CHAPTER X. A CAPTIVATED VICEROY.

There were several “late parties” in sumptuous Delhi, on the evening

when Madame Berthe Louison drove quietly to the railway station at two

o’clock. A little knot of tired officials were still on duty, and when

some forerunner had given a private signal, a single car, drawn by a

powerful locomotive, glided out of the darkness.

In a few moments a dozen trunks and a score of bags and bundles were

tossed aboard the baggage van. Five persons stepped nimbly aboard, and

then with no warning signal, the Lady of the Silver Bungalow was borne

out into the darkness, racing on toward Calcutta with the swiftness of

the wind.

Jules Victor, vigorous and alert, after several cups of cafe noir, well

dashed with cognac, disposed his two Lefacheux revolvers in readiness,

and then betook himself to a nap. His bright-eyed wife was in the

compartment with her beautiful mistress, and ready to sound a shrill

Gallic alarm at any moment. She gravely eyed the two escorting officials

of the bank. Marie said in her heart that “all men were liars,” and she

believed most of them to be voleurs, in addition. Jules, when the little

train was whirling along a-metals a score of miles away from Delhi,

relaxed his Zouave vigilance, and bade a long adieu to Delhi, in a

vigorous grunt. “Va bene! Sacree Canaille!”

There was silence at the railway station when the head agent wearily

said, “I suppose the Bank is moving a lot of notes back to Calcutta!

They are a rum slick lot, these money changers!” When all was left in

darkness, save where a blinking red and white line signal still showed,

Ram Lal Singh crept away from the line of the rails. The rich jewel

vender clutched in his bosom the handle of Mirzah Shah’s poisoned

dagger, the deadly dagger of a merciless prince.

He had long pondered over the sudden demand made upon him by the Lady of

the Silver Bungalow. And he greatly desired to re-adjust his relations

with Hugh Johnstone and Major Alan Hawke. The daily usefulness of “Lying

as a Fine Art” was never before so apparent to Ram Lal. He slunk away on

foot to his own bit of a zenana.

“I must try to deceive them both! Fool that I was not to see it before!

These two Generals are her friends, of old! The secret protector of the

wonderful moon-eyed beauty here is General Willoughby, and the other

General will secretly help her down at Calcutta. She came up here,

secretly, to see her old lover Willoughby, and that is why she would be

able to have a guard arrest me. For she said just what they said about

the prison. Willoughby goes down often to Calcutta! Ah! Yes! They are

all the same, these English! Fools! Not to lock their women up, when

they have once bought them, with a secret price! And now, Hawke must

never know of this paper I gave her. She would find out, and then have

the General punish me. Now I know why she went not to the great English

Mem-Sahibs here! And these two great General Sahibs have had her spy

upon this old man, Hugh Fraser--the man who would steal away with the

Queen’s jewels. They would have them. By Bowanee! I will have them

first! For I can hide them where they never will find them! I will trade

them off to the Princes, who know the old jewels of Oude. They will

give me double weight, treble value.” Ram Lal crept into his hidden

love nest, his skinny hand clutching the golden shaft of Mirzah Shah’s

dagger. “I might surrender them later and get an enormous reward from

the Crown,” he mused.

At the Delhi Club, Major Alan Hawke, in a strange unrest, paced his

floor half the night. “I stand now nearly eleven thousand pounds to

the good, with outlying counties to hear from, as the Yankees say.” He

smiled, “that is, if the old fox does not stop these drafts. If he does,

I’ll stop him!” he swore. And yet, he was troubled at heart. “I know

Alixe Delavigne will call me back and pay me well. How did she find out

about my bold bluff to Johnstone? Some servant may have overheard, and

she is a deep one. She may even have her own spies there!”

“Justine, I can count on you to help me later. But, how to treat old

Hugh?” His dreams of an army reinstatement came back to worry him. “I

might go to Abercromby and warn him about Johnstone. Damn it! I’ve

no proof as yet! Berthe Louison will fire the great gun herself.” The

renegade fell asleep, torturing himself about the needless breach with

Johnstone. “All violence is a mistake!” he muttered, half asleep. “The

angry old man will keep me away from the girl forever, and the old brute

is going to Europe. I have spoiled one game in taking one trick too

roughly.”

Another “late party” was at Major Hardwicke’s quarters, where the loyal

Simpson related to the lover all the gossip of Johnstone and General

Abercromby, over their brandy pawnee and cheroots. Simpson was the eager

servitor of the young engineer, whom he loved.

General Willoughby had a little fit of “work” which seized upon him, and

so he toiled till late at night, sending some cipher dispatches to the

Viceroy. “I may make a point in this, perhaps a C. B.,” said the old

veteran, who was sharper when drunk than sober. “I’ll put a pin in

Johnstone’s game, and get ahead of Abercromby.” This last old warrior

had secretly vowed to force Hugh Fraser Johnstone to present him to the

“little party in the Silver Bungalow.” The Calcutta general was a Knight

of Venus, as well as a Son of Mars, and had guarded memories of

some wild episodes of his own there in the halcyon days of the great

chieftain who had builded it. A gay young staff officer whispered:

“Alan Hawke is the only one who really has the ‘open sesame.’ He knows

that ‘little party.’ Didn’t you see Johnstone hurry her away? The old

nabob, too, is sly.”

“Ah!” mused the General. “I’ll make Johnstone have Hawke here to

breakfast. Devilish clever fellow--and he’ll take me there!” Alas! for

these rosy anticipations. The “little party” was already at Allahabad

before the gouty general awoke from his love dream.

And, last of all the “late parties” on this eventful night was Hugh

Fraser Johnstone’s little solitary council of war. He had, with a

prescience of coming trouble, detailed two of his own keenest personal

servants to watch the Silver Bungalow, from daylight, relieving each

other, and never losing sight a moment of the hidden tiger’s den. “I’ll

find out who goes and comes there! By God! I will!” he raged. After a

long cogitation, he evolved a “way out” of his quarrel with Hawke. “Damn

the fellow! I must not drive him over into the enemy’s camp. I’ll have

him here--to breakfast, to-morrow. The jewels are safely out of the

way now. For a few pounds he will watch this she-devil, and that yellow

thief, Ram Lal, for me. My only danger is in their coming together.

I’ll get a note to him early.” Seizing his chit-book, he dashed off in

a frankly apologetic way a few lines. “There! That’ll do! Not too much!”

He read his lines with a final approval.

“Dear Hawke: I’ve been worried to death with a lot of people thrust on

me. Mere figure-heads. You must excuse an old friend--an old man--and

Madame Louison is like all women--only a bundle of nerves. Come over to

the house to-day at noon and breakfast with Abercromby and myself alone.

I’ll send you back to Calcutta with him on a little run. I appreciate

your manliness in keeping out of my little misunderstanding with the

Madame. By the way, a few words from Abercromby to the Viceroy would

put you back on the Army Staff, where you rightly belong. Let bygones be

bygones, and you can make your play on the General, It’s the one chance

of a life. Come and see me. J.”

“There! He will never show that!” mused Hugh Johnstone. “It touches his

one little raw spot!” And calling a boy the old Commissioner dispatched

the note, carefully sealed, to the Club. The last one to seek his rest

in the marble house, old Johnstone was strangely shaken by the events of

the day.

Berthe Louison’s threats, Ram Lal’s stubborn refusal, and the useless

quarrel with Hawke had unmanned him. He drank a strong glass of grog and

then sought his room. “All things settle themselves at last! This thing

will blow over! I wish to God that she was out of the way! I could then

handle the rest!” For in his heart he feared the defiant woman.

There were two men equally surprised when gunfire brought the “day’s

doings” on again in lazy, luxurious Delhi. Over his morning coffee,

Major Alan Hawke thankfully cried: “I am a very devil for luck! This old

skinflint is opening his bosom and handing me a knife. By God! I’ll have

my pound of flesh!” He leaped from his couch as blithe as a midshipman

receiving his first love letter from a fullgrown dame. There was great

joy in the house of Hawke.

But when Simpson entered his master’s room he was followed by a

wild-eyed returning emissary, who waited till the old soldier had left

the room. Hugh Johnstone suddenly lost all interest in the breakfast

tray, the letters and his morning toilet, when the Hindu fearfully said:

“They are all gone--the Mem-Sahib, the two foreign devils, and all their

belongings!”

Johnstone was on his feet with a single bound. “Gone! What do you tell

me, you fool?” He was shaking the slim-boned native as if he were a man

of straw.

“They went to the railroad at two o’clock at night, the coachman told

me. We only began our watch by your orders at daybreak. She had been

then gone four hours.” Johnstone foamed in an impotent rage.

“Who is left in the house?” he roared.

“Nobody, Sahib.” tersely said the Hindu.

“Get out and send me Simpson!” the old man sternly said. “Go back and

watch that house till I have you relieved. Tell me everyone who goes in

or out!”

And then the horrible fear that Willoughby or Abercromby had deceived

him, began to dawn upon his excited mind. “Simpson,” he cried, “there’s

a good fellow! Take the first trap and get over to Major Hawke. Tell him

that I must see him here, at once, on the most important business. He

must come. Then get to Ram Lal, and bring him yourself to your own room.

Let me know, privately, when he is there. Never mind my dressing. Send

me a couple of the others. Is the General awake?”

“Just coming down for his ride! Horses ordered in half an hour!”

Simpson fled away, muttering, “Hardwicke must know of this!”

Hugh Johnstone fancied that he was dreaming when he met his official

guest, refreshed and jovial, but still under the spell of Venus.

“See here, Hugh!” said the gallant Abercromby. “I want you to present

me to that stunning woman over there, at the Silver Bungalow, you know.

They tell me she’s the Queen of Delhi. You old rascal, I’m bound to know

her! Can’t we have a little breakfast there, under the rose?” A last

desperate expedient occurred to Johnstone. His baronetcy was in danger

now.

“There’s but one man in Delhi can bring you within the fairy circle.

That’s Hawke--a devilish good officer too, by the way! Ought to be back

on the ‘Temporary Staff,’ at least! He comes here to breakfast! I’ll

turn you over to him. He manages all the lady’s private affairs. He is

your man.”

General Abercromby turned a stony eye upon his host. “Does Willoughby go

there?” he huskily whispered.

“Never crossed the line! Hawke is far too shy. You see, Willoughby has

not recognized Major Hawke’s rank and past services!”

“Ah!” said the jealous warrior. “If Hawke is the man you say he is, I

can get the Viceroy to give him a local rank, in two weeks! Send him

down with me to Calcutta!” and the gay old would-be lover jingled away

on his morning ride.

“This may be my one anchor of safety!” gasped the wondering Johnstone,

as Alan Hawke came dashing into the grounds. In half an hour, the

broken entente cordiale was restored, and Johnstone had slipped away and

questioned the wary Ram Lal.

“All I know is that the lady hired the house temporarily from me, I am

agent for Runjeet Hoy, who owns it now. She went without a word, and

gave me three hundred pounds yesternight, for her rent and supplies. I

asked the Mem-Sahib no questions. She went away all by herself, in the

middle of the night.”

