Neva Wynde had retired to her bed, as will be remembered, upon the
marriage night of Lady Wynde and Craven Black, her thoughts all of her
father and of his tragic fate in India. All day long she had thought
of him with tender yearning, pity and regret, recalling to mind his
goodness, nobleness, and grandeur of soul; and when night came, and
she lay in her bed with the noise of revellers in the drawing-rooms
and on the lawn coming faintly to her ears, she had sobbed aloud at
the thought that her father had been so soon forgotten, and that his
friends and tenantry were now making merry over the marriage of his
widow to a man unworthy to cross the threshold of Hawkhurst.
And thus sobbing and thinking, she had slept, and in her sleep had
dreamed that her father still lived, and that she saw him standing at
the door of a hut among the far-off Indian hills, and that she heard
his voice calling “Octavia! Neva!” And thus dreaming, she had awakened
with a cry of terror, to ask of herself if it was only a dream.
It was not strange that she had thus dreamed, since all the day and all
the evening her mind had been fixed upon her father. It would have been
strange if she had not dreamed of him. Her dream had had the clearness
of a vision, but Neva was not romantic, and although she slept no
more that night, but walked her floor with noiseless steps and wildly
questioning eyes, yet she convinced herself long before the morning
that she had been the victim of her excited imagination, and that her
dream was “only a dream.”
But was it so? There is a philosophy in dreams which not the wisest of
us can fathom. And although the cause of Neva’s dream can be simply
and naturally explained as the result of her agitated thoughts of her
father, yet might one not also think, with less of this world’s wisdom,
perhaps, and more of tenderness, that the girl’s guardian angel had
placed that picture before her in her sleep, and so made recompense, in
the joy of her dream, for her day of anguish and unrest?
Be this as it may, our story has to deal with actual facts, and has now
to take a startling turn, perhaps not anticipated by the reader.
It was about one o’clock of the morning when Neva awakened from her
dream.
It was then about seven o’clock--there being six hours difference in
time--in India.
Among the cool shadows of the glorious Himalayas are many country
seats, or “bungalows,” occupied at certain seasons by exhausted English
merchants from Calcutta, with their families, by army officers, and by
others of foreign birth, enervated or rendered sickly by the scorching
heats of the sea-coast or more level regions. They find “among the
hills” the fresh air, and consequent health, for which otherwise they
would have to undertake, at all inconvenience and expense, a voyage
home to England or Holland.
These bungalows, for the most part, are cheaply built of bamboo, with
thatched roofs, and are encircled with broad and shaded verandas,
always roofed, and sometimes latticed at the sides and grown with
vines, to form a cool and leafy arcade, which serves all the purposes
of promenade, sitting-room, music-room, dining-room, and even sleeping
room, for there are usually bamboo couches scattered about, upon which
the indolent resident takes his siesta at midday.
To one of these bungalows, a fair type of the rest, we will now direct
the attention of the reader.
It stood upon an elevated plateau, with the tall mountains crested
with snow in the distance. It was surrounded at the distance of a few
miles by a range of hills, and between it and them lay miles of forest,
which was an impenetrable jungle. Around the bungalow was a clearing
of limited extent, and which was dotted with plumed palms, bamboo, and
banyan trees.
The dwelling, frail like all of its class, was sufficiently well built
for the climate. It was constructed of bamboo, was a single story in
height, and was thatched with the broad leaves of the palm. A veranda,
twelve feet wide, surrounded it. Its interior consisted of a broad
hall, extending from front to rear, with two rooms opening from each
side of it. The central hall, containing no staircase, was a long and
wide apartment, which served as dining-room, sitting-room, and parlor,
when required.
A little in the rear of this dwelling were two others, one of which
served as the kitchen of the establishment, and the other as the
quarters of the half-dozen native servants belonging to the place.
The bungalow which we have thus briefly described belonged to a Major
Archer, H. M. A., and it was under its roof that George Wynde had
breathed his last. It was from its broad veranda that Sir Harold Wynde
had rode away for a last morning ride in India, upon that fatal day on
which he had encountered the tiger of the jungle, in which encounter he
was said to have perished.
At about seven o’clock of the morning then, as we have said, and about
the moment when Neva awakened from her dream, Major Archer reclined
lazily upon a bamboo couch in the shadow of his veranda. He was dressed
in a suit of white linen, and wore a broad-brimmed straw-hat, which was
tipped carelessly upon the back part of his head. He was reading an
English paper, received that morning at the hands of his messenger, and
indolently smoking a cigar as he read.
