Produced by Suzanne Shell, Janice Piette, Sheila Vogtmann,
Elaine Walker, and Project Gutenberg Distributed
Proofreaders
THE BRONZE BELL
By LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE
1909
To
F. E. Z.
Chatelaine of Juniper Lodge
This story is dedicated by one to whom her hospitality, transplanted
from its Kentucky home, will ever remain a charming memory.
[Illustration: "NOT ONCE DID HE LOOK BACK WHILE AMBER WATCHED--HIMSELF
DIVIDED BETWEEN AMUSEMENT, ANNOYANCE, AND ASTONISHMENT" (PAGE 14)]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I DESTINY AND THE BABU
II THE GIRL AND THE TOKEN
III MAROONED
IV THE MAN PERDU
V THE GOBLIN NIGHT
VI RED DAWN
VII MASKS AND FACES
VIII FIRST STEPS
IX PINK SATIN
X MAHARANA OF KHANDAWAR
XI THE TONGA
XII THE LONG DAY
XIII THE PHOTOGRAPH
XIV OVER THE WATER
XV FROM A HIGH PLACE
XVI SUNRISE FOR TWO
XVII THE WAY TO KATHIAPUR
XVIII THE HOODED DEATH
XIX RUTTON'S DAUGHTER
XX A LATER DAY
XXI THE FINAL INCARNATION
CHAPTER I
DESTINY AND THE BABU
Breaking suddenly upon the steady drumming of the trucks, the prolonged
and husky roar of a locomotive whistle saluted an immediate
grade-crossing.
Roused by this sound from his solitary musings in the parlour-car of
which he happened temporarily to be the sole occupant, Mr. David Amber
put aside the magazine over which he had been dreaming, and looked out
of the window, catching a glimpse of woodland road shining white
between sombre walls of stunted pine. Lazily he consulted his watch.
"It's not for nothing," he observed pensively, "that this railroad
wears its reputation: we are consistently late."
His gaze, again diverted to the flying countryside, noted that it had
changed character, pine yielding to scrub-oak and second-growth--the
ragged vestments of an area some years since denuded by fire. This,
too, presently swung away, giving place to cleared land--arable acres
golden with the stubble of garnered harvests or sentinelled with
unkempt shocks of corn.
In the south a shimmer of laughing gold and blue edged the faded
horizon.
Eagerly the young man leaned forward, dark eyes the functions of
waiting-room and ticket and telegraph offices. From its eaves depended
a weather-worn board bearing the legend: "Nokomis."
The train, pausing only long enough to disgorge from the baggage-car a
trunk or two and from the day-coaches a thin trickle of passengers,
flung on into the wilderness, cracked bell clanking somewhat
disdainfully.
By degrees the platform cleared, the erstwhile patrons of the road and
the station loafers--for the most part hall-marked natives of the
region--straggling off upon their several ways, some afoot, a majority
in dilapidated surreys and buckboards. Amber watched them go with
unassumed indifference; their type interested him little. But in their
company he presently discovered one, a figure so thoroughly foreign and
aloof in attitude, that it caught his eye, and, having caught, held it
clouded with perplexity.
Abruptly he abandoned his belongings and gave chase, overtaking the
object of his attention at the far end of the station.
"Doggott!" he cried. "I say, Doggott!"
His hand, falling lightly upon the man's shoulder, brought him squarely
about, his expression transiently startled, if not a shade truculent.
Short and broad yet compact of body, he was something round-shouldered,
with the stoop of those who serve. In a mask of immobility,
full-colored and closely shaven, his lips were thin and tight, his eyes
steady, grey and shallow: a countenance neither dishonest nor
repellent, but one inscrutable. Standing solidly, once halted, there
remained a suggestion of alertness in the fellow's pose.
"Doggott, what the deuce brings you here? And Mr. Rutton?"
Amber's cordiality educed no response. The grey eyes, meeting eyes
dark, kindly, and penetrating, flickered and fell; so much emotion they
betrayed, no more, and that as disingenuous as you could wish.
"Doggott!" insisted Amber, disconcerted. "Surely you haven't forgotten
me--Mr. Amber?"
The man shook his head. "Beg pardon, sir," he said; "you've got my nyme
'andy enough, but I don't know _you_, and--"
"But Mr. Rutton?"
"Is a party I've never 'eard of, if you'll excuse my sayin' so, no
more'n I 'ave of yourself, sir."
"Well!" began Amber; but paused, his face hardening as he looked the
man up and down, nodding slowly.
