THE BRONZE BE
BY
LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE
Author of "THE BRASS BOWL,"
"THE BLACK BAG," Etc.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
HARRISON FISHER
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1909


Copyright, 1909, by
LOUIS JOSEPH VANCE
All rights reserved, including that of translation
into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian
Published, March, 1909


To
F. E. Z.
Chatelaine of Juniper Lodge
27iis story is dedicated by one to whom her
hospitality, transplanted from its Kentucky
home, Hill ever remain a charming memory





t
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAG*.
I Destiny and the Babu .... 1
II The Girl and the Token . . . 16
III Marooned . . . . . .28
IV The Man Perdu 44
V The Goblin Night 69
VI Red Dawn 92
VII Masks and Faces 115
VIII First Steps 124
IX Pink Satin 144
X Maharana op Khandawar . . 159
XI The Tonga 180
XII The Long Day 193
XIII The Photograph 211
XIV Over the Water 230
XV From a High Place 249
XVI Sunrise for Two 269
XVII The Way to Kathiapur . . . .281
XVIII The Hooded Death 307
XIX Rutton's Daughter 329
XX A Later Day 350
XXI The Final Incarnation .... 355
yii





ILLUSTRATIONS
"Not once did he look back while Amber
watched — himself divided between
amusement, annoyance, and astonish-
ment" (page 14) . . . . Frontispiece
Sophia Farrell Facing page 102
"The girl joined him on the veranda . . .
very demure and sweet to look upon in
her travelling-dress of light pongee" " "198
"The woman was very sweet and beautiful
in his eyes as she sat with her white,
round arms flashing over the key-
board" ""220
iz





CHAPTER I
DESTINY AND THE BABIT
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 har-
vests 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


2
THE BRONZE BELL
lightening, lips parting as if already he could taste the
savour of the sea.
Then, quite without warning, a deep elbow of the bay
swept up almost to the railway, its surface mirror-like,
profoundly blue, profoundly beautiful.
"I think," said the traveller softly—" I think it's
mighty fine to be alive and—here!"
He lounged back comfortably again, smiling as he
watched the wheeling landscape, his eyes glowing with
expectancy. For his cares were negligible, his content
boundless; he was experiencing, for the first time in
many years, a sense of freedom akin to that felt by a
schoolboy at the beginning of the summer vacation. The
work of his heart and hand for a little time belonged
equally to a forgotten Yesterday and an uncontemplated
To-morrow; he existed only for the confident To-day
He had put behind him the haunts of men, and his
yearning for the open places that lay before him was
almost childlike in its fervency; he would, indeed, have
been quite satisfied if assured that he was to find noth-
ing to do save to play aimlessly in the sun. But, in
point of fact, he looked forward to an employment
much more pleasurable; he was off to shoot duck with
his very dear friend, Mr. Anthony Quain, of Tangle-
wood Lodge, Nokomis, Long Island.
Again the whistle bawled uncannily, and the train
began to moderate its speed. Objects in the foreground
that otherwise had been mere streaked blurs assumed
recognisable contours. North of the line a string of
squat, square, unlovely " frame" edifices, aligned upon
a country road, drifted back. A brakeman popped


DESTINY AND THE BABU 3
head and shoulders into the car and out again, leaving
the echo of an abrupt bark to be interpreted at the pas-
senger's leisure. From the other door a coloured porter
emerged and, fixing his lonely charge with a hungry eye,
relentlessly bore down upon him.
"The nex' is yo' stashun, suh," he announced,
ominously brandishing an immense whisk-broom. "Shell
Ah bresh yo' off?"
"Not with my consent," replied Amber, with dis-
arming naivete. "I'd much rather get off in the usual
way."
Rising he squared himself against the onslaught of
the broom; but the darky, eyes opaque with incompre-
hension, held his hand.
"Ah dunno's Ah connect wif that, suh," he admitted
regretfully.
"Never mind. Go ahead and disperse the dust."
"Yas, suh!" Tardily convinced that his passenger's
intentions were both humourous and benign, if difficult,
the porter chuckled and fell to with a will. For several
seconds the whisk-broom played like chain-lightning
round the young man's person, leaving him immacu-
late.
"Shell Ah tek yo' things, suh?"
"Please." Amber parted with the expected coin and
waved the negro down the aisle with his luggage; then
followed him.
Slowly jolting across a rutted, dusty road, the cars
stopped. Amber, alighting, found himself upon a
length of board-walk platform and confronted by a dis-
tressingly matter-of-fact wooden structure, combining


4
THE BRONZE BELL
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 disdain-
fully.
By degrees the platform cleared, the erstwhile pa-
trons 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 inter-
ested him little. But in their company he presently dis-
covered 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 some-
thing 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


DESTINY AND THE BABU 5
halted, there remained a suggestion of alertnes 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, flick-
ered 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 harden-
ing 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, shut-
ting 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 re-
gained his kit-bag and gun-case; standing over which
he surveyed his surroundings with some annoyance, dis-
covering that he now shared the station with none but
the ticket-agent. A shambling and disconsolate youth,


6
THE BRONZE BELL
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 un-
expectedly, " there aint none; " and effected a masterly
retreat into the ticket-booth.
Amused, the despised outlander picked up his lug-
gage 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," inter-
polated 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 no-
body 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 en-
gagingly: a seasoned traveller this, who could recognise


DESTINY AND THE BABU 7
the futility of bickering over the irreparable. More-
over, 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 pre-
sume?" 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 mis-
trust, 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 elab-
orate 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 de-
sultory 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


DESTINY AND THE BABU 9
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 tem-
per 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 still-
ness, 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, hps 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 pic-


10
THE BRONZE BELL
ture, ere a cry, a heavy crashing as of a horse thresh-
ing 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 con-
scious 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 van-
ished. 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 ap-
parently 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 outre and bizarre that he
momentarily and excusably questioned the testimony of
his senses.
At a little distance from the girl, in the act of ad-
dressing 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 predomi-
nating. His hands, fat, brown, and not overclean, alter-


DESTINY AND THE BABU 11
nately 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 ap-
parition, 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 con-
spiracy 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, wrth 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?"


12 THE BRONZE BELL
"Just that." The girl's tone was edged with tem-
per. "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 un-
divided attention to the Bengali. "Now then," he de-
manded sternly, "what 've you got to say for your-
self? 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 stam-
mered. .
"Aye," she told him in that tongue, " and speak it,
too."
"You know this man, then?"


DESTINY AND THE BABU 13
"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 Be-
hari 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.


14
THE BRONZE BELL
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 spring 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 an-
other 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, strik-
ing 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 en-
gagement—or a sinner fleeing the wrath to come. Not
once did he look back while Amber watched—himself di-


DESTINY AND THE BABU 15
vided between amusement, annoyance, and astonishment.
Presently the trees blotted out the red-and-white tur-
ban; the noise of the babu's elephantine retreat dimin-
ished; 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.


CHAPTER II
THE GIBL AND THE TOKEN
In his astonishment he looked round quickly to meet
the gaze of mischievous eyes that strove vainly to seem
simple and sincere. His own, in which amusement was
blended with wonder, noted that they were very hand-
some eyes and rather curiously colourful, the delicate
sepia shade of the pupils being lightened by a faint
sheen of gold in the irides; they were, furthermore,
large and set well apart. On the whole he decided that
they were even beautiful, for all the dancing glimmer
of perverse humour in their depths; he could fancy that
they might well seem very sweet and womanly when their
owner chose to be serious.
Aware that he faced an uncommonly pretty woman,
who chose to study him with a straightforward interest
he was nothing loath to imitate, he took time to see that
she was very fair of skin, with that creamy, silken white-
ness that goes with hair of the shade commonly and
unjustly termed red. This girl's hair was really brown,
a rich sepia interwoven with strands of raw, ruddy gold,
admirably harmonious with her eyes. Her nose he
thought a trace too severely perfect in its modelling, but
redeemed by a broad and thoughtful brow, a strong yet
absolutely feminine chin, and a mouth . . . Well,
as to her mouth, the young man selected a rosebud to
16


THE GIRL AND THE TOKEN
17
liken it to; which was really quite a poor simile, for her
lips were nothing at all like rose-leaves save in colour;
but they were well-shapen and wide enough to suggest
generosity, without being in the least too wide.
Having catalogued these several features, together
with the piquant oval of her face, and remarked that
her poise was good and gracious in the uncompromising
lines of her riding-habit, he had a mental portrait of
her he was not likely soon to forget. For it's not every
day that one encounters so pretty a girl in the woods of
Long Island's southern shore—or anywhere else, for
that matter. He felt sure of this.
But he was equally certain that he was as much a
stranger to her as she to him.
She, on her part, had been busy satisfying herself
that he was a very presentable young man, in spite of
the somewhat formidable reputation he wore as a person
of learned attainments. There could be no better way
to show him to you than through her eyes, so you must
know that she saw a man of less than thirty years, with
a figure slight and not over-tall but well-proportioned,
and with a complexion as dark as hers was light. His
eyes, indeed, were a very dark grey, and his hair was
black, and his face and hands had been coloured by the
sun and wind until the tan had become indelible, almost,
so that his prolonged periods of studious indoor seclu-
sion worked little toward lightening it. If his looks
attracted, it was not because he was handsome, for that
he wasn't, but because of certain signs of strength to
be discerned in his face, as well as an engaging manner
which he owned by right of ancestry, his ascendants for


18
THE BRONZE BELL
several generations having been notable representatives
of one of the First Families of Virginia. Amber was
not inordinately proud of this fact, at least not more so
than nine out of any ten Virginians; but his friends—
who were many but mostly male—claimed that he wrote
"F.F.V." before the "F.R.S." which he was entitled
to inscribe after his name.
The pause which fell upon the girl's use of his name,
and during which they looked one another over, was
sufficiently prolonged to excuse the reference to it which
Amber chose to make.
"I'm sure," he said with his slow smile, " that we're
satisfied we've never met before. Aren't we?"
"Quite," assented the girl.
"That only makes it the more mysterious, of course."
"Yes," said she provokingly; " doesn't it?"
"You know, you're hardly fair to me," he asserted.
"I'm rapidly beginning to entertain doubts of my
senses. When I left the train at Nokomis station I met
a man I know as well as I know myself—pretty nearly;
and he denied me to my face. Then, a little later, I
encounter a strange, mad Bengali, who apparently takes
me for somebody he has business with. And finally, you
call me by name."
"It isn't so very remarkable, when you come to con-
sider it," she returned soberly. "Mr. David Amber is
rather well known, even in his own country. I might
very well have seen your photograph published in con-
nection with some review of—let me see. . . . Your
latest book was entitled 'The Peoples of the Hindu
Kush,' wasn't it? You see, I haven't read it."


THE GIRL AND THE TOKEN
19
"That's sensible of you, I'm sure. Why should you?
. . . But your theory doesn't hold water, because I
won't permit my publishers to print my picture, and, be-
sides, reviews of such stupid books generally appear in
profound monthlies which abhor illustrations."
"Oh!" She received this with a note of disappoint-
ment. "Then my explanation won't do?"
"I'm sorry," he laughed, " but you'll have to be more
ingenious—and practical."
"And you won't show me the present the babu made
you?"
He closed his fingers jealously over the bronze box.
"Not until . . ."
"You insist on reciprocity?"
"Absolutely."
"That's very unkind of you."
"How?" he demanded blankly.
"You will have it that I must surrender my only ad-
vantage—my incognito. If I tell you how I happen to
know who you are, I must tell you who I am. Imme-
diately you will lose interest in me, because I'm really
not at all advanced; I doubt if I should understand
your book if I had to read it."
"Which Heaven forfend! But why," he insisted
mercilessly, " do you wish me to be interested in you?"
She flushed becomingly at this and acknowledged the
touch with a rueful, smiling glance. But, " Because I'm
interested in you," she admitted openly.
"And . . . why?"
"Are you hardened to such adventures?" She
nodded in the direction the babu had taken. "Are you


20
THE BRONZE BELL
accustomed to being treated with extraordinary re-
spect by stray Bengalis and accepting tokens from
them? Is romance commonplace to you?"
"Oh," he said, disappointed, "if it's only the ad-
venture !Of course, that's easily enough explained.
This half-witted mammoth—don't ask me how he came
to be here—thought he recognised in me some one he had
known in India. Let's have a look at this token-thing."
He disclosed the bronze box and let her take it in her
pretty fingers.
"It must have a secret spring," she concluded, after
a careful inspection.
"I think so, but . . ."
She shook it, holding it by her ear. "There's some-
thing inside—it rattles ever so slightly. I wonder!"
"No more than I."
"And what are you going to do with it?" She
returned it reluctantly.
"Why, there's nothing to do but keep it till the owner
turns up, that I can see."
"You won't break it open?"
"Not until curiosity overpowers me and I've ex-
hausted every artifice, trying to find the catch."
"Are you a patient person, Mr. Amber?"
"Not extraordinarily so, Miss Farrell."
"Oh, how did you guess?"
"By remembering not to be stupid. You are Miss
Sophia Farrell, daughter of Colonel Farrell of the
British Diplomatic Service in India." He chuckled
cheerfully over this triumph of deductive reasoning.
"You are visiting the Quains for a few days, while en


THE GIRL AND THE TOKEN 21
route for India with some friends whose name I've for-
gotten"
"The Rolands," she prompted involuntarily.
"Thank you. . . . The Rolands, who are stop-
ping in New York. You've lived several years with your
father in India, went back to London to 'come out'
and are returning, having been presented at the Court
of St. James. Your mother was an American girl, a
schoolmate of Mrs. Quain's. I'm afraid that's the whole
sum of my knowledge of you."
"You've turned the tables fairly, Mr. Amber," she
admitted. "And Mr. Quain wrote you all that?"
"I'm afraid he told me almost as much about you as
he told you about me; we're old friends, you know. And
now I come to think of it, Quain has one of the few
photographs of me extant. So my chain of reasoning's
complete. And I think we'd better hurry on to Tangle-
wood."
"Indeed, yes. Mrs. Quain will be wild with worry if
that animal finds his way back to the stable without
me; I've been very thoughtless." She caught up her
riding-skirt and started down the path with Amber
trudging contently beside her. "However," she con-
sidered demurely, "I'm not at all sorry, really; it's
quite an experience to have a notability at a disadvan-
tage, even if only for a few minutes."
"I wish you wouldn't," he begged in boyish embar-
rassment. "I'm not a notability, really; Quain's been
talking too much. I'll get even with him, though."
"That sounds so modest that I almost believe I've
made a mistake about your identity. But I've no doubt


THE BRONZE BELL'
you're right; Mr. Quain does exaggerate in praise of
his friends. Very likely it is as you insist, and you're
only an ordinary person, after all. At least, you would
be if stray babus didn't make you mysterious pres-
ents."
"So long as there is that to hold your interest in me,
I'm content," he told her, diverted. "How much longer
shall you stay at Tanglewood, Miss Farrell?"
"Unhappily," she sighed, " I must leave on the early
train to-morrow, to join the Rolands in New York."
"You don't want to go?"
"I'm half an American, Mr. Amber. I've learned
to love the country already. Besides, we start imme-
diately for San Francisco, and it'll be such a little
while before I'll be in India."
"You don't care for India?"
"I've known it for less than six years, but already
I've come to hate it as thoroughly as any exiled Eng-
lishwoman there. It sits there like a great, insatiable
monster, devouring English lives. Indirectly it was
responsible for my mother's death; she never recovered
from the illness she contracted when my father was sta-
tioned in the Deccan. In the course of time it will kill
my father, just as it did his father and his elder brother.
It's a cruel, hateful, ungrateful land—not worth the
price we pay for it."
"I know how you feel," he said with sympathy. "It's
been a good many years since I visited India, and of
course I then saw and heard little of the darker side.
Your people are brave enough, out there."
"They are. I don't know about Government; but


THE GIRL AND THE TOKEN 23
its servants are loyal and devoted and unselfish and
cheerful. And I don't at all understand," she added
in confusion, " why I should have decided to inflict upon
you my emotional hatred of the country. Your ques-
tion gave me the opening, and I forgot myself."
"I assure you I was thoroughly shocked, Miss Far-
rell."
"You should have been—surprised, at least. Why
should I pour out my woes to you—a man I've known
not fifteen minutes?"
"Why not, if you felt like it? After all, you know,
we're both of us merely making talk to—ah—to cover
our interest in one another."
She paused momentarily to laugh at his candour.
"You are outspoken, Mr. Amber! It's very pretty of
you to assert an interest in me; but why should you as-
sume that I"
"You said so, didn't you?"
"Wel-1 . . . yes, so I did."
"You can change your mind, of course."
"I shan't, honestly, until you turn stupid. And you
can't do that until you stop having strange adventures.
Will you tell me something?"
"If I can."
"About the man who wouldn't acknowledge knowing
you? You remember saying three people had been mis-
taken about your identity this afternoon."
"No, only one—the babu. You're not mistaken"
"I knew you must be David Amber the moment I
heard you speaking Urdu."
"And the man at the station wasn't mistaken—un-


24
THE BRONZE BELL
less I am. He knew me perfectly, I believe, but for rea-
sons of his own refused to recognise me."
"Yes—?"
"He was an English servant named Doggott, who
is—or once was—a valet in the service of an old friend,
a man named Rutton."
She repeated the name: "Rutton? It seems to me
I've heard of him."
"You have?"
"I don't remember," she confessed, knitting her level
brows. "The name has a familiar ring, somehow. But
about the valet?"
"Well, I was very intimate with his employer for a
long time, though we haven't met for several years.
Rutton was a strange creature, a man of extraordinary
genius, who lived a friendless, solitary life—at least, so
far as I knew; I once lived with him in a little place
he had in Paris, for three months, and in all that time
he never received a letter or a caller. He was reticent
about himself, and I never asked any questions, of
course, but in spite of the fact that he spoke English
like an Englishman and was a public school man, ap-
parently, I always believed he had a strain of Hun-
garian blood in him—or else Italian or Spanish. I
know that sounds pretty broad, but he was enigmatic
—a riddle I never managed to make much of. Aside
from that he was wonderful: a linguist, speaking a
dozen European languages and more Eastern tongues
and dialects, I believe, than any other living man. We
met by accident in Berlin and were drawn together by
our common interest in Orientalism. Later, hearing I


THE GIRL AND THE TOKEN 25
was in Paris, he hunted me up and insisted that I stay
with him there while finishing my big book—the one
whose title you know. His assistance to me then was in-
valuable. After that I lost track of him."
"And the valet?"
"Oh, I'd forgotten Doggott. He was a Cockney, as
silent and self-contained as Rutton. . . . To get
back to Nokomis: I met Doggott at the station, called
him by name, and he refused to admit knowing me—said
I must have mistaken him for his twin brother. I could
tell by his eyes that he lied, and it made me wonder.
It's quite impossible that Rutton should be in this neck
of the woods; he was a man who preferred to live a
hermit in centres of civilisation. . . . Curious!"
"I don't wonder you think so. Perhaps the man had
been up to some mischief. . . . But," said the girl
with a note of regret, "we're almost home!"
They had come to the seaward verge of the woodland,
where the trees and scrub rose like a wild hedgerow on
one side of a broad, well-metalled highway. Before them
stretched the eighth of a mile of neglected land knee-
deep with crisp, dry, brown stalks of weedy growths,
beyond which the bay smiled, a still lake of colour mir-
roring the intense lapis-lazuli of the calm eastern skies
of evening. Over across its waters the sand dunes of
a long island glowed like a bar of new red gold, tinted
by the transient scarlet and yellow glory of the smould-
ering Autumnal sunset. Through the woods the level,
brilliant, warmthless rays ran like wild-fire, turn-
ing each dead, brilliant leaf to a wisp of incandescent
flame, and tingcing the air with an evanescent ruby ra-


26
THE BRONZE BELL
diance against which the slim young boles stood black
and stark.
To the right, on the other side of the road, a rustic
fence enclosed the trim, well-groomed plantations of
Tanglewood Lodge; through the dead limbs a window
of the house winked in the sunset glow like an eye of
garnet. And as the two appeared a man came run-
ning up the road, shouting.
"That's Quain!" cried Amber; and sent a long cry
of greeting toward him.
"Wait!" said the girl impulsively, putting out a de-
taining hand. "Let's keep our secret," she begged,
her eyes dancing—" just for the fun of it!"
"Our secret!"
"About the babu and the Token; it's a bit of mystery
and romance to me—and we don't often find that in our
lives, do we? Let us keep it personal for a while—be-
tween ourselves; and you will promise to let me know if
anything unusual ever comes of it, after I've gone. We
can say that I was riding carelessly, which is quite true,
and that the horse shied and threw me, which again is
true; but the rest for ourselves only. . . . Please.
. . . What do you say?"
He was infected by her spirit of irresponsible mis-
chief. "Why, yes—I say yes," he replied; and then,
more gravely: "I think it'll be very pleasant to share
a secret with you, Miss Farrell. I shant say a word
to any one, until I have to."
As events turned he had no need to mention the in-
cident until the morning of the seventh day following


THE GIRL AND THE TOKEN
27
the girl's departure. In the interim nothing happened,
and he was able to enjoy some excellent shooting with
Quain, his thoughts undisturbed by any further appear-
ance of the babu.
But on that seventh morning it became evident that
a burglary had been visited upon the home of his hosts.
A window had been forced in the rear of the house and
a trail of burnt matches and candle-grease between that
entrance and the door of Amber's room, together with
the somewhat curious circumstance that nothing what-
ever was missing from the personal effects of the Quains,
forced him to make an explanation. For his own be-
longings had been rifled and the bronze box alone ab-
stracted—still preserving its secret.
In its place Amber found a soiled slip of note-paper
inscribed with the round, unformed handwriting of the
babu: " Pardon, sahib. A mistake has been made. I
seek but to regain that which is not yours to possess.
There will be naught else taken. A thousand excuses
from your hmbl. obt. svt., Behari Lai Chatterji."


CHAPTER III
MAROONED
A cet in the windy dusk; a sudden, hollow booming
overhead; a vision of countless wings in panic, sketched
in black upon a background of dulled silver; two heavy
detonations and, with the least of intervals, a third;
three vivid flashes of crimson and gold stabbing the pur-
ple twilight; and then the acrid reek of smokeless drift-
ing into Amber's face, while from the sky, where the
V-shaped flock had been, two stricken bundles of blood-
stained feathers fell slowly, fluttering. . . .
Honking madly, the unscathed brethren of the slain
wheeled abruptly and, lashed by the easterly gale, fled
out over the open sea, triangular formation dwindling
rapidly in the clouded distances.
Shot-gun poised abreast, his keen eyes marking down
the fall of his prey, Amber stood without moving, ex-
ultation battling with a vague remorse in his bosom—
as always when he killed. Quain, who had dropped back
a pace after firing but one shot and scoring an unqual-
ified miss at close range, now stood plucking clum-
sily, with half frozen fingers, at an obstinate breech-
lock. This latter resisting his every wile, his temper
presently slipped its leash; as violently as briefly he
swore: "Damn!"
38


MAROONED
29
"Gladly," agreed Amber, without turning. "But
what?"
"This gun!"
"Your gun?"
"Of course." There were elaborations which would
not lend themselves to decorative effect upon a printed
page.
"Then damn it yourself, Quain; I'm sure you can
do it ever so much more thoroughly than I. But what's
the matter?"
"Rim-jammed cartridge," explained Quain between
his teeth. The lock just then yielding to his awkward
manipulation, stock and barrel came apart in his
hands. "Just my beastly luck!" he added gratuitously.
"It wouldn't 've been me if !How many 'd you
pot, Davy?"
"Only two," said Amber, lowering his weapon, ex-
tracting the spent shells, and reloading.
"Only two!" The information roused in Quain a
demon of sarcasm. Fumbling in his various pockets for
a shell-extractor, he grunted his disgust. "Here, lend
us your thingumbob; 've lost mine. Thanky. . . .
Only two! How many'd you expect to drop, on a snap-
shot like that?"
"Two," returned Amber so patiently that Quain re-
quested him, explosively, to go to the devil. "If you
don't mind," he said, "I'll go after my ducks instead.
You'll follow? They're over there, on our way." And
accepting Quain's snort for an affirmative he strolled
off in the direction indicated, hugging his gun in the
crook of his arm.


MAROONED
31
sand-locked desolation, and then the weltering bay—a
wide two miles of leaping, shouting waves, slate-col-
oured but white of crests. Beyond, seen dimly as a
wall through driving sheets of snow, were the darkly
wooded rises of the mainland. In the west, to his left,
the blank, impersonal eye of the light-house, its pillar
invisible, winked red, went out, and flashed up white.
Over all, beneath a low and lustreless sky as flat as a
plate, violet evening shadows were closing in like spec-
tral skirts of the imminent night.
But, in the gloom, their little cat-boat lay occult to
his searching gaze.
Quain's voice recalling him, he turned to discover
his host stumbling through a neighbouring vale, and
obeying a peremptory wave of the elder man's hand,
descended, accompanied by an avalanche in miniature.
"Better hurry," shouted Amber, as soon as he could
make himself heard above the screaming of the gale.
"Wind's freshening; it looks like mean weather."
"Really?" Quain fell into step at his side. "You
'stonish me. But the good Lord knows I'm willin'.
Whereabout's the boat?"
"Blessed if I know: over yonder somewhere," Amber
told him, waving toward the bay-shore an arm as
vaguely helpful as his information.
"Thank you so much. Guess I can find her all
right. Hump yo'self, Davy."
They plodded on heavily, making fair progress in
spite of the hindering sand. Nevertheless it had grown
sensibly darker ere they debouched upon the frozen
flats that bordered the bay; and now the wind bore


32
THE BRONZE BELL
down upon them in full-winged fury, shrieking in their
ears, searing their eyes, tearing greedily at the very
breath of their nostrils, and searching out with impish
ingenuity the more penetrable portions of their clothing.
For a moment Quain paused, irresolute, peering right
and left, then began to trudge eastwards, heavy boots
crunching the thin sedge-ice. A little later they came
to the water's edge and proceeded steadily along it,
Quain leading confidently. Eventually he tripped over
some obstacle, stumbled and lurched forward and re-
covered his balance with an effort, then remained with
bowed head, staring down at his feet.
"Hurt yourself, old man?"
"No!" snapped Quain rudely.
"Then what in"
"Eh?" Quain roused, but an instant longer looked
him blankly in the eye. "Oh," he added brightly—
"oh, she's gone."
"The boat?"
"The boat," affirmed Quain, too discouraged for the
obvious retort ungracious. He stooped and caught up
a frayed end of rope, exhibiting it in witness to his
statement. "Ain't it hell? " he inquired plaintively.
Amber's gaze followed the rope, the further end of
which was rove through the ring of a small grapnel
anchor half buried in the spongy earth. "Gone!" he
echoed dismally.
"Gone away from here," said Quain deliberately, nod-
ding at the rope's end. "The tide floated her off, of
course; but how this happened is beyond me. I could kill
Antone." He named the Portuguese labourer charged


MAROONED
88
with the care of the boats at Tanglewood. "It's his
job to see that these cables are replaced when they show
signs of wear." He cast the rope from him in disdain
and wheeled to stare baywards. "There!" he cried,
levelling an arm to indicate a dark and fleeting shadow
upon the storm-whipped waters. "There she goes—not
three hundred feet off. It can't be five minutes since
she worked loose. I don't see why . . . ! If it hadn't
been for that damned cartridge . . .! It's the devil's
own luck!"
A blur of snow swept between boat and shore; when
it had passed the former was all but indistinguishable.
From a full heart Quain blasphemed fluently. . . .
"But if she holds as she stands," he amended quickly,
his indominitable spirit fostering the forlorn hope,
"she'll go aground in another five minutes—and I know
just where. I'll go after her."
"The deuce you will! How?"
"There's an old skimmy up the shore a ways." Al-
ready Quain was moving off in search of it. "Noticed
her this morning. Daresay she leaks like a sieve, but
at worst the water's pretty shoal inshore, hereabouts."
"Cold comfort in that."
"Better than none, you amiable"
"Can you swim?" Amber demanded pointedly.
"Like a fish. And you?"
"Not like a fish."
"Damn!" Quain brought up short with a shin
barked against a thwart of the rowboat he had been
seeking, and in recognition of the mishap liberally in-
sulted his luck.


