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THE ADVENTURES OF KATHLYN
by
HAROLD MACGRATH
Author of The Man on the Box, The Goose Girl, Half a Rogue, etc.
[Frontispiece: It will be a hard trek.]
Indianapolis
The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Publishers
Copyright 1914
Harold MacGrath
TO W. N. SELIG
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I THE GOLDEN GIRL
II THE UNWELCOME THRONE
III THE TWO ORDEALS
IV HOW TIME MOVES
V THE COURT OF THE LION
VI THE TEMPLE
VII QUICKSANDS
VIII THE SLAVE MART
IX THE COLONEL IN CHAINS
X WAITING
XI THE WHITE ELEPHANT
XII THE PLAN OF RAMABAI
XIII LOVE
XIV THE VEILED CANDIDATES
XV THE SEVEN LEOPARDS
XVI THE RED WOLF
XVII LORD OF THE WORLD
XVIII PATIENCE
XIX MAGIC
XX BATTLE, BATTLE, BATTLE
XXI THE WHITE GODDESS
XXII BEHIND THE CURTAINS
XXIII REMORSE
XXIV THE INVINCIBLE WILL
XXV ON THE SLOOP
XXVI THE THIRD BAR
ILLUSTRATIONS
It will be a hard trek (Frontispiece)
Where did you get this medal?
Ahmed salaamed deeply.
So they comforted each other.
You'll know how to soothe him.
My arm pains me badly.
And thus Umballa found them.
Kathyln turned the tide.
THE ADVENTURES OF KATHLYN
CHAPTER I
THE GOLDEN GIRL
Under a canopied platform stood a young girl, modeling in clay. The
glare of the California sunshine, filtering through the canvas, became
mellowed, warm and golden. Above the girl's head--yellow like the
stalk of wheat--there hovered a kind of aureola, as if there had risen
above it a haze of impalpable gold dust.
A poet I know might have cried out that here ended his quest of the
Golden Girl. Straight she stood at this moment, lovely of face,
rounded of form, with an indescribable suggestion of latent physical
power or magnetism. On her temples there were little daubs of clay,
caused doubtless by impatient fingers sweeping back occasional wind
blown locks of hair. There was even a daub on the side of her handsome
sensitive nose.
Her hand, still filled with clay, dropped to her side, and a tableau
endured for a minute or two, suggesting a remote period, a Persian
idyl, mayhap. With a smile on her lips she stared at the living model.
The chatoyant eyes of the leopard stared back, a flicker of
restlessness in their brilliant yellow deeps. The tip of the tail
twitched.
"You beautiful thing!" she said.
She began kneading the clay again, and with deft fingers added bits
here and there to the creature which had grown up under her strong
supple fingers.
"Kathlyn! Oh, Kit!"
The sculptress paused, the pucker left her brow, and she turned, her
face beaming, for her sister Winnie was the apple of her eye, and she
brooded over her as the mother would have done had the mother lived.
For Winnie, dark as Kathlyn was light, was as careless and aimless as
thistledown in the wind.
A collie leaped upon the platform and began pawing Kathlyn, and shortly
after the younger sister followed. Neither of the girls noted the
stiffening mustaches of the leopard. The animal rose, and his nostrils
palpitated. He hated the dog with a hatred not unmixed with fear.
Treachery is in the marrow of all cats. To breed them in captivity
does not matter. Sooner or later they will strike. Never before had
the leopard been so close to his enemy, free of the leash.
"Kit, it is just wonderful. However can you do it? Some day we'll
make dad take us to Paris, where you can exhibit them."
A snarl from the leopard, answered by a growl from the collie, brought
Kathlyn's head about. The cat leaped, but toward Winnie, not the
collie. With a cry of terror Winnie turned and ran in the direction of
the bungalow. Kathlyn, seizing the leash, followed like the wind,
hampered though she was by the apron. The cat loped after the fleeing
girl, gaining at each bound. The yelping of the collie brought forth
from various points low rumbling sounds, which presently developed into
roars.
Winnie turned sharply around the corner of the bungalow toward the
empty animal cages, to attract her father and at the same time rouse
some of the keepers. Seeing the door of an empty cage open, and that
it was approached by a broad runway, she flew to it, entered and
slammed the door and held it. The cat, now hot with the lust to kill,
threw himself against the bars, snarling and spitting.