“Ah! You know nothing more?” sharply queried Johnstone.

“Of course not! I thought you, or Hawke Sahib, or General Wilhoughby,

was a secret friend.” Slyly said Ram Lal.

“She owes you nothing? You do not expect her to return?” the nabob

cried.

“I think she has gone to Calcutta! She came from there.”

“Come to-night, privately, Ram Lal. I’ll show you how to get in. Just

tap at my bedroom window three times. Come secretly, at eleven o’clock,

and find out all you can. Wait in the garden till the house is dark.

I’ll pay you well,” continued Johnstone, leading the old jeweler to his

bedroom. “I will leave this one window unfastened. So you can come in!

The room will be dark!”

“The Sahib shall be obeyed!” said Ram Lal, salaaming to the ground, and

he was happy at heart as he glided out of the garden. A ferocious smile

of coming triumph gleamed in his dark face. “I have him now! He will

never slip away in the night! But I must please him, and lie to him!” It

was the chance for which he had vainly waited there many years, and Ram

Lal prayed to great Bowaaee to aid him.

“Hawke!” said Johnstone, when his astounded listener heard all of

Johnstone’s proposed infamy. “I have telegraphed to Allahabad and

Calcutta. This strange woman has gone down there. Now, I want you to

fall in with Abercromby. He will go down in a few days. Bring them

together in any way you can. The General and the beauty. No fool like

an old fool!” he grinned. “Watch them and post me! Abercromby is already

well disposed to you. Make a play on him. He will get you a temporary

rank from the Viceroy.

“Your matchless knowledge of the Himalayas and the whole northern

frontier will earn you a regular rank. Coddle Anstruther, too, and cling

to the Vice-roy! I’ll back you with any money you need. It’s the one

chance of a life!”

“And what am I to do for you, Johnstone?” quietly said the delighted

Hawke.

“Just stand by me about this baronetcy, and bamboozle this damned

foolish woman, while I slip quietly away to Europe! She is mercurial

and vain. Abercromby will get her into the fast Calcutta set, after one

necessary appearance at the Viceroy’s! She is, after all, only a woman.

You can catch them with a feather, if you can catch them at all! Once

properly launched by Abercromby, you are a made man for life! He will

not dare to ‘go back on you!’ as our Yankee cousins have it. The Viceroy

will do anything for him!”

“By God! Johnstone! I’m your man! Count on me in life and death!” warmly

cried Hawke. The two men clasped hands.

There was a clatter and a jingle. The old warrior was on his return.

“Here he comes now! Fall in with his humor, and success to you at

Calcutta,” whispered Johnstone. There was the very jolliest breakfast

imaginable at the marble house that day, and that same afternoon Major.

Alan Hawke rode all over Delhi as volunteer aide to General Abercromby.

Two nights later General Abercromby whispered to Hugh Johnstone, at a

Grand Ball at Willoughby’s Headquarters: “I’ve just had a telegram from

the Viceroy to return at once. Your matter is now all right. I leave the

property with Willoughby here. I’ll go down in the morning, if you’ll

fix me up.” And then, Johnstone signing to Major Alan Hawke, who had

been the cynosure of all eyes, as he gracefully led Madame la Generale

Willoughby through a lanciers, took the favorite of fortune aside.

“Make your adieux! Get out of here! Settle all your little affairs! Send

all your traps over to my house! General Abercromby wants to slip away

quietly in the morning! No one is to know! And you go with him, at his

urgent request.”

And that very evening at Calcutta, Alixe Delavigne would have laughed

in triumph to know of Hugh Johnstone’s strange eagerness to dispatch

his amorous guest. For the lady--in the safe haven of the great banker’s

home--had just returned from a captivated Viceroy, who had instantly

recalled Abercromby by a dispatch to be “obeyed forthwith.”

“You, Madame, have laid me under an obligation which I can never

forget,” said the graceful statesman. The list of Ram Lal was in his

hands now! And so Hugh Johnstone was highly pleased, and Madame

Berthe Louison, still in her masquerade, was happy, and the watchful

Commanding-General Willoughby was more than pleased; and the now doubly

hopeful Major Alan Hawke rejoiced, while General Abercromby knew that

the “little party” was waiting him in Calcutta. But most of all pleased

was Ram Lal Singh, clutching in his dreams at the dagger of Mirzah Shah,

lying there by his bedside. “He will be left alone, and he knows my

signal--his own device--THREE TAPS AT HIS WINDOW! In Delhi there only

lingered, sad and lonely, Major Harry Hardwicke, whose sighs were echoed

back from afar by a starry-eyed girl watching the sandy shores of the

Suez Canal.

“I dare not telegraph to him till we reach Brindisi,” mused the loving

girl. “After that our path will be plain, and Justine MUST help me! Then

he can follow me--if he loves me!” She faltered, hiding her blushing

face. The only comforter of the lonely Hardwicke was “Rattler Murray.”

Red Eric, of the Eighth Lancers, had just fallen into a pot of money.

“Take your long leave, my boy!” he cried. “I’ve been nine long years

a Lieutenant! I’ll have my troop before my leave is out! And there’s

a loving lass awaiting me! One I love--one who loves me--one you must

know, for you must be the ‘best man’!”

“Wait, only wait a couple of weeks, Eric!” said the Major, whose eyes

were now turned daily to Simpson. “Then I’ll put in my own application,

and we’ll go home together.”

This bright hope was duly pledged in many a loving cup.

General Abercromby was far away on the road to Calcutta when

Major-General Willoughby sent, posthaste, for Major Harry Hardwicke of

the Corps of Engineers. The puzzled Commanding General was racking his

brains to find out if his old friend Abercromby had committed any fatal

error during his somewhat bacchanalian visit on “special duty.”

“I’m glad he is gone” mused the stout-hearted, thick-headed old

Commander, as he read, over and over, the Viceroy’s cipher dispatch to

the departed General.

“Do nothing further! Turn over all property, on invoice, to General

Willoughby, and report here forthwith. Hold no communication with

Johnstone, and guard an absolute silence. Report in person, instantly on

your arrival.”

“Something has surely gone wrong!” at last decided Willoughby. “Old Hugh

Fraser Johnstone may have been too much for him. Strange, the Viceroy

says nothing of him!” And then he read a second dispatch, with the

Viceroy’s orders to himself. “Notify Major Harry Hardwicke, Royal

Engineers, to report in person, to the Viceroy for special duty,

prepared to go in a week to England on duty. Absolute secrecy required.

His leave application will be approved for any period, to take effect on

his completion of duties assigned, in London. Special cipher orders will

be sent to him this A.M. Deliver them and furnish him the code No. 2.

No copies to be retained. Furnish Major Hardwicke with a captain and

ten picked men to escort the property received by General Abercromby to

Calcutta. Invoices to you to be signed by him. Property to be sent

down in sealed pay-chests, with your seal and Major Hardwicke’s. Report

compliance, and telegraph in cipher No. 2 Hardwicke’s departure for

Calcutta. Special transportation has been ordered.”

“There, my boy, you have your orders!” an hour later said General

Willoughby when Major Hardwicke reported. “I am glad to have the

whole thing off my hands. Here is the double-ciphered code. You are to

translate for yourself, and, remember, then destroy your translation.

Remember, also, one single whisper of your destination, and you are

a ruined man! Evidently the Viceroy is bent on trapping old Hugh

Johnstone. Damn him, for a sneaking civilian! I never trusted him!” And

the old General rolled away for his family tiffin. “I’ll see you when

you have translated the private orders. Thank God, the Viceroy keeps me

out of this dirty muddle! You see, I have no power over Johnstone--he

is a blasted civilian.” Two hours later, the grateful old General found

Hardwicke pacing up and down impatiently. “I ought only to tell Murray,”

he murmured, “if I could! He is going home to be married, and I am to

stand up with him.”

“Just the thing!” gayly cried Willoughby. “Murray’s captaincy is in the

Gazette of to-day’s mail. I will order him down with you, in command

of the guard, and, at Calcutta, the Viceroy will release you from your

promise, so as to let him know that you can meet him in London. His

Excellency evidently wants to hoodwink all the gossips here, and, above

all, to blind old Johnstone. Now, Harry, I feel like a brute to let you

go without a poor send-off, but, by Heaven, the whole Willoughby clan

will follow you in London, and pay off a part of our debt for that

‘run-under fire’ with my wounded boy. Name anything you want. Do you

want any help to watch Johnstone?” The old General was eager.

“Ah! I fear that I must attend to him, alone!” sadly said Major

Hardwicke, whose heart was racked, for a fair, dear face now afar must

soon be clouded with sorrow and those dear eyes weep a father’s shame.

“Call, day and night, for anything you want!” heartily said the loyal

old father of the rescued officer. “The day before you go you must dine

with us, alone, and Harriet will give you her last greeting.”

As the day wore away, there was a jovial rapprochement in the special

car where General Abercromby and Major Hawke were gayly extolling Madame

Berthe Louison’s perfections. “Mind you, General, I am no squire of

dames,” said the Major. “You must make your own running.”

“Ah! my boy, you have earned your temporary rank as a Major of Staff,

when you’ve introduced me. I flatter myself that I know women!” cried

Abercromby as they cracked t’other bottle of Johnstone’s champagne.

“Take me to her, and then, I’ll take you to the Viceroy. I guarantee

your rank!”

“It’s a bargain!” cried the delighted Hawke. While Abercromby dreamed

of the lovely lady of the Silver Bungalow, Major Alan Hawke leisurely

examined a sheaf of letters from Europe which had been thrust in his

pocket by Ram Lal at parting.

“Victory!” he cried, as he read a tender letter from Euphrosyne Delande,

in which she promised her absolute compliance with his every wish.

“Justine has written to me herself,” was the underscored hint that the

three might join fortunes. “It’s about time for that Madras boat to

get to Brindisi,” mused Hawke, as they ran into Allahabad, “There may be

telegrams here now.” And, while General Abercromby jovially feasted,

Hawke ran over to his secret haunt to which he had ordered Ram Lal to

send any telegrams, for one day only, and then, the rest would be safe

with Ram’s secret agent in Calcutta. “My God! This is my fortune! Bravo,

Justine!” cried Hawke, “True and quickwitted. I now hold Berthe Louison

in my hand.”

He read the words--“Andrew Fraser, St. Agnes’ Road, St. Heliers,

Jersey.” The dispatch was headed Brindisi, and signed “Justine.” “A

man might do worse than marry a woman as true and keen as that,” smiled

Hawke. “I am a devil for luck!” And then he gayly drank Justine’s

health, in silence, when he joined the amorous Abercromby at the table.

But the “devil for luck” did not know of a little scene at Brindisi,

where the blushing Nadine Johnstone hid her face in her friend’s bosom.

“It is my life, my very existence, Justine!” she pleaded. “I will never

forget you; we are both women, and my heart will break if you refuse!”

And thus Justine Delande had learned at last of Nadine’s easy victory

over the frank-hearted cousin’s prudence.