34
THE BRONZE BELL
Amber, knowing that his hurt was as inconsiderable
as his ill-temper, which was more than half-feigned to
mask his anxiety, laughed quietly, meanwhile inspect-
ing their find with a critical eye.
"You don't seriously mean to put off in this crazy
hen-coop, do you? " he asked.
"Just precisely that. It's the only way."
"It simple madness. I won't"
"You don't want to stay here all night, do you?"
"No, but"
"Well, then, lend us a hand and don't stand there
grumbling. Be thankful for what you've got, which
is me and my enterprise."
"Oh, all right."
Together they put their shoulders to the bows of the
old, flat-bottomed rowboat, with incredible exertions
uprooting it from its ancient bed, and at length had
it afloat.
Panting, Quain mopped his forehead with a handker-
chief much the worse for a day's association with gun-
grease, and peered beneath his hand into the murk that
veiled the bay.
"There she is," he declared confidently: " aground."
He pointed. "I'll fetch up with her in no time."
But Amber could see nothing in the least resembling
the catboat, and said so with decision.
"She's there, all right," insisted Quain. "'Tain't
my fault if you're blind. Here, hold this, will you,
while I find me a pole of some sort." He thrust into
Amber's hand an end of rotten painter at which the
rowboat strained, and wandered off into the night, in


MAROONED
35
the course of time returning with an old eel-pot stake,
flotsam of some summer storm. "Pure, bull-headed
luck!" he crowed, jubilant, brandishing his trophy;
and jumped into the boat. "Now sit tight till I come
back? . . . Huh—what?"
"I'm coming, too," Amber repeated quietly.
"The hell you are! D'you want to sink us? What
do you think this is, anyway—an excursion steamer?
You stay where you are and—I say—take care of this
till I come back, like a good fellow."
He thrust the butt of his shot-gun into Amber's face,
and the latter, seizing it, was rewarded by a vigorous
push that sent him back half a dozen feet. At the same
time the painter slipped from his grasp and Quain,
lodging an end of the eel-pot stake on the hard sand
bottom, put his weight upon it. Before Amber could
recover, the boat had slid off and was melting swiftly
into the shadows.
After a bit Quain's voice came back: "Don't fret,
Davy. I'm all right.
Amber cupped hands to mouth and sent a cheerful
hail ringing in response. Simultaneously the last, least,
indefinite blur that stood for the boat in the darkness,
vanished in a swirl of snow; and he was alone with the
storm and his misgivings. Upon these he put a check—
would not dwell upon them; but their influence none the
less proved strong enough to breed in him a resistless
restlessness and keep him tramping up and down a five-
yard stretch of comparatively solid earth: to and fro,
stamping his feet to keep his blood circulating, lug-
ging both guns, one beneath either arm, hunching his


36
THE BRONZE BELL
shoulders up about his ears in thankless attempt to pre-
vent wet flakes from sifting in between his neck and col-
lar—thus, interminably it seemed, to and fro, to and
fro. . .
In the course of time this occupation defeated its pur-
pose ; the very monotony of it sent his thoughts winging
back to Quain; he worried more than ever for his friend,
reproaching himself unmercifully for that he had suf-
fered him to go alone—or at all. Quain had a wife
and children; that thought proved insupportable.
. . . Had he missed the catboat altogether? Or had
he gained it only to find the motor disabled or the pro-
peller fouled with the wiry eel-grass that choked the
shoals? In either instance he would be at the mercy of
the wind, for even with the sail close-reefed he would
have no choice other than to fly before the fury. Or
had the boat possibly gone aground so hard and fast
that Quain had found himself unable to push her off and
doomed to lie in her, helpless, against the fulling of the
tide? Or (last and most grudged guess of all) had the
"skimmy" proved as unseaworthy as its dilapidated
appearance had proclaimed it?
Twenty minutes wore wearily away. Falling ever
more densely, the snow drew an impenetrable wan cur-
tain between Amber and the world of life and light and
warmth; while with each discordant blast the strength
of the gale seemed to wax, its high hysteric clamour at
times drowning even the incessant deep bellow of the
ocean surf. Once Amber paused in his patrol, having
heard, or fancying he had heard, the staccato plut-plut-
plut ef a marine motor. On impulse, with a swelling


MAROONED
87
heart, he swung his gun skywards and pulled both trig-
gers. The double report rang in his ears loud as a
thunderclap.
In the moments that followed, while he stood listen-
ing, with every fibre of his being keyed to attention, the
sense of his utter isolation chilled his heart as with cold
steel.
A little frantically he loaded and fired again; but
what at first might have been thought the faint far echo
of a hail he in the end set down reluctantly to a trick
of the hag-ridden wind; to whose savage voice he durst
not listen long; in such a storm, on such a night, a man
had but to hearken with a credulous ear to hear strange
and terrible voices whispering, shrieking, gibbering,
howling untold horrors. . . .
An hour passed, punctuated at frequent intervals by
gunshots. Though they evoked no answer of any sort,
hope for Quain died hard in Amber's heart. With all
his might he laboured to convince himself that his friend
must have overtaken the drifting boat, and, forced to
relinquish his efforts to regain the beach, have scudded
across the bay to the mainland and safety; but this
seemed a surmise at best so far-fetched, and one as well
not overlong to be dwelt upon, lest by that very insist-
ence its tenuity be emphasised, that Amber resolutely
turned from it to a consideration of his own plight and
problematic way of escape.
His understanding of his situation was painfully ac-
curate: he was marooned upon what a flood tide made
a desert island but which at the ebb was a peninsula—a
long and narrow strip of sand, bounded on the west by


38
THE BRONZE BELL
the broad, shallow channel to the ocean, on the east
connected with the mainland by a sandbar which half
the day lay submerged.
He had, then, these alternatives: he might either com-
pose himself to hug the leeward side of a dune till day-
break (or till relief should come) or else undertake a
five-mile tramp on the desperate hope of finding at the
end of it the tide out and the sandbar a safe footway
from shore to shore. Between the two he vacillated not
at all; anything were preferable to a night in the dunes,
beaten by the implacable storm, haunted by the thought
of Quain; and even though he were to find the eastern
causeway under water, at least the exercise would have
served to keep him from freezing.
Ten minutes after his last cartridge had been fruit-
lessly discharged, he set out for the ocean beach, paus-
ing at the first dune he came upon to scrape a shallow
trench in the sand and cache therein both guns and his
game-bag. Marking the spot with a bit of driftwood
stuck upright, he pressed on, eventually pausing on the
overhanging lip of a twenty-foot bluff. To its foot the
beach below was aswirl knee-deep with the wash of
breakers, broad patches of water black and glossy as
polished ebony alternating with vast expanses of foam
and clotted spume, all aglow with pale winter phos-
porescence. Momentarily, as he watched, at once fas-
cinated and appalled, mountainous ridges of blackness
heaved up out of the storm's grey heart, offshore, and,
curling crests edged with luminous white, swung in to
crash and shatter thunderously upon the sands.
Awed and disappointed, Amber drew back. The beach


MAROONED
89
was impassable; here was no wide and easy road to the
east, such as he had thought to find; to gain the sand-
bar he had now to thread a tortuous and uncertain way
through the bewildering dunes. And the prospect was
not a little disconcerting; afraid neither of wind nor of
cold, he was wretchedly afraid of going astray in that
uncertain, shifting labyrinth. To lose oneself in that
trackless wilderness. . .!
A demon of anxiety prodded him on: he must learn
Quain's fate, or go mad. Once on the mainland it were
a matter of facility to find his way to the village of
Shampton, telephone Tanglewood and charter a
"team" to convey him thither. He shut his teeth on
his determination and set his face to the east.
Beset and roughly buffeted by the gale; the snow set-
tling in rippling drifts in the folds of his clothing and
upon his shoulders clinging like a cloth; his face cut by
clouds of sand flung horizontally with well-nigh the
force of birdshot from a gun: he bowed to the blast and
plodded steadily on.
Imperceptibly fatigue benumbed his senses, blunted
the keen edge of his emotions; even the care for Quain
became a mere dull ache in the back of his perceptions;
of physical suffering he was unconscious. He fell a prey
to freakish fancies—could stand aside and watch him-
self, an atom whirling in the mad dance of the tempest,
as the snow-flakes whirled, as little potent. He saw him-
self pitting his puny strength of mind and body against
the infinite force of the elements: saw himself fall and
rise and battle on, gaining nothing: an atom, sport of
high gods! To the flight of time he grew quite oblivi-


40 THE BRONZE BELL
ous, his thoughts wandering in the past, oddly afar to
half-remembered scenes, to experiences more than half-
forgotten, both wholly irrelevant; picturesque and pain-
ful memories cast up from the deeps of the subcon-
sciousness by some inexplicable convulsion of the imag-
ination. For a long time he moved on in stupid, won-
dering contemplation of a shining crescent of sand
backed by a green, steaming wall of jungle; there was
a dense blue sky above, and below, on the beach, dense
blue waters curled lazily up the feet of a little, naked,
brown child that played contentedly with a shell of rain-
bow hues. Again he saw a throng upon a pier-head, and
in its forefront an unknown woman, plainly dressed,
with deep brown eyes wherein Despair dwelt, tearless
but white to the lips as she watched a steamer draw
away. And yet again, he seemed to stand with others
upon the threshold of the cardroom of a Hong-Kong
club: in a glare of garish light a man in evening dress
lay prone across a table on whose absorbent, green cloth
a dark and ugly stain was widening slowly. . . . But
for the most part he fancied himself walking through
scented, autumnal woods, beside a woman whose eyes
were kind and dear, whose lips were sweet and tempt-
ing: a girl he had known not an hour but whom already
he loved, though he himself did not dream it nor dis-
cover it till too late. . . . And with these many other
visions formed and dissolved in dream-like phantasma-
goria ; but of them all the strongest and most recurrent
was that of the girl in the black riding-habit, walking
by his side down the aisle of trees. So that presently
the tired and overwrought man believed himself talking


MAROONED
41
with her, reasoning, arguing, pleading desperately for
his heart's desire; . . . and wakened with a start,
to hear the echo of her voice as though she had spoken
but the instant gone, to find his own lips framing the
syllables of her name—" Sophia!"
Thus strangely he came to know that beyond question
he loved. And he stopped short and stood blinking
blindly at nothing, a little frightened by the depth and
strength of this passion which had come to him with
such scant presage, realising for the first time that his
need for her was an insatiable hunger of the soul-
. . . And she was lost to him; half a world lay be-
tween them—or soon would. All his days he had
awaited, a little curiously, a little sceptical, the coming
of the thing men call Love; and when it had come to
him he had not known it nor guessed it until its cause
had slipped away from him. . . . Beyond recall?
Abruptly he regained consciousness of his plight, and
with an effort shook his senses back into his head. It
was not precisely a time when he could afford to let his
wits go wool-gathering. And he realised that he had
been, in a way, more than half-asleep as he walked;
even now he was drowsy, his eyes were heavy, his
feet leaden—and numb with cold besides. He had
no least notion of what distance he might have trav-
elled or whether he had walked in a straight line or a
circle; but when he thought to glance over his shoulder
'—there was at the moment perhaps more wind with less
snow than there had been for some time—he found the
lighthouse watching him as it had from the first: as if
he had not won a step away from it for all his strug-


THE BRONZE BELL
gle and his pains. The white, staring eye winked sar-
donically through a mist of flakes, was blotted out and
turned up a baleful red. It seemed to mock him, but
Amber nodded at it with no unfriendly feeling. It still
might serve his purpose very well, if his strength held,
since he had merely to keep his back to the light and
the ocean beach upon his right to win to the Shampton
sandbar, whether soon or late.
Inflexible of purpose in the face of all his weariness
and discouragement, he was on the point of resuming
his march when he was struck by the circumstance that
the whitened shoulder of a dune, quite near at hand,
should seem as if frosted with light—coldly luminous.
Staring, speculative, he hung in the wind—inquisi-
tive as a cat but loath to waste time in footless inquiry.
The snow-fall, setting in with augmented violence, de-
cided him. Where light was, there should be man, and
where man, shelter.
His third eager stride opened up a wide basin in the
dunes, filled with eddying veils of snow, and set, at some
distance, with two brilliant squares of light—windows
in an invisible dwelling. In the space between them,
doubtless, there would be a door. But a second time he
paused, remembering that the island was said to be un-
inhabited. Only yesterday he had asked and been so
informed. . . . Odd!
So passing strange he held it, indeed, that he was
conscious of a singular reluctance to question the phe-
nomenon. That superstitious dread of the unknown
which lies dormant in us all, in Amber stirred and awoke
and held him back like a strong hand. Or, if there be


THE MAN PERDU
45
before him stepped quickly forward and with two strong
hands clasped his shoulders.
"David Amber!" he heard his name pronounced in
a voice singularly resonant and pleasant. "So you've
run me to earth at last!"
Amber's face was blank with incredulity as he recog-
nised the speaker. "Rutton!" he stammered. "Rut-
ton—why—by all that's strange!"
"Guilty," said the other with a quiet laugh. "But
sit down." He swung Amber about, gently guiding him
to a chair. "You look pretty well done up. How long
have you been out in this infernal night? But never
mind answering; I can wait. Doggott!"
"Yes, sir."
"Take Mr. Amber's coat and boots and bring him
my dressing-gown and slippers."
"Yes, sir."
"And a hot toddy and something to eat—and be
quick about it."
"Very good, sir."
Rutton's body-servant moved noiselessly to Amber's
side, deftly helping him remove his shooting-jacket,
whereon snow had caked in thin and brittle sheets. His
eyes, grey and shallow, flickered recognition and soft-
ened, but he did not speak in anticipation of Amber's
kindly "Good-evening, Doggott." To which he re-
sponded quietly: "Good-evening, Mr. Amber. It's
a pleasure to see you again. I trust you are
well."
"Quite, thank you. And you?"
"I'm very fit, thank you sir."


46
THE BRONZE BELL
"And "—Amber sat down again, Doggott kneeling
at his feet to unlace and remove his heavy pigskin hunt-
ing-boots—" and your brother?"
For a moment the man did not answer. His head
was lowered so that his features were invisible, but a
dull, warm flush overspread his cheeks.
"And your brother, Doggott?"
"I'm sorry, sir, about that; but it was Mr. Rutton's
order," muttered the man.
"You're talking of the day you met Doggott at
Nokomis station?" interposed his employer from the
stand he had taken at one side of the fireplace, his back
to the broad hearth whereon blazed a grateful drift-
wood fire.
Amber looked up inquiringly, nodding an unspoken
affirmative.
"It was my fault that he—er—prevaricated, I'm
afraid; as he says, it was by my order."
Rutton's expression was masked by the shadows;
Amber could make nothing of his curious reticence, and
remained silent, waiting a further explanation. . It
came, presently, with an effect of embarrassment.
"I had—have peculiar reasons for not wishing my
refuge here to be discovered. I told Doggott to be care-
ful, should he meet any one we knew. Although, of
course, neither of us anticipated . . ."
"I don't think Doggott was any more dumfounded
than I," said Amber. "I couldn't believe he'd left you,
yet it seemed impossible that you should be here—of all
places—in the neighbourhood of Nokomis, I mean. As
for that "Amber shook his head expressively, glanc-


THE MAN PERDU
47
ing round the mean room in which he had found this
man of such extraordinary qualities. "It's altogether
inconceivable," he summed up his bewilderment.
"It does seem so—even to me, at times."
"Then why—in Heaven's name"
By now Doggott had invested Amber in his master's
dressing-gown and slippers; rising he left them, pass-
ing out through an inner door which led, evidently, to
the only other room in the cottage. Rutton delayed his
reply until the man had shut the door behind him, then
suddenly, with the manner of one yielding to the inevi-
table, drew a chair up to face Amber's and dropped
into it.
"I see I must tell you something—a little; as little
as I can help—of the truth."
"I'm afraid you must; though I'm damned if I can
detect a glimmer of either rhyme or reason in this pre-
posterous situation."
Rutton laughed quietly, lounging in his armchair
and lacing before him the fingers of hands singularly
small and delicate in view of their very considerable
strength—to which Amber's shoulder still bore aching
testimony.
"In three words," he said deliberately: MI am
hiding."
"Hiding!"
"Obviously."
Amber bent forward, studying the elder man's face
intently. Thin and dark—not tanned like Amber's,
but with a native darkness of skin like that of the Span-
ish—it was strongly marked, its features at once promi-


48 THE BRONZE BELL
nent and finely modelled. The hair intensely black, the
■eyes as dark and of peculiar fire, the lips broad, full,
and sympathetic, the cheekbones high, the forehead high
and something narrow: these combined to form a
strangely striking ensemble, and none the less striking
for its weird resemblance to Amber's own cast of coun-
tenance.
Indeed, their likeness one to the other was nothing
less than weird in that it could be so superficially strong,
yet so elusive. No two men were ever more unalike than
these save in this superficial accident of facial contours
and complexion. No one knowing Amber (let us say)
could ever have mistaken him for Rutton; and yet any
one, strange to both, armed with a description of Rut-
ton, might pardonably have believed Amber to be his
man. Yet manifestly they were products of alien races,
even of different climes—their individualities as dissim-
ilar as the poles. Where in Rutton's bearing burned
an inextinguishable, almost an insolent pride, beneath
an ice-like surface of self-constraint, in Amber's one
detected merely quiet consciousness of strength and
breeding—his inalienable heritage from many genera-
tions of Anglo-Saxon forebears; and while Rutton con-
tinually betrayed, by look or tone or gesture, a birth-
right of fierce passions savagely tamed, from Amber
one seldom obtained a hint of aught but the broad and
humourous tolerance of an American gentleman.
But to-night the Virginian had undergone enough
to have lost much of his habitual poise. "Hid-
ing!" he reiterated in a tone scarcely louder than a
whisper.


THE MAN PERDU
49
"And you have found me out, my friend."
"But—but I don't"
Rutton lifted a hand in deprecation; and as he did
so the door in the rear of the room opened and Doggott
entered. Cat-like, passing behind Amber, he placed
upon the table a small tray, and from a steaming
pitcher poured him a glass of hot spiced wine. At a
look from his employer he filled a second.
"There's sandwiches, sir," he said; " the best I could
manage at short notice, Mr. Amber. If you'll wait a
bit I can fix you up something 'ot."
"Thank you, Doggott, that won't be necessary; the
sandwiches look mighty good to me."
"Thank you, sir Will there be anything else, Mr.
Rutton?"
"If there is, I'll call you."
"Yes, sir. Good-night, sir. Good-night, Mr.
Amber."
As Doggott shut himself out of the room, Amber
lifted his fragrant glass. "You're joining me, Rut-
ton?"
"With all my heart!" The man came forward to
his glass. "For old sake's sake, David. Shall we drink
a toast?" He hesitated, with a marked air of em-
barrassment, then impulsively swung his glass aloft.
"Drink standing!" he cried, he voice oddly vibrant.
And Amber rose. "To the King—the King, God bless
him!"
"To the King!" It was more an exclamation of
surprise than an echo to the toast; nevertheless Amber
drained his drink to the final drop. As he resumed his


50
THE BRONZE BELL
seat, the room rang with the crash of splintering glass;
Rutton had dashed his tumbler to atoms on the hearth-
stone.
"Well!" commented Amber, lifting his brows ques-
tioningly. "You are sincere, Rutton. But who in
blazes would ever have suspected you of being a British
subject?"
"Why not?"
"But it seems to me I should have known"
"What have you ever really known about me, David,
save that I am myself?"
"Well—when you put it that way—little enough—
nothing." Amber laughed nervously, disconcerted.
"And I? Who and what am I?" No answer was ex-
pected—so much was plain from Rutton's tone; he was
talking to himself more than addressing his guest. His
long brown fingers strayed to the box and conveyed a
cigarette to his lips; staring dreamily into the fire, he
smoked a little ere continuing. "What does it mean,
this eternal ' I' round which the world revolves?" His
voice trailed off into silence.
Amber snapped the tension with a chuckle. "You
can search me," he said irreverently. And his host re-
turned his smile. "Now, will you please pay attention
to me, my friend? Or do you wish me to turn and rend
myself with curiosity—after I've attended to these ex-
cellent sandwiches? . . . Seriously, I want to know
several things. What have you been doing with your-
self these past three years?"
Rutton shook his head gravely. "I can't say."
"You mean you won't?"


THE MAN PERDU
51
"If you will have it that way."
"Well ... I give you up."
"That's the most profitable thing you could do,
David."
"But, seriously now, this foolish talk about hiding is
all a joke, isn't it?"
"No," said Rutton soberly; "no, it's no joke." He
sighed profoundly. "As for my recent whereabouts, I
have been—ah—travelling considerably; moving about
from pillar to post." To this the man added a single
word, the more significant in that it embodied the near-
est approach to a confidence that Amber had ever known
him to make: "Hunted."
"Hunted by whom?"
"I beg your pardon." Rutton bent forward and
pushed the cigarettes to Amber's elbow. "I am—
ah—so preoccupied with my own mean troubles, David,
that I had forgotten that you had nothing to smoke.
Forgive me."
"That's no matter, I —"
Amber cut short his impatient catechism in deference
to the other's mute plea. And Rutton thanked him with
a glance—one of those looks which, between friends, are
more eloquent than words. Sighing, he shook his head,
his eyes once more seeking the flames. And silently
studying his face—the play of light from lamp and
hearth throwing its features into salient relief—for the
first time Amber, his wits warmed back to activity from
the stupor the bitter cold had put upon them, noticed
how time and care had worn upon the man since they had
last parted. He had never suspected Rutton to be his


52 THE BRONZE BELL
senior by more years than ten, at the most; to-night,
however, he might well be taken for fifty were his age
to be reckoned by its accepted signs—the hollowing of
cheek and temple, the sinking of eyes into their sockets,
the deepening of the maze of lines about the mouth and
on the forehead.
Impulsively the younger man sat up and put a hand
upon the arm of Rutton's chair. "What can I do?"
he asked simply.
Rutton roused, returning his regard with a smile
slow, charming, infinitely sad. "Nothing," he replied;
"absolutely nothing."
"But surely!"
"No man can do for me what I cannot do for my-
self. When the time comes "—he lifted his shoulders
lightly—" I will do what I can. Till then . . ." He
diverged at a tangent. "After all, the world is quite
as tiny as the worn-out aphorism has it. To think that
you should find me here! It's less than a week since
Doggott and I hit upon this place and settled down,
quite convinced we had, at last, lost ourselves . . .
and might have peace, for a little space at least!"
Amber glanced curiously round the room; sparely
furnished, bare, unlovely, it seemed a most cheerless sort
of spot to be considered a haven of peace.
"And now," concluded Rutton, "we have to move
on."
"Because I've found you here?"
"Because you have found me."
"I don't understand."
"My dear boy, I never meant you should."


THE MAN PERDU
53
** But if you're in any danger"
"I am not."
"You're not! But you just said"
"I'm in no danger whatever; humanity is, if I'm
found."
"I don't follow you at all."
Again Rutton smiled wearily. "I didn't expect you
to, David. But this misadventure makes it necessary
that I should tell you something; you must be made to
believe in me. I beg you to; I'm neither mad nor mak-
ing game of you." There was no questioning the sane
sincerity of the man. He continued slowly. "It's a
simple fact, incredible but absolute, that, were my
whereabouts to be made public, a great, a staggering
blow would be struck against the peace and security
of the world. . . . Don't laugh, David; I mean
it."
"I'm not laughing, Rutton; but you must know
that's a pretty large order. Most men would——"
"Call me mad. Yes, I know," Rutton took up his
words as Amber paused, confused. "I can't expect you
to understand me: you couldn't unless I were to tell you
what I may not. But you know me—better, perhaps,
than any living man save Doggott . . . and one
other. You know whether or not I would seek to delude
you, David. And, knowing that I could not, you know
why it seems to me imperative that, this hole being dis-
covered, Doggott and I must betake ourselves elsewhere.
Surely there must be solitudes !" He rose with a
gesture of impatience and began restlessly to move to
and fro.


54
THE BRONZE BELL
Amber started suddenly, flushing. "If you
mean"
Rutton's kindly hand forced him back into his chair.
"Sit down, David. I never meant that—never for an
instant dreamed you'd intentionally betray my secret.
It's enough that you should know it, should occasionally
think of me as being here, to bring misfortune down
upon me, to work an incalculable disaster to the progress
of this civilisation of ours."
"You mean," Amber asked uncertainly, "thought
transference?"
"Something of the sort—yes." The man came to a
pause beside Amber, looking down almost pitifully into
his face. "I daresay all this sounds hopelessly melo-
dramatic and neurotic and tommyrotic, David, but
... I can tell you nothing more. I'm sorry."
"But only let me help you—any way in my power,
Rutton. There's nothing I'd not do . . ."
"I know, David, I know it. But my case is beyond
human aid, since I am powerless to apply a remedy
myself."
"And you are powerless?"
Button was silent a long moment. Then, " Time will
tell," he said quietly. "There is one way . . .." He
resumed his monotonous round of the room.
Mechanically Amber began to smoke, trying hard to
think, to penetrate by reasoning or intuition the wall
of mystery which, it seemed, Rutton chose to set be-
tween himself and the world. The intense earnestness
of the man's hopeless confession had carried conviction.
Amber believed him, believed in the reality of his trouble;


THE MAN PERDU 55
and, divining it dimly, a monstrous, menacing shape in
the vagueness of the unknown, was himself dismayed
and a little fearful. He owed much to this man, was
bound to him by ties not only of gratitude but of affec-
tion, yet, finding him distressed, found himself simul-
taneously powerless to render aid. Inwardly mutinous,
he had to school himself to quiescence; lacking the con-
fidence which Rutton so steadfastly refused him, he was
impotent.
Presently he grew conscious that Rutton was stand-
ing as if listening, his eyes averted to the windows.
But when Amber looked they showed, beneath their half-
drawn muslin shades, naught save the grey horizontal
rush of snow beyond the panes. And he heard nothing
save the endless raving of the maniac wind.
"What is it? " he inquired at length, unable longer
to endure the tensity of the pause.
"Nothing. I beg your pardon, David." Rutton re-
turned to his chair, making a visible effort to shake off
his preoccupation. "It's an ugly night, out there.
Lucky you blundered on this place. Tell me how it
happened. What became of the other man—your
friend?"
The thought of Quain stabbed Amber's consciousness
with a mental pang as keen as acute physical anguish.
He jumped up in torment. "God!" he cried chokingly.
"I'd forgotten! He's out there on the bay, poor devil!
—freezing to death if not drowned. Our boat went
adrift somehow; Quain would insist on going after her
in a leaky old skiff we found on the shore . . . and
didn't come back. I waited till it was hopeless, then


56
THE BRONZE BELL
concluded I'd make a. try to cross to Shampton by way
of the tidal bar. And I must!"
"It's impossible," Rutton told him with grave
sympathy.
"But I must; think of his wife and children, Rutton!
There's a chance yet—a bare chance; he may have
reached the boat. If he did, every minute I waste here
is killing him by inches; he'll die of exposure! But from
Shampton we could send a boat—"
"The tide fulls about midnight to-night," inter-
rupted Rutton, consulting his watch. "It's after
nine,—and there's a heavy surf breaking over the
bar now. By ten it'll be impassable, and you couldn't
reach it before eleven. Be content, David; you're
powerless."
"You're right—I know that," groaned Amber, his
head in his hands. "I was afraid it was hopeless, but
—but"
"I know, dear boy, I know!"
With a gesture of despair Amber resumed his seat.
For some time he remained deep sunk in dejection. At
length, mastering his emotion, he looked up. "How did
you know about Quain—that we were together?" he
asked.
"Doggott saw you land this morning, and I've been
watching you all day with my field-glasses, prepared to
take cover the minute you turned my way. Don't be
angry with me, David; it wasn't that I didn't yearn to
see you face to face again, but that ... I didn't
dare."
"Oh, that!" exclaimed Amber with an exasperated


THE MAN PERDU 57
fling of his hand. "Between the two of you—you and
Quain—you'll drive me mad with worry."
"I'm sorry, David. I only wish I might say more.
It hurts a bit to have you doubt me."
"I don't doubt," Amber declared in desperation; " at
least, I mean I won't if you'll be sensible and let me
stand by and see you through this trouble—whatever
it is."
Rutton turned to the fire, his head drooping despond-
ently. "That may not be," he said heavily. "The
greatest service you can do me is to forget my existence,
now and henceforth, erase our friendship from the
tablets of your memory, pass me as a stranger should
our ways ever cross again." He flicked the stub of a
cigarette into the flames. "Kismet! . . . I mean
that, David, from my heart. Won't you do this for me
—one last favour, old friend?"
"I'll try; I'll even promise, on condition that you
send me word if ever you have need of me."
"That will be never."
"But if"
"I'll send for you if ever I may, David; I promise
faithfully. And in return I have your word?"
Amber nodded.
"Then . . ." Rutton attempted to divert the sub-
ject. "I think you said Quain? Any relation to
Quain's 4 Aryan Invasion of India '?"
"The same man. He asked me down for the shoot-
ing—owns a country place across the bay: Tangle-
wood."
"A very able man; I wish I might have met him.


68
THE BRONZE BELL
. . . What of yourself? What have you been doing
these three years? Have you married?"
"I've been too busy to think of that. ... .1 mean,
till lately."
"Ah?"
Amber flushed boyishly. "There was a girl at
Quain's—a guest. . . . But she left before I dared
speak. Perhaps it was as well."
"Why?"
"Because she was too fine and sweet and good for me,
Rutton."
"Like every man's first love."
The elder man's glance was keen—too keen for Amber
to dissimulate successfully under it. "You're right,"
he admitted ruefully. "It's the first sure-enough
trouble of the sort I ever experienced. And, of course,
it had to be hopeless."
"Why? " persisted Rutton.
"Because—I've half a notion there's a chap waiting
for her at home."
"At home?"
"In England." The need for a confidant was sud-
denly imperative upon the younger man. "She's an
English girl—half English, that is; her mother was an
American, a schoolmate of Quain's wife; her father,
an Englishman in the Indian service."
"Her name?"
"Sophia Farrell." A peculiar quality, a certain
tensity, in Rutton's manner, forced itself upon Amber's
attention. "Why?" he asked. "Do you know the
Farrells? What's the matter?"