The major was a short, stout, choleric man, with a warm heart and a
ready tongue. He had greatly loved young Captain Wynde, and still
mourned his death, and he mourned also the tragic fate of Sir Harold.
“Not much news by this mail,” the major muttered, as he withdrew his
cigar and emitted a cloud of smoke from his pursed lips.
“And no hope whatever of our regiment being ordered back to England!
We shall get gray out here in this heathenish climate, while the fancy
regiments play the heroes at balls in country towns at home. The good
things of life are pretty unevenly distributed any how.”
He replaced his cigar and clapped his hands sonorously. A light-footed
native, clad in loose white trousers and white turban, and having his
copper-colored waist naked, glided around an angle of the veranda and
approached him with a salaam.
“Sherbet,” said the major sententiously.
The servant muttering, “Yes, Sahib,” glided away as he had come.
The major let fall his paper and reclined his head upon a bamboo rest,
continuing to smoke. He had arisen hours before, had taken his usual
morning ride to the house of a friend, his nearest neighbor, three
miles distant, and had returned to breakfast with his wife and family,
who were now occupied in one of the four rooms of the dwelling. The
major’s duties for the day were now to be suspended until sunset,
the intervening hours being spent in smoking, reading, sleeping and
partaking frequently of light and cooling refreshments.
The sherbet was presently brought to the major in a crystal jug upon a
salver. He laid down his cigar and sipped the beverage with an air of
enjoyment, yet lazily, as he did everything.
“I don’t see how I should get along without you, Karrah,” said the
major. “And you know it too, you dog. I pay you big wages as it is,
and now I want to know how much extra you will take, and forego your
present practice of stealing. I think I’d better commute. Mrs. Archer
says you are robbing us right and left. What do you say?”
The native, a slim, lithe, sinewy fellow with oblong black eyes, full
of slyness and wickedness, a mouth indicative of a cruel disposition,
and with movements like a cat, grinned at the major’s speech, but did
not deny the charge. He had formerly been George Wynde’s servant and
nurse, then Sir Harold’s attendant, and was now Major Archer’s most
valued servant. He had made himself necessary to the officer by his
knowledge of all his master’s requirements, and his exact fulfillment
of them; by his skill in concocting sherbets and other cooling drinks;
by his apparent devotion, and in other ways. Being so highly valued, he
had every opportunity, in that loosely ordered household, of robbing
his employer, and he was maintaining a steady drain upon the major’s
purse which that officer now purposed to abolish.
“Come, you coppery rascal,” said the major good-humoredly, “what will
you take to let the sugar and tea and coffee and the rest of the things
alone, except when you find them on the table?”
“Karrah no make bargain, Sahib,” said the native, rolling up his eyes.
“Karrah do better as it is.”
“No doubt; but I’m afraid, my worthy copper, that we shall have to part
unless you and I can commute your stealings. Yesterday, for instance, I
left five gold sovereigns in my other coat pocket, and last night when
I happened to think of them and look for them they were gone. You took
them--”
“No prove, Sahib--no prove!” said the native stolidly.
“I can prove that no one but you went into that room yesterday except
me,” declared the major coolly. “You needn’t deny the theft, even if
you purpose taking that trouble. I know you took the money. You are a
thief, Karrah,” continued his master placidly and indolently, “and a
liar, Karrah, and a scoundrel, Karrah; but your race is all tarred with
the same stick, and I might as well have you as another. By the way my
fine Buddhist, if that is what you are, did you use to steal right and
left from Captain Wynde?”
“Karrah honest man; Karrah no steal, but Karrah always same.”
“Always the same! Poor George! Poor fellow! No wonder he died!”
muttered the major compassionately. “It was a consumption of the lungs
by disease, and a consumption of means by a scoundrel. And did you take
in Sir Harold in the same way?”
The Hindoo’s face darkened, and an odd gleam shone in his eyes.
“Sir Harold no ’count gen’leman,” he said briefly. “Karrah no like him.
Three days ’fore tiger eat him, Karrah look into Sir Harold’s purse and
take out gold, only few miserable pieces, and Karrah look into Captain
Wynde’s trunk and take a few letters and diamond pin. Sir Harold come
in sudden, see it all; he eyes fire up; he seize Karrah by waistband
and kick he out doors. Karrah hate Sir Harold--_hate--hate_!”
The indolent officer shrank before the sudden blaze of his servant’s
eyes, with a sudden realization of the possibilities of that ignorant,
untaught and vicious nature.