“What’s the wrong--to tell her?” he had mused, under the spell of the

loving eyes. “We go straight through, and I am in charge till my father

takes her out of my hands! Poor girl, it will be a grim enough life with

him. Not a man will ever set eyes on her face without old Hugh’s written

order!” And it was thus that Justine was enabled to warn her own lover

when she had slipped away and cabled by her mistress’s orders to the

young Lochinvar at Delhi:

“Captain Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers, Delhi: Letters for you at

Andrew Fraser’s, St Agnes Road, St. Heliers, Jersey. Come.”

The Swiss woman shuddered as she boldly signed Nadine! And this same

dispatch when received by the young officer, now busied with the

Viceroy’s mandate, brought the sunlight of Love back into his darkened

soul! The minutes seemed to lengthen into hours until the special train

was ready. At the risk of his military future, the Major gave to the

faithful Simpson his London Club address. “If anything happens here,

you must go to General Willoughby. Tell him what you want me to know.

He will send it on, and give you a five-pound note. Remember! Simpson,

you’ll die in my service if you stand true!”

“That I will, for your brave father’s sake, and for the young lady’s

bright eyes! Bless her dear, sunny face! Tell her that I will work for

her in life and death!” And when, in a few days the lengthened absence

of Major Harry Hardwicke and Red Eric Murray was noted, the groups only

conjectured a little junket to some near-by station, or a long shikaree

trip. But Simpson and General Willoughby knew better. Simpson was a

“lord” in these days, in the quarter, for Hardwicke had not left Delhi

with a closed hand.

And old Hugh Johnstone, greatly relieved at heart, was now busied in

secretly arranging for his own flitting. “I’ll run down to Calcutta, see

the Viceroy, give Abercromby a splendid dinner, and then slip off home,

on the quiet, via Ceylon. I’ll send Douglas back when I get to Jersey,

and then I can put those jewels where no human being can ever trace

them! Once that brother Andrew has my full orders as to Nadine, I will

bar this she-devil forever from her side! On the excuse of a leisurely

contemplated tour, I can have the rich Jew brokers of Amsterdam and

Frankfort, with their agents in Cairo and Constantinople, divide up the

jewels among the foreign crown-heads. I am then safe! safe! No human

hand can ever touch me now,” he gloated.

There was a clattering of aides-de-camp and great official bustle at

the Government House in Calcutta when General Abercromby reported to

the great statesman Viceroy, dwelling in the vast palace, builded by the

Marquis of Wellesley.

General Abercromby, marveling at the abruptness of the Viceroy, was

relieved to know that his “secret service” had been transferred to Major

Hardwicke under the orders of Major-General Willoughby. His mind was

intently occupied with the promised introduction to Madame Berthe

Louison--“that little party”--and so he failed not to refer to the

future value to the crown of Alan Hawke’s services.

“He is here with me, Your Excellency!” respectfully said Abercromby, who

had already posted off his leporello to call in due form at the banker’s

mansion, where the disguised Alixe Delavigne had taken refuge. “Send him

to me at once, General. I need him! I will give him the local staff rank

of Major and immediate employment. Willoughby has also written to me

especially about his wonderful knowledge of our northern lines. Stay!

Bring him yourself, to-morrow, at ten o’clock.”

“Splendid! Splendid!” cried the love-lorn General, rubbing his hands,

as he hastened away in his carriage to meet Alan Hawke! “I am ready for

him, if he is ready for me! I wish she were at some one of the great

hotels instead of being buried in the silver-gray respectability of the

Manager’s family circle. But--but--I will take her to the Viceroy.

The bird shall then learn to test its wings. I will bring her out as a

social star!”

Major Alan Hawke, with a beating heart, recounted to Madame Berthe

Louison all the occurrences in Delhi, when they were left alone in the

great banker’s vast parlors. “She is a puzzle, this strange woman!”

mused Hawke, for a serene and stately triumph shone in her splendid

eyes.

Berthe Louison listened to all! “You will get your staff appointment,”

she smiled, “and I will help you! Bring your friend General Abercromby

to see me here to-morrow evening! I will be amiable to him, for your

sake, and for the sake of my future interests!”

The grateful young man, now on the threshold of reinstatement, in a

sudden impulse cried, “I can, now, give you Nadine Johnstone’s hiding

place! You can trust to me and I will prove it, now! It is--”

“With Andrew Fraser, retired Professor of Edinburgh University,

historian and philologist, ethnologist, etc.; St. Agnes Road, St.

Heliers, Jersey,” laughingly rejoined Berthe Louison.

“You are a--witch, woman! A wonder!” cried the astounded adventurer.

“Ah! You see that I have trusted you!” she smiled. “Now, do as I bid

you, and you will rise in the service! Remember! You are to do just what

I say! The bank here, or in Delhi, will give you always my directions.

Remember! I shall not lose sight of you for a moment, though near or

far! And money and promotion will reward your good faith! Go now! my

friend,” she kindly said, extending her hand. “Bring the General, here,

tomorrow evening, at eight! I will be busied till then! There is nothing

for you to do now!”

The astonished schemer was in a maze as he dashed away to the Calcutta

Club to meet General Abercromby. “She is a very devil and a mistress of

the Black Art!” he mused. “I will stand by her,” he admiringly cried,

“as long as it pays me.” It was the honest tribute of a grateful

scoundrel’s heart!

While the happy Abercromby dallied with Major Hawke over a claret cup,

an official messenger sought him out, at the Club. “There, my boy! You

see that I am a man of my word!” cried the would-be lover. Alan Hawke’s

lip trembled as he tore open an envelope directed to him and marked: “On

Her Majesty’s Service.” The first in many years. The walls spun around

before his eyes when he read his provisional appointment, with an order

to report forthwith, to the Chief of Staff, for private instructions.

“Ah! I congratulate you, my boy!” heartily cried the happy General. “You

are a very devil for luck! One toast to the Viceroy! I’ll meet you here

to-night!”

The happiest man in India sped away to his newly opened gate of Paradise

Regained, while afar in the sweltering September sun, the gleam of

rifles and red coats told of an armed escort on the train, bearing Major

Hardwicke and Captain Eric Murray, on to Calcutta, with the swiftness

of the wind. Neither of the officers for a moment quitted their

compartment, and two chosen sergeants, revolver in hand, watched

certain sealed packages lying beside them all there in plain view. Major

Hardwicke’s soul was now in his quest!

There was a gleam of romance in the great Viceroy’s morning duties,

while Major Hawke had hastened to the Chief of Staff’s office.

Madame Berthe Louison, escorted by her guardian, the bank manager, had

placed upon the Viceroy’s table a little document which he studied with

great care. “You are sure that there is no mistake?” the statesman said,

gravely interrogating the banker. “I will guarantee it, Your Excellency,

with its face value, fifty thousand pounds.” answered the financier. It

was the memorandum of a policy of assurance for a sealed package, on

the steamer Lord Roberts, sent by Hugh Fraser Johnstone to Prof. Andrew

Fraser, St. Agnes Road, St. Heliers, Jersey and now half way to England.

“I will act, Madame, at once!” said the holder of a scepter by proxy.

“You are to guard this secret, both, upon your honor. Send the dispatch,

as you have proposed. My official action is to follow this up. I will

let the game go on in silence just a little longer. And now--” the

Viceroy led the lady aside, whispering a few private words, which left

her a proud and happy woman. “My special aid will call at your residence

as soon as it is dark. The consular officials at Aden, Suez, Port Said,

and Brindisi will all have orders regarding you. I am ashamed that the

prudence needed in the official side of this affair prevents me socially

honoring you as I would. The French Consul-General has given to me his

official guaranty for you, which,” he smiled, “was not needed. We shall

meet again, and your conduct will not be forgotten.”

Alixe Delavigne bowed with the grace of a queen and never lifted her

eyes until her sober mentor had brought her to the shelter of his home.

Before they were seated at tiffin the wires bore away this dispatch,

which astounded its recipient:

“CAP. ANSON ANSTRUTHER, JUNIOR UNITED SERVICE CLUB,

LONDON.

Meet me at Morley’s Hotel, London. Will telegraph you from Brindisi.

Official dispatches to you explain.

BERTHE LOUISON.”

When the stars lit up the broad Hooghly that night, a swift Peninsular

and Oriental Liner drew away down the river, with a smart steam-launch

towing at her companionway. The woman who said adieu to the Viceroy’s

aid and her grave-faced banker in her splendid rooms had read the brief

words of Captain Anstruther, telling her that the electric Ariel was

true to his trust. “All right. Both dispatches received. Welcome.

Anstruther.” The official staterooms were a bower of floral beauty, and

the gallant aid murmured: “I hope that nothing has been forgotten. The

whole ship is at your disposal. The Commander has the Viceroy’s personal

orders. And, I was to give you the letter and this package!” When the

banker had exchanged the last words of counsel and advice, he said:

“Trust me! I know Hawke of old! We will let him go up the ladder of life

a little, while the other fellow comes down!”

When the little steam-launch was a black blur on the blue waters, then

Alixe Delavigne, standing alone at the rail, smiled as she saw the lean,

straggling shores sweep by. “I fear that General Abercromby will deem

me discourteous! But time, tide, and the P. and O. steamers wait for no

elderly beau, however fascinating!”

It is a matter of local history in Calcutta that General Abercromby’s

remark: “Hawke! we have been a pair of damned fools! We are outwitted!”

found its way at last into the clubs, and the attack of jaundice,

followed up by a severe gout, which “laid out” the sighing lover for

long months, proves, as of old, that stern Mars cannot cope with

the bright and all-compelling Venus! But Major Alan Hawke, of the

Provisional Staff, hearkened wisely to the banker’s words: “Don’t

be fool enough to think that you can trifle with Madame Louison’s

interests. The noble Viceroy has placed you on duty, at her own personal

request, to give you a last chance to regain all the promise of your

youth. One word from her, and--and you will be suspended or, dropped!

You will get your military orders from the Viceroy and her wishes from

me.”

Alan Hawke was paralyzed with astonishment the next day, when the

Viceroy ordered him to proceed at once to Delhi, to report to General

Willoughby, and to hasten to London, via Bombay, on completion of his

secret service at Delhi.”

“I am a devil for luck!” muttered Hawke. “But even the tide of Fortune

can drive along too fast!” He had lost his head, and forgotten all

his pigmy plans. A stronger hand than his own was secretly guiding his

onward path, upward to the old status of the “British officer!” “What

the devil do they want of me in London?” he mused.

And, chuckling over how easily he had made the lovesick Abercromby

help him into his “military seat” once more, Alan Hawke betook himself

forthwith to Delhi, to report to General Willoughby for instant service.

When he descended at Allahabad, his undress uniform of a major of the

Staff Corps brought down on him a storm of congratulations from old

friends gathered there. “Sly old boy you were!” the service men laughed,

over their glasses, while wetting his new uniform. “A man must not tell

all he knows!” patiently replied Major Hawke, with the sad, sweet smile

of a man who had dropped into a good thing.