THE MAN PERDU
59
Rutton's eyes met his stonily; out of the ashen mask
of his face, that suddenly had whitened beneath the
brown, they glared, afire but unseeing. His hands
writhed, the fingers twisting together with cruel force,
the knuckles grey. Abruptly, as if abandoning the at-
tempt to reassert his self-control, he jumped up and
went quickly to a window, there to stand, his back to
Amber, staring fixedly out into the storm-racked night.
"I knew her father," he said at length, his tone con-
strained and odd, " long ago, in India."
"He's out there now—a Political, I believe they call
him, or something of the sort."
** Yes."
"She's going out to rejoin him."
"What!" Rutton came swiftly back to Amber, his
voice shaking. "What did you say?"
"Why, yes. She travels with friends by the western
route to join Colonel Farrell at Darjeeling, where he's
stationed just now. Shortly after I came down she
left; Mrs. Quain had a wire a day or so ago, saying
she was on the point of sailing from San Francisco.
. . . Good Lord, Rutton! are you ill?"
Something in the man's face had brought Amber to
his feet, a prey to inexpressible concern; it was as if
a mask had dropped and he were looking upon the soul
of a man in mortal torture.
"No," gasped Rutton, " I'm all right. Besides," he
added beneath his breath, so that Amber barely caught
the syllables, "it's too late."
As rapidly as he had lost he seemed to regain mastery
of his inexplicable emotion. His face became again


60
THE BRONZE BELL
composed, almost immobile, and stepping to the table he
selected a cigarette and rolled it gently between his
slim brown fingers. "I'm sorry to have alarmed you,"
he said, his tone a bit too even not to breed a doubt in
the mind of his hearer. "It's nothing serious—a little
trouble of the heart, of long standing, incurable—I
hope."
Perplexed, yet hesitating to press him further, Amber
watched him furtively, instinctively assured that be-
tween this man and the Farrells there existed some ex-
traordinary bond; wondering how that could be, con-
vinced in his soul that somehow the entanglement in-
volved the woman he loved, he still feared to put his
suspicions to the question, lest he should learn that
which he had no right to know . . . and while he
watched was startled by the change that came over
Rutton. At ease, one moment, outwardly composed if
absorbed in thought, the next he was rigid, every muscle
taut, every nerve tense as a steel spring, his keen,
thoughtful face hardening with a look of brutal hatred,
his eyes narrowing until no more than a glint of fire
was visible between the lashes, lips straining apart until
they showed thin and bloodless, with a gleam of white,
set teeth between. His head jerked back suddenly, his
gaze fixing itself first upon the window, then shifting to
the door. And his fingers, contracting, tore the cigar-
ette in half.
"Rutton, what the deuce is the matter?"
Rutton seemed not to hear; Amber got his answer
from the door, which was swung wide and slammed shut.
A blast of frosty air and a flurry of snow swept across


THE MAN PERDU
61
the room. And against the door there leaned a man
puffing for breath and coughing spasmodically—a
gross and monstrous bulk of flesh, unclean and unwhole-
some to the eye, attired in an extravagant array of col-
oured garments, tawdry silks and satins clinging, sod-
den, to his ponderous and unwieldy limbs.
"The babu!" cried Amber unconsciously; and was
rewarded by a flash of recognition from the coal-black,
beady, evil eyes of the man.
But for that involuntary exclamation the tableau
held unbroken for a space; Rutton standing transfixed,
the torn halves of the cigarette between his fingers, his
head well up and back, his stare level, direct, uncom-
promising, a steady challenge to the intruder; the babu
resting with one shoulder against the door, panting ster-
torously and trembling with the cold and exposure he
had undergone, yet with his attention unflinchingly con-
centrated upon Rutton; and, finally, Amber, a little out
of the picture and quite unconsidered of the others, not
without a certain effect as of a supernumerary stand-
ing in the wings and watching the development of the
drama.
Then, demanding Amber's silence with an imperative
movement of his hand, Rutton spoke. "Well, babu?"
he said quietly, the shadow of a bitter and weary smile
curving his thin, hard lips.
The Bengali moved a pace or two from the door, and
plucked nervously at the throat of his surtout, finally
managing to insert one hand in the folds of silk across
his bosom.
"I seek," he said distinctly in Urdu, and not without


62
THE BRONZE BELL
a definite note of menace in his manner, " the man call-
ing himself Rutton Sahib?"
Very deliberately Rutton inclined his head. "I am
he."
"Hazoor!" The babu laboriously doubled up his
enormous body in profound obeisance. Having recov-
ered, he nodded to Amber with the easy familiarity of an
old acquaintance. "To you, likewise, greeting, Amber
Sahib."
"What!" Rutton swung sharply to Amber with an
exclamation of amazement. "You know this fellow,
David?"
The babu cut in hastily, stimulated by a pressing
anxiety to clear himself. "Hazoor, I did but err, be-
ing misled by his knowledge of our tongue as well as by
that pale look of you he wears. And, indeed, is it
strange that I should take him for you, who was told
to seek you in this wild land?"
"Be silent!" Rutton told him angrily.
"My lord's will is his slave's." Resignedly the babu
folded his fat arms.
"Tell me about this," Rutton demanded of Amber.
"The ass ran across me in the woods south of the
station, the day I came down," explained Amber, sum-
marising the episode as succinctly as he could. "He
didn't call me by your name, but I've no doubt he's tell-
ing the truth about mistaking me for you. At all
events he hazoor-ed me a number of times, talked a lot
of rot about some silly 'Voice,' and finally made me a
free gift of a nice little bronze box that wouldn't open.
After which he took to his heels, saying he'd call later


THE MAN PERDU
63
for my answer—whatever he meant by that. He did call
by night and stole the box. That's about all I know
of him, thus far. But I'd watch out for him, if I were
you; if he isn't a raving luntic, I miss my guess."
"Indeed, my lord, it is all quite as the sahib says,"
the babu admitted graciously, his eyes gleaming with
sardonic amusement. "Circumstances conspired to
mislead me; but that I was swift to discover. Nor did
I lose time in remedying the error, as you have heard.
Moreover"
He shut up suddenly at a sign from Rutton, with a
ludicrous shrug of his huge shoulders disclaiming any
ill-intent or wrong-doing; and while Rutton remained
deep in thought by the table, the babu held silence, his
gaze flickering suspiciously round the room, searching
the shadows, questioning the closed door behind which
Doggott lay asleep (evidence of which fact was not
wanting in his snores), resting fleetingly on Amber's
face, returning to Rutton. His features were com-
posed ; his face, indeed, might have been taken as a model
for some weird mask of unctuous depravity, but for his
eyes, which betrayed a score of differing phases of emo-
tion. He was by turns apparently possessed by fear,
malice, distrust, a subtle sense of triumph, contempt for
Amber, deference to Rutton, and a feeling that he was
master not alone of the situation but of the man whom
he professed to honor so extravagantly.
At length Rutton looked up, suppressing a sigh.
"Your errand, babu?"
"Is it, then, your will that I should speak before this
man?" The Bengali nodded impudently at Amber.


64
THE BRONZE BELL
"It is my will."
"Shabash! I bear a message, hazoor, from the
Bell."
"You are the Mouthpiece of the Voice?"
"That honor is mine, hazoor. For the rest I am"
"Behari Lal Chatterji," interrupted Rutton impa-
tiently; "solicitor of the Inner Temple—disbarred;
anointed thief, liar, jackal, lickspittle, and perjurer—I
know you."
"My lord," said the man insolently, " omits from his
catalogue of my accomplishments my chief est honour;
he forgets that, with him, I am an accepted Member of
the Body."
"The Body wears strange members that employs you,
babu," commented Rutton bitterly. "It has fallen upon
evil days when such as you are charged with a message
of the Bell."
"My lord is harsh to one who would be his slave in all
things. Fortunate indeed am I to own the protection of
the Token." A slow leer widened greasily upon his
moon-like face.
"Ah, the Token!" Rutton repeated tensely, beneath
his breath. "It is true that you have the Token?"
"Aye; it is even here, my lord." The heavy brown
hand returned to the spot it had sought soon after the
babu's entrance, within the folds of silk across his bosom,
and groped therein for an instant. "Even here," he
iterated with a maddening manner of supreme self-com-
placency, producing the bronze box and waddling over
to drop it into Rutton's hand. "My lord is satisfied?"
he gurgled maliciously.


THE MAN PERDU
65
Without answering Rutton turned the box over in
his palm, his slender fingers playing about the bosses
of the relief work; there followed a click and one side
of it swung open. The Bengali fell back a pace with
a whisper of awe—real or affected: "The Token,
hazoor!" Amber himself gasped slightly.
Unheeded, the box dropped to the floor. Between
Rutton's thumb and forefinger there blazed a great
emerald set in a ring of red old gold. He turned it this
way and that, inspecting it critically; and the lamp-
light, catching on the facets, struck from it blinding
shafts of intensely green radiance. Rutton nodded as
if in recognition of the stone and, turning, with an ef-
fect of carelessness, tossed it to Amber.
"Keep that for me, David, please," he said. And
Amber, catching it, dropped the ring into his
pocket.
"My lord is satisfied with my credentials, then? " the
babu persisted.
"It is the Token," Rutton assented wearily. "Now,
your message. Be brief."
"The utterances of the Voice be infrequent, hazoor,
its words few—but charged with meaning: as you know
of old." The Bengali drew himself up, holding up his
head and rolling forth his phrases in a voice of great
resonance and depth. "These be the words of the Voice,
hazoor:
"' To all my peoples:
"' Even now the Gateway of Swords yawns wide,
that he who is without fear may pass within; to the end
that the Body be purged of the Scarlet Evil.


66
THE BRONZE BELL
"' The Elect are bidden to the Ordeal with no ex-
ception.'"
The sonorous accents subsided, and a tense wait en-
sued, none speaking. Rutton stood in stony apathy,
his eyes lifted to a dim corner of the ceiling, his gaze
—like his thoughts—perhaps ranging far beyond the
dreary confines of the cabin in the dunes. Minute after
minute passed, he making no sign, the babu poised be-
fore him in inscrutable triumph, watching him keenly
with his black and evil eyes of a beast. Amber hung
breathless upon the issue, sensing a conflict of terrible
forces in Rutton's mind, but comprehending nothing of
their natures. In the hush within-doors he became
acutely conscious of the war of elements without: the
mad elfin yammering of the gale tearing at the cabin
as though trying to seize it up bodily and whirl it
off into the witches' dance of the storm; the deep
arid awful booming of the breakers, whose incessant
impact upon the beach seemed to rock the very island
on its base. Somehow he divined a similitude between
the struggle within and the struggle without, seemed
to see the contending elements personified before his
eyes—the spirit of evil incarnate in the Bengali, vast,
loathsome, terrible in his inflexibility of malign purpose;
the force of right symbolized in Rutton, frail of stature,
fine of mould, strong in his unbending loyalty to his
conception of honour and duty. The Virginian could
have predicted the outcome confidently, believing as he
did in his friend. It came eventually on the heels of a
movement of the babu's; unable longer to hold his pose,
he shifted slightly. And Rutton awoke as from a sleep.


THE MAN PERDU
67
"The Voice has spoken, babu," he said, not ungently,
"and I have heard."
"And your answer, lord?"
"There is no answer."
"Hazoor!"
"I have said," Rutton confirmed evenly, "there is
no answer."
"You will obey?"
"That is between me and my God. Go back to the
Hall of the Bell, Behari Lal Chatterji, and deliver
your report; say that you have seen me, that I have lis-
tened to the words of the Voice, and that I sent no
answer."
"Hazoor, I may not. I am charged to return only
with you."
"Make your peace with the Bell in what manner
you will, babu; it is no concern of mine. Go, now, while
yet time is granted you to avoid a longer journey this
night."
"Hazoor!"
"Go." Rutton pointed to the door, his voice imper-
ative.
Upon this the babu abandoned argument, realising
that further resistance were futile. And in a twinkling
his dignity, his Urdu and his cloak of mystery, were
discarded, and he was merely an over-educated and
over-fed Bengali, jabbering babu-English.
"Oah, as for thatt," he affirmed easily, with an oleag-
inous smirk, "I daresay I shall be able to make ade-
quate explanation. It shall be as you say, sar. I con-
fess to fright, however, because of storm." He included


68
THE BRONZE BELL
Amber affably in his confidences. "By Gad, sar, thees
climate iss most trying to person of my habits. The
journey hither via causeway from mainland was veree
fearful. Thee sea is most agitated. You observe my
wetness from association with spray. I am of opinion
if I am not damn-careful I jolly well catch-my-death on
return. But thatt is all in day's work."
He rolled sluggishly toward the door, dragging his
inadequate overcoat across his barrel-like chest; and
paused to cough affectingly, with one hand on the knob.
Rutton eyed him contemptuously.
"If you care to run the risk," he said suddenly,
"you may have a chair by the fire till the storm breaks,
babu."
"Beg pardon?" The babu's eyes widened. "Oah,
yess; I see. 'If I care to run risk.' Veree considerate
of you, I'm sure. But as we say in Bengal,' thee favour
of kings iss ass a sword of two edges.' Noah, thanks;
the servants of thee Bell do not linger by wayside, soa
to speak. Besides, I am in great hurree. Mister Amber,
good night. Rutton Sahib "—with a flash of his sin-
ister humour—" au revoir; I mean to say, till we meet
in thee Hall of thee Bell. Good night."
He nodded insolently to the man whom a little time
since he had hailed as "my lord," shrugged his coat
collar up round his fat, dirty neck, shivered in antici-
pation, jerked the door open and plunged ponderously
out.
A second later Amber saw the confused mass of his
turban glide past the window.


CHAPTER V
THE GOBLIN NIGHT
Ambeb whistled low. "Impossible!" he said thought-
fully.
Rutton had crossed to and was bending over a small
leather trunk that stood in one corner of the room. In
the act of opening it, he glanced over his shoulder.
"What?" he demanded sharply.
"I was only thinking; there's something I can't see
through in that babu's willingness to go."
"He was afraid to stay."
« Why?"
Rutton, rummaging in the trunk, made no reply.
After a moment Amber resumed.
"You know what Bengalis are; that fellow'd do
anything, brave any ordinary danger, rather than try
to cross that sandbar again—if he really came that
way; which I am inclined to doubt. On the other hand,
he's intelligent enough to know that a night like this in
the dunes would kill him. Well, what then?"
Rutton was not listening. As Amber concluded he
seemed to find what he had been seeking, thrust it hur-
riedly into the breast-pocket of his coat, and with a
muttered word, unintelligible, dashed to the door and
flung it open and himself out.
With a shriek of demoniac glee the wind entered into
and took possession of the room. A cloud of snow swept
69


70
THE BRONZE BELL
across the floor like a veil. The door battered against
the wall as if trying to break it down. A pile of news-
papers was swept from the table and scattered to the
four corners of the room. The rug lifted beneath the
table and flapped against it like a broken wing. The
cheap tin kerosene lamp jumped as though caught up
by a hand; its flame leapt high and blue above the chim-
ney—and was not. In darkness but for the fitful flare
of the fire that had been dying in embers on the hearth,
Amber, seeking the doorway, fell over a chair, blun-
dered flat into the wall, and stumbled unexpectedly out
of the house.
His concern was all for Rutton; he had no other
thought. He ran a little way down the hollow, heartsick
with horror and cold with dread. Then he paused, be-
wildered. Other than the wan glimmer of the snow-
clad earth he had no light to guide him; with this poor
aid he could see no more than that the vale was de-
serted. Whither in that white whirling world Rutton
might have wandered, it was impossible to surmise. In
despair the Virginian turned back.
When he had found his way to the door of the cabin,
it was closed; as he entered and shut it behind him, a
match flared and expired in the middle of the room,
and a man cursed brokenly.
"Rutton?" cried Amber in a flush of hope.
"Is that you, Mr. Amber? Thank Gawd! Wyte a
minute."
A second match spluttered, its flame waxing in the
pink cup of Doggott's hands. The servant's head and
shoulders stood out in dim relief against the darkness.


THE GOBLIN NIGHT
71
"I've burnt me 'and somethin' 'orrid on this damn' 'ot
chimney," he complained nervously.
He succeeded in setting fire to the wick. The light
showed him barefoot and shivering in shirt and trousers.
He lifted a bemused red face to Amber, blinking and
nursing his scorched hand. "For pity's syke, sir, w'at's
'appened?"
"It's hard to say," replied Amber vaguely, preoc-
cupied. He went immediately to a window and stood
there, looking out.
"But w'ere's Mr. Rutton, sir?"
"Gone—out there—I don't know just where." Amber
moved back to the table. "You see, he had a caller."
"A caller, sir—on a night like this?"
"The man he came here to hide from," said Amber.
"I knew 'e was tryin' to dodge somethin', sir; but
'e never told me aught about it. What kind of a per-
son was 'e, sir, and what made Mr. Rutton go aw'y
with 'im?"
"He didn't; he went after him to . . ." Amber
caught his tongue on the verge of an indiscretion; no
matter what his fears, they were not yet become a
suitable subject for discussion with Rutton's servant.
"I think," he amended lamely, " he had forgotten some-
thing."
"And 'e's out there now! My Gawd, what a night!"
He hung in hesitation for a little. "Did 'e wear 'is
topcoat and 'at, sir?"
"No; he went suddenly. I don't think he intended
to be gone long."
"I'd better go after 'im, then. 'E'll 'ave pneumonia


72
THE BRONZE BELL
i. . . I'll just jump into me clothes and "He
slipped into the back room, to reappear with surpris-
ingly little delay, fully dressed and buttoning a long
ulster round his throat. "You didn't 'appen to notice
which w'y 'e went, sir?"
"As well as I could judge, to the east."
Doggott took down a second ulster and a cap from
pegs in the wall. "I'll do my best to find 'im; 'e might
lose 'imself, you know, with no light nor nothin'."
"And you?"
"I'll be all right; I'll follow 'is footprints in the
snow. I've a 'andy little electric bull's-eye to 'elp me,
in my pocket."
"Are you armed, Doggott?"
"By Mr. Rutton's orders, sir, I've carried a revolver
for years. You aren't thinkin' it's come to that, sir?"
"I don't know ... If I was sure I wouldn't let
you go alone," said Amber, frowning. "It's only that
Mr. Rutton may not want me about ... I wish I
knew!"
"It'll be better, sir, for you to stay and keep the fire
up—if you don't mind my makin' so free as to advise
—in case 'e's 'arf-froze when 'e gets back, as is likely.
But I'd better 'urry, 'specially if . . ." Doggott's
color faded a little and his mouth tightened. "But I
'ope you're mistyken, sir. Good-night."
The door slammed behind him.
Alone, and a prey to misgivings he scarce dared name
to himself, Amber from the window watched the blot of
light from Doggott's handlamp fade and vanish in the
storm; then, becoming sensible to the cold, went to the


74
THE BRONZE BELL
into these mean premises the breath of the storm, as the
babu entered, had blown Romance. . . . Incredible!
And yet Amber's hand, dropping idly in his coat-
pocket, encountered a priceless witness to the reality of
what had passed. Frowning, troubled, he drew forth
the ring and slipped it upon his finger; rays of blind-
ing emerald light coruscated from it, dazzling him.
With a low cry of wonder he took it to the lamplight.
Never had he looked upon so fine a stone, so strangely
cut.
It was set in ruddy soft gold, worked and graven with
exquisite art in the semblance of a two-headed cobra;
inside the band was an inscription so worn and faint
that Amber experienced some difficulty in deciphering
the word RAO (king) in Devanagari, flanked by swas-
tikas. Aside from the stone entirely, he speculated,
the value of the ring as an antique would have proven
inestimable. As for the emerald itself, in its original
state, before cutting, it must have been worth the ran-
som of an emperor; much had certainly been sacrificed
to fashion it in its present form. The cunning of a
jewel-cutter whose art was lost before Tyre and Nine-
veh upreared their heads must have been taxed by the
task. Its innumerable facets reproduced with wonder-
ful fidelity a human eyeball, unwinking, sleepless. In
the enigmatic heart of its impenetrable iris cold fire
lived, cold passionless flames leaped and died and leaped
again like the sorcerous fire of a pythoness.
To gaze into its depths was like questioning the in-
scrutable green heart of the sea. Fascinated, Amber
felt his consciousness slip from him as a mantle might


THE GOBLIN NIGHT 75
slip from his shoulders; awake, staring wide-eyed into
the emerald eye, he forgot self, forgot the world, and
dreamed, dreamed curiously. . . .
The crash of the door closing behind him brought him
to the right-about in a panic flutter. He glared stu-
pidly for a time before comprehending that Rutton and
Doggott had returned. How long they had been absent
he had no means of reckoning; the interval might have
been five minutes or an hour in duration. The time
since he had stooped to examine the ring was as in-
definite; but his back was aching and his thoughts were
drowsy and confused. He had a sensation as of being
violently recalled to a dull and colourless world from
some far realm of barbaric enchantment. His brain
reeled and his vision was blurred as if by the flash and
glamour of many vivid colours.
With an effort he managed to force himself to under-
stand that Rutton was back. After that he felt more
normal. His thoughts slid back into their accustomed
grooves.
If there were anything peculiar in his manner, Rut-
ton did not remark it. Indeed, he seemed unconscious,
for a time, of the presence either of Amber or of Dog-
gott. The servant relieved him of his overcoat and
hat, and he strode directly to the fire, bending over to
chafe and warm his frost-nipped hands. Unquestion-
ably he laboured under the influence of an extraordi-
nary agitation. His limbs twitched and jerked nerv-
ously; his eyebrows were tensely elevated, his eyes blaz-
ing, his nostrils dilated; his face was ashen grey.
From across the room Doggott signalled silence to


76
THE BRONZE BELL
Amber, with a forefinger to his lips; and with a dis-
cretion bred of long knowledge of his master's temper,
tiptoed through into the back room and shut the
door.
Amber respected the admonition throughout a wait
that seemed endless.
The tin clock hammered off five minutes or more.
Suddenly Rutton started and wheeled round, every
trace of excitement smoothed away. Meeting Amber's
gaze he nodded as if casually, and said, " Oh, Amber,"
quietly, with an effect of faint surprise. Then he
dropped heavily into a chair by the table.
"Well," he said slowly, "that is over."
Amber, without speaking, went to his side and
touched his shoulder with that pitifully inadequate ges-
ture of sympathy which men so frequently employ.
"I killed him," said Rutton dully.
"Yes," replied Amber. He was not surprised; he
had apprehended the tragedy from the moment that
Rutton had fled him, speechless; the feeling of horror
that he had at first experienced had ebbed, merged
into a sort of apathetic acknowledgment of the inevi-
table.
After a bit Rutton turned to the table and drew an
automatic pistol from his pocket, opening the magazine.
Five cartridges remained in the clip, showing that two
had been exploded. "I was not sure," he said thought-
fully, "how many times I had fired." His curiosity
satisfied, he reloaded the weapon and returned it to his
pocket. "He died like a dog," he said, "whimpering
and blaspheming in the face of eternity . . . out


THE GOBLIN NIGHT
77
there in the cold and the night. ... It was sicken-
ing—the sound of the bullets tearing through his
flesh. . . ."
He shuddered.
"Didn't he resist? " Amber asked involuntarily.
"He tried to. I let him pop away with his revolver
until it was empty. Then . . ."
"What made you wait?"
"I didn't care; it didn't matter. One of us had to
die to-night; he should have known that when I refused
to accompany him back to ... I was hungry for
his bullet more than for his life; I gave him every
chance. But it had to be as it was. That was Fate.
Now . . ." He paused and after a little went on in
a more controlled voice. "Quaintly enough, if there's
anything in the theory of heredity, David, my hands
have been stained with no man's blood before to-night.
Yet my forebears were a murderous lot. . . . Until
this hour I never realised how swift and uncontrollable
could be the impulse to slay. . . ."
His voice trailed off into silence and he sat staring
into the flickering flames that played about the drift-
wood.' Now and again his lips moved noiselessly.
With a wrench Amber pulled himself together. He
had been mentally a witness to the murder—had seen the
Bengali, obese, monstrous, flabby, his unclean carcass a
gross casing for a dark spirit of iniquity and treachery,
writhing and whining in the throes of death. . . .
"Rutton," he demanded suddenly, without premedita-
tion, "what are you going to do?"
"Do?" Rutton looked up, his eyes perplexed.


78
THE BRONZE BELL
"Why, what is there to do? Get away as best I can,
I presume—seek another hole to hide in."
"But how about the law?"
"The law? Why need it ever be known—what has
happened to-night? I can count on your silence—I have
no need to ask. Doggott would die rather than betray
me. He and I can dispose of—it. No one comes here
at this time of the year save hunting parties; and their
eyes are not upon the ground. You will go your way in
the morning. We'll clear out immediately after."
"You'd better take no chances."
Suddenly Button smote the table with his fist. "By
Indur!" he swore strangely, his voice quavering with
joy; "I had not thought of that!" He jumped up
and began to move excitedly to and fro. "I am free!
None but you and I know of the passing of the Token
and the delivery of the message—none can possibly
know for days, perhaps weeks. For so much time at
least I am in no danger of"
He shut his mouth like a trap on words that might
have enlightened Amber.
"Of what?"
"Let me see: there are still waste places in the world
where a man may lose himself. There's Canada—the
Hudson Bay region, Labrador. . . ."
A discreet knock sounded on the door in the parti-
tion, and it was opened gently. Doggott appeared on
the threshold, pale and careworn. Button paused, fac-
ing him.
"Well?"
"Any orders, sir?"


THE GOBLIN NIGHT
79
"Yes; begin packing up. We leave to-morrow."
"Very good, sir."
"That is all to-night."
"Yes, sir. Good-night. Good-night, Mr. Amber.'*
The man retired and at intervals thereafter Amber
could hear him moving about, apparently obeying
orders.
Rutton replenished the fire and stood with his back to
it, smiling almost happily. All evidence of remorse had
disappeared. He seemed momentarily almost light-
hearted, certainly in better spirits than he had been at
any time that night. "Free!" he cried softly. "And
by the simplest of solutions. Strange that I should
never have thought before to-night of "He glanced
carelessly toward the window; and it was as if his hps
had been wiped clean of speech.
Amber turned, thrilling, his flesh creeping with the
horror that he had divined in Rutton's transfixed gaze.
Outside the glass, that was lightly silvered with frost,
something moved—the spectral shadow of a turbaned
head—moved and was stationary for the space of
twenty heartbeats. Beneath the turban Amber seemed
to see two eyes, wide staring and terribly alight.
"God!" cried Rutton thickly, jerking forth his
pistol.
The shadow vanished.
With a single thought Amber sprang upon Rutton,
snatched the weapon from his nerveless fingers, and,
leaping to the door, let himself out.
The snow had ceased; only the wind raved with un-
tempered force. Overhead it was blowing clear;


THE GOBLIN NIGHT
81
have known Chatterji would not have come alone. So
my crime was futile." He spoke without spirit, as if
completely fagged, and moved slowly to the door. "I
don't want another interruption to-night," he continued,
shooting the bolts. He turned to the windows, "Nor
peeping Toms," he added, drawing the shade of one
down to the sill.
Amber started for him in a panic. "Get away from
that window, Rutton! For the love of heaven don't be
foolhardy!"
Rutton drew the second shade deliberately. "Dear
boy!" he said with his slow, tired smile, "I'm in no
danger personally. Not a hair of my head will be
touched until . . ." Again he left his thought half-
expressed.
"But if that fellow out there was Chatterji's com-
panion!"
"He undoubtedly was. But you don't understand;
my life is not threatened—yet."
"Chatter ji fired at you," Amber argued stub-
bornly.
"Only when he found it was his life or mine. I tell
you, David, if our enemy in the outer darkness were
the babu's brother, he would not touch a hair of my head
unless in self-defense."
"I don't understand. It's all so impossible!" Amber
threw out his hands helplessly, "Unbelievable! For
God's sake wake me up and tell me I've had a night-
mare!"
"I would that were so, David. But the end is not
yet."


82
THE BRONZE BELL
"What do you mean by that?" demanded Amber,
startled.
"Simply, that we have more to endure, you and I.
Consider the limitations of the human understanding,
David; a little while ago I promised to ask your aid
if ever the time should come when I might be free to
do so; I said,' That hour will never strike.' Yet already
it is here; I need you. Will you help me?"
"You know that."
"I know. . . . One moment's patience, David."
Rutton glanced at the clock. "Time for my medicine,"
he said; " that heart trouble I mentioned. . . ."
He drew from a waistcoat pocket a small silver tube,
or phial, and uncorking this, measured out a certain
number of drops into a silver spoon. As he swallowed
the dose the phial slipped from his fingers and rang
upon the hearthstone, spilling its contents in the
ashes. A pungent and heady odour flavoured the
air.
"No matter," said Rutton indifferently. "I shan't
need it again for some time." He picked up and re-
stored the phial to his pocket. "Now let me think a
bit." He took a quick turn up the room and down
again. Amber remarked that the medicine was having
its effect; though the brilliance of Rutton's eyes seemed
somewhat dimmed a dull flush had crept into his dark
cheeks, and when he spoke it was in stronger accents—
with a manner more assured, composed.
"A mad dance," he observed thoughtfully: "this
thing we call life. We meet and whirl asunder—
motes in a sunbeam. To-night Destiny chose to throw


THE GOBLIN NIGHT
88
us together for a little space; to-morrow we shall be ir-
revocably parted, for all time."
"Don't say that, Rutton."
"It is so written, David." The man's smile was
strangely placid. "After this night, we'll never meet.
In the morning Doggott will ferry you over"
"Shan't we go together?"
"No," said Rutton serenely; "I must leave before
you."
"Without Doggott?"
"Without Doggott; I wish him to go with you."
"Where?"
"On the errand I am going to ask you to do for me.
You are free to leave this country for several months?"
"Quite. I corrected the final galleys of my ' Analy-
sis of Sanskrit Literature' just before I came down.
Now I've nothing on my mind—or hands. Go on."
"Wait." Rutton went a second time to the leather
trunk, lifted the lid, and came back with two small par-
cels. The one, which appeared to contain documents of
some sort, he cast negligently on the fire, with the air
of one who destroys that which is no longer of value to
him. It caught immediately and began to flame and
smoke and smoulder. The other was several inches
square and flat, wrapped in plain paper, without a
superscription, and sealed with several heavy blobs of
red wax.
Rutton drew a chair close to Amber and sat down,
breaking the seals methodically.
"You shall go a long journey, David," he said
slowly—" a long journey, to a far land, where you shall


84
THE BRONZE BELL
brave perils that I may not warn you against. It will
put your friendship to the test."
"I'm ready."
The elder man ripped the cover from the packet, ex-
posing the back of what seemed to be a photograph.
Holding this to the light, its face invisible to Amber, he
studied it for several minutes, in silence, a tender light
kindling in his eyes to soften the almost ascetic austerity
of his expression. "In the end, if you live, you shall
win a rich reward," he said at length. He placed the
photograph face down upon the table.
"How—a reward?"
"The love of a woman worthy of you, David."
"But— !" In consternation Amber rose, almost
knocking over his chair. "But—Great Scott, man!"
"Bear with me, David, for yet a little while," Rutton
begged. "Sit down."
"All right, but——!" Amber resumed his seat,
staring.
"You and Doggott are to seek her out, wherever she
may be, and rescue her from what may be worse than
death. And it shall come to pass that you shall love
one another and marry and live happily ever after—
just as though you were a prince and she an enchanted
princess in a fairy tale, David."
"I must say you seem pretty damn' sure about it!"
"It must be so, David; it shall be so! I am an old
man—older than you think, perhaps—and with age
there sometimes comes something strangely akin to the
gift of second-sight. So I know it will be so, though
you think me a madman."