Kathlyn called out to him sharply, and fearlessly approached him. She
began talking in a monotone. His ears went flat against his head, but
he submitted to her touch because invariably it soothed him, and
because he sensed some undefinable power whenever his gaze met hers.
She snapped the leash on his collar just as her father came running up,
pale and disturbed. He ran to the door and opened it.
"Winnie, you poor little kitten," he said, taking her in his arms, "how
many times have I told you never to take that dog about when Kit's
leopard is off the leash?"
"I didn't think," she sobbed.
"No. Kit here and I must always do your thinking for you. Ahmed!"
"Yes, Sahib," answered the head keeper.
"See if you can stop that racket over there. Sadie may lose her litter
if it keeps up."
The lean brown Mohammedan trotted away in obedience to his orders. He
knew how to stop captive lions from roaring. He knew how to send
terror to their hearts. As he ran he began to hiss softly.
Colonel Hare, with his arm about Winnie, walked toward the bungalow.
"Lock your pet up, Kit," he called over his shoulder, "and come in to
tea."
Kathlyn spoke soothingly to the leopard, scratched his head behind the
ears, and shortly a low satisfied rumble stirred his throat, and his
tail no longer slashed about. She led him to his own cage, never
ceasing to talk, locked the door, then turned and walked thoughtfully
toward the bungalow.
She was wondering what this gift was that put awe into the eyes of the
native keepers on her father's wild animal farm and temporary peace in
the hearts of the savage beasts. She realized that she possessed it,
but it was beyond analysis. Often some wild-eyed keeper would burst in
upon her. Some newly captive lion or tiger was killing itself from
mere passion, and wouldn't the Mem-sahib come at once and talk to it?
There was a kind of pity in her heart for these poor wild things, and
perhaps they perceived this pity, which was fearless.
"She gets a little from me, I suppose," Colonel Hare had once answered
to a query, "for I've always had a way with four footed things. But I
think Ahmed is right. Kathlyn is heaven born. I've seen the night
when Brocken would be tame beside the pandemonium round-about. Yet
half an hour after Kit starts the rounds everything quiets down. The
gods are in it."
The living-room of the bungalow was large and comfortable. The walls
were adorned with the heads of wild beasts and their great furry hides
shared honors with the Persian rugs on the floor. Hare was a man who
would pack up at a moment's notice and go to the far ends of the world
to find a perfect black panther, a cheetah with a litter, or a great
horned rhinoceros. He was tall and broad, and amazingly active, for
all that his hair and mustache were almost white. For thirty years or
more he had gone about the hazardous enterprise of supplying zoological
gardens and circuses with wild beasts. He was known from Hamburg to
Singapore, from Mombassa to Rio Janeiro. The Numidian lion, the Rajput
tiger, and the Malayan panther had cause to fear Hare Sahib. He was
even now preparing to return to Ceylon for an elephant hunt.
The two daughters went over to the tea tabouret, where a matronly maid
was busying with the service. The fragrant odor of tea permeated the
room. Hare paused at his desk. Lines suddenly appeared on his bronzed
face. He gazed for a space at the calendar. The day was the fifteenth
of July. Should he go back there, or should he give up the expedition?
He might never return. India and the border countries! What a land,
full of beauty and romance and terror and squalor, at once barbaric and
civilized! He loved it and hated it, and sometimes feared it, he who
had faced on foot many a wounded tiger.
He shrugged, reached into the desk for a box of Jaipur brass enamel and
took from it a medal attached to a ribbon. The golden disk was
encrusted with uncut rubies and emeralds.
"Girls," he called. "Come here a moment. Martha, that will be all,"
with a nod toward the door. "I never showed you this before."
"Goodness gracious!" cried Winnie, reaching out her hand.
"Why, it looks like a decoration, father," said Kathlyn. "What lovely
stones! It would make a beautiful pendant."
"Vanity, vanity, all is vanity," said the colonel, smiling down into
their charming faces. "Do you love your old dad?"
"Love you!" they exclaimed in unison, indignantly, too, since the
question was an imputation of the fact.
