RUTTON'S DAUGHTER
In darkness the blacker for the sudden disappearance of the light,
somebody stumbled over Amber--stumbled and swore in good English. The
Virginian sat up, crying out as weakly as a child: "Labertouche!" A
voice said: "Thank God!" He felt strong hands lift him to his feet. He
clung to him who had helped him, swaying like a drunkard, wits a-swirl
in the brain thus roughly awakened from semi-hypnosis.
"Here," said Labertouche's voice, "take my hand and follow. We're in
for it now!"
He caught Amber's hand and dragged him, yielding and unquestioning,
rapidly through a chaotic rush of unseen bodies.
The firing had electrified the tense-strung audience. With a
pandemonium of shrieks, oaths, shouts, orders unheard and commands
unheeded, a concerted rush was made from every quarter to the spot
where the doomed man had been kneeling. Men running blundered into
running men and cannoned off at direct angles to their original
courses, without realising it. Disorder reigned rampant, and the cavern
rang with a thousand echoes, while the Bell awoke and roared a raging
tocsin, redoubling the din. No man could have said where he stood or
whither he ran--save one, perhaps. That one was at Amber's side and had
laid his course beforehand and knew that both their lives depended upon
his sticking to it without deviation. To him a rush of a hundred feet
in a direct line meant salvation, the least deviation from it, death.
He plunged through the scurrying masses without regard for any hurt
that might come either to him or to his charge.
A red glare of torches was breaking out over the heads of the mob
before they gained their destination. Amber saw that they were making
for a corner formed by the junction of one of the pedestals with a
rocky wall. He was now recovering rapidly and able to appreciate that
they stood a good chance of winning away; for the natives were all
converging toward the centre of the cavern, and apparently none heeded
them. Nevertheless Labertouche, releasing him, put a revolver in his
hand.
"Don't hesitate to shoot if any one comes this way!" he said. "I've got
to get this door open and..."
He broke off with an ejaculation of gratitude; for while he had been
speaking, his fingers busily groping in the convolutions of the
sculptured pedestal had encountered what he sought, and now he pulled
out an iron bar two feet or so in length and as thick as a woman's
wrist. Inserting this in a socket, as one familiar with the trick, he
put his weight upon it; a carved sandstone slab slid back silently,
disclosing a black cavernous opening.
"In with you," panted Labertouche, removing the lever. "Don't
delay...."
Amber did not. He took with him a hazy impression of a vast, vaulted
hall filled with a ruddy glare of torchlight, a raving rabble of
gorgeously attired natives in its centre. Then the opening received him
and he found himself in a black hole of an underground gallery--a place
that reeked with the dank odours of the tomb.
Labertouche followed and with the aid of a small electric pocket-lamp
discovered another socket for the lever. A moment later the slab moved
back into place, and the Englishman dropped the metal bar. "If there
were only some way of locking that opening," he gasped, "we'd be fairly
safe. As it is, we'll have to look nippy. That was a near call--as near
a one as ever you'll know, my boy; and we're not out yet. What are you
doing?" he added, as Amber stopped to pick up the lever.
"It isn't a bad weapon," said the Virginian, "at a pinch. You'll want
your gun, and that she-devil, Naraini, got mine."
"Keep the one I gave you and don't be afraid to use it. I've another
and a couple of knives for good measure. That Mohammedan prince whom I
persuaded to change places with me was a walking arsenal." Labertouche
chuckled. "Come along," he said, and drew ahead at a dog-trot.
They sped down a passage which delved at a sharp grade through solid
rock. Now and again it turned and struck away in another direction.
Once they descended--or rather fell down--a short, steep flight of
steps. At the bottom Amber stopped.
"Hold on!" he cried.
Labertouche pulled up impatiently. "What's the matter?"
"Sophia--!"
"Trust me, dear boy, and come along."
