THE FINAL INCARNATION
About five o'clock of an evening in April the Cunarder _Caronia_, four
hours out from Queenstown and buckling down to a night's hard work
against the northwesterly gale, shipped a sea. It was not much of a
sea--merely a playful slap of a wave that broke against the staunch
black side and glanced upward in a shower of spray, spattering
liberally a solitary passenger who had been showing enough interest in
the weather to remain on deck until that particular moment. Apparently
undisconcerted by the misadventure, he shook himself and laughed a
sober, contented laugh, found a handkerchief and mopped his face with
it, then, with a final approving survey of the lowering and belligerent
canopy of wind-cloud that overhung the tortured ocean, permitted
himself to be blown aft to the door of the first-cabin smoking-room.
Opening this by main strength, he entered. The gale saved him the
bother of closing it.
Removing his rain-coat and cap and depositing them on a convenient
chair, he glanced round the room and discovered that he shared it with
a single passenger, who was placidly exhausting the virtues of an
excellent cigarette. Upon this gentleman the newcomer bent a regard
steadfast and questioning, but after returning it casually the smoker
paid him no further attention. Dissatisfied, the other moved toward
him, and the deck slanted suddenly and obligingly the better to
accelerate his progress, so that he brought up with a lurch in the seat
next the smoker. The latter raised the eyebrows of surprise and hoped
that the gentleman had not hurt himself.
"I didn't, thank you, Mr. David Amber."
Mr. David Amber looked the gentleman over with heightened interest. He
saw a man of medium height, with a sturdy figure that bore without
apparent fatigue the years that go with slightly greyish hair. He was
quietly dressed and had intelligent eyes, but was altogether
unimpressive of manner, save for a certain vague air of reserve that
assorted quaintly with his present attitude.
"You've the advantage of me, sir," Amber summed up the result of his
scrutiny.
"It's not the first time," asserted the other, with an argumentative
shake of his head. "No-o?" Light leaped in Amber's eyes. "Labertouche!"
"Surprised you, eh?" The Englishman grinned with pleasure, pumping
Amber's arm cordially. "I don't mind owning that I meant to."
"Well, considering that this is positively your first appearance as
yourself on the stage of my life, you don't deserve any credit for
being able to deceive me. When one gets accustomed to remembering you
only as a native--generally as a babu in dirty pink satin--...Do you
know, I made all sorts of enquiries after you, but they told me, in
response to my wires to Calcutta, that you'd dropped out of the world
entirely. I had begun to fear that those damned natives must have got
you, after all, and that I'd never see you again."
"I'd almost given up hope of ever seeing myself again," said
Labertouche drily.
"But why didn't you--?"
"Business, dear boy, business.... I was needed for several days in the
neighbourhood of Kathiapur."
"It seems as though I'd waited several years for news of Kathiapur. The
papers--"
"There are a good many things that happen in India that fail to get
into the newspapers, Amber. It wasn't thought necessary to advise the
world, including Russia, that half the native potentates in Hindustan
had been caught in the act of letting the Second Mutiny loose upon
India." A network of fine wrinkles appeared about his eyes as he smiled
enjoyment of what he seemed to consider a memorable joke.
"Go on," pleaded Amber.
"Kathiapur was a sort of mousetrap; the brutes came out by twos and
three, just as I said they would, for the better part of three days. It
was either surrender or starve with them, and after five-sixths of them
had elected not to starve we turned a couple of companies of Tommies
into the place, and I don't believe they left unturned a stone big
enough to hide a rabbit. One by one they routed 'em out and booted 'em
down to us. Meanwhile we had rushed enough troops to Kuttarpur to keep
their tails quiet."
"And Salig Singh--and Naraini?"
"Salig Singh, it turned out, was the chap that got bayoneted in the
tamarisks. Naraini managed somehow to steal away the next night, under
the noses of any number of sentries; beauty such as hers would bribe
her way out of hell, I think. What became of her I don't know, but I
can prophesy that she won't live long. She was rather too advanced in
her views, for India--some centuries ahead of her race. She and Salig
Singh had it all planned, you know; his was the master-mind, hers the
motive-power. They were to crown you, instead of Salig's son, the next
day--in the name of Har Dyal Rutton; and then you were to die suddenly
by virtue of hemp poison or some other contagious disease, and Salig
was to step into your shoes as Emperor of Hindustan, with Naraini as
his Empress.... She should have stayed home and been a suffragette."