“Why, you’re a perfect demon, Karrah,” exclaimed the major. “You’re a
firebrand--a--a devil! If you hated Sir Harold to such an extent, how
did it happen that you continued in his service, and were even his
attendant upon that last ride?”
The Hindoo smiled slowly, a strange, cruel smile.
“Oh,” he said softly, “Karrah go back; Karrah say sorry; know no
better. Sir Harold smile sad, say been hasty, and forgive. Karrah say
he love Sir Harold. That night Karrah send messenger up country--”
He paused abruptly, as if he had said more than he intended.
“Well, what did you send a messenger up country for, you rascal?”
“To Karrah’s people, many miles away, to say that Karrah not come
home,” declared the Hindoo more guardedly. “Makes no difference why
Karrah sent. Karrah stay with Sahib Sir Harold three days, and see him
die. Then Karrah live with Sahib Major.”
“I hope you don’t hate me,” said the major, with a shudder. “I have
a fancy that your hatred would be as deadly as a cobra’s. If it were
not for the tiger, I might think--But, pshaw! And yet--I say, Karrah,
did you know that there was a tiger in that part of the jungle that
morning?”
“Karrah know nothing,” returned the Hindoo. “Karrah good fellow. He has
enemies--they happen die, that’s all. Karrah no set a tiger on Sahib.
Karrah no friend tigers. Sahib have more sherbet?”
“No, nothing more. You may go, Karrah.”
The Hindoo glided away around the angle of the veranda.
“I believe I’ll have to let the fellow go,” muttered the major,
uneasily. “His looks and words give me a strangely unpleasant
sensation. I shall take care not to offend him, or he may season my
sherbet with a snake’s venom. How he glared in that one unguarded
moment when he said he hated Sir Harold! There was murder in his look.
I declare I had a hundred little shivers down my spine. If Sir Harold
had not been killed so unmistakably by a tiger, and if Doctor Graham
and I had not seen the fresh tracks and the marks of the struggle, and
if the tiger had not been afterward killed, I should think--I should be
sure--”
An anxious look gathered on his face, and he ended his sentence by a
heavy sigh.
“Strange!” he said presently, giving utterance to his secret thoughts;
“my wife never liked this fellow, although I could see no difference
between him and the rest. She insists that he is treacherous and cruel.
I’ll dismiss him, and tell her that I do so out of deference to her
judgment. But the truth is, since I’ve seen the fellow’s soul glaring
out of his eyes, I sha’n’t dare to sleep nights for fear I may have
offended his High Mightiness. I think it better for me that he should
travel out of this.”
He had just announced to himself this decision, when raising his eyes
carelessly and looking out from the cool shadows of the pleasant
veranda, he beheld a horseman approaching his bungalow, riding at great
speed.
“It may be Doctor Graham coming up for a month, as I invited him,”
thought the major, too indolent to feel more than a trivial curiosity
at the sight of a coming stranger. “But the doctor’s too sensible to
ride like that. It is either a green Englishman, with orders from
headquarters for me, or it’s some reckless native. In either case the
fellow’s preparing for a first-class sunstroke or fever, or something
of that nature. But that’s his look-out. I’ve troubles enough of my own
without worrying about him. It might be as well to finish my sherbet
before losing my appetite under an order to return to my post. Oh,
bother the army!”
He sipped his sherbet leisurely, not even looking again at the
horseman, who came on swiftly, urging his horse to a last burst of
speed. That the horse was jaded, his jerking, convulsive mode of going
plainly showed. He was wet with sweat, and his head hung low, and he
frequently stumbled. The horseman urged him on with spur and whip, now
and then looking behind him as if he feared pursuit.
The major did not look up until the horseman drew rein before the
bungalow, and alighted at a huge stone which served as a horse-block.
The stranger came slowly and falteringly toward the veranda, and then
the Sybaritic major set down his empty cup and glanced at him.
The glance became a fixed gaze, full of wildness and affright.
The stranger slowly entered the shade of the veranda and there
halted, his features working, his form trembling. He looked weary and
travel-stained. His haggard eyes spoke to the owner of the bungalow in
a wild appeal.
With the peculiar movement of an automaton, the major slowly arose
to his feet and came forward, his face white, his eyes dilating, a
tremulous quiver on his lips.
“Don’t you know me, major?” asked the stranger wearily.
“Great heaven!” cried the major, even his lips growing white. “It is
not a ghost! I am not dreaming! Have the dead come to life? It is--_it
is--Sir Harold Wynde_!”