Persuaded, Amber gave in, blundering on after Labertouche, who loped
along easily, with the confidence of one who threads known ways, the
spot-light from his lamp dancing along the floor several feet before
him. Otherwise they moved between walls of Stygian darkness.
It was some time later that Labertouche extinguished his lamp and threw
a low word of warning over his shoulder. Synchronously Amber discerned,
far ahead, a faint glow of yellow light. As they bore down upon it with
unmoderated speed, he could see that it emanated from a rough-hewn
doorway, opening off the passage. Before it a man stood guard with a
naked sword.
"_Johar!_" he greeted them in the Mahar form: "O, warrior!"
"_Johar!_" returned Labertouche, panting heavily. He closed upon the
native confidently, but was brought up short by a peremptory sweep of
the sword, coupled with an equally imperative demand for an explanation
of their haste. The Englishman replied with apparent difficulty, as if
half-winded. "It is an order, _Johar_. The woman is to be brought to
the Hall of the Bell."
"You have the word?" The Mahar lowered his sword. "It hath been said to
me that--"
Labertouche stumbled over his feet, and caught the speaker for support.
The native gurgled in a sodden fashion, dropped his sword, stared
stupidly at Labertouche, and put an uncertain hand to his throat. Then
he lurched heavily and collapsed upon himself.
The secret-agent stepped back, dropping the knife he had used. "Poor
devil!" he said in a compassionate undertone. "That was cold-blooded
murder, Mr. Amber."
"Necessary?" gasped Amber, regarding with horror the bloodstained heap
of rags and flesh at his feet.
"Judge for yourself," said Labertouche coolly, stepping over the body.
"Here," he added, pausing by the doorway, "you go first; she knows
you."
He pushed Amber on ahead. Stooping, the Virginian entered a small, rude
chamber hollowed out of the rock of Kathiapur. A crude lamp in a
bracket furnished all its illumination, filling it with a reek of hot
oil. Amber was vaguely aware of the figures of two women--one standing
in a corner, the other seated dejectedly upon a charpoy, her head
against the wall. As he lifted his head after passing under the low
lintel, the woman in the corner fired at him point-blank.
The Virginian saw the jet of flame spurt from her hand and felt the
bullet's impact upon the wall behind his head. He flung himself upon
her instantly. There was a moment of furious struggle, while the cell
echoed with the reverberations of the shot and the screaming of the
woman on the charpoy. The pistol exploded again as he grappled with the
would-be murderess; the bullet, passing up his sleeve, creased his left
arm as with a white-hot iron, and tore out through the cloth on his
shoulder. He twisted brutally the wrist that held the weapon, and the
woman dropped it with a cry of pain.
"You would!" he cried, and threw her from him, putting a foot upon the
pistol.
She reeled back against the wall and crouched there, trembling, her
cheeks on fire, her eyes aflame with rage. "You dog!" she shrilled in
Hindi--and spat at him like a maddened cat. Then he recognised her.
"Naraini!" He stepped back in his surprise, his right hand seeking
instinctively the wrist of his left, which was numb with pain.
His change of position left the pistol unguarded, and the woman swooped
down upon it like a bird of prey; but before she could get her fingers
on its grip, Labertouche stepped between them, fended her off, and
quietly possessed himself of the weapon.
"Your pardon, madam," he said gravely.
Naraini retreated, shaking with fury, and Amber employed the respite to
recognise Sophia Farrell in the woman on the charpoy. She was still
seated, prevented from rising by bonds about her wrists and ankles, and
though unnaturally pale, her anguish of fear and despair had set its
marks upon her face without one whit detracting from the appeal of her
beauty. He went to her immediately, and as their eyes met, hers flamed
with joy, relief and--he dared believe--a stronger emotion.
"You--you're not hurt, Mr. Amber?"
"Not at all. The bullet went out through my sleeve. And you?" He
dropped on his knees, with his pocket-knife severing the ends of rope
that bound her.
"I'm all right." She took his hands, helping herself to rise. "Thank
you," she said, her eyes shining, a flush of colour suffusing her face
with glory.