THE GOBLIN NIGHT
85
"I don't, indeed, but you . . . Well! I give it
up." Amber laughed uneasily. "Go on. Where's this
maiden in distress?"
"In India—I'm not sure just where. You'll find her,
however."
"And then?"
"Then you are to bring her home with you, without
delay."
"But suppose"
"You must win her first; then she will come gladly."
"But I've just told you I loved another woman, Rut-
ton, and besides"
"You mean the Miss Farrell you mentioned?"
"Yes. I"
"That will be no obstacle."
"What! How in thunder d'you know it won't?"
Amber expostulated. A faint suspicion of the truth
quickened his wits. "Who is this woman you want me
to marry?"
"My daughter."
"Your daughter!"
"My only child, David."
"Then why won't my—my love for Sophia Farrell
interfere?"
"Because," said Rutton slowly, "my daughter and
Sophia Farrell are the same. . . . No; listen to me;
I'm not raving. Here is my proof—her latest photo-
graph." He put it into Amber's hands.
Dazed, the younger man stared blankly at the like-
ness of the woman he loved; it was unquestionably she.
Fair, sweet, and imperious, her face looked up to his


86
THE BRONZE BELL
from the bit of cardboard in his hands; the direct and
fearless eyes met his—eyes frank, virginal, and serene,
beautiful with the beauty of a soul as unsullied and un-
troubled as the soul of a child.
He gasped, trembling, astounded. " Sophia . . .!"
he said thickly, colouring hotly. He was conscious of
a tightening of his throat muscles, making speech a
matter of difficulty. "But—but "he stammered.
"Her mother," said Rutton softly, looking away,
"was a Russian noblewoman. Sophia is Farrell's
daughter by adoption only. Farrell was once my
closest friend. When my wife died . . ." He cov-
ered his eyes with his hand and remained silent for a
few seconds. "When Sophia was left motherless, an
infant in arms, Farrell offered to adopt her. Because
I became, about that time, aware of this horror that
has poisoned my life—this thing of which you have
seen something to-night—I accepted on condition that
the truth be never revealed to her. It cost me the
friendship of Farrell; he was then but lately married
and—and I thought it dangerous to be seen with him
too much. I left England, having settled upon my
daughter the best part of my fortune, retaining only
enough for my needs. From that day I never saw her
or heard from Farrell. Yet I knew I could trust him.
Last summer, when my daughter was presented at
Court, I was in London; I discovered the name of her
photographer and bribed him to sell me this." He in-
dicated the photograph.
"And she doesn't know!"
"She must never know." Rutton leaned forward and


THE GOBLIN NIGHT
87
caught Amber's hand in a compelling grasp. "Remem-
ber that. Whatever you do, my name must never pass
your lips—with reference to herself, at least. No one
must even suspect that you know me—Farrell least of
all."
"Sophia knows that now," said Amber. "Quain and
I spoke of you one night, but the name made no im-
pression on her. I'm sure of that."
"That is good; Farrell has been true. Now . . .
you will go to India?"
"I will go," Amber promised.
"You will be kind to her, and true, David? You'll
love her faithfully and make her love you?"
"I'll do my best," said the young man humbly.
"It must be so—she must be taught to love you.
It is essential, imperative, that she marry you and leave
India with you without a day's delay."
Amber sat back in his chair, breathing quickly, his
mouth tense. "I'll do my best. But, Rutton, why?
Won't you tell me? Shouldn't I know—I, who am to
be her husband, her protector?"
"Not from me. I am bound by an oath, David.
Some day it may be that you will know. Perhaps not.
You may guess what you will—you have much to go
on. But from me, nothing. Now, let us settle the de-
tails. I've very little time." He glanced again at the
shoddy tin clock, with a slight but noticeable shiver.
"How's that? It's hours till morning."
"I shall never see the dawn, David," said Rutton
quietly.
« What"


88
THE BRONZE BELL
"I have but ten minutes more of life. ... If you
must know—in a word: poison. . . . That I be saved
a blacker sin, David!"
"You mean that medicine—the silver phial? " Amber
stammered, sick with horror.
"Yes. Don't be alarmed; it's slow but sure and
painless, dear boy. It works infallibly within half an
hour. There'll be no agony—merely the drawing of
the curtain. Best of all, it leaves no traces; a diagnos-
tician would call it heart-failure. . . . And thus I
escape that." He nodded coolly toward the door.
"But this must not be, Rutton!" Amber rose sud-
denly, pushing back his chair. "Something must be
done. "Doggott"
"Not so loud, please—you might alarm him. After
it's all over, call him. But now—it's useless; the
thing is done; there's no known antidote. Be kind to
me, David, in this hour of mine extremity. There's
much still to be said between us . . . and in seven
minutes more ..."
Rutton retained his clutch upon Amber's hand; and
his eyes, their lustre dimmed, held Amber's, pitiful, pas-
sionate, inexorable in their entreaty. Amber sat down,
his soul shaken with the pity of it.
"Ah-h!" sighed Rutton. Relieved, the tension re-
laxed; he released Amber's hand; his body sank a little
in the chair. Becoming conscious of this, he pulled him-
self together. ..." Enter India by way of Cal-
cutta," he said in a dull and heavy voice. . " There, in
the Machua Bazaar, you will find a goldsmith and
money-lender called Dhola Baksh. Go to him secretly,


THE GOBLIN NIGHT
89
show him the ring—the Token. He will understand and
do all in his power to aid you, should there be any
trouble about your leaving with Sophia. To no one
else in India are you to mention my name. Deny me, if
taxed with knowing me. Do you understand?"
"No. Why?"
"Never mind—but remember these two things: you
do not know me and you must under no circumstances
have anything to do with the police. They could do
nothing to help you; on the other hand, to be seen
with them, to have it known that you communicate
with them, would be the equivalent of a seal upon
your death warrant. You remember the money-lender's
name?"
"Dhola Baksh of the Machua Bazaar."
"Trust him—and trust Doggott. . . . Four min-
utes more!"
"Rutton!" cried Amber in a broken voice. Cold
sweat broke out upon his forehead.
The man smiled fearlessly. "Believe me, this is the
better way—the only way. . . . Some day you may
meet a little chap named Labertouche—a queer fish
I once knew in Calcutta. But I daresay he's dead
by now. But if you should meet him, tell him that you've
seen his B-Formula work flawlessly in one instance at
least. You see, he dabbled in chemistry and entomology
and a lot of uncommon pursuits—a solicitor by pro-
fession, he never seemed to have any practice to speak
of—and he invented this stuff and named it the
B-Formula." Rutton tapped the silver phial in his
waistcoat pocket, smiling faintly. "He was a good


90
THE BRONZE BELL
little man. . . . Two minutes. Strange how little
one cares, when it's inevitable. . . ."
He ceased to speak and closed his eyes. A great still-
ness made itself felt within the room. In the other,
Doggott was silent—probably asleep. Amber noted
the fact subconsciously, even as he was aware that the
high fury of the wind was moderating. But consciously
he was bowed down with sorrow, inexpressibly racked.
In the hush the metallic hammering of the mean tin
clock rang loud and harsh; Amber's heart seemed to
beat in funeral time to its steady, unhurried, immutable
ticking.
It was close upon two in the morning.
"Amber," said Rutton suddenly and very clearly,
"you'll find a will in my despatch box. Doggott is to
have all I possess. The emerald ring—the Token—I
give to you."
"Yes, I—I"
"Your hand. . . . Mine is cold? No? I fancied
it was," said the man drowsily. And later: " Sophia.
You will be kind to her, David?"
"On my faith!"
Rutton's fingers tightened cruelly upon his, then re-
laxed suddenly. He began to nod, his chin drooping
toward his breast.
"The Gateway . . . the Bell ..."
The words were no more than whispers dying on lips
that stilled as they spoke.
For a long time Amber sat unmoving, his fingers im-
prisoned in that quiet, cooling grasp, his thoughts
astray in a black mist of mourning and bewilderment.


THE GOBLIN NIGHT 91
Through the hush of death the tin clock ticked on,
placidly, monotonously, complacently. In the fireplace
a charred log broke with a crash and a shower of live
cinders.
Out of doors something made a circuit of the cabin,
like a beast of the night, stealthy footsteps muffled by
the snow: pad—pad—pad . . .
In the emerald ring on Amber's finger the deathless
fire leaped and pulsed.


CHAPTER VI
BED DAWN
Presently Amber rose and quietly exchanged dress-
ing-gown and slippers for his own shooting-jacket and
boots—which by now were dry, thanks to Doggott's
thoughtfulness in placing them near the fire.
The shabby tin clock had droned through thirty min-
utes since Rutton had spoken his last word. In that
interval, sitting face to face, and for a little time hand
in hand, with the man to whom he had pledged his
honour, Amber had thought deeply, carefully weighing
ways and means; nor did he move until he believed his
plans mature and definite.
But before he could take one step toward redeeming
his word to Rutton, he had many cares to dispose of.
In the hut, Rutton lay dead of poison; somewhere
amongst the dunes the babu lay in his blood, shot to
death—foully murdered, the world would say. Should
these things become known, he would be detained in-
definitely in Nokomis as a witness—if, indeed, he
escaped a graver charge.
It was, then, with a mind burdened with black anxiety
that he went to arouse Doggott.
The rear room proved to be as cheerless as the other.
Of approximately the same dimensions, it too had been
furnished with little regard for anything but the barest
conveniences of camp-life. It contained a small sheet-
92


RED DAWN
93
iron stove for cooking, a table, a rack of shelves, two
chairs, and a rickety cot-bed in addition to another
trunk. On the table a tin kerosene-lamp had burned
low, poisoning the air with its bitter reek. On the cot
Doggott sprawled in his clothing, his strained position
—half reclining, feet upon the floor—suggesting an
uncontemplated surrender to fatigue. His face was
flushed and he was breathing heavily.
The Virginian stood over him for several minutes be-
fore he could bring himself to the point of awakening
the man to the news of Rutton's death. Aware of that
steadfast loyalty which Doggott had borne his master
through many years of service, he shrank with con-
ceivable reluctance from the duty. But necessity drove
him with a taut rein; and finally he bent over and shook
the sleeper by the shoulder.
With a jerk the man sat up and recognised Amber.
"Beg pardon, sir," he muttered, lifting himself slug-
gishly; "I didn't mean to fall asleep—I'd only sat
down for a moment's rest. Has—has anything gone
bad, sir?" he added hastily, remarking with troubled
eyes the sympathy and concern in Amber's expression.
Amber looked away. "Mr. Rutton is dead, Dog-
gott," he managed to say with some difficulty.
Doggott exclaimed beneath his breath. "Dead!" he
cried in a tone of daze. In two strides he had left
Amber and was kneeling by Rutton's side. The most
cursory examination, however, sufficed to resolve his
every doubt: the hanging head and arms, the livid face
with its staring yet sightless eyes, the shrunken figure
seeming so pitifully slight and unsubstantial in com-


94
THE BRONZE BELL
parison with its accustomed strong and virile poise,
hopelessly confirmed Amber's statement.
"Dead!" whispered the servant. He rose and stood
swaying, his lips a-tremble, his eyes blinking through a
mist, his head bowed. "'E always was uncommon' good
to me, Mr. Amber," he said brokenly. "It's a bit 'ard,
comin' this w'y. 'Ow—'ow did it "He broke down
completely for a time, and staggered away to the wall,
there to stand with his head pillowed on his crossed
forearms.
When he had himself in more control Amber told him
as briefly as possible of the head at the window and of
its sequel—Rutton's despairing suicide.
Doggott listened in silence, nodding his comprehension.
"I've always looked for it, sir," he commented. "'E'd
warned me never to touch that silver tube; 'e never said
poison, but I suspected it, 'e being blue and melancholy-
like, by fits and turns—'e never told me why."
Then, reverently, they took up the body and laid it
out upon the hammock-bed, Doggott arranging the
limbs and closing the eyes before spreading a sheet over
the rigid form.
"And now, what, Mr. Amber? " he asked.
Amber had returned to the table. He pondered his
problems for some time before answering; a distasteful
duty devolved upon him of questioning the servant about
his master's secrets, of delving into the mystery which
Rutton had chosen always to preserve about himself—
which, indeed, he had chosen to die without disclosing to
the man whom he had termed his sole intimate. Yet this
task, too, must be gone through with.


96
THE BRONZE BELL
priate to his own use all my property and effects, pro-
viding he be in my service at the time of my death. To
facilitate his entering into possession of my means, what-
ever they may be, without the necessity of legal pro-
cedure of any kind, I enclose a cheque to his order upon
my bankers, signed by myself and bearing the date of
this memorandum. He is to fill it in with the amount
remaining to my credit upon my bank-book. Should he
have died or left me, however, the disposition of my ef-
fects is a matter about which I am wholly careless."
The signature was unmistakably genuine—the for-
mal " H. D. Rutton" with which Amber was familiar.
It was unwitnessed.
The Virginian put aside the paper and offered Dog-
gott the blank cheque on Rothschilds'. "This," he said,
"makes you pretty nearly independently rich, Dog-
gott."
"Yes, sir." Doggott took the slip of paper in a
hand that trembled even as his voice, and eyed it in-
credulously. "I've never 'ad anything like this before,
sir; I 'ardly know what it means."
"It means," explained Amber, "that, when you've
filled in that, blank and had the money collected from
the Rothschilds, you'll be worth—with what cash is here
—in the neighbourhood of forty-five thousand pounds
sterling."
Doggott gasped, temporarily inarticulate. "Forty-
five thousand pounds! . . . Mr. Amber," he declared
earnestly, "I never looked for nothin' like this I—
I never—I "Quite without warning he was quiet
and composed again. "Might I ask it of you as a


RED DAWN
97
favour, sir, to look after this "—he offered to return
the cheque—" for a while, till I can myke up my mind
what to do with it."
"Certainly." Amber took the paper, folded it and
placed it in his card-case. "I'd suggest that you de-
posit it as soon as possible in a New York bank for col-
lection. In the meantime, these bills are yours; you'd
better take care of them yourself until you open the
banking account. I'll keep Mr. Rutton's bank-book
with the cheque." He placed the book in his pocket
with the singular document Rutton had called his
"will," and motioned Doggott to possess himself of the
money in the despatch-box.
"It'll keep as well in 'ere as anywheres," Doggott
considered, relocking the box. "I 'aven't 'ardly any
use for money, except, of course, to tide me over till I
find another position."
"What!" exclaimed Amber in amaze.
"Yes, sir," affirmed Doggott respectfully. "I'm a
bit too old to chynge my w'ys; a valet I've been all my
life and a valet I'll die, sir. It's too lyte to think of any-
thing else."
"But with this money, Doggott"
"Beg pardon, sir, but I know; I could live easy like
a gentleman if I liked—but I wouldn't be a gentle-
man, so what's the use of that? I could go 'ome and
buy me a public-'ouse; but that wouldn't do neither.
I'd not be 'appy; if you'll pardon my s'ying so, I've
associated too long with gentlemen and gentlemen's gen-
tlemen to feel at ease, so to speak, with the kind that
'angs round publics. So the w'y I look at it, there's


RED DAWN
99
Rome—they'd 'unt 'im up; some 'e'd give money to and i
they'd go aw'y; others 'e'd be locked up with in 'is
study for hours, talking, talking. They'd 'ardly eyer
come the same one twice. 'E 'ated 'em all, Mr. Rutton
did. And yet, sir, I always 'ad a suspicion——"
Doggott hesitated, lowering his voice, his gaze shift-
ing uneasily to the still, shrouded figure in the corner.
"What?" demanded Amber tensely.
"I alw'ys thought per'aps 'e was what we call in
England a man of colour, 'imself, sir."
"Doggott!"
"I don't mean no 'arm, sir; it was just their 'ounding
him, like, and 'is being a dark-complected man the syme
as them, and speakin' their language so ready, that
made me think it. At least 'e might 'ave 'ad a little of
their blood in 'im, sir. Things 'd seem unaccountable
otherwise," concluded Doggott vaguely.
"It's impossible!" cried Amber.
"Yes, sir; at least, I mean I 'ope so, sir. Not that
it'd myke any difference to me, the w'y I felt towards
'im. 'E was a gentleman, white or black. I'd've died
for 'im any d'y."
"Doggott!" The Virginian had risen and was pac-
ing excitedly to and fro. "Doggott! don't ever repeat
one word of this to man or woman—while you're faith-
ful to the memory of Mr. Rutton."
The servant stared, visibly impressed. "Very good,
Mr. Amber. I'll remember, sir. I don't ordinarily gos-
sip, sir; but you and him being so thick, and everything
'appening to-night so 'orrible, I forgot myself. I 'ope
you'll excuse me, sir."


100
THE BRONZE BELL
"God in Heaven!" cried the young man hoarsely.
"It can't be true!" He flung himself into his chair,
burying his face in his hands. "It can't!"
Yet irresistibly the conviction was being forced upon
him that Doggott had surmised aright. Circumstance
backed up circumstance within his knowledge of or his
experience with the man, all seeming to prove incontest-
ably the truth of what at the first blush had seemed so
incredible. What did he, Amber, know of Rutton's par-
entage or history that would refute the calm belief of
the body-servant of the dead man? Rutton himself
had consistently kept sealed lips upon the subject of
his antecedents; in Amber's intercourse with him the
understanding that what had passed was a closed book
had been implicit. But it had never occurred to Amber
to question the man's title to the blood of the Caucasian
peoples. Not that the mystery with which Rutton had
ever shrouded his identity had not inevitably of itself
been a provocation to Amber's imagination; he had
hazarded many an idle, secret guess at the riddle that
was Rutton. Who or what the man was or might have
been was ever a field of fascinating speculation to the
American, but his wildest conjecture had never travelled
east of Italy or Hungary. He had always fancied that
one, at least, of Rutton's parents had been a native of
the European Continent. He had even, at a certain
time when his imagination had been stimulated by the
witchery of "Lavengro" and "The Romany Rye,"
gone so far as to wonder if, perchance, Rutton were not
descended from Gipsy stock—a fancy which he was
quick to dismiss as absurd. Yet now it seemed as if he


RED DAWN
101
had not been far wrong; if Doggott were right—and
Amber had come to believe that the valet was right—
it was no far cry from the Hindu to the Romany, both
offshoots of the Aryan root.
And then Amber's intelligence was smitten by a
thought as by a club; and he began to tremble violently,
uncontrollably, being weakened by fatigue and the
strain of that endless, terrible night. A strangled cry
escaped him without his knowledge: " Sophia!"
Sophia Farrell, the woman he had promised to wed,
nay even the woman he loved with all his being—a half-
breed, a mulatto! His mind sickened with the horror
of that thought. All the inbred contempt of the South-
erner for the servile races surged up to overwhelm his
passion, to make it seem more than impossible, revolting,
that the mistress of his dreams should be a creature
tainted by the blood of a brown-skinned people. Though
her mother had been of noble Russian family, as her
father had declared; though her secret were contained
in his knowledge and Farrell's alone, and though it
were to be preserved by them ever inviolate—could he,
David Amber, ever forget it? Could he make her his
bride and take her home to his mother and his sisters in
Virginia—offer them as daughter and sister a woman
who, though she were fairer than the dawn, was in part
a product of intermarriage between white and black?
His very soul seemed to shudder and his reason cried
out that the thing could never be. . . . Yet in his
heart of hearts still he loved her, still desired her with
all his strength and will; in his heart there was no wav-
ering. Whatever Rutton had been, whatever his daugh-


102 THE BRONZE BELL
ter might be, he loved her. And more, the honour of
the Ambers was in pledge, holding him steadfast to his
purpose to seek her out in India or wherever she might
be and to bear her away from the unnamed danger that
threatened her—even to marry her. if she would have
him. He had promised; his word had passed; there
could now be no withdrawal. . . .
An hour elapsed, its passing raucously emphasised by
the tin clock. Amber remained at the table, his head
upon it, his face hidden by his arms, so still that Dog-
gott would have thought him sleeping but for his un-
even breathing.
On tiptoe the man-servant moved in and out of the
room, making ready for the day, mechanically carry-
ing out his dead master's last instructions, to pack up
against an early departing. His face was grave and
sorrowful and now and again he paused in the midst of
his preparations to watch for an instant the sheeted form
upon the hammock-bed, his head bowed, his eyes filling;
or to cast a sympathetic glance at the back and shoul-
ders of the living, his new employer. In his day Dog-
gott had known trouble; he was ignorant of the cause,
but now intuitively he divined that Amber was suffering
mental torment indescribable and beyond his power to
assuage.
At length the young man called him and Doggott
found him sitting up, with a haggard and careworn face
but with the sane light of a mind composed in his eyes.
"Doggott," he asked in an even, toneless voice, " have
you ever mentioned to anybody your suspicion about
Mr. Rutton's race?"








RED DAWN
103
"Only to you, sir."
"That's good. And you won't?"
"No, sir."
"Have you," continued Amber, looking away and
speaking slowly, "ever heard him mention his mar-
riage?"
"Never, sir. 'E says in that paper 'e was a widower;
I fancy the lady must have died before I entered 'is
service. 'E was always a lonely man, all the fifteen year
I've been with 'im, keepin' very much to 'imself, sir."
"He never spoke of a—daughter?"
"No, sir. Didn't 'e say 'e was childless?"
"Yes. I merely wondered. . . . Tell me, now, do
you know of any letters or papers of his that we should
destroy? If there are any, he would wish us to."
"'E never 'ad many, sir. What letters 'e got 'e an-
swered right away and destroyed 'em. There was a
little packet in 'is trunk, but I see that's gone."
"He burned it himself this evening. There's nothing
else?"
"Nothing whatever, sir."
"That's all right, then. We have nothing to do
but ... see that he's decently buried and get away
as soon as we can. There's no time to lose. It's after
four, now, and as soon as it's daylight You must
have a boat somewhere about?"
"Yes, sir. Mr. Rutton 'ad me 'ire a little power
launch before 'e came down. It's down by the bayside,
'alf a mile aw'y."
"Very well. The wind is dying down and by sunrise
the bay will be safe to cross—if it isn't now. These


104 THE BRONZE BELL
shallow waters smoothe out very quickly. We'll"
He cut his words short and got up abruptly with a
sharp exclamation: " What's that?"
Doggott, too, had heard and been startled. "It
sounded like a gun-shot, sir, and a man shouting," he
said, moving toward the door.
But Amber anticipated him there.
As he stepped out into the bitter-cold air of early
morning, he received an impression that a shadow in the
hollow had been alarmed by his sudden appearance and
had flitted silently and swiftly out upon the beaten east-
ward path. But of this he could not be sure.
He stood shivering and staring, waiting with at-
tentive senses for a repetition of the sound. The wind
had indeed fallen, and the world was very still—a hush
that overspread and lay unbroken upon the deep, cease-
less growling of the sea, like oil on water. The moon
had set and the darkness was but faintly tempered by
the starlight on the snow—or was it the first wan
promise of the dawn that seemed to quiver in the form-
less void between earth and sky?
In the doorway Doggott grew impatient. "You
don't 'ear anything, sir?"
"Not a sound."
"It's cruel cold, Mr. Amber. 'Adn't you better come
inside, sir?"
"I suppose so." He abandoned hope disconsolately
and returned to the hut, his teeth inclined to chatter and
his stomach assailed by qualms—premonitions of ex-
haustion in a body insufficiently nourished.
Doggott, himself similarly affected, perhaps, was


106 THE BRONZE BELL
an approving glance which passed over Doggott and
became transfixed as it rested upon the hammock-bed
with its burden; and his jaw fell. "What's this?
What's this?" He swung upon Amber, appraising
with relentless eyes the havoc his night's experience had
wrought upon the man. "You look like hell!" he ex-
ploded. "What's up here? Eh?"
Amber turned to Doggott. "Take Antone out there
with you and keep him until I call, please. This is Mr.
Quain; I want to talk with him undisturbed. . . .
But you can bring us coffee when it's ready."
Quain motioned to Antone; the Portuguese disap-
peared into the back room with Doggott, who closed
the communicating door.
"You first," said Amber. "If you've fretted about
me, I've been crazy about you—what time I've had to
think."
Quain deferred to his insistence. "It was simple
enough—and damned hard," he explained. "I caught
the Echo by the skin of my teeth, the skimmy almost
sinking under me. She was hard and fast aground, but
I managed to get the motor going and backed her off.
As soon as that was all right we got a wave aboard that
soused the motor—like a fool I'd left the hatch off—■
and short-circuited the coil. After that there was hell
to pay. I worked for half an hour reefing, and mean-
while we went aground again. The oar broke and I
had to go overboard and get wet to my waist before I
got her off. By that time it was blowing great guns
and dead from the beach. I had to stand off and make
for the mainland—nothing else to do. We beached


RED DAWN
107
about a mile below the lighthouse and I had the four-
mile tramp home. Then after I'd thawed out and had
a drink and a change of clothes, we had to wait two
hours for the sea to go down enough to make a crossing
in the launch practicable. That's all for mine. Now
you? What's that there?"
"A suicide; a friend of mine—the man Rutton whom
we were discussing the night I came down. And that's
not half. There's a man out there somewhere, shot to
death by Rutton—a Bengali babu. . . . Quain, I've
lived in Purgatory ever since we parted and now . . .
I'm about done."
He was; the coming of Quain with the ease of mind it
brought had snapped the high nervous tension which
had sustained Amber. He was now on the edge of col-
lapse and showed it plainly. But two circumstances
aided him to recover his grip upon himself: Quain's
compassionate consideration in forbearing to press his
story from him, and Doggott's opportune appearance
with a pot of coffee, steaming and black. Two cups of
this restored Amber to a condition somewhat approach-
ing the normal. He lit a cigarette and began to talk.
For all his affection for and confidence in his friend,
there were things he might not tell Quain; wherefore
he couched his narrative in the fewest possible words
and was miserly of detail. Of the coming of the babu
and his going Amber was fairly free to speak; he sup-
pressed little if any of that episode. Moreover he had
forgotten to remove the Token from his finger, and
Quain instantly remarked it and demanded an explana-
tion. But of the nature of the errand on which he was


108
THE BRONZE BELL
to go, Amber said nothing; it was, he averred, Rut-
ton's private business. Nor did he touch upon the ques-
tion of Rutton's nationality. Sophia Farrell he never
mentioned.
Nevertheless, he said enough to render Quain thought-
ful. . . . "You're set on this thing, I suppose?" he
asked some time after Amber had concluded.
"Set upon it, dear man? I've no choice. I must go
—I promised."
"Of course. That's you, all over. Personally, I
think it'll turn out a fool's errand. But there's some-
thing you haven't told me—I'm not ass enough to have
missed that and no doubt that influences you."
"I've told you everything that, in honor, I could."
"Hmm—yes; I dare say. ..." Quain scowled
over the problem for some time. "It's plain enough,"
he asserted forcibly: "that man was involved in some
infernal secret society. Just how and why's the question.
Think I'll have a look at him."
Amber would have protested, but thought better of
it and held his peace while Quain went to the hammock-
bed, turned back the sheet, and for several min-
utes lingered there, scrutinising the stony, upturned
face.
"So!" he said, coming back. "Here's news that'll
help you some. You were blind not to see it yourself.
That man's—was, I should say—a Rajput." He
waited for the comment which did not come. "You
knew it?"
"I . . . suspected, to-night."
"It's as plain as print; the mark of his caste is all


RED DAWN
109
over him. But perhaps he was able to disguise it a little
with his manner—alive; undoubtedly, I'd say. He was
a genius of his kind—a prodigy; a mental giant. That
translation of the ' Tantras' !Wonderful! . . .
Well, he's gone his own way: God be with him. . . .
When do you want to start?"
"As soon as possible—sooner. I've not a day to lose
—not an hour."
"Urgent as that, eh?" Quain peered keenly into his
face. "I wish I knew what you know. I wish to
Heaven I might go with you. But I'm married now—
and respectable. If I ''ear the East a-callin'' and
daren't answer, it's my own fault for ever being fool
enough to have heard it. Well ..." He proceeded
to take charge of the situation with his masterful habit.
"The morning train leaves Nokomis at seven-thirty.
You can make that, if you must. But you need sleep—
rest."
"I'll get that on the train."
"'Knew you'd say that. Very well. This is Tues-
day. The Mauretania—or the Lusitania, I don't know
which—sails to-morrow. You can catch that, too. It's
the quickest route, eastwards"
"But I've decided to go west."
"That means a week more, and you said you were
in a hurry."
"I am; but by going westwards it's barely possible
I may be able to transact or wind up the business on
the way."
As a matter of fact Amber was hoping the Ro-
lands, with Sophia Farrell, might linger somewhere en


110
THE BRONZE BELL
route, remembering that the girl had discussed a ten-
tative project to stop over between steamers at Yoko-
hama.
"Very well," Quain gave in; "you're the doctor.
Now as for things here, make your mind easy. I'll take
charge and keep the affair quiet. There's no reason I
can see for its ever getting out. I can answer for my-
self and Antone; and the two of us can wind things
up. That man Rutton is at peace now—'chances are
he'd prefer a quiet grave here on the island. Then
that devilish babu—he doesn't count; Antone and I'll
get him under the ground in a jiffy. No one ever gets
over here but me, now; come summer and there'll be a few
wanderers, but by that time. . . . The dunes '11 hold
their secrets fast: be sure of that. Finally, if any one
round here knows about this place being occupied, your
departure '11 be public enough to make them think it's
being abandoned again. Keep your hat-brim down
and your coat-collar up at the station; and they'll never
know you aren't Rutton himself; and you'll have Dog-
gott to back up the deception. So there'll be no ques-
tions asked. . . . Get ready now to trot along, and
I'll take care of everything."
"There's no way of thanking you."
"That's a comfort. Call Doggott now and tell him
to get ready. You haven't much time to lose. I'd land
at the lighthouse dock, if I were you, and take the
short-cut up to the station by the wood road. If you
land at Tanglewood, Madge '11 hold you up for a hot
breakfast and make you miss your train. I'll cook up
some yarn to account for your defection; and when


RED DAWN
111
you get back with your blooming bride you can tell her
the whole story, by way of amends."
Amber wheeled upon him, colouring to the brows.
"My bride! What do you mean by that? I said
nothing"
Quain rubbed his big hands, chuckling. "Of course
you didn't. But I'm wise enough to know there's bound
to be a woman in this case. Besides, it's Romance—
and what's a romance without a woman?"
"Oh, go to thunder," said Amber good-naturedly,
and went to give Doggott his orders.
While they waited for the servant to pack his hand-
bag—it being obvious that to take the trunks with them
was not feasible; while Quain was to care for Amber's
things at Tanglewood until his return from India—
Quain was possessed by an idea which he was pleased
to christen an inspiration.
"It's this," he explained: " what do you know about
Calcutta?"
"Little or nothing. I've been there—that's about
all."
"Precisely. Now I know the place, and I know you'll
never find this goldsmith in the Machua Bazaar without
a guide. The ordinary, common-or-garden guide is out
of the question, of course. But I happen to know an
Englishman there who knows more about the dark side
of India than any other ten men in the world. He'll be
invaluable to you, and you can trust him as you
would Doggott. Go to him in my name—you'll need
no other introduction—and tell him what you've told
me."