As he rolled along toward Delhi, he seriously cogitated “playing fair”

in his new capacity. “Perhaps it will pay!” he mused. “But I will even

up with that old hog, Johnstone!” He dared not contemplate now any

substantial treason to Madame Alixe Delavigne. “She is a witch woman!

She seems to have an untold backing! The Bankers, even, the Viceroy, and

the French Consul-General, too. She could crush me! I must serve My Lady

Disdain, and I will fight and die in her army!” Arriving at Delhi, Major

Alan Hawke’s first visit was to Ram Lal Singh, as he prepared to “report

forthwith,” in “full rig,” to the local Commander. There was a strange

preoccupation in the old jeweler which baffled Hawke. Ram Lal only

humbly begged to have all his lengthened accounts with Madame Berthe

Louison arranged, and Alan Hawke, with a few words, calmed the

Mussulman’s fears.

“I’ll have it all attended to, to-morrow, when I look it over,” said

the Major, hastening away to the Club. “Ram has been at the hashish, or

bhang, or the betel nut, or some of his recondite dissipations--perhaps

he has enjoyed an opium bout in the Zenana,” mused the new appointee, as

he gayly “begged off” from a cloud of eager congratulations by

promising to “blow off” the whole Delhi Club. “Business first, pleasure

afterwards” said the resplendent Major Hawke, as he clattered away, a

handsome son of Mars, to report to General Willoughby.

Major Hawke was secretly delighted with his cordial reception. “Come to

me to-morrow at ten, Major,” said the Commander, “I will have your first

instructions, but remember absolute secrecy. This is a very grave affair

to both of us--your coming employment.”

“The tide of life is bearing me on, with a devilish rapidity, with

favoring gales,” the Major reflected. But beyond the clouds veiling the

future he saw no farther shore.

In the dim watches of the night for a week past, Simpson, secretly

busied with preparing Hugh Johnstone’s flitting, was perplexed at the

sound of shuffling feet and whispered voices in the master’s rooms

opening into the splendid gardens. “Who the devil has he there? Some

woman!” mused the old veteran servant. Simpson had his own little

“private life” to wind up, and so he was charitably inclined. It was

his custom when all was still to slip away “to the quarter” where some

lingering cords were now slowly snapping one by one. The old servant

noted with surprise a dark form gliding on his trail in several of these

goings and comings. Being of a practical nature, the man who had faced

the mad rebels at Lucknow only belted on a heavy Adams revolver, and

concluded at last that some others of the household were busied

in secret dissipation or nocturnal lovemaking. “No one man has a

controlling patent on being a fool,” mused Simpson. “Black and white,

we’re all of a muchness.” And as he knew they might now leave at any

moment he sped away to his last delightful nights in Delhi.

On the night when Alan Hawke returned from Calcutta, the inky blackness

of an approaching storm wrapped dreaming Delhi in an impenetrable

mantle. Under the huge camphor tree where the cobra had risen in its

horrid menace before the frightened girl, a dark figure waited till a

man glided to his side. His head was bent as the spy reported “Simpson

is gone to the quarter. Two of our men have followed him, and, if

he returns, he will be stopped on the way.” The only answer was an

outstretched arm, and the whispered words, “Go, then, and watch.”

“It is the very night--the night of all nights!” muttered the watcher

under the tree, and then, stealing forward, he tapped three times at the

window where Hugh Johnstone stood with his heart beating high in all

the pride of a coming triumph ready to open to the man who was settling

his private affairs.

“No one shall know that I have stolen away,” he mused. “Forever and in

the night.”

A light foot pressed the floor as the expected one glided over the low

window sill. There was a night lamp burning dimly in a shaded corner.

“Put out the light. I must tell you something. We are both watched and

spied on!” whispered a well-known voice.

As Hugh Johnstone turned from the corner, in the darkness, there was a

gurgling cry--a half-smothered groan--as Mirzah Shah’s poisoned dagger

was driven to the hilt between his shoulders. His accounts were settled,

at last!

An hour later, a dark form crept through the gardens toward the gate

where Harry Hardwicke had rode in to the rescue. There was a silent

struggle as two men wrestled in the darkness, and one fled away into the

shadows of the night. It was the chance meeting of a spy and a murderer.

And then Major Alan Hawke stooped and picked up a heavy dagger lying at

his feet. “I have the beggar’s knife,” he growled. And, with a sudden

intention, he vanished toward the Club, for the knife of Mirzah Shah was

reeking, and Hugh Johnstone had gone out on his darkened path alone. He

had left Delhi--forever.

BOOK III. PRINCE DJIDDIN’S VISIT TO ENGLAND.

CHAPTER XI. “DO YOU SEE THIS DAGGER?”

Morning in Delhi! The fiery sun leaped up, gilding once more the far

Himalayas and lighting the bloodstained plains of Oude. The golden

shafts twinkled on the huge colonnade, the vast ruined arch, the

crumbling walls, and the huge castled oval of Humayoon’s tomb. In the

dark night, the monsoon winds wailed over the wreck of Hindu, Pathan,

and Mogul magnificence. The dark demons of Bowanee rejoiced at a new

sacrifice to the gloomy goddess; and the straggling jungle was alive

again.

In the vacant caverns, whence the sons of Mohammed Bahadur were

once dragged forth to die by daring Hodson’s smoking pistols, their

slaughtered shades grinned over the ghastly vengeance of the barren

years.

The huge dome of the mosque hung in air over the vacant palaces of the

great Moguls, and the far windmill ridge, and the bastioned walls of

Delhi were bathed in golden light, while Alan Hawke slept the sleep

of exhaustion. And while Ram Lal Singh, secure in his zenana, calmly

greeted the cool morning hour with a smiling face and a happy heart, in

the lonely marble house, stern old Hugh Fraser Johnstone slept the sleep

that knows no waking.

The Chandnee Chouk awoke to its busy daily chatter, and old

Shahjehanabad sought its pleasures languidly again, or bowed its

shoulders once more under the yoke of toil.

The faithful sought the Jumna Musjid for morning prayer, and the

nonchalant British officials began to straggle into the vacant Hall of

the Peacock Throne.

Far away, the Kootab Minar, rising three hundred feet in air, bore

its mute witness to the splendor of the vanished rulers of Delhi, the

peerless Ghori swordsmen of Khorassan. But, even as the soldiers of the

old Pathan fort had marched out into the shadowless night of death to

join Ghori and Baber and Nadir Shah, so the spirit of the lonely old

miser nabob had sought the echoless shore.

When Simpson had unavailingly endeavored to awaken his master, the

locked doors were burst in at last by the anxious servants, and they

found only the tenantless shell of the mighty millionaire, as cold and

rigid as the iron pillar which veils to-day its mystery of a forgotten

past, when the jackals howl in the ruins of old Delhi.

Then rose up a wild outcry, and the sound of hurrying feet. The alert

old veteran servitor, with instinctive military obedience, dispatched

two messengers, on the run, to notify General Willoughby and Major Alan

Hawke. And then, with quick wit, he forbade the gaping crowd to touch

even a single article.

Not even the stiffened body, as it lay prone upon its face, was

disturbed. Simpson stood there, pistol in hand, on guard until properly

relieved, and as silent as a crouching rifleman on picket. The whole

room bore the evidence of a thorough ransacking, and the disordered

clothing of the nabob proved, too, that the body had been rifled. The

mysterious nocturnal visits returned to Simpson’s mind. “Could it have

been some once-wronged woman?” he mused while waiting for his “military

superiors.” For the simple old soldier scorned all civilian control.

His keen eye had caught the strange facts of the fastened windows, the

disappearance of the two mahogany boxes, and the startling absence of

the key of the chamber door.

“Whoever did this job knew what they came for and when to come!” mused

Simpson. He gazed at the window sill. There was the mark of damp earth

still upon it. “Just as I fancied!” growled Simp-son. “They came in at

the window, and when their work was done, left by the door. There was

more than one murderer in this job!” And, then, certain old stories of

a mysterious Eurasian beauty returned to cloud the old man’s judgment.

“Was it robbery, or vengeance?” he grumbled. “The black gang are

in this, but their secrets are safe forever! They are a close

corporation--these devils!”

With certain ideas of an endangered life pension, and a sudden yearning

for the absent Hardwicke’s counsel, stern old Simpson awaited the coming

of his betters. And, the ghastly news of Johnstone’s “taking-off” flew

over Delhi to furnish a nine days’ wonder.

There was a great crowd gathered around the garden walls of the Marble

House, as an officer of the guard galloped up with a platoon of cavalry.

“The General will be here himself, soon! What’s all this terrible

happening?” said the young officer, as he took post beside Simpson. “You

have done well!” the soldier said, on a brief report. “Let nothing be

touched. My guard will prevent any one leaving the grounds!” There was a

sullen apathy as regarded the unloved old egoist.

Major Alan Hawke sprang to his feet, hastily, as the excited Club

Steward, forgetting all his decorum, banged loudly upon the staff

officer’s bedroom door. The young man was still in the dress of night,

as the Steward excitedly exclaimed: “Here’s a fearful deed! Hugh

Johnstone has been murdered in his bed, and--they’ve sent for you!”

Alan Hawke was staggered. “Get me a horse, at once! I must report to the

General! When, where, how? Tell me all! Send off a man for the horse!”

And, as Hawke hastily donned his uniform, he heard the Hindu servant’s

story.

“Be off! Tell Simpson I go first to the General, and, then, I will come

over to the house!”

As Major Hawke strode through the clubroom, a half-dozen half-dressed

clubmen seized upon him. He waved off their inquiries, as an orderly

dashed up to the door.

“General Willoughby’s compliments, Sir. You are to report to him

instantly at the Marble House! You can take my horse, Major! I’ll bring

yours on.” And so, lightly leaping into the saddle, the Major galloped

away, with an approving nod. “There’ll be a devil of a racket over this

thing!” he reflected, as he dashed along. And he chuckled with glee at

his prudence in hiding away the dagger which he had picked up in the

garden. For, a moonlight-eyed Eurasian girl, hidden in a little cottage,

was the only human being in Delhi who knew of the hasty visit her secret

lover had made in the night. The jeweled dagger of Mirzah Shah was now

securely locked in a little chest where Alan Hawke kept a few articles

hidden away in the humble home of the passive plaything of his idle

hours. As he caught sight of the Marble House, with its gathered crowds,

he saw the gleam of musket barrels, as a company of foot were picketing

the vast garden inclosure, and forcing back the excited crowd.

A non-commissioned officer swung open the heavy gates which would only

turn on their hinges once more for Hugh Johnstone going out on his last

journey. “The General awaits you, Major,” said the sergeant, touching

his cap. “He has already asked for you.” And as Hawke rode up to the

front door he was suddenly reminded of his imperiled interests. “The

drafts! They may be stopped now! By God! I must see Ram Lal! I need him

now and he needs me.”

With an unruffled professional calm, however, Major Hawke reported to

the visibly disturbed General commanding.

With a single warning gesture of silence, General Willoughby drew the

Major aside. “I shall put you in entire charge here. I have seen all

the civil authorities. This is your affair. It touches your mission. The

Viceroy has been telegraphed, and you are to guard the whole property

here till we have his pleasure. Now come with me and let us question

Simpson. The rest are merely a lot of apes.”