"Did you cut those ropes, Amber?" Labertouche interposed curtly.
"Yes. Why?"
The Englishman explained without turning from his sombre and morose
regard of Naraini. "Too bad--we'll have to tie this woman up, somehow.
She's a complication I hadn't foreseen.... Here; you'd better leave me
to attend to her--you and Miss Farrell. Go on down the gallery--to the
left, I'll catch up with you."
The pistol which he still held lent to his demand a sinister
significance of which he was, perhaps, thoughtless. But Sophia Farrell
heard, saw, and surmised.
"No!" she cried, going swiftly to the secret-agent. "No!" She put a
hand upon his arm, but he shook it off.
"Did you hear me, Amber?" said Labertouche, still watching the queen.
"What do you mean to do?" insisted Sophia. "You can't--you mustn't--"
"This is no time for half-measures, Miss Farrell," Labertouche told her
brusquely. "Our lives hang in the balance--Mr. Amber's, yours, mine.
Please go."
"You promise not to harm her?"
"Amber!" cried the Englishman impatiently. "Will you--"
"Please, Miss Farrell!" begged Amber, trying to take the girl's hand
and draw her away.
"I won't!" she declared. "I'll not move a step until he promises. You
don't understand. No matter what the danger she's--"
"She's a fiend incarnate," Labertouche broke in. "Amber, get that
girl--"
"She's my sister!" cried Sophia. "_Now_ will you understand?"
"What!" The two men exclaimed as one.
"She's my sister," the girl repeated, holding up her head defiantly,
her cheeks burning--"my sister by adoption. We were brought up
together. She was the daughter of an old friend of my father's--an
Indian prince. A few years ago she ran away--"
"Thank God!" said Amber from the bottom of his soul; and, "Ah, you
would!" cried Labertouche tensely, as Naraini seized the opportunity,
when his attention was momentarily diverted, to break for freedom.
Amber saw the flash of a steel blade in the woman's hand as she struck
at the secret-agent, and the latter, stepping back, deflected the blow
with a guarding forearm. Then, with the quickness of a snake, Naraini
stooped, glided beneath his arms, and slipped from the cell.
With a smothered oath Labertouche leaped to the doorway, lifting his
pistol; but he was no quicker than Sophia, who caught his arm and held
him back. "No," she panted; "not even for our lives--not at that
price!"
He yielded unexpectedly. "Of course you are perfectly right, Miss
Farrell," said he, with a little bow. "I'm sorry that circumstances ...
But come! She'll have this hornet's nest about our ears in a brace of
seconds. Hark to that!"
A long, shrill shriek echoed down the gallery. Labertouche shrugged and
turned to the left. "Come along," he said. "Amber, take Miss Farrel's
hand and keep close to me." He led the way from the cell at a brisk
pace--one, indeed, that taxed Sophia's powers of endurance to maintain.
Amber aided her as much as he might, but that was little; the walls of
the passageway were too close together to permit him to be by her side
much of the time. For the most part he had to lead the way, himself
guided by the swiftly moving patch of light cast by Labertouche's
bull's-eye. But through it all he was buoyed up and exhilarated out of
all reason by the consciousness of the hand that lay trustfully in his
own; a hand soft and small and warm and (though he could not see it)
white, all white! More, it was the hand of his wife to be; he felt this
now with an unquestioning assurance. He wondered if she shared the
subject of his thoughts ...
The gallery sloped at varying grades, more or less steep--mostly
more--and minute by minute the air became more dank and cold. At an
unseen turning, where another passage branched away, a biting wind
swept out of the black nowhere, chilling them to the marrow. Deeper and
still deeper, into the very bowels of the earth, it seemed, the
secret-agent led them, finding his way with an unfaltering confidence
that exalted Amber's admiration of him to the pitch of hero-worship.