112 THE BRONZE BELL
"That's impossible. Rutton expressly prohibited
my mentioning his name to any one in India."
"Oh, very well. You haven't, have you? And you
won't have to. I'll take care of that, when I write and
tell Labertouche you're coming."
"What name?"
"Labertouche. Why? You don't know him."
"No; but Rutton did. Rutton got that poison from
him."
Quain whistled, his eyes round. "Did, eh? So much
the better; he'll probably know all about Rutton and '11
take a keener interest."
"But you forget"
"Hang your promise. I'm not bound by it and this
is business—blacker business than you seem to realise,
Davy. You're bent on jumping blindfold and with
your hands tied into the seething pool of infamy and
intrigue that is India. And I won't stand for it. Don't
think for an instant that I'm going to let you go with-
out doing everything I can to make things as pleasant
as possible for you. . . . No; Labertouche is your
man."
And to this Quain held inflexibly; so that, in the end,
Amber, unable to move him, was obliged to leave the
matter in his hands.
A sullen and portentous dawn hung in the sky when
the little party left the cabin. In the east the entire
firmament was ensanguined with sinister crimson and
barred with long reefs of purple-black clouds in motion-
less suspense. Upon the earth the red glare fell omi-
nously; the eastern faces of the snow-clad dunes shone


RED DAWN
113
like rubies; westward the shadows streamed long and
dense and violet. The stillness was intense.
A little awed, it may be, and certainly more than a
little depressed, they left the hollow by the beaten
way, the Portuguese Antone leading with a pick and
spade, Amber and Quain following side by side, Dog-
gott with his valise bringing up the rear. Beyond the
hollow the tracks diverged toward the bay shore; and
presently they came to the scene of the tragedy.
Between two sandhills the Bengali lay supine, a hud-
dled heap of garish colour—scarlet, yellow, tan—
against the cold bluish-grey of snow. A veil of unmelted
flakes blurred his heavy, contorted features and his
small, black eyes—eyes as evil now, staring glassily up
to the zenith, as when quickened by his malign intelli-
gence. About him were many footprints, some recently
made—presumably by his companion. The latter, how-
ever, kept himself discreetly invisible.
At a word from Quain the Portuguese paused and
began to dig. Quain, Amber, and Doggott went on a
little distance, then, by mutual consent, halted within
sight of Antone.
"I wouldn't leave him if I were you," Amber told
Quain, nodding back at the Portuguese. "It mightn't
be safe, with that other devil skulking round—Heaven
knows where."
"Right-0!" agreed Quain. His hand sought Am-
ber's. "Good-bye, and God be with you," he said
huskily.
Amber tightened his clasp upon the man's fingers.
"I can't improve on that, Tony," said he with a feeble


114
THE BRONZE BELL
smile. "Good-bye, and God be with you." He dropped
his hand and turned away. "Come along, Doggott."
The servant led the way baywards. Behind them the
angry morning blazed brighter in the sky.
In the sedge of the shore they found a rowboat and,
launching it, embarked for the power-boat, which swung
at her mooring in deeper water. When they were aboard
the latter, Doggott took charge of the motor, leaving
to Amber the wheel, and with little delay they were in
motion.
As their distance from the shore increased Amber
glanced back. The island rested low against the flam-
ing sky, a shape of empurpled shadows, scarcely more
substantial to the vision than the rack of cloud above.
In the dark sedges the pools, here and there, caught the
light from above and shone blood-red. And suddenly
the attention of the Virginian was arrested by the dis-
covery of a human figure—a man standing upon a dune-
top some distance inland, and staring steadfastly after
the boat. He seemed of extraordinary height and very
thin; upon his head there was a turban; his arms were
folded. While Amber watched he held his pose, a living
menace—like some fantastic statue bulking black
against the grim red dawn.


CHAPTER VII
MASKS AND FACES
Like many a wiser and a better man, Amber was able
upon occasion to change his mind without entertaining
serious misgivings as to his stability of purpose. There-
fore, on second thought, he elected to journey India-
wards via the Suez Canal rather than by the western
route. As he understood the situation, he had no time
to waste; the quicker way to his destination was the
eastern way; and, viewed soberly, the chance upon which
he had speculated, that of overtaking the girl's party
somewhere en route, appeared a long one—a gambler's
risk, and far too risky if he did not exaggerate the urg-
ency of his errand. Rutton's instructions had, moreover,
been explicit upon one point: Amber was to enter India
only by the port of Calcutta. In deferring to this the Vir-
ginian lost several days waiting in London for the fort-
nightly P. & O. boat for Calcutta: a delay which might
have been obviated by taking the overland route to
Brindisi, connecting there with the weekly P. & O. boat
for Bombay, from which latter point Calcutta could
have been quickly reached by rail across the Indian
Peninsula.
Now Quain's letter to Labertouche went by this
quicker route and so anticipated Amber's arrival at the
capital of India by about a week; during all of which
time it languished unread.
115


116 THE BRONZE BELL
A nice young English boy in Mr. Labertouche's em-
ploy received and stamped it with the date of delivery
and put it away with the rest of the incoming corre-
spondence in a substantial-looking safe. After which
he returned to his desk in the ante-room and resumed his
study of the law; which he pursued comfortably enough
with a cigarette in his mouth, his chair tilted back, and
his feet gently but firmly implanted upon the fair
printed pages of an open volume of Blackstone. His
official duties, otherwise, seemed to consist solely in im-
parting to all and sundry the information that Mr.
Labertouche was " somewhere up in the Mofussil, hunt-
ing bugs—I don't know exactly where."
This was, broadly speaking, perfectly true, within
the limitations of the youth's personal knowledge. He
was a pleasant-mannered boy of twenty or therabouts,
with an engaging air of candour which successfully
masked a close-mouthed reticence, even as his ostensibly
heedless, happy-go-lucky ways disguised a habit of ex-
treme caution and keen and particular observation:
qualities which caused him to be considered an invalu-
able office-assistant to a solicitor without any clientele
worth mentioning, and who chose to spend most of his
time somewhere up in the Mofussil hunting bugs.
The Mofussil, by the way, is an extremely elastic
term, standing as it does in the vocabulary of the resi-
dent Calcutta-man, for the Empire of India outside the
seat of its Government.
Precisely why Mr. Labertouche maintained his office
was a matter for casual conjecture to his wide circle
of acquaintances; although it's not unlikely that, were


MASKS AND FACES
117
he the subject of discussion, the bulk of the wonder ex-
pressed would be inspired by his unreasonable preference
for Calcutta as a place of residence. The Anglo-
Indian imagination is incapable of comprehending the
frame of mind which holds existence in Calcutta toler-
able when one has the rest of India—including Simla—
open to one. And Labertouche was unmarried, uncon-
nected with the Government, and independent of his pro-
fession; certainly it would seem that the slender stream
of clients which trickled in and out of the little offices
on Dhurrumtollah Street, near the Maidan, could hardly
have provided him with a practice lucrative enough to
be a consideration. On the other hand it had to be
admitted that the man kept up his establishment in
Calcutta rather than lived there; for he was given to
unexpected and extended absences from home, and was
frequently reported as having been seen poking sedu-
lously over this plain or through that jungle, with a
butterfly net, a bottle of chloroform, and an air of ab-
straction. In view of all of which he was set down as
an original and wholly irresponsible. The first of which
he was and the second of which he emphatically was not.
Henry Charles Beresford Labertouche was, in person,
a quiet and unassuming body, with nothing particularly
remarkable about him save his preference for boot-heels
nearly three inches high and a habit of dying his hair—
naturally greyish—a jet-black. Inasmuch as he was
quite brazen about these matters and would cheerfully
discuss with comparative strangers the contrasted merits
of this hair-dye and that and the obvious advantages
of being five feet nine and one-half inches in height


118
THE BRONZE BELL
instead of five feet seven, his idiosyncrasies were not held
against him. Otherwise he was a man strikingly in-
conspicuous; his eyes were a very dark brown, which is
nothing remarkable, and his features were almost ex-
asperatingly indefinite. You would have found him
hard to recall to memory, visually, aside from the boot-
heels, which might easily have been overlooked, and the
black hair, which was, when all's said, rather becoming
than otherwise. Living with two native servants in a
modest bungalow somewhere between Chitpur and Bar-
rackpur, he went to and from his office, or didn't, at his
whim, with entire lack of ostentation. Soft-spoken and
gifted with a distinct sense of the humorous, he would
converse agreeably and intelligently upon any imper-
sonal topic for hours at a time, when the spirit so moved
him. As an entomologist his attainments were said to
be remarkable; he was admittedly an interested student
of ethnology; and he filled in his spare time compound-
ing unholy smells in a little laboratory connected with
his suburban home. This latter proceeding earned him
the wholesome fear and respect of the native population,
who firmly believed him an intimate of many devils.
Such, at least, was the superficial man.
Now upon the morning of the day that found the
steamship Poonah nuzzling up the Hooghly's dirty yel-
low flood, Mr. Labertouche's clerk arrived at the Dhur-
rumtollah Street office at the usual hour; which, in the
absence of his employer, was generally between eleven
o'clock and noon. Having assorted and disposed of the
morning's mail, he donned his office-coat, sat down,
thumbed through Blackstone until he found two per-


120
THE BRONZE BELL
at three o'clock, the door of Mr. Labertouche's private
office was ajar and that gentleman was at his desk. The
memorandum was, however, gone.
Mr. Labertouche was in the process of opening and
reading a ten-days' accumulation of correspondence, an
occupation which he suspended temporarily to call his
clerk in and receive his report. This proved to be a
tolerably lengthy session, for the clerk, whose name ap-
peared to be Frank, demonstrated his command of a
surprising memory. Without notes he enumerated the
callers at the office day by day from the time when
Labertouche had left for the Mofussil with his specimen-
box and the rest of his bug-hunting paraphernalia;
naming those known to hie employer, minutely describ-
ing all others, even repeating their words with almost
phonographic fidelity.
Labertouche listened intently, without interrupting,
abstractedly tapping his desk with a paper-cutter. At
the end he said " Thank you," with a dry, preoccupied
air; and resumed consideration of his letters. These
seemed to interest him little; one after the other he gave
to his clerk, saying " File that," or "Answer that so-
and-thusly." Two he set aside for his personal disposi-
tion, and these he took up again after the clerk had
been dismissed. The first he read and reconsidered for
a long time; then crumpled it up and, drawing to him
a small tray of hammered brass, dropped the wadded
paper upon it and touched a match to it, thoughtfully
poking the blazing sheets with his paper-cutter until
they were altogether reduced to ashes.
Quain's was the second letter. Having merely


MASKS AND FACES
121
glanced at the heading and signature, Labertouche had
reserved the rather formidable document—for Quain
had written fully—as probably of scant importance,
to be dealt with at his absolute leisure. But as he read
his expression grew more and more serious and per-
turbed. Finishing the last page he turned back to the
first and went over it a second time with much delibera-
tion and frequent pauses, apparently memorising por-
tions of its contents. Finally he said, " Hum-m!" in-
scrutably and rang for Frank.
"He left New York by the Lusitania, eh? " said Mr.
Labertouche aloud. The clerk entering interrupted his
soliloquy. "Bring me, please," he said, "Bradshaw,
the News—and the latest P. & O. schedule." And when
Frank had returned with these articles, he desired him
to go at once and enquire at Government House the
whereabouts of Colonel Dominick James Farrell, and
further to search the hotels of Calcutta for a Miss Far-
rell, or for information concerning her. "Have this
for me to-night—come to the bungalow at seven," he
said. "And ... I shall probably not be at the office
again for several days."
"Insects? " enquired the clerk.
"Insects," affirmed Mr. Labertouche gravely.
"In the Mofussil?"
"There or thereabouts, Frank."
"Yes, sir. I presume you don't feel the need of a
capable assistant yet?"
"Not yet, Frank," said Labertouche kindly. "Be
patient. Your time will come; you're doing famously
now." «


122
THE BRONZE BELL
"Thank you."
"Good-afternoon. Lock the door as you leave."
Immediately that he found himself alone, Labertouche
made of Quain's letter a second burnt offering to preju-
dice upon the tray of hammered brass. He was pos-
sessed of an incurable aversion to waste-paper baskets
and other receptacles from which the curious might fish
out torn bits of paper and, with patience, piece together
and reconstruct documents of whose import he preferred
the world at large to remain unadvised. Hence the tray
of brass—a fixture among the furnishings of his desk.
This matter attended to, he lost himself in Bradshaw
and the Peninsular & Oriental Steamship Company's list
of sailings; from which he derived enlightenment. "He
was to come direct," mused Labertouche. "In that
case he'll have waited over in London for the Poonah."
He turned to the copy of the Indian Daily News which
lay at his elbow, somewhat anxiously consulting its
shipping news. Under the heading of " Due this Day"
he discovered the words: " Poonah, London—Calcutta—
Straits Settlements." And his face lengthened with
concern.
"That's short notice," he said. "Lucky I got back
to-day—uncommon lucky! . . . Still I may be mis-
taken." But the surmise failed to comfort him.
He drew a sheet of paper on which there was no
letter-head to him and began to write, composing de-
liberately and with great care.
The building in which his offices were located stood
upon a corner; at either end of the long corridor on
the upper floor, upon which the various offices opened,


MASKS AND FACES
123
were stairways, one descending to Dhurrumtollah Street,
the other to a side street little better than an alley. It
may be considered significant that, whereas Labertouche
himself was not seen either to enter or to leave the build-
ing at any time that day, an Attit mendicant did enter
from Dhurrumtollah Street shortly after Frank had
gone to lunch—and disappeared forthwith; while, in
the dusk of evening, a slim Eurasian boy with a clerkly
air left by the stairs to the alley. I say a boy, but he
may have been thirty; he was carefully attired in cloth-
ing of the mode affected by the Anglo-Indian, but wore
shoes that were almost heelless. His height may have
been five-feet seven inches, but he carried himself with
a slight, studious rounding of the shoulders that as-
sorted well with the effect of his large gold-rimmed
spectacles.
He stumbled out of the alley into Free School Street
and set his face to the Maidan, shuffling along slowly
with a peering air, his spectacles catching the light
from the shop-windows and glaring glassily through the
shadows.


CHAPTER VIII
FIRST STEPS
Forward on the promenade deck of the Poonah, in the
shadow of the bridge, Amber stood with both elbows
on the rail, dividing his somewhat perturbed atten-
tion between a noisy lot of lascar stewards, deckhands,
and native third-class passengers in the bows below, and
the long lines of Saugor Island, just then slipping past
on the starboard beam.
On either hand, ahead, the low, livid green banks of
the Hooghly were closing in, imperceptibly constricting
the narrow channel through which the tawny tide swirled
down to the sea at the full force of its ebb. Struggling
under this handicap, the Poonah trembled from stem to
stern with the heavy labouring of the screw, straining
forward like a thoroughbred, its strength almost spent,
with the end of the race in sight. Across the white
gleaming decks, as the bows swung from port to star-
board and back again, following the channel, purple-
black shadows slipped like oil. A languid land-wind
blew fitfully down the estuary, in warm puffs dense with
sickly-sweet jungle reek. The day was hot and sticky
with humidity; a haze like a wall of dust coloured the
skies almost to the zenith.
It was ten o'clock in the morning; Calcutta lay a
hundred miles up the river, approximately. By even-
fall Amber expected to be in the city, whether he stuck
124


FIRST STEPS
125
by the steamer until she docked in the port, or left her
at Diamond Harbour, sixty miles upstream, and finished
his journey by rail. At the present moment he hardly
knew which to do; in the ordinary course of events he
would have gone ashore at Diamond Harbour, thereby
gaining an hour or two in the city. But within the last
eighteen hours events had been diverted from their nor-
mal course; and Amber was deeply troubled with
misgivings.
Up to the day that the Poonah had sailed from
Tilbury Dock, London, from the time he had left
Quain among the sand-dunes of Long Island, he had
not been conscious of any sort of espionage upon
his movements. That gaunt and threatening figure
which he had seen silhouetted against the angry dawn
had not again appeared to disturb or trouble him. His
journey across the Atlantic had been uneventful; he had
personally investigated the saloon passenger lists, the
second and third cabins and the steerage of the Lusi-
tania, not forgetting the crew, only to be reassured by
the absence of anybody aboard who even remotely sug-
gested an Indian spy. But from the hour that the
Poonah with its miscellaneous ship's company, white,
yellow, brown, and black, had warped out into the
Thames, he had felt he was being watched—had realised
it instinctively, having nothing definite whereon to base
his feeling. He was neither timorous nor given to con-
juring up shapes of terror from the depths of a nervous
imagination; the sensation of being under the surveil-
lance of unseen, prying eyes is unmistakable. Yet he had
tried to reason himself out of the belief—after taking


FIRST STEPS
127
He would, however, gladly have surrendered the jewel
to those who coveted it, in exchange for a promise of
immunity from assassination, had he known whom to
approach with the offer and been free to make it. But
he must first show it to Dhola Baksh of the Machua
Bazaar. After that, when its usefulness had been dis-
charged, he would be glad of the chance to strike such
a bargain. . . .
Such, in short, had been his frame of mind up to eight
o'clock of the previous evening. At that hour he had
made a discovery which had diverted the entire trend of
his thoughts.
Doggott, ever a poor sailor, had been feeling ill
and Amber had excused him early in the afternoon.
About six o'clock he had gone to his stateroom and
dressed for dinner, unattended. Absorbed in antici-
pations of the morrow, when first he should set foot in
Calcutta and take the first step in pursuit of Sophia
Farrell, he had absent-mindedly neglected to empty the
pockets of his discarded clothing. At seven he had gone
to dinner, leaving his stateroom door open, as was his
habit—a not unusual one with first-cabin passengers on
long voyages—and his flannels swinging from hooks
in the wall. About eight, discovering his oversight
through the absence of his cigarette-case, he had hurried
back to the stateroom to discover that he had been
curiously robbed.
His watch, his keys, his small change and his sover-
eign purse, his silver cigarette-case—all the articles, in
fact, that he was accustomed to stuff into his pockets—■
with one exception, were where he had left them. But


128 THE BRONZE BELL
the leather envelope containing the portrait of Sophia
Farrell was missing from the breast-pocket of his coat.
From the hour in which he had obtained it he had
never but this once let it out of his personal possession.
The envelope he had caused to be constructed for its
safe-keeping during his enforced inaction in London.
He had never once looked at it save in strict privacy,
secure even from the eyes of Doggott; and the latter
did not know what the leather case contained.
Thus his preconceived and self-constructed theory as
to the extent of The Enemy's knowledge, was in an in-
stant overthrown. "They" had seized the very first
relaxation of his vigilance to rob him of that which he
valued most. And in his heart he feared and believed
that the incident indicated " their " intimacy not alone
with his secret but with that which he shared with Colonel
Farrell.
Since then his every move toward regaining the photo-
graph had been fruitless. His stateroom steward, a
sleek, soft Bengali boy who had attended him all
through the voyage with every indication of eagerness
to oblige him, professed entire ignorance of the theft.
That was only to be expected. But when Amber went to
the purser and the latter cross-examined the steward
in his presence, the Bengali stuck to his protestations
of innocence without the tremor of an eyelash. In
fact, he established an alibi by the testimony of his
fellow-stewards. Further, when Amber publicly offered
a reward of five guineas " and no questions asked " and
in private tempted the Bengali with much larger
amounts, he accomplished nothing.


FIRST STEPS
129
In the end, and in despair, Amber posted a notice on
the ship's bulletin-board, offering fifty guineas reward
for the return of the photograph to him either before
landing or at the Great Eastern Hotel, Calcutta, and
having thereby established his reputation as a mild
lunatic, sat down to twirl his thumbs and await the out-
come, confidently anticipating there would be none.
"They" had outwitted him and not five hundred
guineas would tempt " them," he believed. It remained
only to contrive a triumph in despite of this setback.
But how to set about it? How might he plan against
forces of whose very nature he was ignorant—save that
he guessed them to be evil? How could he look ahead and
scheme to circumvent the unguessable machinations of
the unknown? . . . His wits, like wild things in a
cage, battered themselves to exhaustion against the im-
placable bars of his understanding.
For the thousand-and-first time he reviewed the mad-
deningly scanty store of facts at his command, turn-
ing them over and over in his mind, vainly hopeful of
inferring a clue. But, as always, he found his thoughts
circling a beaten track of conjecture. . . . What
dread power had hounded Rutton, forth from the haunts
of his kind, from pillar to post of the world (as he had
said) to his death among the desolate dunes of Long
Island? What " staggering blow against the peace and
security of the world " could that or any power possibly
strike, with Rutton for its tool, once it had caught and
bent him to its will? What fear had set upon his lips a
seal so awful that even in the shadow of death he had not
dared speak, though to speak were to save the one being


130
THE BRONZE BELL
to whom his heart turned in the end? To save his daugh-
ter from what, had he voluntarily renounced her, giving
her into another's care, forswearing his paternal title
to her love, refusing himself even the cold comfort of
seeing her attain to the flower of her womanly beauty
as another's child? What—finally—was the ordeal of
the Gateway of Swords, and what could it be that made
the Gateway of Death seem preferable to it?
For the thousand-and-first time Amber abandoned his
efforts to divine the inscrutable, to overcome the insur-
mountable, to attain to the inaccessible, but abandoned
them grudgingly, grimly denying the possibility of ulti-
mate failure. Though he were never to know the dark
heart of the mystery, yet would he snatch from its
pythonic coils the woman he had sworn to save, the
woman he loved!
And while the black steamer with the buff super-
structure toiled on, cleaving its arduous way through
the turbulent yellow flood between the contracting shores
of the Sunderbunds, while the offshore wind buffeted
Amber's cheeks with the hot panting breath of Bengal,
his eyes, dimmed with dreaming, saw only Her face.
So often of late had he in solitude pondered her
photograph, striving to solve the puzzle of her heart
that was to him a mystery as unfathomable as that
which threatened her, that he had merely to think of her
to bring her picture vividly before him. He could close
his eyes (he closed them now, shutting out the moving
panorama of the river) and see the girl that he had
known in those few dear hours: the girl with eyes as
brown as sepia but illumined by traces of gold in the


FIRST STEPS
131
irides—eyes that could smile and frown and be sweetly
grave, all in the time that a man needs to catch his
breath; the girl with the immaculate, silken skin, milk-
white, with the rose-blush of young blood beneath; with
lips softly crimson as satin petals of a flower, that
could smile a man into slavery; the girl to contemplate
whose adorably modelled chin and firm, round, young
neck would soften the austerity of an anchorite; in
whose hair was blended every deep shade of bronze and
gold . . .
Something clutched at his heart as with a hand of
ice. He could never forget, dared not remember what
he could not believe yet dared not deny. To him, reared
as he had been, the barrier of mixed blood rose between
them, a thing surmountable only at the cost of caste;
the shadow of that horror lay upon his soul like ink—
as black as the silhouetted rails and masts and rigging
of the Poonah on her dead white decks. He could win
her heart only to lose his world. And still he loved, still
pursued his steadfast way toward her, knowing that,
were he to find her and his passion to be returned, death
alone could avert their union in marriage. He might
not forget but ... he loved. With him the high
wind of Romance was a living gale, levelling every ob-
stacle between him and the desire of his heart.
This is to be borne in mind: it was the man's first
love. Theretofore the habits of a thinker had set his feet
in paths apart from those of other men. Pretty women
he had always admired—from a discreet distance; that
distance abridged, he had always found himself a little
afraid pf and dismayed by them. They were the world's


132 THE BRONZE BELL
disturbing element; they took men's lives in the rosy
hollows of their palms and moulded them as they would.
While Amber had desired to mould his own life. The
theme of love that runs a golden thread through the
drab fabric of existence had to him been an illusion—
a hallucination to which others were subject, from which
he was happily, if unaccountably, exempt. But that had
been yesterday; to-day . . .
In the afternoon the Poonah touched at Diamond
Harbour, landing the majority of her passengers. Am-
ber was among those few who remained aboard.
When the steamer swung off from the jetty and, now
aided by a favourable tide, resumed her progress up the
river, he replaced his notice on the bulletin-board with
one offering a hundred guineas for the return of the
photograph before they docked in the port of Calcutta;
the offer of fifty guineas for its return to the Great
Eastern Hotel remained unaltered.
His anticipations were not disappointed; positively
nothing came of it. All afternoon the Poonah plodded
steadily on toward the pall of smoke that hemmed the
northern horizon. The reedy river banks narrowed and
receded, gorgeous with colour, unvaryingly monotonous,
revealing nothing. Behind walls of rank foliage, dense
green curtains almost impenetrable even to light, the flat
and spongy delta of the Ganges lay decorously screened.
If now and again the hangings parted they disclosed
nothing more than a brief vista of half-stagnant water
or a little clearing, half-overgrown, with the crumbling
red brick walls of some roofless and abandoned dwelling.
In the lavender and gold and scarlet of a windless


FIRST STEPS
133
sunset, Calcutta lifted suddenly up before them, a fairy
city, mystic and unreal with its spires and domes and
minarets a-glare with hot colour behind a hedge of etched
black masts and funnels—all dimmed and made indefi-
nite by a heavy dun haze of smoke: lifted up in glory
against the evening sky and was blotted out as if by
magic by the swooping night; then lived again in a
myriad lights pin-pricked upon the dense bluish-black-
ness.
The Poonah slipped in to her dock under cover of
darkness. Amber, disembarking with Doggott, climbed
into an open ghari on the landing stage and was driven
swiftly to his hotel.
As he alighted and, leaving Doggott to settle with
the ghariwallah, crossed the sidewalk to the hotel en-
trance, a beggar slipped through the throng of way-
farers, whining at his elbow:
"Give, O give, Protector of the Poor!"
Preoccupied, Amber hardly heard, and passed on; but
the native stuck leech-like to his side.
"Give, hazoor—and the mercy of God shall be upon
the Heaven-born for ten-thousand years!"
Now "Heaven-born" is flattery properly reserved
for those who sit in high places. Amber turned and
eyed the man curiously, at the same time dropping into
the filthy, importunate palm a few annas.
"May the shadow of the Heaven-born be long upon
the land, when he shall have passed through the Gateway
of Swords!"
And like a flash the man was gone—dodging nimbly
round the ghari and across Old Court House Street,


134
THE BRONZE BELL
losing himself almost instantly in the press of early
evening traffic.
"The devil!" said Amber thoughtfully. "Why
should it be assumed that I have any shadow of an inten-
tion of entering that damnable Gateway of Swords?"
An incident at the desk, while he was arranging for
his room, further mystified him. He had given his name
to the clerk, who looked up, smiling.
"Mr. David Amber?" he said.
"Why, yes"
"We were expecting you, sir. You came by the
Poonah?"
"Yes, but"
"There's a note for you." The man turned to a rack,
sorting out a small square envelope from others pigeon-
holed under " A."
Could it be possible that Sophia Farrell had been ad-
vised of his coming? Amber's hand trembled slightly
with eagerness and excitement as he took the missive.
"An Eurasian boy left it for you half an hour ago,"
said the clerk.
"Thank you," returned Amber, controlling himself
sufficiently to wait until he should be conducted to his
room before opening the note.
It was not, he observed later, superscribed in a femi-
nine hand. Could it be from Quain's friend Laber-
touche? Who else? . . . Amber lifted his shoulders
resignedly. "I wish Quain had minded his own busi-
ness," he said ungratefully; " I can take care of myself.
This Labertouche '11 probably make life a misery for
me."