"Per'aps," continued Mr. Doggott, unabashed, "you mistyke me for my
brother, 'Enery Doggott. 'E was 'ome, in England, larst I 'eard of 'im.
We look a deal alike, I've been told."
"You would be," admitted Amber drily; and, shutting his teeth upon his
inherent contempt for a liar, he swung away, acknowledging with a curt
nod the civil "Good-arfternoon, sir," that followed him.
The man had disappeared by the time Amber regained his kit-bag and
gun-case; standing over which he surveyed his surroundings with some
annoyance, discovering that he now shared the station with none but the
ticket-agent. A shambling and disconsolate youth, clad in a three-days'
growth of beard, a checked jumper and khaki trousers, this person
lounged negligently in the doorway of the waiting-room and, caressing
his rusty chin with nicotine-dyed fingers, regarded the stranger in
Nokomis with an air of subtle yet vaguely melancholy superiority.
"If ye're lookin' for th' hotel," he volunteered unexpectedly, "there
aint none;" and effected a masterly retreat into the ticket-booth.
Amused, the despised outlander picked up his luggage and followed
amiably. "I'm not looking for the hotel that aint," he said, planting
himself in front of the grating; "but I expected to be met by someone
from Tanglewood--"
"Thet's the Quain place, daown by th' ba-ay," interpolated the youth
from unplumbed depths of mournful abstraction.
"It is. I wired yesterday--"
"Yeour name's Amber, aint it?"
"Yes, I--"
"Well, Quain didn't get yeour message till this mornin'. I sent a kid
daown with it 'baout ten o'clock."
"But why the--but I wired yesterday afternoon!"
"I knaow ye did," assented the youth wearily. "It come through raound
closin' time and they wa'n't nobody baound that way, so I held it
over."
"This craze for being characteristic," observed Mr. Amber obscurely,
"is the only thing that really stands in the way of Nokomis becoming a
thriving metropolis. Do you agree with me? No matter." He smiled
engagingly: a seasoned traveller this, who could recognise the futility
of bickering over the irreparable. Moreover, he had to remind himself
in all fairness, the blame was, in part at least, his own; for he had
thoughtlessly worded his telegram, "Will be with you to-morrow
afternoon"; and it was wholly like Quain that he should have accepted
the statement at its face value, regardless of the date line.
"I _can_ leave my things here for a little while, I presume?" Amber
suggested after a pause.
The ticket-agent stared stubbornly into the infinite, making no sign
till a coin rang on the window-ledge; when he started, eyed the
offering with fugitive mistrust, and gloomily possessed himself of it.
"I'll look after them," he said. "Be ye thinkin' of walkin'?"
"Yes," said Amber over his shoulder. He was already moving toward the
door.
"Knaow yeour wa-ay?"
"I've been here before, thank you."
"Fer another quarter," drawled the agent with elaborate apathy, "I'd
leave the office long enough to find somebody who'd fetch ye daown in a
rig for fifty cents."
But Amber was already out of ear-shot.
Crossing the tracks, he addressed himself to the southward-stretching
highway. Walking briskly at first, he soon left behind the
railway-station with its few parasitic cottages; a dip in the land hid
them, and he had hereafter for all company his thoughts, the desultory
road, a vast and looming sky, and bare fields hedged with impoverished
forest.
A deep languor brooded over the land: the still, warm enchantment of an
Indian Summer which, protracted though it were unseasonably into the
Ides of November, had yet lost nothing of its witchery. There was no
wind, but now and again the air stirred softly, and when it stirred was
cool; as if the earth sighed in sheer lassitude. Out of a cloudless
sky, translucent sapphire at its zenith fading into hazy topaz-yellow
at the horizon, golden sunlight slanted, casting shadows heavy and
colourful; on the edge of the woodlands they clung like thin purple
smoke, but motionless, and against them, here and there, a clump of
sumach blazed like a bed of embers, or some tree loath to shed its
autumnal livery flamed scarlet, russet, and mauve. The peace of the
hour was intense, and only emphasised by a dull, throbbing
undertone--the muted murmur of the distant sea.
Amber had professed acquaintance with his way; it seemed rather to be
intimacy, for when he chose to forsake the main-travelled road he did
so boldly, striking off upon a wagon-track which, leading across the
fields, delved presently into the heart of the forest. Here it ran
snakily and, carved by broad-tired wheels and beaten out by slowly
plodding hoofs in a soil more than half sand, glimmered white as
rock-salt where the drifting leaves had left it naked.