And so Major Alan Hawke had ample time to arrange his private plan

of campaign as he guarded a respectful silence during Simpson’s long

relation, for his thoughts were now far away with Berthe Louison, and

the lovely orphan, whose only confidante was his tender-hearted dupe

Justine Delande. But the acute adventurer’s mind returned to fix itself

upon Ram Lal Singh, now blandly smiling in his jewel shop, where the

morning gossips babbled over Johnstone Sahib’s tragic death. “I must

telegraph to Euphrosyne,” thought the Major, “and to 9 Rue Berlioz,

Paris, for my will-o-the-wisp employer. But, Mr. Ram Lal Singh, you

shall pay me for what ruin Mirzah Shah’s dagger has wrought!”

The mantle of silence had fallen forever over the last night’s rencontre

in the garden. With dreaming eyes Hawke mused: “It would never do to

tell any part of that story. What business had I there?” And, without

a tremor, he stood by the General’s side as they gazed on the dead

millionaire’s body still lying on the floor.

“I will now send for the civil authorities, and you, Major Hawke, will

represent me in the investigation. Your military future hangs on this.

Remember, now, that the Viceroy looks to you alone! I will return here

after tiffin. I will have some personal instructions for you.” And Alan

Hawke now saw the farther shore of his voyage of life gleaming out as

General Willoughby left him to confer with the arriving magistrates and

civil police. “I shall marry you, my veiled Rose of Delhi, and be master

here yet, in this Marble House, and, by God, I’ll die a general, too!”

he swore, with which pleasing prophecy Major Alan Hawke calmly took up

the varied secret duties which joined a Viceroy’s secret orders to the

will of the General commanding.

“I am a devil for luck!” he mused as he gazed down on the old man’s

shrunken and withered dead face. “I will do the honors alone for you,

my departed friend,” he sneered, “for I am the master here now.” The

absence of all articles of value, the disappearance of Johnstone’s

three superb ruby shirt-studs, and his magnificent single diamond

cuff-buttons, told of the greed of the robbers, presumably familiar with

his personal ornaments, while the terrific stab in the back showed that

the heavy knife had been driven through the back up to its very hilt.

“We must find the dagger!” pompously said the civil magistrate.

“Major Hawke, will you give orders to have the whole house and grounds

searched?” And with a faint smile the Major politely rose and set all

his myrmidons in motion.

Even then the telegraph was clicking away a message to Johnstone’s

lawyer and bankers in Calcutta, and to his young relative, Douglas

Fraser, of the great P. and O. steamship service. Before night the

crafty Calcutta lawyer had notified Professor Andrew Fraser, in the

far-away island of Jersey, and before Major Hawke himself received the

Viceroy’s orders, through General Willoughby, Mademoiselle Euphrosyne

Delande, of Geneva, and the household at No. 9 Rue Berlioz, Paris, both

knew that the defiant old nabob had sailed the dark sea without a shore.

Most of all surprised was Captain Anson Anstruther in London, who

pondered long at the United Service Club over an official message from

the Viceroy, telling him of the startling murder. The young gallant’s

heart beat in a strange agitation as he examined the previous dispatches

of both Berthe Louison and the Viceroy.

“She had no hand in it, thank God!” mused the young aide-de-camp.

“Perhaps he was paid off for some of his old Shylock transactions--some

local intrigue, or the jealous lover of some Eurasian beauty, dragged to

his lair, has finished all, and revenged the accumulated brutalities of

thirty years.”

There was a loud outcry of horror and surprise sweeping on now from the

social circles of Delhi to the clubs of Lucknow, Cawnpore, Allahabad,

Benares, and Patna to Calcutta.

In a day or two, men from Lahore to Hyderabad, from Bombay to Nagpore

and Madras, and in all the clubs from Calcutta to Simla, had paused over

their brandy pawnee to murmur, “Well! The poor old beggar is gone, and

now he’ll never get his Baronetcy! Some of the niggers did the trick

neatly for him at last. They must have got a jolly lot of loot!”

In which general verdict the glittering-eyed Ram Lal, hidden in his

zenana, did not share. For, when he had rifled and destroyed the two

mahogany boxes he summed all up his pickings with baffled rage. “A

couple of thousand pounds of notes, a few scattered jewels, the sly old

dog has spirited away his vast stealings! My work was all in vain, save

the vengeance!” And the oily Ram Lal, in the zenana, drew a willing

beauty of Cashmere to his bosom, and hid his face from the chatterers of

street and shop. He was safe from all prying eyes in the Harem.

But, while the triumphant English Mem-Sahibs, of Delhi, shuddered at the

bloody details of old Hugh Johnstone’s taking off, they found abundant

reason to point a moral and adorn a tale.

While the anxious Viceroy was busied at Calcutta, and General Willoughby

and Hawke were engrossed with the pompous funeral preparations at Delhi,

the ladies of the whole station unanimously condemned the departed. For

a cold and brutal foe of womanhood had died unhonored in their midst,

and none were left to mourn.

With much pretentious wagging of shapely heads, and much mysterious

innuendo, they spoke lightly of the departed one, and failed not to

mentally unroof the Silver Bungalow. The baffled ladies scented a social

mystery!

Wild rumors of splendid orgies, strange tales of a wronged woman’s

vengeance, lurid romances of the flight of the French Countess with a

younger lover, after despoiling her aged admirer; all these things were

“put in commission” and vigorously circulated.

The principal party interested in these slanders, was, however, now

calmly gliding on toward Aden, while the dead millionaire was alike

oblivious to the lovely daughter whom he had crushed as a bruised

flower, the haughty woman who had defied him in his wrath, and the

administration of the million sterling which was the golden monument

over his yawning grave! The silk-petticoat Council of Notables in Delhi

decided by a tidal-wave of womanly intuition, that the gallant and

debonnair Major Alan Hawke would marry “the lovely and accomplished

heiress,” and so the white-bosomed beauties of the capital of Oude

turned again lazily to their respective sins of omission and commission,

and to the glitter of their respective booths in Vanity Fair!

The club gossips waited in vain for the reappearance of Major Alan

Hawke, whose entire personal effects were bundled hastily away to the

marble house, where the adventurer now ruled pro tempore. It was late

in the night when Major Hawke had achieved all the preparations for the

funeral of the murdered man, upon the following day. Simpson and a squad

of non-commissioned officers watched where the flickering lights gleamed

down upon the dead nabob.

Making his last rounds for the night, Major Hawke, with a soldier’s

cynical calmness, enjoyed a cheroot upon the veranda, as he bade his

captain of the guard take charge until his return. The Major had most

carefully examined the five bills of exchange which now occupied his

attention, and his mind was now busied with the dead man’s golden store.

He now contemplated a visit to a man whose conscience bothered him not,

but whose bosom quaked in fear when Hawke’s letter, sent by a messenger,

bade Ram Lal await him at midnight.

“Does he know?” gasped Ram Lal, with chattering teeth, and yet he dared

not fly.

An early evening interview with General Willoughby had disclosed to the

Major the inconvenient fact that the dead nabob had left a carefully

drawn will, whereof Andrew Fraser, of St. Heliers, Jersey, and Douglas

Fraser, of Calcutta, were executors. “There is a duplicate will here in

the Bengal Bank,” so telegraphed the solicitor, “and I have now notified

both the executors. I presume that Mr. Douglas Fraser will return here

at once, as he is absent in Europe on leave. It may be a week or more

until he receives the sad intelligence.”

Alan Hawke softly smiled at those touching words, “Sad intelligence.”

It was only the perfunctory regret of the shark-like lawyer, and the

secretly rejoicing heirs. “This is not a case where the one who goes is

happier than the one that’s left behind,” mused Hawke. “I must settle

matters rapidly with Ram Lal, for if the will leaves the property to

Nadine, she must be mine at all costs!

“Shall I not send a well-armed man with you, Major?” asked the Captain.

“It is very late!”

“Thanks, Jordan,” lightly said the Major. “I’ve a good revolver and my

service sword--a priceless old wootz steel tulwar. I’m good for a dozen

Pandies! I’m used to Thug--and Dacoit, to bandit and ruffian. I have a

little private business to attend to, and I’ll come home in a trap!”

By a strange chance, Major Alan Hawke, the distinguished favorite of

fortune, slunk along in byway and shadow till he reached the cottage,

where a lovely woman, flower wreathed, with child-like face and timid,

mournful eyes, anxiously awaited him. “I’ll be back in two or three

hours,” he carelessly said, as he tossed her a roll of rupees. Then,

with a long, slender package hidden in his bosom, he stole out after a

long circuit and entered Ram Lal’s compound by the rear entrance, always

at his use.

“It is just as well not to make any little mistake just now,” mused

Hawke, as with cat-like tread he sped through the old jeweler’s garden.

And the “prevention of mistakes” consisted in the heavy Adams revolver

which he carried slung around his neck and shoulder by a heavy cord, in

the handy Russian fashion.

His left hand steadied the peculiar parcel which he had so carefully

hidden. An amused smile flitted over his face when old Ram Lal opened

the door of the snuggery, where Justine had first listened to a lover’s

sighs. “Poor girl! I wish she were here to-night!” tenderly mused the

sentimental rascal, as he waved away Ram Lal’s bidding to a splendid

little supper.

“I came here to talk business, Ram, to-night” sternly said Hawke, who

had inwardly decided not to taste food or drink with the past master

of villainy. “He might give me a gentle push into the Styx,” acutely

reflected the Major. “Sit down right there where I can see you,” said

Hawke, his hand firmly grasping the revolver, as he indicated a corner

of the table, after satisfying himself that the shop door was locked. He

then quickly locked the garden door and pocketed both the keys.

“What do you want of me?” murmured Ram Lal, who had noted the

semi-hostile tone, and who clearly saw the butt of the revolver.

“I want to talk to you of this Johnstone matter,” said the soldier,

ignoring all other reference to the “dear departed.” This coolness

unsettled the wily jeweler, who trembled as Hawke laid a long red

pocketbook down on the table before him.

The wily scoundrel shivered when the Major, with his left hand, pushed

over to him five sets of Bills of Exchange for a thousand pounds each.

Ram Lal’s eyes dropped under the brave villain’s steady gaze, and he

slowly read the first paper. He well knew the drawer’s writing:

DELHI, August 15, 1890.

L 1,000.

Thirty days after sight of this first of exchange (second and third

unpaid), pay to the order of Alan Hawke one thousand pounds sterling,

value received.

HUGH FRASER JOHNSTONE.

To Messrs. Glyn, Carr and Glyn, London.

“What do you wish me to do, Sahib?” tremblingly faltered the old usurer,

as he carefully noted the fifteen papers. A sinking at the heart told

him that he was in the power of the one man in India whom he knew to be

as merciless as himself, for a kindred spirit had fled when the drawer

of the Bills of Exchange died alone in the dark, his bubbling shriek

stopped by his heart’s blood. The Major sternly said in an icy voice, as

he fixed his eyes full on his victim:

“I wish you to indorse, every one of those papers. I wish you to make

each one of them read five thousand pounds. You have done that trick

very neatly before, and to put the additional Crown duty stamps upon

them.” Ram Lal had started up, but he sank back appalled as he looked

down the barrel of Hawke’s revolver.