FIRST STEPS 135
There was a quality in the note, however, to make him
forget his resentment of Quain's well-meant interference.
"My dear Sir," it began formally: "Quain's letter
did not reach me until this afternoon; a circumstance
which I regret. Otherwise I should be better prepared
to assist you. I have, on the other hand, set afoot en-
quiries which may shortly result in some interesting in-
formation bearing upon the matters which engage you.
I expect to have news of the Fs. to-night, and shall be
glad to communicate it to you at once. I am presum-
ing that you purpose losing no time in attending to the
affair of the goldsmith, but I take the liberty of advis-
ing you that to attempt to find him without proper
guidance or preparation would be an undertaking haz-
ardous in the extreme. May I offer you my services?
If you decide to accept them, be good enough to come
before ten to-night to the sailors' lodging house known
as ' Honest George's,' back of the Lal Bazaar, and ask
for Honest George himself, refraining from mentioning
my name. Dress yourself in your oldest and shabbiest
clothing; you cannot overdo this, since the neighbour-
hood is questionable and a well-dressed man would imme-
diately become an object of suspicion. Do not wear the
ring; keep it about you, out of sight. Should this fail
to reach you in time, try to-morrow night between eight
and ten. You would serve us both well by burning this
immediately. Pray believe me yours to command in all
respects."
There was no signature.
Amber frowned and whistled over this. "Undoubt-
edly from Labertouche," he considered. "But why this


136 THE BRONZE BELL
flavour of intrigue? Does he know anything more
than I do? I presume he must. It'd be a great com-
fort if ... Hold on. 'News of the Fs.' That spells
the Farrells. How in blazes does he know anything
about the Farrells? I told Quain nothing. . . . Can
it be a trap? Is it possible that the chap who took that
photograph recognised . . .?"
The problem held him in perplexity throughout the
evening meal. He turned it over this way and that
without being able to arrive at any comforting solu-
tion. Impulse in the end decided him—impulse and a
glance at his watch which told him that the time grew
short. "I'll go," he declared, "no matter what. It's
nearly nine, but the Lal Bazaar's not far."
In the face of Doggott's unbending disapproval he
left the hotel some twenty minutes later, having levied
on Doggott's wardrobe for suitable clothing. Dressed
in an old suit of soft grey serge, somewhat too large for
him, and wearing a grey felt hat with the brim pulled
down over his eyes, he felt that he was not easily to be
identified with his every-day self—the David Amber
whose exacting yet conservative " correctness " had be-
come a by-word with his friends.
Once away from the Great Eastern he quietly in-
sinuated himself into the tide of the city's night life that
tirelessly ebbs and flows north of Dalhousie Square—
the restless currents of native life that move ceaselessly
in obedience to impulses so meaningless and strange to
the Occidental understanding. Before he realised it he
had left civilisation behind him and was breathing the
atmosphere, heady and weird, of the Thousand-and-One


FIRST STEPS
137
Nights. The Lal Bazaar seethed round him noisily,
with a roaring not unlike that of a surf in the hearing
of him who had so long lived separate from such scenes.
But gradually the strangeness of it passed away and he
began to feel at home. And ere long he passed in a
single stride from the glare of many lights and the
tumult of a hundred tongues to the dark and the quiet
hush of an alley that wormed a sinuous way through
the hinterland of the bazaar. Here the air hung close
and still and gravid with the odour of the East, half
stench, half perfume, wholly individual and indescrib-
able; here black shadows clung jealously to black and
slimy walls, while lighter ones but vaguely suggestive
of robed figures glided silently hither and yon; and
odd noises, whispers, sobs, sounds of laughter and of
rage, assailed the ear and excited the imagination. . . .
At a corner where there was more light he came upon
a policeman whose tunic, helmet, and truncheon were so
closely patterned after those of the London Bobby that
the simple sight of them was calculated to revive con-
fidence in the security of one's person. He inspected
Amber shrewdly while the latter was asking his way to
Honest George's, and in response jerked a white-gloved
thumb down the wide thoroughfare.
"You carn't miss it, sir—s'ylors' boardin'-'ouse, all
lit up and likely with a row on at the bar. Mind your
eye, guv'nor. It ayn't a plyce you'd ought to visit on
your lone."
"Thanks; I've business there. I reckon to take care
of myself."
Nevertheless it was with a mind preyed upon by fore-


138
THE BRONZE BELL
bodings that Amber stumbled down the cobbled way,
reeking with filth, toward the establishment of Honest
George. Why on earth should Labertouche make an ap-
pointment in so unholy a spot? Amber's doubts revived
and he became more than half persuaded that this must
be a snare devised by those acute intelligences which had
instigated both the theft of the photograph and that
snarled mock-benediction of the mendicant.
"I don't like it," he admitted ruefully; "it's so
canny."
He stopped in front of a building whose squat brick
facade was lettered with the reassuring sobriquet of its
proprietor. A bench, running the width of the struc-
ture, was thick with sprawling loafers, who smoked and
spat and spoke a jargon of the seas, the chief part of
which was blasphemy. Within, visible through win-
dows never closed, was a crowded barroom ablaze with
flaring gas-jets, uproarious with voices thick with
drink.
One needed courage of no common order to run the
gauntlet of that rowdy room and brave the more secret
dangers of the infamous den. "You've got to have your
nerve with you," Amber put it. "But I suppose it's
all in the game. Let's chance it." And he entered.
Compared with the atmosphere of that public-room
a blast from Hell were sweet and cooling, thought Am-
ber; the first whiff he had of it all but staggered him;
and he found himself gasping, perspiration starting
from every pore. Faint with disgust he elbowed his
way through the mob to the bar, thankful that those
about him, absorbed in the engrossing occupation of


FIRST STEPS
139
getting drunk, paid him not the least heed. Flatten-
ing himself against the rail he cast about for the pro-
prietor. A blowsy, sweating barmaid caught his eye
and without a word slapped down upon the sloppy
counter before him a glass four fingers deep with un-
speakable whiskey. And he realised that he would have
to drink it; to refuse would be to attract attention,
perhaps with unpleasant consequences. "It's more than
I bargained for," he grumbled, making a pretence of
swallowing the dose, and to his huge relief managing
to spill two-thirds of it down the front of his coat.
What hei swallowed bit like an acid. Tears came to his
eyes, but he choked down the cough, and as soon as he
could speak paid the girl. "Where's the boss?" he
asked.
"Who?" Her glance was penetrating. "Oh, he's
wytin' for you." She nodded, lifting a shrill voice.
"Garge, O Garge! 'Ere's that Yankee." With a bare
red elbow she indicated the further end of the room.
"You'll find 'im down there," she said, her look not
unkindly.
Amber thanked her quietly and, extricating himself
from the press round the bar, made his way in the direc-
tion indicated. A couple of billiard tables with a small
mob of onlookers hindered him, but by main strength
and diplomacy he wormed his way past and reached the
rear of the room. There were fewer loafers here and
he had little hesitation about selecting from an attend-
ant circle of sycophants the genius of the dive—Honest
George himself, a fat and burly ruffian who filled to
overflowing the inadequate accommodation of an arm-


140
THE BRONZE BELL
chair. Sitting thus enthroned in his shirt-sleeves, his
greasy and unshaven red face irradiating a sort of low
good-humour that was belied by the cold cunning of his
little eyes, he fulfilled admirably the requirements of the
role he played self-cast.
"'Ere, you!" he hailed Amber brusquely. "You're
a 'ell of a job-'unter, ain't you? Mister Abercrombie's
been wytin' for you this hour gone. 'Know the w'y
upstairs?"
His tone was boisterous enough to fix upon Amber the
attention of the knot of loafers round the arm-chair.
Amber felt himself under the particular regard of a
dozen pair of eyes, felt that his measure was taken and
his identification complete. Displeased, he answered
curtly: " No."
"This w'y, then." Honest George hoisted himself
ponderously out of his arm-chair and lumbered heavily
across the room, shouldering the crowd aside with a
high-handed contempt for the pack of them. Jerking
open a small door in the side wall, he beckoned Amber
on with a backward nod of his heavy head. "Be a bit
lively, carn't you?" he growled; and Amber, in despite
of qualms of distrust, followed the fellow into a small
and noisome hallway lighted by a single gas-jet. On
the one hand a flight of rickety steps ran up into re-
pellent obscurity; on the other a low door stood open to
the night.
The crimp lowered his voice. "Your f riend's this w'y."
He waved his fat red hand toward the door. "Them
fools back there '11 think you're tryin' for a berth
with Abercrombie, the ship-master. I 'opes you'll not


FIRST STEPS
141
tyke offense at the w'y I 'ad to rag you back there,
sir."
"No," said Amber, and Honest George led the way
out into a small, nagged well between towering black
walls and left him at the threshold of a second doorway.
"Two nights up, the door at the top," he said; " knock
twice and then twice." And without waiting for an
answer he lurched heavily back to his own establish-
ment.
Amber watched his broad back fill the dimly-lighted
doorway opposite and disappear, of two minds whether
or not to turn tail and run. Suspicious enough in the
beginning, the affair had now an exceeding evil smell—
as repulsive figuratively as was the actual effluvium of
the premises. He hung hesitant in doubt, with a heart
oppressed by those grim and silent walls of blackness
that loomed above him. With feet slipping on slimy flags
he might be pardoned for harbouring suspicions of some
fouler treachery. The yawning mouth of the narrow
doorway, with the blackness of Erebus within, was
deterring at its best; in such a hole a man might be
snared and slain and his screams, though they rang to
high Heaven, would fall meaningless on mundane ears.
Honest George's with its flare of lights and its crowd
had been questionable enough . . .
With, a shrug, at length, he took his courage in'his
hands—and his life, too, for all he knew to the con-
trary—and moved on into the blackness, groping his way
cautiously down a short corridor, his fingers on either
side brushing walls of rotten plaster. He had absolutely
nothing to guide him beyond the crimp's terse instruc-


142 THE BRONZE BELL
tions. Underfoot the flooring seemed to sag ominously;
it creaked hideously. Abruptly he stumbled against an
obstruction, halted, and lighted a match.
The insignificant flame showed him a flight of stairs,
leading up to darkness. With a drumming heart he
began to ascend, counting twenty-one steps ere his feet
failed to find another. Then groping again, one hand
encountered a baluster-rail; with this for guide he
turned and followed it until it began to slant upwards.
This time he counted sixteen steps before his eyes, rising
above the level of the upper floor, discovered to him a thin
line of light, bright along the threshold of a door. He
began to breathe more freely, yet apprehension kept
him strung up to a high tension of nerves.
He knuckled the door loudly—one double knock fol-
lowed by another.
From within a voice called cheerfully, in English:
"Come in."
He fumbled for the knob, found and turned it, and
entered a small, low-ceiled chamber, very cosy with
lamplight, and simply furnished with a single chair, a
charpoy, a water-jug, a large mirror, and beneath the,
latter a dressing-table littered with a collection of toilet
gear, cosmetics and bottles, which would have done credit
to an actress.
There was but a single person in the room and he oc-
cupied the chair before the dressing-table. As Amber
came in, he rose; a middle-aged babu in a suit of pink
satin, very dirty. In one hand something caught the
light, glittering.
"Oah, Mister Amber, I believe?" he gurgled, oily


FIRST STEPS 143
and affable. "Believe me most charmed to make ac-
quaintance." And he laughed agreeably.
But Amber's face had darkened. With an oath he
sprang back, threw his weight against the door, and
with his left hand shot the bolt, while his right whipped
from his pocket Rutton's automatic pistol.
"Drop that gun, you monkey!" he cried sharply.
"I was afraid of this, but I think you and I'll have an
accounting before any one else gets in here."


CHAPTER IX
PINK SATIN
Shaking with rage, Amber stood for a long moment
with pistol poised and eyes wary; then, bewildered, he
slowly lowered the weapon. "Well," he observed re-
flectively, "I'm damned." For the glittering thing he
had mistaken for a revolver lay at his feet; and it was
nothing more nor less than a shoehorn. While as for
the babu, he had dropped back into the chair and given
way to a rude but reassuring paroxysm of gusty,
silent laughter.
"I'm a fool," said Amber; " and if I'm not mistaken
you're Labertouche."
With a struggle the babu overcame his emotion. "I
am, my dear fellow, I am," he gasped. "And I owe you
an apology. Upon my word, I'd forgotten; one grows
so accustomed to living the parts in these masquerades,
after a time, that one forgets. Forgive me." He
offered a hand which Amber grasped warmly in his
unutterable relief. "I'm really delighted to meet you,"
continued Labertouche seriously. "Any man who
knows India can't help being glad to meet the author of
* The Peoples of the Hindu Kush.''"
"You did frighten me," Amber confessed, smiling.
"I didn't know what to expect—or suspect. Certainly,"
—with a glance round the incongruously furnished
144


146
THE BRONZE BELL
socks through which his tinted calves showed grossly,
his shapeless, baggy, soiled garments—all were hope-
lessly babu-ish.
"And if it isn't done properly?"
"Oh, then !" Labertouche laughed, lifting his
shoulders expressively. "No Englishman incapable of
living up to a disguise has ever tried it more than once
in India; few, very few, have lived to tell of the experi-
ment."
"You're connected with the police?" Amber's brows
contracted as he remembered Rutton's emphatic pro-
hibition.
But Quain had not failed to mention that. "Officially,
no," said Labertouche readily. "Now and again, of
course, I run across a bit of valuable information; and
then, somehow, indirectly, the police get wind of it.
But this going fantee in an amateur way is simply my
hobby; I've been at it for years—and very successfully,
too. Of course, it'll have its end. One's bound to slip
up eventually. You can train yourself to live the life
of the native, but you can't train your mind to think as
he thinks. That's how the missteps happen. Some
day ,., . ." He sighed, not in the least unhappily.
,. . . "Some day I'll dodge into this hole, or another
that I know of, put on somebody else's rags—say, these
I'm wearing—and inconspicuously become a mysterious
disappearance. That's how it is with all of us who go
in for this sort of thing. But it's like opium, you know;
you try it the first time for the lark of it; the end is
tragedy."
Amber drew a long breath, his eyes glistening with


148 THE BRONZE BELL
ago, when he was a young man. . . . You know the
yarn about him?"
"A little—mighty little. I know now that he was a
Rajput—though he never told me that; I know that he
married a Russian noblewoman "—Amber hesitated im-
perceptibly—" that she died soon after, that he chose
to live out of India and to die rather than return to it."
"He was," said Labertouche, "a singular man, an
exotic result of the unnatural conditions we English
have brought about in India. The word renegade de-
scribes him aptly, I think: he was born and bred a
Brahmin, a Rajput, of the hottest and bluest blood
in Rajputana; he died to all intents and purposes a
European—with an English heart. He is—was—by
rights Maharana of Khandawar. As the young Ma-
haraj he was sent to England to be educated. I'm
told his record at Oxford was a brilliant one. He be-
came a convert to Christianity—that was predestined—
was admitted to the Church of England, a communi-
cant. When his father died and he was summoned to take
his place, Rutton at first refused. Pressure was brought
to bear upon him by the English Government and he
returned, was enthroned, and for a little time ruled
Khandawar. It was then that I knew him. He was
continually dissatisfied, however, and after a year or two
disappeared. It was rumoured that he'd struck a bar-
gain with his prime-minister, one Salig Singh. At all
events Salig Singh contrived to usurp the throne, Gov-
ernment offering no objection. Rutton turned up
eventually in Russia and married a woman there who
died in childbirth—twenty years ago, perhaps. The


PINK SATIN
149
child did not survive its mother . „• ." Labertouche
paused deliberately, his glance searching Amber's face.
"So the report ran, at least," he concluded quietly.
"How do you know all this?" Amber countered
evasively.
"Government watches its wards very tenderly," said
Labertouche with a grin. "Besides, India's a great
place for gossip. . . . And then," he pursued tena-
ciously, " I remembered something else. I recalled that
Rutton had one very close friend, an Englishman named
Farrell"
"Oh, what's the use?" Amber cut in nervously.
"You understand the situation too well. It's no good
my trying to keep anything from you."
"Such as the fact that Colonel Farrell adopted Rut-
ton's daughter, who, as it happens, did survive her
mother? Yes; I knew that—or, rather, part I knew and
part I guessed. But don't worry, Mr. Amber; I'll keep
the secret."
"For the girl's sake," said Amber, twisting his hands
together.
"For her sake. I pledge you my word."
"Thank you."
"And now . ., . for what purpose did Rutton ask
you to come to India? Wasn't it to get Miss Farrell
out of the country?"
"I think you're the devil himself," said Amber.
"I'm not," confessed Labertouche; " but I am a mem-
ber of the Indian Secret Service—not officially con-
nected with the police, observe!—and I know a deal that
you don't. I think, in short, I can place my finger on


150 THE BRONZE BELL
the reason why Rutton was so concerned to get his
daughter out of the country."
Amber looked his question.
"You read the papers, don't you, in America?"
"Rather." Amber smiled.
"You've surely not been so blind as to miss the occa-
sional reports that leak out about native unrest in
India?"
"Surely you don't mean"
"I assuredly do mean that the Second Mutiny im-
pends," declared Labertouche solemnly. "Such, at
least, is my belief, and such is the belief of every think-
ing man in India who is at all informed. The entire
country is undermined with conspiracy and sedition;
day after day a vast, silent, underground movement
goes on, fomenting rebellion against the English rule.
The worst of it is, there's no stopping it, no way of
scotching the serpent; its heads are myriad, seemingly.
And yet—I don't know-—since yesterday I have hoped
that through you we might eventually strike to the heart
of the movement."
"Through me!" cried Amber, startled.
Labertouche nodded. "Just so. The information
you have already brought us is invaluable. Have you
thought of the significance of Chatterji's 'Message of
the Bell'?"
"' Even now,'" Amber quoted mechanically, "' The
Gateway of Swords yawns wide, that he who is without
fear may pass within; to the end that the Body be
purged of the Scarlet Evil.'" He shook his head mysti-
fied. "No; I don't understand."


PINK SATIN
151
"It's so simple," urged Labertouche; "all but the
Gateway of Swords. I don't place that—yet. . ... .,
But the 'Body '—plainly that is India; the 'Scarlet
Evil'—could anything more fittingly describe Eng-
lish rule from the native point of view?"
Amber felt of his head solicitously. "And yet," he
averred plaintively, " it doesn't feel like wood."
Labertouche laughed gently. "Now to-night you
will learn something from this Dhola Baksh—something
important, undoubtedly. May I see this ring—this
Token?"
Unbuttoning his shirt, Amber produced the Eye from
the chamois bag. Labertouche studied it for a long time
in silence, returning it with an air of deep perturbation.
"The thing is strange to me," he said. "For the
present we may dismiss it as simply what it pretends to
be—a token, a sign by which one man shall know an-
other. . . . Wear it but turn the stone in; and keep
your hands in your pockets when we're outside."
Amber obeyed. "We'll be going, now?"
"Yes." Labertouche rose, throwing away his cigar
and stamping out its fire.
"But the Farrells?"
"Forgive me; I had forgotten. The Farrells are at
Darjeeling, where the Colonel is stationed just now—
happily for him."
"Then," said Amber, with decision, " I leave for Dar-
jeeling to-morrow morning."
"I know no reason why you shouldn't," agreed
Labertouche. "If anything turns up I'll contrive to
let you know." He looked Amber up and down with a


152 THE BRONZE BELL
glance that took in every detail. "I'm sorry," he ob-
served, "you couldn't have managed to look a trace
shabbier. Still, with a touch here and there, you'll do
excellently well as a sailor on a spree."
"As bad as that?"
"Oah, my dear fallow!"—it was now the babu speak-
ing, while he hopped around Amber with his head criti-
cally to one side, like an inquisitive jackdaw, now and
again darting forward to peck at him with hands that
nervously but deftly arranged details of his attire to
please a taste fastidious and exacting in such matters—
"Oah, my dear fallow, surely you appreciate danger of
venturing into nateeve quarters in European dress? As
regular-out-and-out sahib, I am meaning, of course.
It is permeesible for riff-raff, sailors and Tommies from
the Fort, and soa on, to indulge in debauchery among
nateeves, but first-class sahib—Oah, noah! You would
be mobbed in no-time-at-all, where we are going."
"All right; I guess I can play the part, babu. At
least, I've plenty of atmosphere," Amber laughed, men-
tioning the incident of the peg he had not consumed
over Honest George's bar.
"I had noticed that; a happy accident, indeed. I
think "—Labertouche stepped back to look Amber over ■
again—" I think you will almost do. One moment."
He seized Amber's hat and, dashing it violently to the
floor, deliberately stamped it out of shape; when restored
to its owner it had aged five years in less than half as
many minutes. Amber laughed, putting it on. "Surely
you couldn't ask me to look more disreputable," he said
with a dubious survey of himself in the mirror.


PINK SATIN
153
His collar had been confiscated with his tie; his coat
collar was partially turned up in the back; what was
visible of his shirt was indecently dirty. His polished
shoes had been deprived of their pristine lustre by
means of a damp rag, vigorously applied, and then
rubbed with dust. An artistic stain had been added to
one of his sleeves by the simple device of smudging it
with the blacking from his shoes. As for his hat, with
the brim pulled down in front, it was nothing more nor
less than shocking.
"You'll do," chuckled Labertouche approvingly.
"Just ram your hands into your trouser pockets with-
out unbuttoning your coat, and shuffle along as if noc-
"turnal rambles in the slums of Calcutta were an every-
day thing to you. If you're spoken to, don't betray
too much familiarity with the vernacular. You know
about the limit of the average Tommy's vocabulary;
don't go beyond it." He unbolted and locked the door
by which Amber had entered, putting the key in his
pocket, and turned to a second door across the room.
"We'll leave this way; I chose this place because it's
a regular rabbit warren, with half a dozen entrances
and exits. I'll leave you in a passage leading to the
bazaar. Wait in the doorway until you see me stroll
past; give me thirty yards lead and follow. Keep in
the middle of the way, avoid a crowd as the plague, and
don't lose sight of me. I'll stop in front of Dohla
Baksh's shop long enough to light a cheroot and go
on without looking back. When you come out I'll be
waiting for you. If we lose one another, get back to
your hotel as quickly as possible. I may send you


154
THE BRONZE BELL
word. If I don't, I shall understand you've taken
the first morning train to Darjeeling. I think that's
all."
As Amber left the room Labertouche extinguished
the lamp, shut and locked the door, and followed, catch-
ing Amber by the arm and guiding him through pitch
darkness to the head of the stairs. "Don't talk," he
whispered;" trust me." They decended an interminable
flight of steps, passed down a long, echoing corridor, and
again descended. From the foot of the second flight
Labertouche shunted Amber round through what seemed
a veritable maze of passages—in which, however, he was
evidently quite at home. At length, " Now go ahead I"
was breathed at Amber's ear and at the same time his
arm was released.
He obeyed blindly, stumbling down a reeking cor-
ridor, and in a minute more, to his unutterable relief,
was in the open air of the bazaar.
Blinking with the abrupt transition from absolute
night to garish light, he skulked in the shadow of the
doorway, waiting. Beneath his gaze Calcutta paraded
its congress of peoples—a comprehensive collection of
specimens of every tribe in Hindustan and of nearly
every other race in the world besides: red-bearded Delhi
Pathans, towering Sikhs, lean sinewy Rajputs with
bound jaws, swart agile Bhils, Tommies in their scarlet
tunics, Japanese and Chinese in their distinctive dress,
short and sturdy Gurkhas, yellow Saddhus, Jats stalk-
ing proudly, brawling knots of sailormen from the
Port, sleek Mahrattas, polluted Sansis, Punjabis, Ben-
galis, priests, beggars, dancing girls; a blaze of colour


PINK SATIN
155
ever shifting, a Babel of tongues never stilled, a seething
scum on a witch's brew of humanity. . . .
Like a f at, tawdry moth in his garments of soiled pink,
a babu loitered past, with never a sidelong glance for
the loaferish figure in the shadowed doorway; and the
latter seemed himself absorbed in the family of' Eura-
sians who were shrilly squabbling with the keeper of a
vegetable-stall adjacent. But presently he wearied of
their noise, yawned, thrust both hands deep in his
pockets, and stumbled away. The bazaar accepted him
as a brother, unquestioning, and he picked his way
through it with an ease that argued nothing but abso-
lute familiarity with his surroundings. But always
you may be sure, he had the gleam of pink satin in the
corner of his eye.
Before long Pink Satin diverged into the Chitpur
Road, with Amber a discreet shadow. So far the latter
had been treading known ground, but a little later,
when Pink Satin dived abruptly into a darksome alley-
way to the right, drawing Amber after him as a child
drags a toy on a string, the Virginian lost his bearings
utterly and was thereafter helplessly dependent upon the
flutter of Pink Satin, and unworried only so long as he
could see him, in a fidget of anxiety whenever the laby-
rinth shut Labertouche from his sight for a moment or
two.
It was quiet enough away from the main thorough-
fare, but with a sinister quiet. Tall dwellings marched
shoulder to shoulder along the ways, shuttered, dark,
grim, with an effect of conspirators, their heads to-
gether in lawless conference. The streets were intoler-


156
THE BRONZE BELL
ably narrow, the paving a farce; pools of stagnant
water stood in the depressions, piles of refuse banked
the walls. The fetid air hung motionless but sibilant
with stealthy footsteps and whisperings. . . . Prefer-
able to this seemed even the infinitely more dangerous
and odorous Coolootollah purlieus into which they pres-
ently passed—nesting place though it were for the city's
most evil and desperate classes.
In time broad Machua Bazaar Street received them—
Pink Satin and the sailorman out for a night of it.
And now Pink Satin began to stroll more sedately, mani-
festing a livelier interest in the sights of the wayside.
Amber's impatience—for he guessed that they neared
the goldsmith's stall—increased prodigiously; the shops,
the stalls, the thatched dance-halls in which arose the
hideous music of the nautch, had no lure for him, though
they illustrated all that was most evil and most de-
praved in the second city of the Empire. He was only
eager to have done with this unsavoury adventure, to
know again the clean walls of his room in the Great
Eastern, to taste again the purer air of the Maidan.
Without warning Pink Satin pulled up, extracted
from the recesses of his costume a long, black and
vindictive-looking native cigar, and lighted it, thought-
fully exhaling the smoke through his nose while he stared
covetously at the display of a slipper-merchant whose
stand was over across from the stall of a goldsmith.
With true Oriental deliberation Pink Satin finally
made up his mind to move on; and Amber lurched
heavily into the premises occupied by one Dhola Baksh,
a goldsmith.


PINK SATIN
157
A customer, a slim, handsome Malayan youth, for
the moment held the attention of the proprietor. The
two were haggling with characteristic enjoyment over a
transaction which seemed to involve less than twenty
rupees. Amber waited, knowing that patience must be
his portion until the bargain should be struck. Dhola
Baksh himself, a lean, sharp-featured Mahratta grey
with age, appraised with a single look the new cus-
tomer, and returned his interest to the Malay. But
Amber garnered from that glance a sensation of recog-
nition. He wondered dimly, why; could the goldsmith
have been warned of his coming?
Two or three more putative customers idled into the
shop. Beyond its threshold the stream of native life
rolled on, ceaselessly fluent; a pageant of the Middle
Ages had been no more fantastic and unreal to Western
eyes. Now and again a wayfarer paused, his interest
attracted by the goldsmith's rush of business.
Unexpectedly the proprietor made a substantial con-
cession. Money passed upon the instant, sealing the
bargain. The Malay rose to go. Dhola Baksh lifted
a stony stare to Amber.
"Your pleasure, sahib?" he enquired with a thinly-
veiled sneer. What need to show deference to a down-
at-the-heel sailor from the Port?
"I want money—I want to borrow," said Amber
promptly.
"On your word, sahib?"
"On security."
"What manner of security can you offer?"
"A ring—an emerald ring."


158
THE BRONZE BELL
Dhola Baksh shrugged. His eyes shifted from Amber
to the encircling faces of the bystanders. "I am a
poor man," he whined. "How should I have money to
lend? Come to me on the morrow; then mayhap I may
have a few rupees. To-night I have neither cash nor
time."
The hint was lost upon Amber. "A stone of
price "he persisted.
With a disturbed and apprehensive look, the money-
lender rose. "Come, then," he grumbled, "if you
must"
A voice cried out behind Amber—" Heh!" more
a squeal than a cry. Intuitively, as at a signal of
danger, he leaped aside. Simultaneously something like
a beam of light sped past his head. The goldsmith
uttered one dreadful, choking scream, and went to his
knees. For as many as three seconds he swayed back
and forth, his features terribly contorted, his thin old
hands plucking feebly at the handle of a broadbladed
dagger which had transfixed his throat. Then he
tumbled forward on his face, kicking.
There followed a single instant of suspense and hor-
ror, then a mad rush of feet as the street stampeded
into the shop. Voices clamoured to the skies. Some-
how the lights went out.
Amber started to fight his way out. As he struggled
on, making little headway through the press, a hand
grasped his arm and drew him another way.
"Make haste, hazoor!" cried the owner of the hand,
in Hindustani. "Make haste, lest they seek to fasten
this crime upon your head."