"Would you be lonesome if I took the Big Trek?" whimsically.
"Father!"
"Dad!"
They pressed about him, as vines about an oak.
"Hang it, I swear that this shall be the last hunt. I'm rich. We'll
get rid of all these brutes and spend the rest of the years seeing the
show places. I'm a bit tired myself of jungle fodder. We'll go to
Paris, and Berlin, and Rome, and Vienna. And you, Kit, shall go and
tell Rodin that you've inherited the spirit of Gerome. And you,
Winnie, shall make a stab at grand opera."
Winnie gurgled her delight, but her sister searched her father's eyes.
She did not quite like the way he said those words. His voice lacked
its usual heartiness and spontaneity.
"Where did you get this medal, father?" she asked.
[Illustration: Where did you get this medal?]
"That's what I started out to tell you."
"Were you afraid we might wish to wear it or have it made over?"
laughed Winnie, who never went below the surface of things.
"No. The truth is, I had almost forgotten it. But the preparations
for India recalled it to mind. It represents a royal title conferred
on me by the king of Allaha. You have never been to India, Kit.
Allaha is the name we hunters give that border kingdom. Some day
England will gobble it up; only waiting for a good excuse."
"What big thing did you do?" demanded Kathlyn, her eyes still filled
with scrutiny.
"What makes you think it was big?" jestingly.
"Because," she answered seriously, "you never do anything but big
things. As the lion is among beasts, you are among men."
"Good lord!" The colonel reached embarrassedly for his pipe, lighted
it, puffed a few minutes, then laid it down. "India is full of strange
tongues and strange kingdoms and principalities. Most of them are
dominated by the British Raj, some are only protected, while others do
about as they please. This state"--touching the order--"does about as
it did since the days of the first white rover who touched the shores
of Hind. It is small, but that signifies nothing; for you can brew a
mighty poison in a small pot. Well, I happened to save the old king's
life."
"I knew it would be something like that," said Kathlyn. "Go on. Tell
it all."
The colonel had recourse to his pipe again. He smoked on till the coal
was dead. The girls waited patiently. They knew that his silence
meant that he was only marshaling the events in their chronological
order.
"The king was a kindly old chap, simple, yet shrewd, and with that
slumbrous oriental way of accomplishing his ends, despite all
obstacles. Underneath this apparent simplicity I discovered a grim
sardonic humor. Trust the Oriental for always having that packed away
under his bewildering diplomacy. He was all alone in the world. He
was one of those rare eastern potentates who wasn't hampered by
parasitical relatives. By George, the old boy could have given his
kingdom, lock, stock and barrel, to the British government, and no one
could say him nay. There was a good deal of rumor the last time I was
there that when he died England would step in actually. The old boy
gave me leave to come and go as I pleased, to hunt where and how I
would. I had a mighty fine collection. There are tigers and leopards
and bears and fat old pythons, forty feet long. Of course, it isn't
the tiger country that Central India is, but the brutes you find are
bigger. I have about sixty beasts there now, and that's mainly why I'm
going back. Want to clean it up and ship 'em to Hamburg, where I've a
large standing order. I'm going first to Ceylon, for some elephants."
The colonel knocked the ash from his pipe. "The old boy used to do
some trapping himself, and whenever he'd catch a fine specimen he'd
turn it over to me. He had a hunting lodge not far from my quarters.
One day Ahmed came to me with a message saying that the king commanded
my presence at the lodge, where his slaves had trapped a fine leopard.
Yes, my dears, slaves. There is even a slave mart at the capital this
day. A barbaric fairy-land, with its good genii and its bad djinns."
"_The Arabian Nights_," murmured Winnie, snuggling close to Kathlyn.
"The Oriental loves pomp," went on the colonel. "He can't give you a
chupatty----"
"What's that?" asked Winnie.