“Keep silence or I’ll put a ball through your shoulder, and then drag

you up to General Willoughby. He will hang you in chains if I say the

word.” Alan Hawke was tiger-like now in his rapacity.

“I will leave the first set with you, and you will now give me your

check on the Oriental Bank for five thousand pounds. The other drafts

you will have all ready for me to-morrow and bring them to me at the

Marble House.”

The jeweler groaned and swayed to and fro upon his seat in a mute agony.

“I cannot do it. I have not the money,” he babbled.

“You old lying wretch. You have screwed a quarter of a million pounds

out of Christian, Hindu, and Mohammedan here,” mercilessly said the

torturer.

“I will not! I cannot! I dare not!” cried Ram Lal, dropping on the floor

and trying to bow his head at Hawke’s feet.

“Get up! You old beast!” commanded Hawke. “By God! I’ll shoot and

disable you now and then arrest you! Tell me! Do you know that dagger?”

With a quick motion, still covering the cowering wretch with his pistol,

Hawke drew out the package from his bosom, clumsily tearing off a silk

neck scarf-wrapper with his left hand. He laid down on the table the

blood-incrusted dagger of Mirzah Shah. The golden haft, the jeweled

fretwork and the broad blade were all covered with the life tide of the

great man whom no one mourned in Delhi.

“Mercy! Mercy!” hoarsely whispered Ram Lal, with his hands clasped, as

in prayer.

“I know whose it is!” pitilessly continued the tormentor. “You dropped

it, you fool, when you ran against me in the garden in your mad haste to

get away! One single rebellious word and I will march you to the nearest

guard post! Now, will you do what I wish?”

“Anything, anything, Sahib!” begged the cowering wretch. “Put it away,

put it away!”

“Now, quick!” said the Major. “First, give me the check! Then indorse

all these drafts right here in my presence. I will negotiate the others

myself. You can send on the first one through your bankers. Your name

on all of them will make them go without question.” The alert adventurer

watched Ram’s trembling fingers achieve the work. “Do not dare to leave

your own inclosure till you come directly to me to-morrow, when you

have altered all those drafts to read five thousand pounds each. I have

charge of the estate of the man whom you butchered like a dog. I have

a guard of two companies of soldiers, and you will be arrested as a

murderer if you attempt to leave, save to come directly to me with these

papers.”

Alan Hawke lit a cigar and then took a refreshing draught from a pocket

flask.

“Now open your strong box and show me your jewels! I want some of them!”

The sobbing wretch at his feet demurred until the cold nozzle of the

pistol was pressed against his forehead. “I will make the English

bankers pay the other four bills; but, you brute, did you think that

I would let you off with a poor five thousand pounds? Harken! I go to

England in a week! Then you are safe forever! Bring out all your jewels!

You got fifty thousand pounds from the old man! I know it!”

Begging and beseeching in vain, Ram Lal crawled to his great iron strong

box studded over with huge knobs, and, after a half an hour’s critical

selection, Alan Hawke had concealed on his person four little bags,

in which he had made the shivering wretch place the choicest of his

treasures.

“Call up your man now. Do not stir for an instant from my side! If the

drafts are not with me before sundown to-morrow, you will be hung in

chains, and the ravens will finish what the hangman leaves! Remember--my

boy! The rail and telegraph will cut off any little tricks of yours!

And,” he laughed, “you will not run away; you have too much here to

leave. It would be a fat haul for the Crown authorities. I will keep

my eye on you, near or far. I will be with you always. We have our own

little secret, now!”

“I will obey--only save me! Save me, Hawke Sahib. I will do all upon

my head, I will!” pleaded Ram Lal, whose vast fortune was indeed at the

mercy of the law.

“Call up your servants. Get out the carriage. Go back to your women.

Make merry. You are perfectly safe, but only if you obey me!” was the

last mandate of the triumphant bravo. When he stepped out of the house,

attended by the frightened murderer, Alan Hawke whispered from the

carriage: “Your house is under a close watch--even now. Remember--I give

you till sundown, and if you fail, I will come with the guard! I shall

seal up the dagger and leave it here with a message to the General

Willoughby Sahib to be given to him, at once, by one who knows you! So,

I can trust you. Nothing must happen to your dear friend, you know!” he

smilingly said in adieu, as Ram Lal groaned in anguish.

Alan Hawke had closely examined the vehicle, and he sat with his drawn

revolver ready as he drove down the still lit-up Chandnee Chouk. In a

storm of remorse and agony, the plundered jeweler was now doubly locked

up in his room. “I must do this devil’s bidding!” he murmured. “Bowanee!

Bowanee! You have betrayed your servant!” was his cry as he sought the

safety of the Zenana.

Major Hawke tasted all the sweets of a great secret triumph as he cast

up his accounts. “The five thousand pounds frightened from this

old wretch, Ram Lal, really squares me with the estate of the ‘dear

departed.’ The jewels are worth twice as much more, and, with Ram Lal’s

indorsement all the other drafts on Glyn’s bank are as good as gold.

There is twenty thousand clear profit. I will send them on now for

acceptance, openly, through the Credit Lyonnaise when I get to Paris.

For Berthe Louison will give me, also, a good character. Old Ram’s

indorsements make them perfectly good anywhere. I had better hide the

details of this windfall, out here. And, now, thank Heaven, I am ‘fixed

for life,’ and I can go in boldly and play the Prince Charming to Miss

Moneybags, the fair Nadine.” He tossed a double rupee to the driver,

as the sentry swung the gate, but, hastily called him back as Captain

Jordan said, hastening from the house:

“Orders are waiting for you now, with the General. Let me give you a

trusty Sergeant. Drive right up there, Major. The General sent word that

he awaits you.” And so the Major sped away to his chief.

No human being in Delhi ever knew the purport of the orders which

General Willoughby handed to Major Hawke, on this eventful evening, but

much marveled all Delhi that the favorite of fortune was absent from the

funeral of the late Hugh Fraser Johnstone, Esq., of Delhi and Calcutta.

He had vanished, with no P.P.C. calls, and a hundred-pound note tossed

to the poor little Eurasian girl in the cottage was her whole fortune in

life now.

But a grave-faced civilian public official, with Major Williamson, of

the Viceroy’s general staff (a late arrival from Calcutta), ruled over

the marble house in place of Major Alan Hawke “absent upon special

duty.” Only Ram Lal knew of the real destination of the lucky man,

who was only free from care when he had sailed from Bombay direct for

Brindisi, on the fleet steamer Ramchunder.

“I am safe now,” laughed Alan Hawke, who rejoiced in the easy tour of

duty before him. “To repair to London and to report to Captain Anson

Anstruther, A.D.C., for special duty.” Such were the Viceroy’s secret

orders. It was General Willoughby who had absolutely invoked secrecy.

“Wear a plain military undress, and you must avoid most men, and all

women. Keep your mouth shut and you may find your provisional rank

confirmed.”

To Berthe Louison’s secret agents, the Grindlay Bank at Delhi, Major

Hawke had delivered a sealed envelope. “Use this only at your sorest

need. I will see Madame Louison probably before she has any orders for

me, as to her private affairs.” When the envelope was opened the words

“Major Alan Hawke, Hotel Faucon, Lausanne, Switzerland,” gave the only

address which the adventurer dared to leave. And it was that which the

cowering Ram Lal Singh copied when he brought to Alan Hawke the four

sets of altered Bills of Exchange, and the Bank of England notes for the

check of five thousand pounds.

Major Hawke surveyed the skillfully raised Bills of Exchange and

carefully examined them in a dark room with a light, and also before the

glaring sun rays. “A splendid job, Ram Lal,” he gayly said. “You must

have given them a coat of size and then moistened and ironed them.” The

old rascal gloomily accepted the professional compliment. “I observe

that you have labored to protect your own indorsement,” sportively

remarked the Major.

“And now you will return to me my jewels?” timidly demanded Ram Lal.

“Do you wish me to send the dagger of Mirzah Shah to General Willoughby?

It is deposited here, with a sealed letter,” coldly sneered Hawke.

“Should anything happen to me or, to these drafts, it would be sent to

the General, and you would hang. No, I will keep the jewels.”

And then Major Hawke thrust the shivering wretch out, having liberally

paid to him, through Grindlay, the balance due by Berthe Louison.

“I swear that I did not get a single jewel from--from him. He has hidden

them,” pleaded Ram Lal.

“Ah! I must look to this” mused Hawke, when Ram Lal had been frightened

away with a last stern injunction:

“Obey my slightest wishes or you will hang! I will have you watched till

I return! There are eyes upon your path that never close in sleep!” Ram

Lal shuddered in silence.

Delhi soon forgot the man whom the great stone now covered in the

English cemetery, and only General Willoughby and the easy-going civil

authorities knew of the cablegram: “Coming on with full power from

Senior Executor.--Douglas Fraser, Junior Executor.” The cablegram was

dated from Milan, for two keen Scottish brains were now busied with

plans to save and care for the worldly gear so suddenly abandoned to

their care by Hugh Johnstone. Though Delhi was swept as with a besom,

no trace of the cowardly assassins was ever found, and only old Simpson,

waiting, in final charge as household major domo for Douglas Fraser’s

arrival, could enlighten the perturbed commanding General with certain

vague suspicions. But Ram Lal slept now in a growing security.

“It is clear that the master was watched in his secret preparations for

the voyage home,” said Simpson, “and some outsiders, with the help of

some traitor among the blacks, paid off an old score. I could tell of

many an old enemy which he gained in these twenty years.” sadly said

Simpson. “I feel they only mussed up the room to give an appearance of

robbery. The mahogany boxes were merely part of master’s old wedding

outfit in London, and I know that they were only filled with toilet

articles and little medical stores. They only lugged them off to make a

show.”

And General Willoughby, following up Simpson’s clues, easily discovered

a shady side of Johnstone’s past life, not compatible with the pompous

panegyrics of the Indian press, the resolutions of a dozen clubs

and societies, the minutes of the Bank of Bengal, and other mortuary

literature of a complimentary nature. It was some old curse come down

upon the defenseless man in his old age! And so no one ever sought for

the solution of the mystery in the deep dejection of Ram Lal Singh, who

vainly mourned for his lost jewels and money. Fear tied his hands, and

his tongue was palsied by guilt. He vindictively, however, raised his

customary “rate of usance,” and swore in his own hardened heart that the

needy borrowers of Delhi should recoup him fully before a year. The one

Star gleaming in the dark night of financial blackness was the vengeance

upon the man who had tricked and despoiled a fellow-robber thirty years

before.