"Better for her," said Amber. "Of course I've found out about her, from
Farrell. It seems that she was brought up in England, with Sophia, and
always given to believe she was his own daughter, but she was a wild
thing and hard to handle. One day she found out about her
parentage--how, it's not known, but Farrell suspects that the men who
were hounding Rutton got into communication with her. At all events,
she brooded over the thing, and when, five years or so ago, Mrs.
Farrell died and the Colonel sent for Sophia to join him in India,
Naraini--well, she rebelled. He refused to let her leave England, and
she finally took the bit in her teeth and ran away--vanished and was
never heard of again until Sophia recognised her in Kathiapur."
"I myself can fill in the gap," Labertouche volunteered. "She joined
some of Salig's underlings in Paris and went thence direct to
Khandawar, assuming the name of one of the old queens who had elected
opportunely to die.... Queer case--singular instance of reversion to
type."
"A mighty distressing one to the old colonel; you know Rutton kept
religiously to his promise not to see the child after he'd given her
into Farrell's care. Farrell lost all track of him and was unable to
communicate with him, of course, when Naraini chose to strike out for
herself.... One thing has always puzzled me; the girl called me by her
father's name, pretending to recognise me as her husband; you can't
reconcile such conduct."
"You can, easily enough--beg pardon, my dear fellow. Neither she nor
Salig Singh was for an instant deceived. But Salig _had_ to deliver up
_a_ Har Dyal Rutton to the Council, so Naraini was set to seduce you.
Their plans only required that you should be madly infatuated with her
for a couple of days; after that ..." Labertouche turned down his thumb
significantly. "I fancy there must have been a family secret or
tradition, handed down from father to son in the Rutton line, that some
day one of the family would be called upon to raise the standard of the
Second Mutiny. That will explain why Har Dyal Rutton, a gentleman of
parts and cultivation, dared not live in India, and why--because he was
sworn to keep the secret--he laid stress on the condition that you were
not to mention his name."
"Still, he gave me permission to talk to Dhola Baksh."
"True; but it seems that Dhola Baksh had been his confidential
body-servant in Kuttarpur, during his too-brief reign. Rutton thought
he would be able to help you, and knew that he would be loyal to his
master's memory."
"Finally, what about that photograph?"
"You've Salig Singh to thank for its return, I fancy. I had nothing to
do with it. But they were bent on luring you to Naraini's bower, and
they figured that after receiving it you'd go anywhere to meet the man
who returned it. By the way, where's Ram Nath?"
"He's staying in England as body-servant to Colonel Farrell."
"He's well off, so; his sphere of usefulness in India was at an end.
So, in fact, was mine. That's why I'm here--on indefinite leave of
absence. One or two things grew out of the affair of the Gateway to
make me a person of interest to the natives, and when that happens in
India it's just as well for the interesting person to pack up and get
thence with all possible expedition. It's too bad; I was really doing
some good work there. Well...! When the East gets into a fellow's
blood, he's a hopeless, incurable case; I shall go back, I presume,
some day. If the big trouble comes in my lifetime--and I think it will;
come it will unquestionably, soon or late--I shan't be able to keep
away, you know." He glanced at his watch and rose. "Time to dress for
dinner," said he; and as they were moving to the door, he added: "What
ever became of that emerald ring, Amber?"
"The Eye?" Amber laughed. "Well--it was silly enough; but women are
superstitious, you know--Sophia dropped it overboard one day as we were
coming through the Mediterranean. She said she was afraid of it ... and
I don't know but I sympathise with her."
"I'm certain I do. And yet, in your case, it was the means of
introducing you, wasn't it?... But there! It's been on the tip of my
tongue a dozen times to ask, but other things got in the way.... How
_is_ Mrs. Amber?"
"You shall see for yourself," said Amber, "when we meet for dinner."