At length the gallery dipped and ran level, and now, while still cold,
the wind that blew in their faces was cleaner, burdened with less of
the clammy effluvium of death and decay; and then, abruptly, the walls
narrowed suddenly, so that Amber was forced to surrender possession of
the girl's hand and to fall behind her. She went forward without
question, following the dancing spotlight.
Amber paused to listen for sounds of pursuit, but hearing nothing save
the subdued sigh of the draught between the straitened walls of rock,
followed until the walls fell away and his hands, outstretched, failed
to touch them, and he was aware that the stone beneath his feet had
given way to gravel. He halted, calling guardedly to Labertouche.
The secret-agent's voice came from some distance. "It's all right, my
boy. Miss Farrell is with me. Come along."
There was an _élan_ in his tone that bespoke a spirit of gratulation
and relief and led Amber to suspect that they were very close upon the
end of their flight, near to escape from the subterranean ways of
Kathiapur the dead. He proceeded at discretion in the direction of
Labertouche's voice--the light being invisible--and brought up flat
against a dead wall. Coincidently he heard Sophia exclaim with surprise
and delight, somewhere off on his left, and, turning, he saw her head
and shoulders move across a patch of starlit sky. In half a dozen
strides he overtook her.
They stood on a low, pebbly ledge, just outside the black maw of the
passage--an entrance hidden in a curtain-like fold in the face of the
cliff that towered above them, casting an ink-black shadow. But beyond
it the emblazoned firmament glowed irradiant, and at their feet the
encircling waters ran, a broad ribbon of black silk purling between the
cliff and the opposing shores, where a thicket of tamarisks rose, a
black and ragged wall.
Labertouche strode off into the water. "Straight ahead," he announced;
"don't worry--'tisn't more than knee-deep at the worst. I've horses
waiting on the other side--"
"Horses!" Amber interrupted. "Great heavens, man, you're--you're
omniscient!"
"No--lucky," Labertouche retorted briskly. "Where'd I've been without
Ram Nath? He's taking care of the animals.... Come along. What're you
waiting for? Don't you know--" He turned to see the girl hesitant,
though with lifted skirts. "Oh," he said in an accent of understanding,
and came back. "If you'll help me, Amber, I daresay we can get Miss
Farrell across without a wetting."
He offered to clasp hands with the Virginian and so make a seat; but
Amber had a happier thought.
"I think I can manage by myself, thank you--if Miss Farrell will trust
me."
His eyes met the girl's, and in hers he read trust and faith unending:
he was conscious of a curious fluttering in his bosom.
"Trust _you!_" she said, with a little, broken laugh, and gave herself
freely to his arms.
Labertouche grunted and turned his back, wading out into the stream
with a great splashing.
Amber straightened up, holding her very close to him, and that with
ease. Had she been thrice as heavy he could have borne her with as
little care as he did his own immeasurably lightened heart in that hour
of fulfilment. And she lay snug and confident, her arms round his neck,
the shadowed loveliness of her face very near to him. The faint and
elusive fragrance of her hair was sweet and heady in the air he
breathed; he could read her eyes, and their allure and surrender was
like a draught of wine to him. He felt the strength of ten men
invigorate him, and his soul was sober with a great happiness. But a
little while and she would be in safety; already her salvation seemed
assured.... The further bank neared all too quickly. He would willingly
have lingered to prolong the stolen sweetness of that moment, forgetful
altogether of the danger that lay behind them.
Ahead, he saw Labertouche step out upon a shelving shore and, shaking
his legs with an effect irresistibly suggestive of a dog leaving the
water, peer inland through the tamarisks. His low, whistled signal
sounded as Amber joined him and put down the girl--reluctantly. Her
whispered thanks were interrupted by an exclamation from Labertouche.
"Hang it all! he can't've mistaken the spot. I told him to wait right
here, and now ... We daren't delay." He cast an apprehensive glance
across the stream. "Look lively, please."
He shouldered away through the thicket, and for several moments they
struggled on through the hindering undergrowth, their passage betrayed
by much noisy rustling. Then, as they won through to open ground,
Labertouche paused and whistled a second time, staring eagerly from
right to left.