Major Hawke on his homeward way counted up a goodly store of twelve

thousand pounds in money, jewels of nearly the same value, and the

skillfully raised and properly indorsed drafts on London for twenty

thousand more. “If I can only get these passed by the executors I am a

made man for life,” mused the Major as the Ramchunder sped over the blue

Arabian sea. “If I discover the secret of the stolen jewels, they must

yield, to save both family honor and money; if I don’t, then, Ram Lal

must save his life and protect the drafts. I will negotiate them with

the Credit Lyonnais, in Paris, and force Berthe to help me. No one shall

rob me now,” somewhat illogically mused the brilliant adventurer, proud

of his life-work.

At Calcutta, the noble Viceroy had already given to Major Harry

Hardwicke and Capt. Eric Murray his orders for their performance of a

delicate duty.

“You will find Captain Anstruther to be my personal as well as official

representative in London, and Her Majesty’s service demands prudence in

this grave affair. So but one set of confidential cipher dispatches

have been sent on, and Captain Anstruther will have charge of the whole

delicate affair. Should either of you meet Major Alan Hawke in London,

or out of India, your commissions will depend on guarding an absolute

silence as to the whole Johnstone affair. You are trusted, and not

watched, gentlemen,” said the great noble, “and he is watched, and not

trusted. Now, I have done all I can for you, as this duty takes you home

and brings you back at the expense of her Majesty’s government. You will

not fail to communicate with me from Aden, Suez, and Port Said, as well

as Brindisi, and to report if Madame Louison has received at each place

her telegrams and proceeded on her journey in safety. Her Majesty’s

consuls will, in each place, aid you in every way. Should I decide to

drop or quash the whole affair, my young kinsman, Anstruther, represents

me, personally as well as officially.”

And so the gay young bridegroom-to-be sailed from Calcutta

light-hearted, while Harry Hardwicke counted each day’s reckoning as

bringing him, by leaps and bounds, nearer to the dark-eyed girl now left

alone in the world. “There shall nothing come between us now, my darling

one!” was the young Major’s fond vow confided to the evening star,

glowing in its trembling silver radiance over the spicy Indian Ocean.

Alixe Delavigne was still “Madame Berthe Louison” to the glittering

circle of passengers who envied her the state in which she traveled, the

slavish obeisance of the ship’s officers, and the deft ministrations

of those admirable servants, Jules Victor and Marie. “A great personage

incognito,” was the general verdict, and so the luckless swains hovering

around fell off one by one, as the beautiful woman seemed to be always

wrapped in an unbroken reverie. There was an anxious gleam in the lady’s

eyes, for she felt that she was going home to the sternest battle of her

life, and she brooded now only upon the trials of the future. She never

knew how near the dark angel’s wing had swooped over her own defenseless

head.

For the gray head now lying low had been secretly busied with plans for

a huge bribe to Ram Lal which should buy him to the doing of a dark deed

without a name. Only Berthe’s determined attack on the granting of the

baronetcy in London, and her own “lightning disappearance” had saved

her from Ram Lal’s cupidity. Master of the secrets of a dozen Eastern

poisons, the artful confederate of her dark retinue in the silver

bungalow, Ram Lal would have gladly worked Hugh Johnstone’s will for his

red gold. But the fierce quarrel and the precipitate flight of Berthe

Louison had balked Johnstone, who fell by the very hand of the sly

wretch whom he had designed to buy, as the murderer of another. The

engineer hoist by his own petard. But, steadfastly looking to Valerie’s

child alone, she knew not the dangers which she had escaped.

“I was afraid they would kill you, Madame. Thank God, we are now safe at

sea!” said Jules Victor.

“Who?” cried the startled woman.

“Why, that old wretch; he had money, and his spies were all around you,”

said Jules.

“Yes! Thank God! We are safe now!” mused Berthe Louison, and she bade a

long adieu to the strange scenes of her pilgrimage. “I shall never

see India again!” she reflected, when she passed, in a mental review,

Calcutta, holy Benares, smoky Patna, brisk Allahabad, Cawnpore, where

the white-winged angel broods over the innocent dead, heroic Lucknow,

and crime-haunted Delhi--all these rose up in a weird panorama of the

mind. Strange tales of wild adventure told by Alan Hawke returned to her

now--the mysteries of Thibet, the weird ferocity of Bhotan, the quaint

tales of the polyandrous Todas, and the strange story of Vijaynagar, the

desecrated city whose streets are peopled but ten days in the year! A

lotos land where crime broods, where the cobra hides under the painted

blossoms of Death!

Glittering palaces of Agra, gloomy caves of Elephanta, the light and

lovely Mohammedan architecture, the dark haunts of Kali and Bowanee,

the thronged Ghats of the sacred rivers, the color medleys of the vast

cities, all these busied her as she passed her days alone in study over

the secretly gathered up collection of polychrome views which had taken

her from the Neilgherries to Cape Comorin. Her dreams of all her subtle

plans to counteract all of Johnstone’s schemes, her tender intrigues to

silently entrap Nadine Johnstone’s girlish heart, her carefully plotted

line of future action, all of these things vanished in a moment, at

Aden, when a government launch steamed out, and an officer of the vessel

led up Her Majesty’s Consul to address the mysterious lady passenger.

There was a rush of volunteers when the woman, always brave in sorrow

and ever fate defying, fainted away in a deathly trance as her eyes

eagerly scanned the brief dispatch of the Viceroy. They were underway

again when she realized the fearful decrees of a merciless fate! She

read with a shudder, the lines again and again, whispering: “Can it be?”

“Hugh Johnstone murdered by persons--unknown at Delhi? Hasten on to

London. Anstruther will have full details. Please acknowledge!”

And it was half an hour before the beautiful Nemesis who had clouded

Hugh Johnstone’s life had penned her simple answer. Only at night, on

the voyage afterward, did she ever leave her splendid staterooms,

and when Brindisi was reached she vanished with her loyal servants so

quickly that even the veriest fortune hunter could not follow on her

trail. “Some terrible row--some sad family happening,” was the general

smoking-room verdict! But, with a heart strangely yearning to the

orphaned child, Berthe Louison hastened, without stopping, by Venice to

lovely Munich and on to gay Paris. “She shall be mine now--mine to love,

to cherish, my poor darling!” vowed the woman whose eyes shown out in an

infinite pity! The cup of vengeance was dashed away from her lips for,

behind the arras, the waiting headsman of Fate had struck in the night

and laid low the man who would have compassed her death!

Madame Alixe Delavigne was only a gracious memory to the sympathetic men

passengers who hastened on to London via Mont Cenis, but the chattering

gossips of the Rue Berlioz noted, with an eager Gallic curiosity, the

return of the mysterious occupant of No. 9. Jules Victor and his wife

were seen, however, for only one day, busied about their usual household

avocations, and then the returning travelers vanished once more to

baffle the chatterers. “Diantre! Comme ils sont des voyageurs!” cried

the coachman who took the wanderers to the Gare St. Lazare. There

was need of haste now, for Madame Louison had received three foreign

dispatches, besides a letter from Captain Anstruther, now waiting

impatiently at London, and chafing over his unsuccessful queries

at Morley’s Hotel. The gallant Captain’s letter was pregnant with

governmental mysteries, and yet the beautiful woman sighed as she

saw the vein of personal interest but too clearly evident in the long

communication. A single glance at her tell-tale mirror reassured her,

and she blushed, as she murmured:

“He believes me younger than I am!” But her brow was grave as she

revolved the situation. “There will be a long struggle, a fight of love

against craft and and greed! Who will win?” The fact that the Government

Secret Service had already traced the delivery of the heavily insured

shipment, “ex. Str. Lord Roberts,” to Professor Andrew Fraser, was

a first victory for the enemy! “If the old nabob wrote directly via

Brindisi to his brother, then the acute old Scotch Professor may be

on his guard now! And--the will?--the will? What does it provide for

Nadine’s future? If he had already taken the alarm-then I may have yet

to fight my way to my darling’s side! The black curtain of the past

shall never be lifted by my hand unless--unless Andrew Fraser forces

me to strike hard at his dead brother’s paper card house of honorable

deeds!”

As Madame Louison watched the rich moonlight silvering the broken

wake of the channel steamer, she pondered over the telegrams. “Major

Hardwicke and Alan Hawke are both en route to London, charged with

different missions. And I am to beware of Hawke. They have only sent him

away, perhaps, to veil the official game of the Indian authorities. And

Alan Hawke truthfully warns me of his coming by private dispatch. Is he

trying to regain his lost status? Douglas Fraser, the second executor,

on his way back to India. He has passed Brindisi already. Ah! The

sorrows for the dead are quickly assuaged when the ‘property interests’

furnish a fat picking to solicitors and the holders of dead men’s gear.

“Nadine is only eighteen--she has three years to remain under legal

tutelage. Perhaps Andrew Fraser may have been already coached upon his

course by his unrelenting kinsman. And there is a fortune waiting for

father and son in the perquisites.” Madame Louison fell asleep in a vain

quandary as to the precise age when men ceased to value wealth and to

sell their souls for gold. That question was still undecided when the

steamer Sparrow Hawk sped into Dover harbor.

The beautiful wanderer was now clearly resolved as to her future

treatment of Alan Hawke. “My foe dead, the theater of war is transferred

to Great Britain. He is not necessary to my own campaign, but, in

watching him, I may be able to shield Nadine from his crafty plots. If

he should try to secretly make friends with the Frasers, and to return

to India, to aid the nephew, he might assist in robbing Valerie’s child

of this mountain of miserably gotten wealth.

“Thank God, I can make her rich. But Captain Anstruther will know the

Viceroy’s whole mind, and I can trust to him.” But her cheeks were rosy

red and her dancing dark eyes dropped in a sudden confusion, as the

handsome aid-de-camp leaped aboard the steamer at Dover Pier.

“I did not expect you!” she murmured.

“I knew, of course, from your dispatch when you would arrive, and so

I came down to further the Viceroy’s business!” the soldier said in a

sudden confusion. In an hour, the two who had met in such strange manner

at Geneva were seated alone in a first-class compartment, and were

merrily whirling on to Lud’s town. Captain Anstruther’s ten shillings to

the guard secured them from annoying intrusion. In another compartment,

Jules and Marie Victor sagely exchanged their lightning glances of

Parisian acuteness.

“C’est un homme magnifique!” murmured Marie, and Jules gravely nodded,

“Peut-etre, notre maitresse l’a connu longtemps. II est tres tendre!”

The staff-officer “furthered the Viceroy’s business” by clasping both

of Alixe Delavigne’s prettily-gloved hands. Her bosom heaved in a soft

alarm, but she repulsed him not.

“Why did you deceive me at Geneva?” he eagerly demanded, with a

trembling voice. And Alixe Delavigne’s eyes were downcast and dreamy, as

she whispered:

“Because I was only a poor pilgrim of Love--a lonely woman, heart hungry

for the tidings of the girl whom you have brought back to me!” The young

officer gazed out of the window, and in his heart, he already pardoned

her.

“To those who love much, much shall be forgiven!” he reflected, with a

compassion growing momentarily, for he saw the shadow of tears in the

beautiful dark brown eyes. And he forbore to question her as he gazed at

her glowing face.

With a sudden lifting of her stately head, the woman sitting there, her

heart throbbing in a strange unrest, laid her hand lightly upon his arm.