CHAPTER X
MAHABANA OF KHANDAWAE
Both hand and voice might well have been Laber-
touche's; Amber believed they were. And the darkness
rendered visual identification impossible. No shadow
of doubt troubled him as he yielded to the urgent hand,
and permitted himself to be dragged, more than led,
through the reeking, milling mob, whose numbers seemed
each instant augmented. He had thought, dully, to find
it a difficult matter to worm through and escape, but
somehow his guide seemed to have little trouble. Others,
likewise, evidently wished to get out of sight before the
arrival of the police, and in the wake of a little knot of
these Amber felt himself drawn along until, within less
than two minutes, they were on the outskirts of the
crowd.
He drew a long breath of relief. Ever since that
knife had flown whining past his cheek, his instinct
of self-preservation had been dominated by a serene
confidence that Pink Satin was at hand to steer him
in safety away from the brawl. For his own part he
was troubled by a feeling of helplessness and depend-
ence unusual with him, who was of a self-reliant habit,
accustomed to shift for himself whatever the emergency.
But this was something vastly different from the run of
experiences that had theretofore fallen to his lot. In
the foulest stews of a vast city, with no least notion
159


160
THE BRONZE BELL
of how to win his way back to the security of the Chow-
ringhee quarter; in the heart of a howling native rabble
stimulated to a pitch of frenzy by the only things that
ever seem really to rouse the Oriental from his apathy
—the scent and sight of human blood; and with a sense
of terror chilling him as he realised the truth at which
his guide had hinted—that the actual assassin would
not hesitate an instant to cry the murder upon the head
of one of the Sahib-logue: Amber felt as little confidence
in his ability to work out his salvation as though he had
been a child. He thanked his stars for Labertouche—
for the hand that clasped his arm and the voice that
spoke guardedly in his ear.
And then, by the light of the street, he discovered that
his gratitude had been premature and misplaced. His
guide had fallen a pace behind and was shouldering him
along with almost frantic energy; but a glance aside
showed Amber, in Labertouche's stead, a chunky little
Gurkha in the fatigue uniform of his regiment of the
British Army in India. Pink Satin was nowhere in sight
and it was immediately apparent that an attempt to find
him among the teeming hundreds before the goldsmith's
stall would be as futile as foolish—if not fatal. Yet
Amber's impulse was to wait, and he faltered—some-
thing which seemed to exasperate the Gurkha, who fairly
danced with excitement and impatience.
"Hasten, hazoor!" he cried. "Is this a time to
loiter? Hasten ere they charge you with this spill-
ing of blood. The gods lend wings to our feet this
night!"
"But who are you?" demanded Amber.


162 THE BRONZE BELL
sharp yells rose in the bazaar behind them. "The dogs
have found the scent!" And for a time terror winged
their flight. Eastern mobs are hard to handle; if over-
taken the chances were anything-you-please to one that
the fugitives would be torn to pieces as by wild animals
ere the police could interfere.
They struck through stranger and more awful quar-
ters than Amber had believed could be tolerated, even
in India. For if there were a better way of escape they
had no time to pause and choose it. From the racket in
their rear the pursuit was hot upon their trail, and with
every stride, well-nigh, they were passing those who
would mark them down and, when the rabble came up,
cry it on with explicit directions.
And so Amber found himself pounding along at the
heels of his Gurkha, threading acres of flimsy huts hud-
dled together in meaningless confusion—frail boxes of
bamboo, mud, and wattles thrown roughly together upon
corrupt, naked earth that reeked of the drainage of
uncounted generations. Whence they passed through
long, brilliant, silent streets lined with open hovels
wherein Vice and Crime bred cheek-by-jowl, the haunts
of Shame, painted and unabashed, sickening in the very
crudity of its nakedness. . . . There is no bottom to
the Pit wherein the native sinks. . . . And on, pant-
ing, with labouring chests and aching limbs, into the
abandoned desolation of the Chinese quarter, and back
through the still, deadly ways which Amber had
threaded in the footsteps of Pink Satin—where the
houses towered high and were ornamented with dingy,
crumbling stucco and rusty, empty, treacherous bal-


MAHARANA OF KHANDAWAR 163
conies of iron, and the air hung in stagnation as if the
very winds here halted to eavesdrop upon the iniquities
that were housed behind the jealous, rotting blinds of
wood and iron.
By now the voice of the chase had subsided to a dull
and distant muttering far behind them, and the way
was clear. Beyond its age-old, ineradicable atmosphere
of secret infamy there was nothing threatening in the
aspect of the neighbourhood. And the Gurkha pulled
up, breathing like a wind-broken horse.
"Easily, hazoor!" he gasped. "There is time for
rest."
Willingly Amber dropped into a wavering stride, so
nearly exhausted that his legs shook under him and
he reeled drunkenly; and, fighting for breath, they
stumbled on, side by side, in the shadow of the over-
hanging walls, until as they neared a corner the Gurkha
stopped and halted Amber with an imperative gesture.
"The police, sahib, the police!" he breathed, with
an expressive sweep of his hand toward the cross street.
"Let us wait here till they pass." And in evident panic
he crowded Amber into the deep and gloomy recess af-
forded by a door overhung by a balcony.
Taken off his guard, but with growing doubt, Amber
was on the point of remonstrating. Why should the
police concern themselves with peaceful wayfarers?
They could not yet have heard of the crime in the
Bazaar, miles distant. But as he opened his lips he
heard the latch click behind him, and before he could
lift a finger, the Gurkha had flung himself bodily upon
him, fairly lifting the American across the threshold.


164
THE BRONZE BELL
They went down together, the Gurkha on top. And
the door crashed to with a rattle of bolts, leaving Amber
on his back, in total darkness, betrayed, lost, and alone
with his enemies. . . .
Now take a man—a white man—an American by
preference—such an one as David Amber—who has led
an active if thoughtful life and lived much out of doors,
roughing it cheerfully in out-of-the-way corners of the
world, and who has been careful to maintain his physical
condition at something above par; bedevil him with a
series of mysterious circumstances for a couple of
months, send him on a long journey, entangle him in a
passably hopeless love affair, work his expectations up
to a high pitch of impatience, exasperate him with dis-
appointment, and finally cause him to be tripped up by
treachery and thrust into a pitch-black room in an un-
known house in one of the vilest quarters of Calcutta:
treat him in such a manner and what may you expect of
him? Not discretion, at least.
Amber went temporarily mad with rage. He was no
stranger to fear—no man with an imagination is; but
for the time being he was utterly foolhardy. He
forgot his exhaustion, forgot the hopelessness of
his plight, forgot everything save his insatiable thirst
for vengeance. He was, in our homely idiom, fighting-
mad.
One instant overpowered by and supine beneath the
Gurkha, the next he had flung the man off and bounded
to his feet. There was the automatic pistol in his coat-
pocket, but he, conscious that many hands were reach-
ing out in the darkness to drag him down again, found


MAHARANA OF KHANDAWAR 165
no time to draw it. He seemed to feel the presence of
the nearest antagonist, whom he could by no means see;
for he struck out with both bare, clenched fists, one after
the other, with his weight behind each, and both blows
landed. The sounds of their impact rang like pistol-
shots, and beneath his knuckles he felt naked flesh crack
and give. Something fell away from him with a grunt
like a poled ox. And then, in an instant, before he
could recover his poise, even before he knew that the
turned-in stone of the emerald ring had bitten deep into
his palm, he was the axis of a vortex of humanity. And
he fought like a devil unchained. Those who had thrown
themselves upon him, clutching desperately at his arms
and legs and hanging upon his body, seemed to be
thrown off like chips from a lathe—for a time. In two
short minutes he performed prodigies of valour; his
arms wrought like piston-rods, his fists flew like flails;
and such was the press round him that he struck no
blow that failed to find a mark. The room rang with
the sounds of the struggle, the shuffle, thud, and scrape
of feet both booted and bare, the hoarse, harsh breath-
ing of the combatants, their groans, their whispers,
their low tense cries . . .
And abruptly it was over. He was borne down
by sheer weight of numbers. Though he fought with
the insanity of despair they were too many for him.
He went a second time to the floor, beneath a dozen half-
nude bodies. Below him lay another, with an arm en-
circling his throat, the elbow beneath his chin com-
pressing his windpipe. Powerless to move hand or foot,
he gave up . . . and wondered dully why it was that


166 THE BRONZE BELL
a knife had not yet slipped between his ribs—between
the fifth and sixth—or in his back, beneath the left
shoulder-blade, and why his gullet remained unslit.
Gradually it was forced upon him that his captors
meant him no bodily harm, for the present at least.
His wrath subsided and gave place to curiosity while
he rested, regaining his wind, and the natives squirmed
away from him, leaving one man kneeling upon his
chest and four others each pinioning a limb.
There followed a wait, while some several persons in-
dulged in a whispered confabulation at a distance from
him too great for their words to be articulate. Then
came a croaking laugh out of the darkness and words
intended for his ear.
"By Malang Shah! but my lord doth fight like a
Rajput!"
Amber caught his breath and exploded. "Half a
chance, you damned thugs, and I'd show you how an
American can fight!"
But he had spoken in English, and his hearers gath-
ered the import of his words only from his tone, ap-
parently. He who had addressed him laughed applaus-
ively.
"It was a gallant fight," he commented, " but like all
good things hath had its end. My lord is overcome.
Is my lord still minded for battle or for peace? Dare I,
his servant, give orders for his release, or"
Here Amber interrupted; stung by the bitter irony,
he told the speaker in fluent idiomatic Hindustani pre-
cisely what he might expect if his " lord " ever got the
shadow of a chance to lay hands upon him.


M AH ARAN A OF KH AND A WAR 167
The grim cackling laugh followed his words, a mock-
ing echo, and was his only answer. But for all his defi-
ance, he presently heard orders issued to take him up
and bear him to another chamber. Promptly the man
on his chest moved away, and his fellows lifted and car-
ried Amber, gently and with puzzling consideration,
some considerable distance through what he surmised to
be an underground corridor. He suffered this pas-
sively, realising his impotence, and somewhat comforted
if perplexed by the tenderness accorded him in return
for his savage fight for freedom.
Unexpectedly he was let down upon the floor and
released. Bare feet scurried away in the darkness and
a door closed with a resounding bang. He was alone,
for all he could say to the contrary—alone and un-
harmed. He was more: he was astonished; he had not
been disarmed. He got up and felt of himself, mar-
velling that his pocket still sagged with the weight
of the pistol as much as at the circumstance that,
aside from the inevitable damage to his clothing—
a coat-sleeve ripped from the arm-hole, several buttons
missing, suspenders broken—he had come out of the
melee unhurt, not even bruised, save for the hand that
had been cut by the emerald. He wrapped a handker-
chief about this wound, and took the pistol out, deriving
a great deal of comfort from the way it balanced, its
roughened grip nestling snugly in his palm.
He fairly itched to use the thing, but lacking an
excuse, had time to take more rational counsel of him-
self. It were certainly unwise to presume upon the pa-
tience of his captors; though he had battered some of


168 THE BRONZE BELL
them pretty brutally and himself escaped reprisals, the
part of wisdom would seem to be to save his ammunition.
With this running through his mind, the room was
suddenly revealed to his eyes, that had so long strained
fruitlessly to see. A flood of lamplight leaped through
some opening behind him and showed him his shadow,
long and gigantic upon a floor of earth and a wall of
stone. He wheeled about, alert as a cat; and the sight
of his pistol hung steady between the eyes of one who
stood at ease, with folded arms, in an open doorway.
Over his shoulder was visible the bare brown poll of an
attendant whose lank brown arm held aloft the lamp.
One does not shoot down in cold blood a man who
makes no aggressive move, and he who stood in the door-
way endured impassively the mute threat of the pistol.
Above its sight his eyes met Amber's with a level and
unwavering glance, shining out of a dark, set face cast
in a mould of insolence and pride. A bushy black beard
was parted at his chin and brushed stiffly back. Be-
tween his thin hard lips, parted in a shadowy smile, his
teeth gleamed white. Standing a head taller than Am-
ber and very gracefully erect in clothing of a semi-
military cut and of regal magnificence, every inch of his
pose bespoke power, position, and the habit of authority.
His head was bound with a turban of spotless white
from whose clasp, a single splendid emerald, a jewelled
aigret nodded; the bosom of his dark-green tunic blazed
with orders and decorations; at his side swung a sabre
with richly jewelled hilt. Heavy white gauntlets hid
his hands, top-boots of patent leather his legs and feet.
At once impressed and irritated by his attitude, Am-


MAHARANA OF KHANDAWAR 169
ber lowered his weapon. "Well? " he demanded queru-
lously. "What do you want? What's your part in
this infamous outrage?"
On the other's face the faint smile became more
definite. He nodded nonchalantly at Amber's pistol.
"My lord intends to shoot?" he enquired in English,
his tone courteous and suave.
"That's as may be," retorted Amber defiantly. "I'm
going to have satisfaction for this outrage if I die get-
ting it. You may count on that, first and last."
The man lifted his eyebrows and his shoulders in
deprecation; then turned to his attendant. "Put down
the light and leave us," he said curtly in Hindustani.
Bowing obsequiously, the servant entered and de-
parted, leaving the lamp upon a wooden shelf braced
against one side of the four-square, stone-walled dun-
geon. As he went out he closed the door, and Amber
noted that it was a heavy sheet of iron or steel, very
substantial. His face darkened.
"I presume you know what that means," he said,
with a significant jerk of his head toward the door.
"It '11 never be shut on me alone. We'll leave together,
you and I, if we both go out feet first." He lifted the
pistol and took the measure of the man, not in any spirit
of bravado but with absolute sincerity. "I trust I
make my meaning plain?"
"Most clear, hazoor." The other showed his teeth in
an appreciative smile. "And yet "—with an expressive
outward movement of both hands—" what is the need
of all this?"
"What!" Amber choked with resentment. "What


MAHARANA OF KHANDAWAR 171
bone of the bone and flesh of the flesh of the Body,
Guardian of the Gateway of Swords! ... I, thy
servant, Salig Singh, bid thee welcome to Bharuta!"
Sonorous and not unpleasing, his voice trembled with
intense and unquestionable earnestness; and when it
ceased he remained motionless in his attitude of humil-
ity. Amber, hardly able to credit his hearing, stared
down at the man stupidly, his head awhirl with curi-
ously commingled sensations of amazement and en-
lightenment. Presently he laughed shortly.
"Get up," he said; "get up and stand over there
by the wall and don't be a silly ass."
"Hazoor!" There was reproach in Salig Singh's
accents; but he obeyed, rising and retreating to the
further wall, there to hold himself at attention.
"Now see here," began Amber, designedly continu-
ing his half of the conversation in English—far too
much misunderstanding had already been brought
about by his too-ready familiarity with Urdu. He
paused a little to collect his thoughts, then resumed:
"Now see here, you're Salig Singh, Maharana of
Khandawar?" This much he recalled from his con-
versation with Labertouche a couple of hours gone.
"Hazoor, why dost thou need ask? Thou dost know."
The Rajput, on his part, steadfastly refused to return
to English.
"But you are, aren't you?"
"By thy favour, it is even so."
"And you think I'm Rutton—Har Dyal Rutton, as
you call him, the former Maharana who abdicated in
your favour?"


172
THE BRONZE BELL
The Rajput shrugged expressively, an angry light in
his dark, bold eyes. "It pleases my lord to jest," he
complained; "but am I a child, to be played with?"
"I'm not joking, Salig Singh, and this business is
no joke at all. What I'm trying to drive into your
head is the fact that you've made the mistake of your
life. I'm not Rutton and I'm nothing like Rutton; I
am an American citizen and"
"Pardon, hazoor, but is this worth thy while? I
am no child; what I know I know. If thou art indeed
not Har Dyal Rutton, how is it that thou dost wear
upon thy finger the signet of thy house "—Salig Singh
indicated the emerald which Amber had forgotten—
"the Token sent thee by the Bell? If thou are not my
lord the rightful Maharana of Khandawar, how is it
that thou hast answered the summons of the Bell?
Are the servants of the Body fools who have followed
the hither, losing trace of thee no single instant since
thou didst slay the Bengali who bore the Token to thee?
Am I blind—I, Salig Singh, thy childhood's playmate,
the Grand Vizier of thy too-brief rule, to whom thou
didst surrender the reins of government of Khandawar?
I know thee; thou canst not deceive me. True it is that
thou art changed—sadly changed, my lord; and the
years have not worn upon thee as they might—I had
thought to find thee an older man and, by thy grace, a
wiser. But even as I am Salig Singh, thou art none
other than my lord, Har Dyal Rutton."
Salig Singh put his shoulders against the wall and,
leaning so with arms folded, regarded Amber with a
triumph not unmixed with contempt. It was plain that


MAHARANA OF KHANDAWAR 173
he considered his argument final, his case complete, the
verdict his. While Amber found no words with which
to combat his false impression, and could only stare,
open-mouthed and fascinated. But at length he recol-
lected himself and called his wits together.
"That's all very pretty," he admitted fairly, "but
it won't hold water. I don't suppose these faithful
servants of the Bell you mentioned happened to tell
you that Chatterji himself mistook me for Rutton, to
begin with, and just found out his mistake in time to
recover the Token. Did they?"
The man shook his head wearily. "Nothing to that
import hath come to mine ears," he said.
"All right. And of course they didn't tell you that
Rutton committed suicide down there on Long Island,
just after he had killed the babu?"
Again Salig Singh replied by a negative movement of
his head.
"Well, all I've got to say is that your infernal
4 Body ' employs a giddy lot of incompetents to run its
errands."
Salig Singh said nothing, and Amber pondered the
situation briefly. He understood now how the babu's
companion had fallen into error: how Chatterji, possess-
ing sufficient intelligence to recognise his initial mis-
take, had, having rectified it, saved his face by saying
nothing to his companion of the incident; and how
the latter had remained in ignorance of Rutton's death
after the slaying of Chatterji, and had pardonably
mistaken Amber for the man he had been sent to spy
upon. The prologue was plain enough, but how to deal


174
THE BRONZE BELL
with this its sequel was a problem that taxed his in-
genuity. A single solution seemed practicable, of the
many he debated: to get in touch with Labertouche and
leave the rest to him.
He stood for so long in meditation that the Rajput
began to show traces of impatience. He moved rest-
lessly, yawned, and at length spoke.
"Is not my lord content? Can he not see, the dice
are cast? What profit can he think to win through
furtherance of this farce?"
"Well," curiosity prompted Amber to ask, "what
do you want of me, then?"
"Is there need to ask? Through the Mouthpiece, the
Bengali, Behari Lal Chatterji, whom thou didst slay,
the message of the Bell was brought to thee. Thou
hast been called; it is for thee to answer."
"Called?"
"To the Gateway of Swords, hazoor."
"Oh, yes; to be sure. But where in thunderation is
it?"
"That my lord doth know."
"You think so? Well, have it your own way. But
suppose I decline the invitation?"
Salig Singh looked bored. "Since thou hast come so
far," he said, "thou wilt go farther, hazoor."
"Meaning—by force?"
"Of thine own will. Those whom the Voice calleth
are not led to the Gateway by their noses."
"But," Amber persisted, " suppose they won't go?"
"Then, hazoor, doth the Council of the Hand sit in
judgment upon them."


MAHARANA OF KHANDAWAR 175
The significance was savagely obvious, but Amber
merely laughed. "And the Hand strikes, I presume?"
Salig Singh nodded. "Bless your heart, I'm not afraid
of your 'Hand'! But am I to understand that com-
pulsion is not to be used in order to get me to the Gate-
way—wherever that is? I mean, I'm free to exercise
my judgment, whether or not I shall go—free to leave
this place and return to my hotel?"
Gravely the Rajput inclined his head. "Even so,"
he assented. "I caused thee to be brought hither solely
to make certain what thou hast out of thine own mouth
confirmed—the report that thou hadst become alto-
gether traitor to the Bell. So be it. There remains
but the warning that for four days more, and four days
only, the Gateway remains open to those summoned.
On the fifth it closes."
"And to those who remain in the outer darkness on
that fifth day, Salig Singh?"
"God is merciful," said the Rajput piously.
"Very well. If that is all, I think I will now leave
you, Salig Singh," said Amber, fondling his pistol
meaningly.
"One word more," Salig Singh interposed, very much
alive to Amber's attitude: "I were unfaithful to the
trust thou didst once repose in me were I not to warn
thee that whither thou goest, the Mind will know;
what thou dost, the Eye will see; the words thou
shalt utter, the Ear will hear. To all things there is
an end, also—even to the patience of the Body.
Shabash!"
"Thank you 'most to death, Salig Singh. Now will


176 THE BRONZE BELL
you be good enough to order a ghari to take me back
to the Great Eastern?"
"My lord's will is his servant's." Salig Singh
started for the door the least trace too eagerly.
"One moment," said Amber sharply. "Not so fast,
my friend." He tapped his palm with the barrel of
the pistol to add weight to his peremptory manner.
"I think if you will lift your voice and call, some one
will answer. I've taken a great fancy to you, if you
don't know it, and I don't purpose letting you out of
my sight until I'm safely out of this house."
With a sullen air the Rajput yielded. From his ex-
pression Amber would have wagered much that there
was a bad quarter of an hour in store for those who had
neglected to disarm him when the opportunity was
theirs.
"As you will," conceded Salig Singh; and he clapped
his hands smartly, crying: " Ohe, Moto!
Almost instantly the iron door swung open and the
lamp-bearer appeared, salaaming.
"Tell him," ordered Amber, "to bring me a cloak
of some sort—not too conspicuous. I've no fancy to
kick up a scandal at the hotel by returning with these
duds visible. You can charge it up to profit and loss;
if it hadn't been for the tender treatment your assas-
sins gave me, I'd be less disreputable."
A faint smile flickered in Salig Singh's eyes—a look
that was not wholly devoid of admiration for the man
who had turned the tables on him with such ease. "In-
deed," he said, " I were lacking in courtesy did I refuse
thee that." And turning to the servant he issued in-


MAHARANA OF KHANDAWAR 177
structions in accordance with Amber's demands, adding
gratuitously an order that the way of exit should be
kept clear.
As the man bowed and withdrew Amber grinned
cheerfully. "It wasn't a bad afterthought, Salig
Singh," he observed; "precautions like that relieve the
mind wonderfully sometimes."
But the humour of the situation .seemed to be lost
upon the Rajput.
In the brief wait that followed Amber shifted his
position to one wherefrom he could command both the
doorway and Salig Singh; his solicitude, however, was
without apparent warrant; nothing happened to justify
him of his vigilance. Without undue delay the servant
returned with a light cloak and the announcement that
the ghari was in waiting.
His offer to help the American don the garment
was graciously declined. "I've a fancy to have my
arms free for the present," Amber explained; "I can
get it on by myself in the ghari." He took the cloak
over his left arm. "I'm ready; lead on!" he said,
and with a graceful wave of the pistol bowed Salig
Singh out of the cellar.
Moto leading with the light, they proceeded in silence
down a musty but deserted passage, Amber bringing
up the rear with his heart in his mouth and his finger
nervous upon the trigger. After a little the passage
turned and discovered a door open to the street. Be-
yond this a ghari could be seen.
Amber civilly insisted that both the servant and his
master leave the house before him, but, once outside, he


178
THE BRONZE BELL
made a wary detour and got between them and the
waiting conveyance. Then, "It's kind of you, Salig
Singh," he said; " I'm properly grateful. I'll say this
for you: you play the game fairly when anybody calls
your attention to the rules. Good-night to you—and,
I say, be kind enough to shut the door as you go in.
I'll just wait until you do."
The Rajput found no answer; conceivably, his
chagrin was intense. With a curt nod he turned and re-
entered the house, Moto following. The door closed and
Amber jumped briskly into the ghari.
"Home, James," he told the ghariwallah, in great
conceit with himself. "I mean, the Great Eastern
Hotel—and juldee jao!"
The driver wrapped a whiplash round the corrugated
flanks of his horse and the ghari turned the corner
with gratifying speed. In half a minute they were in
the Chitpur Road. In fifteen they drew up before the
hotel.
It was after midnight and the city had begun to quiet
down, but Old Court House Street was still populous
with carriages and pedestrians, black and tan and
white. There was a Viceregal function of some sort
towards in the Government House, and broughams and
victorias, coaches, hansoms, and coupes, with lamps
alight and liveried coachmen—turn-outs groomed to the
last degree of smartness—crowded the thoroughfare to
the peril and discomfort of the casual ghari. The
scene was unbelievably brilliant. Amber felt like rub-
bing his eyes. Here were sidewalks, pavements, throb-
bing electric arcs, Englishmen in evening dress, fair


MAHARANA OF KHANDAWAR 179
Englishwomen in dainty gowns and pretty wraps, the
hum of English voices, the very smell of civilisation.
And back there, just across the border he had so re-
cently crossed, still reigned the midnight of the Orient,
glamorous with the glamour of the Arabian Nights,
dreadful with its dumb menace, its atmosphere of plot
and counterplot, mutiny, treason,' intrigue, and death.
Here, a little island of life and light and gay, heedless
laughter; there, all round it, pressing close, silence and
impenetrable darkness, like some dark sea of death
lapping its shores . . .
In a cold sweat of horror Amber got out of the vehicle
and paid his fare. As he turned he discovered an uni-
formed policeman stalking to and fro before the hotel,
symbol of the sane power that ruled the lanc\ Amber
was torn by an impulse to throw himself upon the man
and shriek aloud his tale of terror—to turn ai d scream
warning in the ears of those who lived so lighLly on the
lip of Hell. . . .
A Bengali drifted listlessly past, a bored and blase
babu in a suit of pink satin, wandering home and in-
terested in nothing save his own bland self and the native
cigarette that drooped languidly from his lips. He
passed within a foot of Amber, and from somewhere
a voice spoke—the Virginian could have taken an oath
that the babu's lips did not move—in a clear yet discreet
whisper.
To-morrow," it said; " Darjeeling."
Amber hitched his cloak round him and entered the
hotel.


CHAPTER XI
THE TONGA
"Badshah Junction, Mr. Amber . . . Badshah
Junction . . . We'll be there in 'alf an hour . . ."
Inexorably the voice droned on, repeating the ad-
monition over and over.
Mutinous, Amber stirred and grumbled in his sleep;
stirred and, grumbling, wakened to another day. Dog-
gott stood over him, doggedly insistent.
"Not much time to dress, sir; we're due in less than
'alf an hour."
"Oh, all right." Drowsy, stiff and jsore in bone and
muscle, Amber sat up on the edge of the leather-padded
bunk and stared out of the window, wondering. With
thundering flanges the train fled from east to west
across a landscape that still slept wrapped in purple
shadows. Far in the north the higher peaks of a long,
low range of treeless hills were burning with a pale,
cold light. A few stars glimmered in the cloudless vault
—glimmered wan, doomed to sudden, swift extinction.
Beside the railroad a procession of telegraph poles
marched with dipping loops of wire between. There
was nothing else to see. None the less the young man,
now fully alive to the business of the day, said " Thank
God!" in all sincerity.
"Even a tonga will be a relief after three days of
180


THE TONGA
181
this, Doggott," he observed, surrendering himself to
the ministrations of the servant.
It was the third morning succeeding that on which
he had risen from his bed in the Great Eastern Hotel
in Calcutta, possessed by a wild anxiety to find his way
with the least possible delay to Darjeeling and Sophia
Farrell—a journey which he was destined never to
make. For while he breakfasted a telegram had been
brought to him.
"Your train for Benares," he read, " leaves Howrah
at nine-thirty. Imperative." It was signed: "Pink
Satin."
He acted upon it without thought of disobedience;
he was in the hands of Labertouche, and Labertouche
knew best. Between the lines he read that the English-
man considered it unwise to attempt further communi-
cation in Calcutta. Something had happened to elimi-
nate the trip to Darjeeling. Labertouche would un-
doubtedly contrive to meet and enlighten him, either on
the way or in Benares itself.
In the long, tiresome, eventless journey that followed
his faith was sorely tried; nor was it justified until the
train paused some time after midnight at Mogul Serai.
There, before Amber and Doggott could alight to
change for Benares, their compartment was invaded
by an unmistakable loafer, very drunk. Tall and burly;
with red-rimmed eyes in a pasty pockmarked face, dirty
and rusty with a week-old growth of beard; clothed
with sublime contempt for the mode and exalted beyond
reason with liquor—a typical loafer of the Indian rail-
ways—he flung the door open and himself into Amber's


182
THE BRONZE BELL
arms, almost knocking the latter down; and resented the
accident at the top of his lungs.
"You miserable, misbegotten blighter of a wall-eyed
American "At this point he became unprintably
profane, and Doggott fell upon him with the laudable
intention of throwing him out. In the struggle Amber
caught his eye, and it was bright with meaning.
"Pink Satin!" he hissed. "He's gone ahead. . . .
You're to keep on to Agra. . . . Change for Bad-
shah Junction, Rajputana Route. . . . Then tonga
to Kuttarpur. . . . Farrell's there and his daughter.
. . . That's right, my man, throw me out! . . ."
His downfall was spectacular. In his enthusiasm
for the part he played, he had erred to the extent of
delivering a blow in Doggott's face more forcible, prob-
ably, than he had intended it to be. Promptly he landed
sprawling on the station platform and, in the sight of
a multitude of natives, but the moment gone by his
shrieks roused from their sleep in orderly ranks upon
the floor, was gathered into the arms of the station-
master and had the seriousness of his mistake pointed
out to him forthwith and without regard to the sensi-
tiveness of human anatomy.
And the train continued on its appointed way, bear-
ing both Amber and the injured Doggott.
Thus they had come to the heart of Rajputana.
In the chill of dawn they were deposited at Badshah
Junction. A scanty length of rude platform received
them and their two small travelling bags.
On their left the Haiderabad express roared away,
following the night, its course upon the parallel ribbons


THE TONGA
183
of shining steel marked by a towering pillar of dust.
On their right, beyond the sharp-cut edge of the
world, the sun had kindled a mighty conflagration in
the skies. On every hand, behind and before them, the
desert lay in ebbing shadows, a rolling waste seared by
arid nullahs—the bone-dry beds of long-forgotten
streams. Off in the north the hills cropped up and
stole purposelessly away over the horizon.
They stood, then, forlorn in a howling desolation.
For signs of life they had the station, a flimsy shelter
roofed with corrugated iron, a beaten track that wan-
dered off northwards and disappeared over a grassless
swell, a handful of mud huts at a distance, and the
ticket-agent. The latter a sleepy, surly Eurasian in
pyjamas, surveyed them listlessly from the threshold
of the station, and without a sign either of interest or
contempt turned and locked himself in.
Amber sat down on his upturned suit-case and
laughed and lit a cigarette. Doggott growled. The
noise of the train died to silence in the distance, and a
hyena came out of nowhere, exhibited himself upon the
ridge of a dry desert swell, and mocked them sardoni-
cally. Then he, like the ticket-agent, went away, leav-
ing an oppressive silence.
Presently the sun rose in glory and sent its burning
level rays to cast a shadow several rods long of an
enraged American beating frantically with clenched
fists upon the door of an unresponsive railway station.
He hammered until he was a-weary, then deputised
his task to Doggott, who resourcefully found him a
stone of size and proceeded to make dents in the door.