"I'm blessed!" he declared, with a vehemence that argued his desire for
stronger language. "This is bad--bad--bad! He never failed me before!
I--"
A mocking chuckle seemed to break from the ground at their feet, and in
the flicker of an eyelash a shadow lifted up out of the
scrub-encumbered level. Sophia cried aloud with alarm; Labertouche
swore outright, heedless; and Amber put himself before her, drawing his
revolver, heartsick with the conviction that they were trapped, that
their labour had gone all for naught, that all futilely had they
schemed and dared....
But while his finger was yet seeking the trigger the first shadow was
joined by a score of fellows--shades that materialised with like
swiftness and silence from the surface of the earth--and before he
could level the weapon Labertouche seized his wrist. For an instant he
resisted, raging with disappointment; but the Englishman was cool,
strong, determined; inevitably in the outcome the weapon was pointed to
the sky.
"Steady, you ass!" breathed the secret-agent in his ear. "Can't you
see--"
And Amber gave over, in amazement unbounded, seeing the starlight
glinting down a dozen levelled rifle-barrels, glowing pale on the
spiked, rounded crowns of pith helmets, and striking soft fire from
burnished accoutrements; while a voice, thick with a brogue that was
never bred out of hearing of Bow Bells, was hectoring them to
surrender.
"'Ands up, ye bloomin' black beggars! 'Ands up, I s'y!"
"Tommies!" cried Amber; and incontinently he dropped the revolver as
though it had turned hot in his hand.
"Steady, my man!" Labertouche interrupted what threatened to develop
into a string of intolerable abuse. "Hold your tongue! Can't you see
we've a lady with us?"
"Ul-_lo!_" The soldier lowered his rifle and stepped closer, his voice
vibrating with astonishment. "Blimme, 'ere's a go!... beggar of a
nigger givin' me wot-for 's if 'e was a gent! 'Oo in 'ell d'ye think
y'are, yer 'ighness?'
"That'll do. Put down those guns, and call your commanding officer.
I'll explain to him. Where is he? What troops are you? When did you
arrive?"
Such queries and commands discharged quickly in crisp English from the
mouth of one who wore the color and costume of a Mohammedan of high
degree, temporarily dazed his captors. In a body they pressed round the
three, peering curiously into their faces--the two white and the one
dark; and their murmurings rose and swelled discordant. "Blimme if 'e
_ain't_ a gent!" "T'other un is!" "An this un a leddy!"...But to his
interrogations Labertouche got no direct reply. While as for Amber, he
could have laughed aloud from a heart that brimmed with thanksgiving
for the honest sound of their rich rough voices; besides which, Sophia
stood very close to him, and her fingers were tight about his....
"What's this?" A sharp voice cut the comments of the Tommies, and they
were smitten silent by it. An officer, with jingling spurs and sword in
hand, elbowed through the heart of the press. "Stop that row instantly.
What's this? Who are you, sir?"
"I sent the message from Kathiapur, and I'm uncommonly happy to meet
you, whoever you may be, sir. Tell your men to fall back, please, and
I'll introduce myself properly."
Two words secured the secret-agent the privacy he desired; the officer
offered him an ungloved hand as the troopers withdrew out of hearing.
"Happy, indeed!" he said cheerfully. "I'm Rowan, Captain, Fourteenth
Pioneers."
"I'm Labertouche, I.S.S. This is Miss Farrell, daughter of Colonel
Farrell, and this Mr. Amber, of New York. We're just escaped from that
rock over there and--if you'll pardon--I'd suggest you set a strong
guard over the ford behind those tamarisks."
"One moment, please." The officer strode off to issue instructions in
accordance with Labertouche's advice. "We got here only a quarter of an
hour ago," he apologised, swinging back as the men deployed into the
thicket, "and haven't had time to nose out the lay of the land
thoroughly."