"Something like hardtack. Well, he can't give you that without
ceremonial. When I arrived at the lodge with Ahmed the old boy--he had
the complexion of a prima donna--the old boy sat on his portable
throne, glittering with orders. Standing beside him was a chap we
called Umballa. He had been a street rat. A bit of impudence had
caught the king's fancy, and he brought up the boy, clothed, fed him,
and sent him away down to Umballa to school. When the boy returned he
talked Umballa morning, noon and night, till the soldiers began to call
him that, and from them it passed on to the natives, all of whom
disliked the upstart. Hanged if I can recall his real name. He was
ugly and handsome at the same time; suave, patient, courteous; yet
somehow or other I sensed the real man below--the Tartar blood. I took
a dislike to him, first off. It's the animal sense. You've got it,
Kit. Behind the king sat the Council of Three--three wise old ducks I
wouldn't trust with an old umbrella."
Winnie laughed.
"While we were salaaming and genuflecting and using grandiloquent
phrases the bally leopard got loose, somehow. Maybe some one let him
loose; I don't know. Anyhow, he made for the king, who was too
thunderstruck to dodge. The rest of 'em took to their heels, you may
lay odds on that. Now, I had an honest liking for the king. Seeing
the brute make for him, I dashed forward. You see, at ceremonials
you're not permitted to carry arms. It had to be with my hands. The
leopard knocked the old boy flat and began to maul him. I kicked the
brute in the face, swept the king's turban off his head and flung it
about the head of the leopard. Somehow or other I got him down. Some
of the frightened natives came up, and with the help of Ahmed we got
the brute tied up securely. When the king came around he silently
shook hands with me and smiled peculiarly at Umballa, who now came
running up."
"And that's how you got those poor hands!" exclaimed Kathlyn, kissing
the scars which stood out white against the tan.
"That's how," raising the hands and putting them on Kathlyn's head in a
kind of benediction.
"Is that all?" asked Winnie breathlessly.
"Isn't that enough?" he retorted. "Well, what is it, Martha? Dinner?
Well, if I haven't cheated you girls out of your tea!"
"Tea!" sniffed Winnie disdainfully. "Do you know, dad, you're awfully
mean to Kit and me. If you'd take the trouble you could be more
interesting than any book I ever read."
"He doesn't believe his stories would interest vain young ladies," said
Kathlyn gravely.
Her father eyed her sharply. Of what was she thinking? In those calm
unwavering eyes of hers he saw a question, and he feared in his soul
she might voice it. He could evade the questions of the volatile
Winnie, but there was no getting by Kathlyn with evasions. Frowning,
he replaced the order in the box, which he put away in a drawer. It
was all arrant nonsense, anyhow; nothing could possibly happen; if
there did, he would feel certain that he no longer dwelt in a real
workaday world. The idle whim of a sardonic old man; nothing more than
that.
"Father, is the king dead?"
"Dead! What makes you ask that, Kit?"
"The past tense; you said he was, not is."
"Yes, he's dead, and the news came this morning. Hence, the yarn."
"Will there be any danger in returning?"
"My girl, whenever I pack my luggage there is danger. A cartridge may
stick; a man may stumble; a man you rely on may fail you. As for that,
there's always danger. It's the penalty of being alive."
On the way to the dining-room Kathlyn thought deeply. Why had her
father asked them if they loved him? Why did he speak of the Big Trek?
There was something more than this glittering medal, something more
than this simple tale of bravery. What? Well, if he declined to take
her into his confidence he must have good reason.
After dinner that night the colonel went the rounds, as was his habit
nightly. By and by he returned to the bungalow, but did not enter. He
filled his cutty and walked to and fro in the moonlight, with his head
bent and his hands clasped behind his back. There was a restlessness
in his stride not unlike that of the captive beasts in the cages near
by. Occasionally he paused at the clink clink of the elephant irons or
at the "whuff" as the uneasy pachyderm poured dust on his head.
Bah! It was madness. A parchment in Hindustani, given jestingly or
ironically by a humorous old chap in orders and white linen and
rhinoceros sandals. . . . A throne! Pshaw! It was bally nonsense.
As if a white man could rule over a brown one by the choice of the
latter! And yet, that man Umballa's face, when he had shown the king
the portraits of his two lovely daughters! He would send Ahmed. Ahmed
knew the business as well as he did. He would send his abdication to
the council, giving them the right to choose his successor. He himself
would remain home with the girls. Then he gazed up at the moon and
smiled grimly.
