a fair pace; all she had to do was to pole away from the numerous sand-bars and such boulders as lifted their rugged heads above the water.

Round a bend the river widened and grew correspondingly sluggish. She sounded with her pole. Something hideous beyond words arose--a fat, aged, crafty crocodile. His corrugated snout was thrust quickly over the edge of the raft. She struck at him wildly with the pole, and in a fury he rushed the raft, upsetting Kathlyn.

The crocodile sank and for a moment lost sight of Kathlyn, who waded frantically to the bank, up which she scrambled. She turned in time to see the crocodile's tearful [Transcriber's note: fearful?] eyes staring up at her from the water's edge. He presently slid back into his slimy bed; a few yellow bubbles, and he was gone.

Kathlyn's heart became suddenly and unaccountably swollen with rage; she became primordial; she wanted to hurt, maim, kill. Childishly she stooped and picked up heavy stones which she hurled into the water. The instinct to live flamed so strongly in her that the crust of civilization fell away like mist before the sun, and for a long time the pure savage (which lies dormant in us all) ruled her. She would live, live, live; she would live to forget this oriental inferno through which she was passing.

She ran toward the jungle, all unconscious of the stone she still held in her hand. She lost all sense of time and compass; and so ran in a half circle, coming out at the river again.

The Indian twilight was rising in the east when she found herself again looking out upon the water, the stone still clutched tightly. She gazed at the river, then at the stone, and again at the river. The stone dropped with a thud at her feet. The savage in her had not abated in the least; only her body was terribly worn and wearied and the robe, muddied and torn, enveloped her like a veil of ice. Above her the lonely yellow sky; below her the sickly river; all about her silence which held a thousand menaces. Which way should she go? Where could she possibly find shelter for the night?

The chill roused her finally and she swung her arms to renew the circulation. Near by she saw a tree, in the crotch of which reposed a platform, and upon this platform sat a shrine. A few withered flowers hung about the gross neck of the idol, and withered flowers lay scattered at the base of the tree. There was also a bundle of dry rushes which some devotee had forgotten. At least, yonder platform would afford safety through the night. So, with the last bit of strength at her command, she gathered up the rushes and climbed to the platform, arranging her bed behind the idol. She covered her shoulders with the rushes and drew her knees up to her chin. She had forgotten her father, Bruce, the happy days in a far country; she had but a single thought, to sleep. What the want of sleep could not perform exhaustion could; and presently she lay still.

Thus, she neither saw nor heard the pious pilgrims who were on their way to Allaha to pray in that temple known to offer protection against wild beasts. Fortunately, they did not observe her.

The pilgrim is always a pilgrim in India; it becomes, one might say, a fascinating kind of sport. To most of them, short pilgrimages are as tame as rabbits would be to the hunter of lions. They will walk from Bombay to Benares, from Madras to Llassa, begging and bragging all the way. Eventually they become semi-holy, distinguished citizens in a clutter of mud huts.

They deposited some corn and fruit at the foot of the tree and departed, leaving Kathlyn in peace. But later, when the moon poured its white, cold radiance over her face it awakened her, and it took her some time to realize where she was.

Below, belly deep in the river, stood several water buffaloes, their sweeping horns glistening like old ivory in the moonshine. Presently a leopard stole down to the brink and lapped the water greedily, from time to time throwing a hasty, apprehensive glance over his sleek shoulders. The buffaloes never stirred; where they were it was safe. Across the river a bulky shadow moved into the light, and a fat, brown bear took his tithe of the water. The leopard snarled and slunk off. The bear washed his face, possibly sticky with purloined wild honey, and betook himself back to his lair.

Kathlyn suddenly became aware of the fact that she was a spectator to a scene such as few human beings are permitted to see: truce water, where the wild beasts do not kill one another. She grew so interested that she forgot her own plight. The tree stood only a few feet from the water, so she saw everything distinctly.

Later, when his majesty the tiger made his appearance dramatically, the buffa