"I infer you got my man with the horses--native calling himself Ram
Nath?"
"He's with the Colonel-commanding now, Mr. Labertouche. As I was
saying, we've hardly had time to do more than throw a line of pickets
round the rock. It's been quick work for us--marching orders at
midnight yesterday, down by train to Sar, and forced march across the
desert ever since daybreak."
"I'd hardly hoped the thing could be done so quickly. If I had been
able to get the information an instant earlier, my mind would've been
easier, captain, but--Hello!"
From the ford an abrupt clamour of voices interrupted. The officer
hooked up his scabbard. "Sounds as if my men had gathered in somebody
else," he said hastily. "If you'll excuse me, I'll have a look." He
trotted off into the shade of the tamarisks.
As he disappeared the disturbance abated somewhat. "False alarm," Amber
guessed.
"I fancy not," said Labertouche. "If I'm not mistaken our friend
Naraini left for the special purpose of raising the hue and cry. This
should be the vanguard of the pursuit."
Amber looked upward. Overhead the soulless city slumbered in a
stillness apparently unbroken, yet he who saw its profile rugged
against the stars, could fancy what consternation was then, or
presently would be, running riot through its haunted ways.
"How many of 'em are there, do you reckon?" he asked.
"Three or four hundred," replied the secret-agent absently; "the pick
and flower of Indian unrest. My word, but this will kick up a row!
Think of it, man! three hundred and fifty-odd lords and princes bagged
all at once in the act of plotting the Second Mutiny! What a change it
will work on the political face of the land! ... And the best of it is,
they simply can't get away."
"Is this the only exit, then--the way we escaped?"
"Not by three--all on the other side of the rocky where they rode up
and left their horses. And that's where the most of 'em will come out,
by twos and threes, like the animals out of the Ark, you know. What a
catch!"
"And we've you to thank!"
"I? Oh, dear boy, thank the Tommies!"
"But what would we have done, or the Tommies either, without you?"
"What indeed!" Sophia echoed warmly. "I've had no chance, as yet--"
"Not another word, my dear Miss Farrell!" Labertouche protested,
acutely uncomfortable. "To've been able to help you out of the scrape
is enough."
"But I must--" she began, and stopped with a little cry as a shot rang
out from the heart of the thicket, to be followed by another and then
by a shriek of agony and a great confusion of sounds--shouts and oaths
and noisy crashings in the tamarisks as of many men blundering hither
and yon.
Silenced, with a slight shudder of apprehension, the girl drew to
Amber's side, as if instinctively. He took her hand and drew it through
his arm.
"Run to earth at last!" cried Labertouche. "I wonder--"
"If my hope's good for anything," Amber laughed, less because he felt
like laughing than for the purpose of reassuring Sophia, "this will be
the gentleman who trained the Hooded Death to dance, or else he who--"
He was thinking with vindictive relish of what fate he would mete out
to the manipulator of the Bell, were it left to him to pass sentence.
But he broke off as a body of soldiery burst from the tamarisks, and,
headed by young Rowan, hurried toward the three, bringing with them a
silent and unresisting prisoner.
"I say," the officer called excitedly in advance, "here's something
uncommon' rum. It's a woman, you know."
"Aha!" said Labertouche, and "Ah!" said Amber, "with a click of his
teeth, while the woman on his arm clung to him the closer.
"I thought we'd better bring her to you, for she said ..." Rowan
paused, embarrassed, and took a fresh start. "My men got to the ford
just as she was coming ashore with three other men, and the whole pack
took to cover on this side. Two of the men are still missing, but we
routed out the other just now with this--ah--lady. He showed fight and
got bayonetted. But the woman--excuse me, Mr. Amber--she protests--by
George, it's too ridiculous!--"
"I have claimed naught that is not true!" an unforgettably sweet voice
interrupted from the centre of the group. It opened out, disclosing
Naraini between two guards, in that moment of passion and fear perhaps
more incomparably beautiful than any woman they had ever looked upon,
save her who held to Amber's arm, a-quiver with womanly sympathy and
compassion.