"Hukum hai!" he murmured in Hindustani. "It is the orders. I've
simply got to go. When I recall those rubies and emeralds and
pearls. . . . Well, it's not cupidity for myself. It's for the girls.
Besides; there's the call, the adventure. I've simply got to go. I
can't escape it. I must be always on the go . . . since she died."
A few days later he stood again before the desk in the living-room. He
was dressed for travel. He sat down and penned a note. From the box
which contained the order he extracted a large envelope heavily sealed.
This he balanced in his hand for a moment, frowned, laughed, and swore
softly. He would abdicate, but at a snug profit. Why not? . . . He
was an old fool. Into a still larger envelope he put the sealed
envelope and his own note, then wrote upon it. He was blotting it as
his daughters entered.
"Come here, my pretty cubs." He held out the envelope. "I want you,
Kit, to open this on December thirty-first, at midnight. Girls like
mysteries, and if you opened it any time but midnight it wouldn't be
mysterious. Indeed, I shall probably have you both on the arms of my
chair when you open it."
"Is it about the medal?" demanded Winnie.
"By George, Kit, the child is beginning to reason out things," he
jested.
Winnie laughed, and so did Kathlyn, but she did so because occultly she
felt that her father expected her to laugh. She was positively uncanny
sometimes in her perspicacity.
"On December thirty-first, at midnight," she repeated. "All right,
father. You must write to us at least once every fortnight."
"I'll cable from Singapore, from Ceylon, and write a long letter from
Allaha. Come on. We must be off. Ahmed is waiting."
Some hours later the two girls saw the Pacific Mail steamer move with
cold and insolent majesty out toward the Golden Gate. Kathlyn proved
rather uncommunicative on the way home. December thirty-first kept
running through her mind. It held a portent of evil. She knew
something of the Orient, though she had never visited India. Had her
father made an implacable enemy? Was he going into some unknown,
unseen danger? December thirty-first, at midnight. Could she hold her
curiosity in check that long?
Many of the days that followed dragged, many flew--the first for
Kathlyn, the last for Winnie, who now had a beau, a young newspaper man
from San Francisco. He came out regularly every Saturday and returned
at night. Winnie became, if anything, more flighty than ever. Her
father never had young men about. The men he generally gathered round
his board were old hunters or sailors. Kathlyn watched this budding
romance amusedly. The young man was very nice. But her thoughts were
always and eternally with her father.
During the last week in December there arrived at the Palace Hotel in
San Francisco an East Indian, tall, well formed, rather handsome.
Except for his brown turban he would have passed unnoticed. For Hindus
and Japanese and Chinamen and what-nots from the southern seas were
every-day affairs. The brown turban, however, and an enormous emerald
on one of his fingers, produced an effect quite gratifying to him.
Vanity in the Oriental is never conspicuous for its absence. The
reporters gave him scant attention, though, for this was at a time when
the Gaikwar of Baroda was unknown.
The stranger, after two or three days of idling, casually asked the way
to the wild animal farm of his old friend, Colonel Hare. It was easy
enough to find. At the village inn he was treated with tolerant
contempt. These brown fellows were forever coming and going, to and
fro, from the colonel's.
At five o'clock in the afternoon of the thirty-first day of December,
this East Indian peered cautiously into the French window of the Hare
bungalow. The picture he saw there sent a thrill into his heart. She
was as fair and beautiful as an houri of Sa'adi. She sat at a desk,
holding a long white envelope in her hand. By and by she put it away,
and he was particular to note the drawer in which she placed it. That
the dark-haired girl at the tea tabouret was equally charming did not
stir the watcher. Dark-haired women were plentiful in his native land.
Yonder was the girl of the photograph, the likeness of which had fired
his heart for many a day. With the patience of the Oriental he stood
in the shadow and waited. Sooner or later they would leave the room,
and sooner or later, with the deftness of his breed, he would enter.
The leopard he had heard about was nowhere to be seen.
"Winnie," said Kathlyn, "I dread it."
Winnie set down the teacup; her eyes were brimming.
"What can it all mean? Not a line from father since Colombo, five
months gone."
"Do you think----"
"No, no!" replied Kathlyn hastily. "Father sometimes forgets. He may
be hunting miles from telegraph wires and railroads; it is only that he
should forget us so long. Who knows? He may have dropped down into
Borneo. He wanted some pythons, so I heard him say."