Once in this semi-dusk made luminous by sunlight which touched and
quivered upon dead leaf and withered bush and bare brown bough like
splashes of molten gold, the young man moved more sedately. The hush of
the forest world bore heavily upon his senses; the slight and stealthy
rustlings in the brush, the clear dense ringing of some remote axe, an
attenuated clamour of cawing from some far crows' congress, but served
to accentuate its influence. On that windless day the vital breath of
the sea might not moderate the bitter-sweet aroma of decay that swam
beneath the unmoving branches; and this mournful fragrance of dying
Autumn wrought upon Amber's mood as might a whiff of some exquisite
rare perfume revive a poignant memory in the bosom of a bereaved lover.
His glance grew aimless, his temper as purposeless, lively anticipation
giving way to a retrospection tinged with indefinable sadness.
Then into the silence crept a sound to rouse him from his formless
reverie: at first a mere pulsing in the stillness, barely to be
distinguished from the song of the surf; but presently a pounding, ever
louder and more insistent. He paused, attentive; and while he waited
the drumming, minute by minute gaining in volume, swept swiftly toward
him--the rhythmic hoofbeats of a single horse madly ridden. When it was
close upon him he stepped back into the tangled undergrowth, making
room; for the track was anything but wide.
Simultaneously there burst into view, at the end of a brief aisle of
trees, the horse--a vigorous black brute with white socks and
muzzle--running freely, apparently under constraint neither of whip nor
of spur. In the saddle a girl leaned low over the horn--a girl with
eyes rapturous, face brilliant, lips parted in the least of smiles. A
fold of her black habit-skirt, whipping out, almost snapped in Amber's
face, so close to him she rode; yet she seemed not to see him, and very
likely did not. A splendid sketch in black-and-white, of youthful
spirit and joy of motion: so she passed and was gone....
Hardly, however, had the forest closed upon the picture, ere a cry, a
heavy crashing as of a horse threshing about in the underbrush, and a
woman's scream of terror, sent Amber, in one movement, out into the
road again and running at a pace which, had he been conscious of it,
would have surprised him.
A short fifty yards separated him from the bend in the way round which
the horse and its rider had vanished. He had no more than gained this
point than he was obliged to pull up sharply to avoid running into the
girl herself.
Although dismounted, she was on her feet, and apparently uninjured. She
stood with one hand against the trunk of a tree, on the edge of a small
clearing wherein the axes of the local lumbermen had but lately been
busy. Her horse had disappeared; the rumble of his hoofs, diminuendo,
told the way he had gone.
So much Amber comprehended in a single glance; with a second he sought
the cause of the accident, and identified it with a figure so _outré_
and bizarre that he momentarily and excusably questioned the testimony
of his senses.
At a little distance from the girl, in the act of addressing her, stood
a man, obese, gross, abnormally distended with luxurious and sluggish
living, as little common to the scene as a statue of Phoebus Apollo had
been: a babu of Bengal, every inch of him, from his dirty red-and-white
turban to his well-worn and cracked patent-leather shoes. His body was
enveloped in a complete suit of emerald silk, much soiled and faded,
and girt with a sash of many colours, crimson predominating. His hands,
fat, brown, and not overclean, alternately fluttered apologetically and
rubbed one another with a suggestion of extreme urbanity; his lips,
thick, sensual, and cruel, mouthed a broken stream of babu-English;
while his eyes, nearly as small and quite as black as shoe-buttons
--eyes furtive, crafty, and cold--suddenly distended and became
fixed, as with amazement, at the instant of Amber's appearance.
Instinctively, as soon as he had mastered his initial stupefaction,
Amber stepped forward and past the girl, placing himself between her
and this preposterous apparition, as if to shield her. He was neither
overly imaginative nor of a romantic turn of mind; but, the
circumstances reviewed, it's nothing to his discredit that he
entertained a passing suspicion of some curious conspiracy against the
girl, thought of an ambuscade, and with quick eyes raked the
surroundings for signs of a confederate of the Bengali.
He found, however, nothing alarming, no indication that the man were
not alone; nor, for that matter, could he reasonably detect in the
fellow's bearing anything but a spirit of conciliation almost servile.
None the less he held himself wary and alert, and was instant to halt
the babu when he, with the air of a dog cringing to his master's feet
for punishment, would have drawn nearer.
"Stop right there!" Amber told him crisply; and got for response
obedience, a low salaam, and the Hindu salutation accorded only to
persons of high rank: "Hazoor!" But before the babu could say more the
American addressed the girl. "What did he do?" he inquired, without
looking at her. "Frighten your horse?"