During her flight and her resistance Naraini's veil had been rent away;
in the clear starlight her countenance, framed in hair of lustrous jet
and working with uncontrollable rage and despair, shone like that of
some strange tempestuous Aphrodite fashioned of palest gold. Beneath
its folds of tightly drawn, bespangled gauze her bosom swelled and fell
convulsively, and on her perfect arms, more softly beautiful than any
Phidias ever dreamed to chisel, the golden bracelets and bangles
clashed and tinkled as she writhed and fought to free herself of the
defiling hands. Half-mad with disappointment, she raged amid the
scattered shreds of her dream of power like a woman hopelessly
deranged.
"Aye, I have claimed!" she stormed. "I have claimed justice and the
rights of wifehood, the protection of him whose wife I am; or, if he
deny me, I claim that he must suffer with me--he who hath played the
traitor's part to-night, betraying his Cause and his wife alike to
their downfall!... I claim," she insisted, lifting, in spite of the
soldiers' restraining hands, one small quivering arm to single Amber
out and point him to scorn, "that this is the man who, wedded to me by
solemn right and the custom of the land, hath deserted and abandoned
me, hath denied me even as he denies his birthright, when it doth
please him, and forswears the faith of his fathers! I claim to be
Naraini, Queen, wife to Har Dyal Rutton, rightful ruler of
Khandawar--coward, traitor, renegade--who stands there!"
"For the love of Heaven, Rowan, shut her up!" cried Labertouche. "It's
all a pack of lies; the woman's raving. Rutton's dead, in the first
place; in the second, he's her father. She can't be his wife very well,
whether he's alive or dead. It's simply a dodge of hers to gain time.
Shut her up and take her away--she's as dangerous as a wildcat!"
"Nay, I will not be gagged nor taken hence till I have said my say!"
With a sudden furious wrench Naraini wrested her arms from the grasp of
the guards and sprang away, eluding with lithe and snake-like movements
their attempts to recapture her. "Not," she cried, "until I have
wrought my will upon the two of them. Thou hast stood in my light too
long, O my sister!"
A hand blazing with jewels tore at the covering of her bosom and
suddenly came away clutching a dagger, thin, long, and keen; and
snarling she sprang toward the girl, to whose influence, however
unwitting, she rightly ascribed the downfall of her scheme of empire.
Rowan and Labertouche leaped forward and fell short, so lightning swift
she moved; only Amber stood between her and her vengeance. Choking with
horror, he put the girl behind him with a resistless hand, and took
Naraini to his arms.
"Ah, hast thou changed thy mind, Beloved?" The woman caught him
fiercely to her with an arm about his waist, and her voice rose shrill
with mocking triumph, "Are my lips become so sweet to thee again? Then
see how I kiss, thou fool!"
She thrust with wicked cunning, twice and again, before the men tore
her away and disarmed her. For an instant wrestling like a demon with
them, still animated by her murderous frenzy, still wishful to fill her
cup of vengeance to the brim with the blood of the girl, she of a
sudden ceased to resist and fell passive in their hands, a dying
flicker of satisfaction in the eyes that watched the culmination of her
crime....
To Amber it was as if his body had been penetrated thrice by a needle
of fire. The anguish of it was exquisite, stupefying. He was aware of a
darkening, reeling world, wherein men's faces swam like moons, pallid,
staring, and of a mighty and invincible lethargy that pounced upon him,
body, brain and soul, like a black panther springing from the ambush of
the night. Yet there were still words that must be spoken, lest they
live in his subconsciousness to torment him through all the long, black
night that was to receive him. He tried to steady himself, and lifted
an arm that vibrated like the sprung limb of a sapling, signing to the
secret-agent.
"_Labertouche_," he said thickly ... "_Sophia ... out of India ... at
once ... life_ ..."
The girl's arms received him as he fell.