The elder sister did not care to instil into the heart of her charge
the fear which was in her own.
"Who knows but there may be good news in the envelope? Dad's always
doing something like that. New Year's!"
The collie, released from the kitchen, came bounding in. In his
exuberance he knocked over a cloisonne vase. Both girls were glad to
welcome this diversion. They rose simultaneously and gave chase. The
dog headed for the outdoor studio, where they caught him and made
believe they were punishing him.
Quietly the watcher entered through the window, alert and tense. He
flew to the desk, found the envelope, steamed it open at the kettle,
extracted the sealed envelope and Colonel Hare's note. He smiled as he
read the letter and changed his plans completely. He would not play
messenger; he would use a lure instead. With his ear strained for
sounds, he wrote and substituted a note. This houri of Sa'adi would
not pause to note the difference in writing; the vitalness of the
subject would enchain her thoughts. It was all accomplished in the
space of a few minutes. Smiling, he passed out into the fast settling
twilight.
They were shipping a lion to San Francisco, and the roaring and
confusion were all very satisfactory to the trespasser.
Midnight. From afar came the mellow notes of the bells in the ancient
Spanish mission. The old year was dead, the new year was born,
carrying with it the unchanging sound of happiness and misery, of
promises made and promises broken, of good and evil.
"The packet!" cried Winnie.
Kathlyn recognized in that call that Winnie was only a child. All the
responsibility lay upon her shoulders. She ripped the cover from the
packet and read the note.
"Kathlyn: If not heard from I'm held captive in Allaha. Sealed
document can save me. Bring it yourself to Allaha by first steamer.
"Father."
"I knew it," said Kathlyn calmly. The fear in her heart had, as the
brown man had anticipated, blinded her to the fact that this was not
her father's characteristic blunt scrawl.
"Oh, Kit, Kit!"
"Hush, Winnie! I must go, and go alone. Where's the evening paper?
Ah, there it is. Let me see what boat leaves San Francisco to-morrow.
The _Empress of India_, six a. m. I must make that. Now, you're your
father's daughter, too, Winnie. You must stay behind and be brave and
wait. I shall come back. I shall find father, if I have to rouse all
India. Now, to pack."
When they arrived at the station the passenger train had just drawn
out. For a while Kathlyn felt beaten. She would be compelled to wait
another week. It was disheartening.
"Why not try the freight, then?" cried Winnie.
"You little angel! I never thought of that!"
But the crew would not hear of it. It was absolutely against the
company's rules. Kathlyn could have cried.
"It isn't money, miss, it's the rules," said the conductor kindly. "I
can't do it."
Kathlyn turned in despair toward the station. It was then she saw the
boxed lion on the platform. She returned to the conductor of the
freight.
"Why isn't that lion shipped?"
"We can't carry a lion without an attendant, miss. You ought to know
that."
"Very well," replied Kathlyn. She smiled at the conductor confidently.
"I'll travel as the lion's attendant. You certainly can not object to
that."
"I guess you've got me," admitted the conductor. "But where the
dickens will we put the cat? Every car is closed and locked, and there
is not an empty."
"You can easily get the lion in the caboose. I'll see that he doesn't
bother any one."
"Lions in the caboose is a new one on me. Well, you know your dad's
business better than I do. Look alive, boys, and get that angora
aboard. This is Miss Hare herself, and she'll take charge."
"Kit, Kit!"
"Winnie!"
"Oh, I'll be brave. I've just got to be. But I've never been left
alone before."
The two girls embraced, and Winnie went sobbing back to the maid who
waited on the platform.
What happened in that particular caboose has long since been newspaper
history. The crew will go on telling it till it becomes as fabulous as
one of Sindbad's yarns. How the lion escaped, how the fearless young
woman captured it alone, unaided, may be found in the files of all
metropolitan newspapers. Of the brown man who was found hiding in the
coat closet of the caboose nothing was said. But the sight of him
dismayed Kathlyn as no lion could have done. Any-dark skinned person
was now a subtle menace. And when, later, she saw peering into the
port-hole of her stateroom, dismay became terror.
Who was this man?