"Just that." The girl's tone was edged with temper. "He jumped out from
behind that woodpile; the horse shied and threw me."
"You're not hurt, I trust?"
"No--thank you; but"--with a nervous laugh--"I'm furiously angry."
"That's reasonable enough." Amber returned undivided attention to the
Bengali. "Now then," he demanded sternly, "what've you got to say for
yourself? What do you mean by frightening this lady's horse? What are
you doing here, anyway?"
Almost grovelling, the babu answered him in Urdu: "Hazoor, I am your
slave--"
Without thinking Amber couched his retort in the same tongue: "Count
yourself lucky you are not, dog!"
"Nay, hazoor, but I meant no harm. I was resting, being fatigued, in
the shelter of the wood, when the noise of hoofs disturbed me and I
stepped out to see. When the woman was thrown I sought to assist her,
but she threatened me with her whip."
"That is quite true," the girl cut in over Amber's shoulder. "I don't
think he intended to harm me, but it's purely an accident that he
didn't."
Inasmuch as the babu's explanation had been made in fluent, vernacular
Urdu, Amber's surprise at the girl's evident familiarity with that
tongue was hardly to be concealed. "You understand Urdu?" he stammered.
"Aye," she told him in that tongue, "and speak it, too."
"You know this man, then?"
"No. Do you?"
"Not in the least. How should I?"
"You yourself speak Urdu."
"Well but--" The situation hardly lent itself to such a discussion; he
had the babu first to dispose of. Amber resumed his cross-examination.
"Who are you?" he demanded. "And what is your business in this place?"
The fat yellowish-brown face was distorted by a fugitive grimace of
deprecation. "Hazoor, I am Behari Lal Chatterji, solicitor, of the
Inner Temple."
"Well? And your business here?"
"Hazoor, that is for your secret ear." The babu drew himself up,
assuming a certain dignity. "It is not meet that the message of the
Bell should be uttered in the hearing of an Englishwoman, hazoor."
"What are you drivelling about?" In his blank wonder, Amber returned to
English as to a tongue more suited to his urgent need of forcible
expression. "And, look here, you stop calling me 'Hazoor.' I'm no more
a hazoor than you are--idiot!"
"Nay," contended the babu reproachfully; "is it right that you should
seek to hoodwink me? Have I not eyes with which to see you, ears that
can hear you speak our tongue, hazoor? I am no child, to be played
with--I, the appointed Mouthpiece of the Voice!"
"I know naught of your 'Voice' or its mouthpiece; but certainly you are
no child. You are either mad, or insolent--or a fool to be kicked." And
in exasperation Amber took a step toward the man as if to carry into
effect his implied threat.
Alarmed, the babu cringed and retreated a pace; then, suddenly, raising
an arm, indicated the girl. "Hazoor!" he cried. "Be quick--the woman
faints!" And as Amber hastily turned, with astonishing agility the babu
sprang toward him.
Warned by his moving shadow as much as by the girl's cry, Amber leapt
aside and lifted a hand to strike; but before it could deliver a blow
it was caught and a small metallic object thrust into it. Upon this his
fingers closed instinctively, and the babu sprang back, panting and
quaking.
"The Token, hazoor, the Token!" he quavered. "It is naught but
that--the Token!"
"Token, you fool!" cried Amber, staring stupidly at the man. "What in
thunder----!"
"Nay, hazoor; how should I tell you now, when another sees and hears?
At another time, hazoor, in a week, or a day, or an hour, mayhap, I
come again--for your answer. Till then and forever I am your slave,
hazoor: the dust beneath your feet. Now, I go."
And with a haste that robbed the courtesy of its grace, the Bengali
salaamed, then wheeled square about and, hitching his clothing round
him, made off with a celerity surprising in one of his tremendous bulk,
striking directly into the heart of the woods.
For as much as a minute he was easily to be followed, his head and
shoulders rising above the brush through which he forged purposefully,
with something of the heedless haste of a man bent on keeping a
pressing engagement--or a sinner fleeing the wrath to come. Not once
did he look back while Amber watched--himself divided between
amusement, annoyance, and astonishment. Presently the trees blotted out
the red-and-white turban; the noise of the babu's elephantine retreat
diminished; and Amber was left to knit his brows over the object which
had been forced upon him so unexpectedly.
It proved to be a small, cubical box, something more than an inch
square, fashioned of bronze and elaborately decorated with minute
relief work in the best manner of ancient Indian craftsmanship.
"May I see, please?" The voice of the girl at his side recalled to
Amber her existence. "May I see, too, please, Mr. Amber?" she repeated.