“Listen to the strange story of a woman’s life!” she said slowly. “I

promised His Excellency, the Viceroy, that you should know why I left

the defensive lines of my sex at Geneva! For he has trusted to me, and

I wish you to know--to know that--” and the sentence was never finished,

for Captain Anstruther bent over her trembling hands.

“I know that you are what I would have you ever be!” he simply said.

And, with softly shining eyes, she told the soldier of her strange life

path.

It was strange that they had neared London before the whole story was

concluded, and their voices had sunk into softened whispers. “You may

rely upon me to the death! You may depend upon me whenever you may

wish to call upon me!” he said, as the train rolled into Charing Cross

station. “Major Hardwicke, of the Engineers, will be my chosen ally, and

I alone am to trace out this mystery of the vanished jewels. You shall

conquer! I will aid you! Amor omnia vincit! You are the only heart in

the world now throbbing for that sweet girl.”

But when they drove to Morley’s Hotel, far away on the sea, Harry

Hardwicke’s heart was beating fondly in all a lover’s expectancy for the

same friendless Rose of Delhi, and the debonnair Alan Hawke, in sight of

Brindisi, mused in his deck-pacings: “I will placate Euphrosyne Delande.

Justine, too, shall do my bidding, and my employer shall give me the key

to this girl’s heart. For I will marry Nadme Johnstone! I am a devil for

luck.”

CHAPTER XII. ON THE CLIFFS OF JERSEY.

Captain Anson Anstruther, A. D. C., was the very happiest of men three

days later, when he watched Madame Alixe Delavigne gracefully presiding

over a pretty tea table, a la russe, in the quaint old mansion, bowered

in a garden sloping down to the Thames, where Miss Mildred Anstruther, a

venerable maiden aunt, had her “local habitation and, a name!” A lonely

woman of colossal wealth and blue blood, high in rank, and decidedly of

riper years.

“By Jove! Dear old Aunt Mildred is a tower of strength to me, just now,”

reflected the gallant Captain, when, as the soft shadows deepened

on lawn and river, he lingered tenderly there in explanation of his

official business. It was hardly “official” that Anson Anstruther had

fallen into the habit of furtively addressing the now unveiled Madame

Berthe Louison, as “Alixe”, but it was even so. Acquaintance can ripen

as rapidly on the Thames as by the Arno, given a certain impetus. And

the Pilgrim of Love, though still Madame Berthe Louison in France, was

Alixe Delavigne in the retreat chosen by the Viceroy.

“Pazienza! Pazienza!” smiled the young soldier, as the impassioned Alixe

eagerly demanded to be allowed to approach the orphaned Nadine, at

St. Heliers. “You have been so noble, so untiring, do not ruin all by

precipitancy now! You see I am already secretly watching over her. I now

represent the whole interests of Her Majesty’s Service! And you--only

your own loving heart! I must first meet Major Alan Hawke, and send him

away to be busied on some apparently important duty, which will keep

him away from old Andrew Fraser. We know the old professor’s cunning

character. Miser and pedant, he is but a shriveled parchment edition

of his heartless, dead brother. We must not alarm him. We have already

traced the insured packet to his hands. Now, he properly has the custody

of the dead nabob’s will. He may soon have to bring the girl on to

London, for the legal formalities of proving it. We do not wish him to

send the stolen jewels away in a sudden fright, and so hide them from us

forever. If he qualifies duly as executor, and then files the will, then

the estate is responsible, through him.

“We will soon know who controls your niece for the three years of her

long minority. Hawke must be got out of the way. I will hoodwink him,

and every British Consul in the continental towns which he visits will

secretly watch him for me. Besides, Major Hardwicke and Murray will

be here very soon, to aid me, and to watch Hawke. I wish Alan Hawke

to blunder around, hunting for Major Hardwicke, and so give me an

opportunity to do my duty secretly, and to aid you in your own labor

of love. In the mean time--you must be content to rest tranquilly here;

cultivate my dear old aunt, and I will come to you daily so that your

quiet life in this ‘moated grange’ will be brightened up a bit. You

see,” thoughtfully said Anstruther, “whoever sent old Johnstone to his

grave, he had previously spirited the heiress away--all his plans for

the future were perfectly matured with all the craft of a man well

versed in intrigue for forty years. His bitter hatred of you did not die

with him. You may be assured that he has laid out a plan, both in his

private letters and in the will to fence you forever out of this girl’s

life. So your work must be done in secret. If I can ever effectively

help you, I must work on Andrew Fraser and not needlessly alarm both his

greed and fear. As soon as it is safe, you shall take up your post near

to her; but Hawke must come and go first. He must find no sign of

your presence here.” There was cogency in the sentimental soldier’s

reasoning.

“He will surely come to my Paris home at No. 9 Rue Berlioz. He knows

that address!” murmured Alixe Delavigne, her eyes dropping in a sudden

confusion, as a flame of jealousy lit up the young soldier’s fiery

glances. For Anson Anstruther had posted there on his first voyage from

Geneva to find the bird flown.

“Then you may keep Marie, your maid, here,” slowly replied Anstruther,

“and send Jules over to Paris. Alan Hawke will surely seek for you

there. Let Jules inform him that you have gone to Jitomir to attend to

your Russian interests.”

Alixe Delavigne bowed her head in a mute assent. Day by day the proud

self-reliant woman was yielding to the imperious will of the young

soldier. It was a soft, self-deception that reassured her on the very

evening when he left her.

But there was one now weaving his webs at Lausanne whose fertile

brain was busied with sly schemes of his own. Alan Hawke always first

considered “his duty to himself” and so the acute Major decided to spy

out the land before he precipitately appeared at London, or dared to

risk himself at St. Agnes Road, St. Heliers.

“It is just as well to know all that Justine can tell me before I see

this young dandy Anstruther, and to find out what Euphrosyne knows

before I interrogate her sister,” he murmured; “I must make no mistake

with the Viceroy’s kinsman!”

With much prevision he had telegraphed the date of his probable arrival

in London to Captain Anstruther from Munich, adding that convenient

fairy tale, “Delayed by illness” and he had also left this telegram

behind, so as to be sent on to allow him four days leeway near Geneva.

The signature bore also an injunction to answer to Hotel Binda, Paris.

“This is no little card game,” muttered Hawke. “It is for rank, wealth,

and the hand of Miss Million, the rose of Delhi.”

Alan Hawke was practically received with open arms by the

fluttering-hearted Euphrosyne, who nobly resigned herself to Justine’s

victory over Alan Hawke’s heart. For the younger sister’s letters had

filled the elder’s mind with rosy dreams of enhanced family prosperity.

“Only this telegram. That is all!” murmured the preceptress, as she

handed the Major a dispatch dated at St. Heliers, stating, “Arrived,

well, news of Mr. Johnstone’s assassination just received. Will write!”

“This is all I know of this strange homecoming, as yet!” summed up the

child of Minerva.

Hawke softly delved into Mademoiselle Euphrosyne’s inner consciousness

until he knew all the corners of the simple woman’s heart.

“I am quite sure that she speaks the simple truth!” he decided, after

he had informed the Swiss woman of his address, “Hotel Binda, Paris.”

“I must go on there by the night train,” he at once resolved. “Here is

a juncture where all our various interests are deeply involved. You

and Justine may lose the well-earned reward of years. I must be near

Justine, now, to protect you both. I fear this old mummy Fraser! If he

controls the fortune, then he and his hopeful son will probably steal

half of it. Thats a fair allowance for an ordinary executor! It is all

for one, and, one for all, now! Write under seal to Justine that I am

near--only do not mention names!” With an affected tenderness, Hawke

kissed the pallid lips of the daughter of Minerva, and slipped away to

Lausanne, whence he took the midnight train for Paris.

“I might look around and dispose of my jewels in Paris,” he thought as

he neared that “gay and festive city.” But his serious business with

the Credit Lyonnais as to the negotiation of the four “raised” bills

of exchange, and his desire to at once come to terms with Madame Berthe

Louison, caused him to postpone the vending of the jewels so neatly

extorted from Ram Lal.

“I have lots of ready money now--too much, even, for safety in travel,

and the jewels will keep.” With a strange anxious craving to see his

fair employer he drove directly to No. 9 Rue Berlioz on his arrival in

Paris. The impassive face of Jules Victor met his gaze at the door.

“Madame, suddenly summoned to Poland, had begged Monsieur le Major to

address her by letter, as telegrams were most unreliable in Russian

Poland. Monsieur would, however, surely find letters at his London

address, and it was true that Madame had not expected Monsieur’s arrival

for a fortnight.”

“I don’t believe a damned word of this fellow’s yarn. There is some

sly juggling here!” ejaculated the Major as he drove back to the Hotel

Binda. His brow was black as he descended, and it grew blacker still

when he read a telegram from Euphrosyne Delande. He studied over the

unwelcome news while he made a careful business toilet to visit the

Credit Lyonnais. And a white rage shone out upon his handsome face as he

learned that Justine was useless to him now. “Discharged without even a

reward! Thrust out like a beggar without a word of warning.” “Justine on

her way home. Passed through Paris last night. Can you not return?”

The signature “Euphrosyne” was a guaranty of the unwelcome truth. Major

Hawke swore a deep and bitter oath as he penned a telegram to the Swiss

preceptress: “Coming to-night. Arrive to-morrow at ten o’clock. Keep

all secret.” And he boldly signed the name “Alan Hawke” to that and to a

message to Captain Anson Anstruther: “Delayed four days here by private

business.”

He raged as he hastily soliloquized: “I will at once present these

drafts regularly through the Credit Lyonnais. I will go and get the

whole story from Justine. I will pay off that tiger cat, Madame Louison,

for her sneaking away. She fancies she has done with me now! Ah! By God!

She thinks so? Wait! And this old Scotch saw-file! I’ll break him up! If

I can only trace those stolen jewels to him, I’ll have them or send

the old miser off in irons to a life transportation! I begin to see the

whole game at last! And I swear that I’ll get to the girl if I have to

carry her off!”

He went down to the Credit Lyonnais in an elegant “mufti” garb, and

depositing a thousand pounds sterling to his credit, left the four

drafts for five thousand pounds each for collection, carelessly

referring to Messrs. Grindlay & Co., of Delhi, London, and many other

places, and mentioning the name of that eminent private native banker,

money-lender, and jeweler, the well-known Ram Lal Singh. “He shall back

his indorsement!” laughed Alan Hawke.

With a lordly insouciance, Major Alan Hawke then strolled out of the

great bank and deliberately arranged his line of future action while he

was taking his ease at his inn.

“First, to pick up all the threads of this queer intrigue through

Justine. I must go back to her at Geneva. Then, to be sure that Berthe

Louison is not repeating her cunning Delhi tricks with the dead man’s

brother. She might frighten him. Then, armed at all points, I must

hasten on to report to Anstruther. I must have him give me a short leave

as soon as I can get it, but before I open my siege trenches I must

develop all the enemy’s strength. What the devil is Berthe Louison up to

now?”