184
THE BRONZE BELL
This method elicited the Eurasian. He came out, lis-
tened attentively to abuse and languidly to their de-
mands for a tonga to bear them to Kuttarpur, and
observed that the mail tonga left once a day—at three
in the afternoon. Doggott caught him as he was on
the point of returning to his interrupted repose and
called his attention to the unwisdom of his ways.
Apparently convinced, this ticket-agent announced
his intention of endeavouring to find a tonga for the
sahib. Besides, he was not unwilling to acquire rupees.
He scowled thoughtfully at Amber, ferociously at Dog-
gott, went back into the station, gossipped casually
with the telegraph sounder for a quarter of an hour,
and finally reappearing, without a word or a nod left
the platform for the road and walked and walked and
walked and walked. Within thirty yards his figure
was blurred by the dance of new-born heat devils.
Within a hundred he disappeared; the desert swallowed
him up.
An hour passed as three. The heat became terrific;
not a breath of wind stirred. The face of the world lost
its contours in wavering mirage. The travellers found
lukewarm water in the station and breakfasted spar-
ingly from their own stores of biscuit and tinned things.
Then, in the shadow of the station, they settled down to
wait, bored to extinction. Lulled by the hushed chatter
of the telegraph sounder, Doggott nodded and slept
audibly; Amber nodded, felt himself going, roused with
a struggle, and lapsed into a dreary mid-world of
semi-stupor.
In the simple fulness of Asiatic time a tonga came


THE TONGA
185
from Heaven knew where and roused him by rattling
up beside the platform. He got up and looked it over
with a just eye and a temper none the sweeter for his
experience. It was a brute of a tonga, a patched and
ramshackle wreck of what had once been a real tonga,
with no top to protect the travellers from the sun, and
accommodation only for three, including the driver.
The Eurasian ticket-agent alighted and solicited
rupees. He got them and with them Amber's unvar-
nished opinion of the tonga; something which was not
received with civility by the driver.
He remained in his seat—a short, swart native with
an evil countenance and, across his knees, a sheathed
tulwar—arguing with Amber in broken English and
abusing him scandalously in impurest Hindi, flinging at
him in silken tones untranslatable scraps of bazaar Bil-
lingsgate. For, as he explained in an audible aside to
the ticket-agent, this sahib was an outlander and, being
as ignorant as most sahibs, could not understand Hindi.
At this the Eurasian turned away to hide a grin of
delight and the driver winked deliberately at Amber
the while he broadly sketched for him his ancestry and
the manner of his life at home and abroad.
Thunderstruck, Amber caught himself just as he was
on the point of attempting to drag the driver from
his seat and beat him into a more endurable frame
of mind. He swallowed the hint and gave up the
contest.
"Oh, very well," he conceded. "I presume you're
trying to say there isn't another tonga to be had and it
can't be helped; but I don't like your tone. However,


THE TONGA
187
gin' your pardon—there'll be trouble come of this.
That driver's as ill-favoured a scoundrel as ever I see.
And as for this 'ere ape, if 'e smiles at me just once
more, I'll give 'im what-for." And he scowled so blackly
upon the Eurasian that that individual hastily sought
the seclusion which the station granted.
Amber left him, then, with a travelling-bag and a
revolver for company, and the ticket-agent and his bad
temper to occupy his mind.
Climbing aboard, the Virginian settled himself
against the endless discomforts of the ride which he
foresaw; the tonga was anything but "an aram tonga
-—a tonga for ease," there was no shade and no
breeze, and the face of the land crawled with heat-bred
haze.
To a crisp crackling of the whip-lash over the backs
of the two sturdy, shaggy, flea-bitten ponies, the tonga
swept away from the station, swift as a hunted fox
with a dusty plume. The station dropped out of sight
and the desert took them to its sterile heart.
On every hand the long swales rolled away, sun-
baked, rocky, innocent of any sign of life other than
the trooping telegraph poles in the south, destitute of
any sort of vegetation other than the inevitable ak and
gos. Wherever the eye wandered the prospect was the
same—limitless expanses of raw blistering ochres,
salmon-pinks, and dry faded reds, under a sky of brass
and fire.
Amber leaned forward, watching the driver's face.
"Your name, tonga-wallah?" he enquired.
"Ram Nath, sahib." The man spoke without mov-


188 THE BRONZE BELL
ing his head, attending diligently to the management
of his ponies.
"And this other passenger, who awaits us at the
dak-bungalow, Ram Nath—is he, perchance, one known
both to you and to me?"
Ram Nath flicked the flagging ponies. "How should
I know? " he returned brusquely.
"One," persisted Amber, "who might be known by
such a name as, say, Pink Satin?"
"What manner of talk is this ?" demanded Ram Nath.
"I am no child to be amused by a riddle. I know
naught of your' Pink Satin.'" He bent forward, short-
ening his grasp upon the reins, as if to signify that the
interview was at an end.
Amber sat back, annoyed by the fellow's impudence
yet sensitive to a suspicion that Ram Nath was play-
ing his part better than his passenger, that the rebuke
was merited by one who had ventured to speak of secret
things in a land whose very stones have ears. For all
that he could say their every move was watched by
invisible spies, of whom the rock-strewn waste through
which they sped might well harbour a hidden legion.
. . . But perhaps, after all, Ram Nath had nothing
whatever to do with Labertouche. Undeniable as had
been his wink, it might well have been nothing more
than an impertinence. At the thought Amber's eyes
darkened and hardened and he swore bitterly beneath
his breath. If that were so, he vowed, the tonga-wallah
would pay dearly for the indiscretion. He set his wits
to contrive a way to satisfy his doubts.
Meanwhile the tonga rocked and bounded fiendishly


THE TONGA
189
over an infamous parody of a road, turning and twist-
ing between huge boulders and in and out of pebbly
nullahs, Ram Nath tooling it along with the hand of a
master. But all his attention was of necessity centred
upon the ponies, and presently his tulwar slipped from
his knees and clattered upon the floor of the tonga.
Amber saw his chance and put his foot upon it.
"Ram Nath," he asked gently, "have you no other
arms?"
"I were a fool had I not." The man did not deign
to glance round. "He hath need of weapons who doth
traffick with the Chosen of the Voice, sahib."
"Ah, that Voice!" cried Amber in exasperation. "I
grow weary of the word, Ram Nath."
"That may well be," returned the man, imperturb-
able. "None the less it were well for you to have a care
how you fondle the revolver in your pocket, sahib.
Should it by any chance go off and the bullet find lodg-
ment in your tonga-wallah, you are like to hear more of
that Voice, and from less friendly lips."
"I think you have eyes in the back of your head,
Ram Nath." Amber withdrew his hand from his coat-
pocket and laughed shortly as he spoke.
"There is a saying in this country, sahib, that even
the stones in the desert have ears to hear and eyes to
see and tongues withal to tell what they have seen and
heard."
"Ah-h! . . . That is a wise saying, Ram
Nath."
"There be those I could name who would do well to
lay that saying to heart, sahib."


190
THE BRONZE BELL
"You are right, indeed. . . . Now if there be
aught of truth in that saying, and if one were unwisely
to speak a certain name, even here"
"The echo of that name might be heard beyond the
threshold of a certain Gateway, sahib."
Amber grunted and said no more, contented now with
the assurance that he was in truth in touch with Laber-
touche, that this Ram Nath was an employee of the I.
S. S. The wink was now explained away with all the
rest of the tonga-wallah's churlishness. Since there
was a purpose behind it all, the Virginian was satisfied
to contain his curiosity. Nevertheless he could not help
thinking that there must be some fantastic exaggera-
tion in the excessive degree of caution that was thus
tacitly imposed upon him.
He looked round him, narrowing his eyes against the
sun-glare; and the desert showed itself to his eyes a
desert waste and nothing more. The day lay stark
upon its lifeless face and it seemed as if, within the
wide rim of the horizon, no thing moved save the tonga.
They were then passing rapidly over higher ground and
seemed to have drawn a shade nearer to the raw red
northern hills. Amber would have said that they could
never have found a solitude more absolute.
The thought was still in his mind when the tonga
dipped unexpectedly over another ridge, began to
descend another long grade of dead, parched earth, and
discovered some distance ahead of them on the wagon-
track a cloud of dust like a tinted veil, so dense, opaque,
and wide and high that its cause was altogether con-
cealed in its reddish, glittering convolutions. But the


THE TONGA 191
Virginian knew the land well enough to recognise the
phenomenon and surmise its cause, even before his ears
began to be assailed by the hideous rasping screech of
wheels of solid wood revolving reluctantly on rough-
hewn axles guiltless of grease. And as the tonga
swiftly lessened the distance, his gaze, penetrating the
thinning folds, discerned the contours of a cotton-wain
drawn by twin stunted bullocks, patient noses to the
ground, tails a-switch. Beside his cattle the driver
plodded, goad in hand, a naked sword upon his hip.
Within his reach, between the rude bales of the loaded
cart, the butt of a brass-bound musket protruded sig-
nificantly. . . . All men went armed in that wild
land: to do as much is one of the boons attendant upon
citizenship in an unprogressive, independent native
State.
Deliberately enough the carter swerved his beasts
aside to make way for the tonga, lest by undue haste
he should make himself seem other than what he was—a
free man and a Rajput. But when his fierce, hawk-
like eyes encountered those of the dak traveller, his
attitude changed curiously and completely. Recogni-
tion and reverence fought with surprise in his ex-
pression, and as Ram Nath swung the tonga past the
man salaamed profoundly. His voice, as he rose, came
after them, resonant and clear:
"Hail, thou Chosen of the Gateway! Hail!"
Amber neither turned to look nor replied. But his
frown deepened. The incident passed into his history,
marked only by the terse comment it educed from Ram
Nath—words which were flung curtly over the tonga-


192 THE BRONZE BELL
wallah's shoulder: " Eyes to see and ears to hear and a
tongue withal . . . sahib!"
The Virginian said nothing. But it was in his mind
that he had indeed thrust his head into the lion's mouth
by thus adventuring into the territory which every in-
stinct of caution and common-sense proclaimed taboo
to him—the erstwhile kingdom of the Maharana Har
Dyal Rutton. It was, in a word, foolhardy—nothing
less. But for his pledged word it had been so easy to
order Ram Nath to convey him back to Badshah Junc-
tion—to order and to enforce obedience at the pistol's
point, if needs be! Honour held him helpless, bound
upon the Wheel of his Destiny: he must and would go
on. . . .
He sat in silent gloom while sixty minutes were
drummed out by the flying hoofs. The hills folded in
about the way, diverting it hither and yon with raw,
seamed spurs, whose flanks flung back harsh and heavy
echoes of the tonga's flight through riven gulch and
scrub-grown valley. And then it was that Ram Nath
proved his mettle. Hardened himself, he showed no
mercy to his passenger, and never once drew rein,
though the tonga danced from rock to ridge and ridge
to rut and back again, like a tin can on the tail of an as-
tonished dog. As for Amber, he wedged his feet and
held on with both hands, grimly, groaning in spirit
when he did not in the flesh, foreseeing as he did nine
hours more of this heroic torture punctuated only by
brief respites at the end of each stage.


CHAPTER XII
THE LONG DAY
One travels dak by relays casually disposed along the
route at the whim of the native contractor. Between
Badshah Junction and Kuttarpur there were ten stages,
of which the conclusion of the first was at hand—Amber
having all but abandoned belief in its existence.
Slamming recklessly down the bed of an ancient water-
course, the tonga spun suddenly upon one wheel round
a. shoulder of the banks and dashed out upon a rolling
plain, across which the trail snaked to other farther
hills that lay dim and low, a wavy line of blue, upon the
hori2on—the hills in whose heart Kuttarpur itself lay
occult. And, by the roadside, in a compound fenced with
camel-thorn, sat an aged and indigent dak-bungalow,
marking the end of the first stage, the beginning of the
second.
It wore a look of Heaven to the traveller. In the
shade of its veranda he read an urgent invitation to
rest and surcease of sunlight. He approved it thor-
oughly; the ramshackle rest-house itself, the sheds in
the rear for the accommodation of relays, the syce
squatting asleep in the sunshine, the few scrawny
chickens squabbling and scratching over their precari-
ous sustenance in the deep hot dust of the compound,
even the broken tonga reposing with its shafts uplifted
193


194
THE BRONZE BELL
at a piteous angle of decrepitude—all these Amber sur-
veyed with a kindly eye.
Ram Nath reined in with a flourish and lifted a
raucous voice, hailing the syce, while Amber, painfully
disengaging his cramped limbs, climbed down and stum-
bled toward the veranda. The abrupt transition from
violent and erratic motion to a solid and substantial
footing affected him unpleasantly, with an undeniable
qualm; the earth seemed to rock and flow beneath him
as if under the influence of an antic earthquake. He
was for some seconds occupied with the problem of re-
gaining his poise, and it was not until he heard an Eng-
lishwoman's voice uplifted in accents of anger, that he
remembered the other wayfarer with whom he was to
share his tonga, or associated the white-clad figure in
the dark doorway of the bungalow with anything but
the khansamah, coming to greet and cheat the chance-
brought guest.
"Where is that tonga-wallah who deserted me here
last night? " the woman was demanding of Ram Nath,
too preoccupied with her resentment to have eyes for the
other traveller, who at sight of her had stopped and
removed his pith helmet and now stood staring as if he
had come from a land in which there were no women.
"Where," she continued, with an imperative stamp of
a daintily-shod foot, " is that wretched tonga-wallah?"
"Sahiba," protested Ram Nath, with a great show
of deference, " how should I know? Belike he is in Bad-
shah Junction, whither he returned very late last night,
being travel-worn and weary, and where I left him,
being sent with this excellent tonga to take his place."


THE LONG DAY
195
"You were? And why have I been detained here,
alone and unprotected, this long night? Simply be-
cause that other tonga-wallah was a fool, am I to be
imposed upon in this fashion?"
"What am I," whimpered Ram Nath, "to endure
the wrath of the sahiba for a fault that is none of
mine?"
"I beg your pardon, sir," said the girl, turning to
Amber, "but it is very annoying." She looked him
over, first with abstraction, then with a puzzled gather-
ing of her brows, for he was far from her thoughts—
the last person she would have expected to meet in that
place, and very effectually disguised in dust and dirt
besides. "The tire came off the wheel just as we got
here, late yesterday evening, and in trying, or pretend-
ing to try, to fit it on again, that block-head of a tonga-
wallah hammered the rim with a rock as big as his
head and naturally smashed it to kindling-wood. Then,
before I could stop him, he flung himself on the back of
a pony and went away, saying that it was the will of
God that he should return to Badshah for a better
tonga. Since when I have had for company one stable-
scye, one deaf-and-dumb patriarch of a khansamah and
. . . the usual dak-bungalow discomforts—insects,
bad food, and a terrible fear of dacoits."
"I am so sorry, Miss Farrell," Amber put in. "If
I had only been here ..."
The girl gave a little gasp and sat down abruptly in
one of the veranda chairs, thereby threatening it with
instant demolition and herself with a bad spill; for the
chair was feeble with the burden of its many years, and


THE LONG DAY
197
"On a matter of serious business. Please don't ask
me what, just yet; but it's very serious, to my way of
thinking. This happy accident—I count myself a very
happy man to have been so fortunate—only makes my
«rrand the more pleasant."
She regarded him intently, chin in hand, her brown
eyes sedate with speculation, for some time. "I believe
you've been speaking in parables," she asserted, at
length. "If I'm unjust, bear with me; appearances
are against you. There isn't any reason I know of why
you should tell me what brought you here"
"There's every reason, in point of fact, Miss Far-
rell; only ... I can't explain just now."
"Very well," she agreed briskly; "let's be content
with that. I am glad to see you again, truly; and
—we're to travel on to Kuttarpur in the same
tonga?"
"If you'll permit"
"After what I've endured, this awful night, I
"wouldn't willingly let you out of my sight."
"Or any other white man?"
She laughed, pleased. "I presume you're wondering
what I'm doing here?"
"You were to join your father in Darjeeling, I
believe?" he countered, cautious.
"But I found he'd been transferred unexpectedly to
Kuttarpur. So, of course, I had to follow. I tele-
graphed him day before yesterday when I was to ar-
rive at Badshah Junction, and naturally expected he'd
come in person or have some one meet me, but I pre-
sume the message must have gone astray. At all events


198
THE BRONZE BELL
there was no one there for me and I had to come on
alone. It's hardly been a pleasant experience; that
incompetent tonga-wallah behaved precisely as though
he had deliberately made up his mind to delay me.
. . . And the tonga's nearly ready; I must lock my
kit-bag."
She went into the bungalow, leaving him thoughtful,
for perhaps. . . But the back of Ram Nath, as that
worthy busied himself superintending the harnessing
in of fresh ponies, conveyed to him no support for his
half-credited hypothesis that this " accident " had been
carefully planned by Labertouche for Amber's especial
benefit.
He vexed himself with vain speculations, for it was
perfectly certain that he would get nothing in the
way of either denial or confirmation out of Ram Nath;
and, presently, acknowledging this, he called the khan-
samah and ordered a peg for the sake of the dust in his
throat.
The girl joined him on the veranda in due course,
very demure and sweet to look upon in her travelling-
dress of light pongee and her pith helmet, whose green
under-brim and puggaree served very handsomely to
set off her fair colouring. If she overlooked the adora-
tion of his eyes, she was rather less than woman; for
it was in them, plain to be seen for the looking. The
khansamah followed her from the bungalow, stagger-
ing under the weight of her box and kit-bag, and with
Ram Nath's surly assistance made them fast to the front
seat. While Amber gave the girl his hand to help her
to her place, and lifted himself to her side in a mute








THE LONG DAY
199
glow of ecstasy. Fate, he thought with reason, was most
kind to him.
They rattled headlong from the compound, making
for the distant hills of blue. The girl drew down her
puggaree, with its soft, thin folds sheltering the pure
contours of her face from the dust and burning sun-
glare. He watched her hungrily, holding his breath
as the thought came to him that he was seated elbow
to elbow with the woman who was to be his wife, his
hand still a-tingle with the reminiscence of her gloved
fingers that had touched it so transiently. She caught
his intent look and smiled, her eyes lustrous through
the veiling.
She was very tired after her night-long vigil, and
after a few words of commonplace as they drew away
from the station, he forebore to weary her with talk,
and a silence as sweet as communion lengthened be-
tween them as the stage lengthened. He was very in-
tent upon her presence; the consciousness of her there
beside him seemed, at times, almost suffocating. He
could by no means forget that she had in a curious way
been assigned to him—set aside to be his wife, the
partner of all his days; and she tolerated him kindly,
all unsuspicious of the significance of his advent into
her life. ... If she were made to suspect, to under-
stand, what effect would it have upon their relations,
slight and but lately established as they were? Would
she shrink from or encourage him?
His wife! He wagged his head in solemn stupefac-
tion, trying to appreciate the intangible, the chimeri-
cal dream of yesterday resolved into the actuality of


200
THE BRONZE BELL
to-day; realising that, even when most intrigued by
the adventure of which she was at once the cause and
the prize, even though he had met and been charmed by
her before becoming enmeshed in its web of incident, he
had thought of her with a faint trace of incredulity,
as though she had been a thing of fable, trapped with
all the fanciful charms of beleaguered fairy princesses,
rather than a living woman of flesh and fire and blood
—such as she proved to be who rode with him, her
thoughts drowsily astray in the vastnesses of her in-
scrutable, virginal moods.
To think that she was foreordained to be his wife
was not more unbelievable than the consciousness that
he, her undeclared lover, her predestined mate and pro-
tector, was listlessly permitting her to delve further
into the black heart of a land out of which he had
promised to convey her with all possible speed, for the
salvation of her body and soul. . . . Yet what could
he do, save be passive for the time, and wait upon the
turn of events? He could not, dared not seize her in
his arms and insist that she love him, marry him, fly with
him—all within the compass of an hour or even of a
day. For words of love came haltingly to his un-
skilled tongue, though they came from a surcharged
heart, and to him the strategy of love was as a sealed
book, at whose contents he could but guess, and that
with a diffidence and distrust sadly handicapping to one
who had urgent need of expedition in his courting.
With a rueful smile and a perturbed heart he pon-
dered his problem. The second stage wore away with-
out a dozen words passing between them; so also the


THE LONG DAY
203
ments and gaslights, of shops and theatres, of home
and family ties . . .
But India she knew. "I sometimes fancy," she told
him with the conscious laugh that deprecates a con-
fessed superstition, "that I must have lived here in
some past incarnation." She paused, but he did not
speak. "Do you believe in reincarnation?" Again he
had no answer for her, though temporarily he saw the
daylight as darkness. "It's hard to live here for long
and resist belief in it. . . . But as a matter of fact
I seem to understand these people better than they 're
understood by most of my people. Don't you think
it curious? Perhaps it's merely intuition"
"That's the birthright of your sex," he said, rousing.
"On the other hand, you have to" remember that your
father is one of a family that for generations has served
the Empire. And your mother?"
"She, too, came of an Anglo-Indian family. In-
deed, they met and courted here, though they were
married in England. ... So you think my insight
into native character a sort of birthright—a sense
inherited?"
"Perhaps—something of the sort."
"You may be right. We'll never know. At all
events, I seem to have a more—more painful compre-
hension of the native than most of the English in this
country have; I seem to feel, to sense their motives, their
desires, aspirations, even sometimes their untranslatable
thoughts. I believe I understand perfectly their feel-
ing toward us, the governing race."
"Then," said Amber, "you know something his


204
THE BRONZE BELL
Highness the Viceroy himself would give his ears to be
sure of."
"I know that; but I do."
"And that feeling is?"
"Not love, Mr. Amber."
"Much to the contrary?"
Very much," she affirmed with deep conviction.
"This 'Indian unrest' one reads of in the papers
is not mere gossip, then?"
"Anything but that; it's the hidden fire stirring
within the volcano we told ourselves was dead. The quiet
of the last fifty years has been not content but slumber;
deep down there has always been the fire, slow, deadly,
smouldering beneath the ashes. The Mutiny still lives
in spirit; some day it will break out afresh. You must
believe me—I know." The more we English give our
lives to educate the natives, the further we spread the
propaganda of discontent; day by day we're teaching
them to understand that we are no better than they, no
more fit to rule; they are beginning to look up and to
see over the rim of the world—and we have opened their
eyes. They have learned that Japanese can defeat
Caucasians, that China turns in its sleep, that England
is no more omnipotent than omniscient. They've heard
of anarchy and socialism and have learned to throw
bombs. Only the other day a justice in Bengal was
killed by a bomb. ... I fancy I talk," the girl
broke off with her clear laugh, "precisely like my
father, who talks precisely as a political pamphleteer
writes. You'll see when you meet him."
"Do you take much interest in politics?"


THE LONG DAY
205
"No more than the every-day Englishwoman; it's
one of our staples of conversation, when we've exhausted
the weather, you know. But I'm not in the least ad-
vanced, if that's what you mean; I hunger after
fashion-papers and spend more time than I ought, de-
vouring home-made trash imported in paper-covers. I
only feel what I feel by instinct—as I said awhile ago."
Perhaps if he had known less about the girl, he would
have attached less importance to her statements. As it
was, she impressed him profoundly. He pondered her
words deeply, storing them in his memory, remember-
ing that another had spoken in the same manner—one
for whose insight into the ways of the native he had
intense respect.
As the slow afternoon dragged out its blazing hours,
their spirits languished, and they fell silent, full weary
and listless. Towards the last quarter of the journey
their road forsook the spacious, haggard plain and
again entered a hilly country, but this time one wherein
there was no lack either of water or of life: a green
and fertile land parcelled into farms and dotted with
villages.
Night overtook the tonga when it was close upon
Kuttarpur, swooping down upon the world like a blanket
of darkness, at the moment that the final relay of ponies
was being hitched in. The sun dipped behind the encir-
cling hills; the west blazed with the lambent flame of
fire-opal; the wonderful translucent blue of the sky
shaded suddenly to deep purple lanced by great shafts
of mauve and amethyst light, and in the east stars
popped out; the hills shone like huge, crude gems—


206
THE BRONZE BELL
sapphire, jade, jasper, malachite, chalcedony—their
valleys swimming with mists of mother-of-pearl. . . .
And it was night, the hills dark and still, the sky a
deeper purple and opaque, the ruddy fires of wayfarers
on the roadside leaping clear and bright.
With fresh ponies the tonga took the road with a
wild initial rush soon to be moderated, when it began
to climb the last steep grade to the pass that gives
access to Kuttarpur from the south. For an hour the
road toiled up and ever upward; steep cliffs of rock
crowded it, threatening to push it over into black
abysses, or to choke it off between towering, formidable
walls. It swerved suddenly into a broad, clear space.
The tonga paused. Voluntarily Ram Nath spoke for
almost the first time since morning.
"Kuttarpur," he said, with a wave of his whip.
Aloof, austere and haughty, the City of Swords sits
in the mouth of a ravine so narrow that a wall no more
than a hundred yards in length is sufficient to seal its
southerly approach. Beneath this wall, to one side of
the city gate, a river flows from the lake that is Kut-
tarpur's chiefest beauty. Within, a multitude of dwell-
ings huddles, all interpenetrated by streets and back-
ways so straitened and sinuous as scarcely to permit
the passage of an elephant from the Maharana's herd;
congested in the bottom of the valley, the houses climb
tier upon tier the flanking hillsides, until their top-
most roofs threaten even the supremacy of that miracle
in white marble, the Raj Mahal.
Northwards the palace of Khandawar's kings stands,
exquisite, rare, and marvellous, unlike any other build-


208
THE BRONZE BELL
he chose to, he applied his whip, and the ponies stretched
out, the tonga plunging on their heels down the steep
hillside, like an ungoverned, ungovernable thing, mad-
dened. Within a quarter of an hour they were career-
ing through the city of tents on the parked plain before
the southern wall. In five minutes more they drew up
at the main city gate to parley with the Quarter
Guard.
Here they suffered an exasperating delay. It ap-
peared that the gates were shut at sundown, in defer-
ence to custom immemorial. Between that hour and
sunrise none were permitted to pass either in or out
without the express sanction of the State. The com-
mander of the guard instituted an impudent catechism,
in response to which Ram Nath discovered the several
identities and estates of his charges. The commander
received the information with impartial equanimity and
retired within the city to confer with his superiors.
After some time a trooper was sent to advise the travel-
lers that the tonga would be permitted to enter with the
understanding that the unaccredited Englishman
(meaning Amber) would consent to lodge for the night
in no other spot than the State rest-house beyond the
northern limits of the city.
Amber agreed. The trooper saluted with much
deference and withdrew. And for a long time nothing
happened; the gates remained shut, the postern of the
Quarter Guard irresponsive to Ram Nath's repeated
summons. His passengers endured with what patience
they could command; they were aware that it was neces-
sary to obtain from some quarter official sanction for


THE LONG DAY
209
the opening of the gates, but they had understood that
it had already been obtained.
Abruptly the peace of the night was shattered, and
the hum of the encampment behind them with the roar
of the city before them was dwarfed, by a dull and
thunderous detonation of cannon from a terrace of the
palace. The tonga ponies reared and plunged, Ram
Nath mastering them with much difficulty. Sophia
was startled, and Amber himself stirred uneaily on his
perch.
"What now? " he grumbled. "You'd think we were
visitors of state and had to be durbarred!"
Far up on the heights a second red flame stabbed the
night, and again the thunder pealed. Thereafter gun
after gun bellowed at imperative, stately intervals.
"Fifteen," Amber announced after a time. "Isn't
this something extraordinary, Miss Farrell?"
"Perhaps," she suggested, "there's a native poten-
tate arriving at the northern gate. They're very punc-
tilious about their salutes, you know."
Another crash silenced her. Amber continued to
count. "Twenty-one," he said when it seemed that
there was to be no more cannonading. "Isn't that a
royal salute?"
"Yes," said the girl; "four more guns than the
Maharana of Khandawar himself is entitled to."
"How do you explain it?"
"I don't," she replied simply. "Can you?"
He was dumb. Could it be possible that this imperial
greeting was intended for the man supposed to be the
Maharana of Khandawar—Har Dyal Rutton? He


210 THE BRONZE BELL
glanced sharply at the girl, but her face was shadowed;
and he believed she suspected nothing.
A great hush had fallen, replacing the rolling thun-
der of the State ordnance. Even the voice of the city
seemed moderate, subdued. In silence the massive
gates studded with sharp-toothed elephant-spikes swung
open.
With a grunt, Ram Nath cracked his whiplash and
the tonga sped into the city. Amber bent forward.
"What's the name of that gate, Ram Nath—if you
happen to know?"
"That," said the tonga-wallah in a level voice, "is
known as the Gateway of Swords, sahib." He added in
his own good time: " But not the Gateway of Swords."
Amber failed to educe from him any satisfactory ex-
planation of this orphic utterance.


CHAPTER XIII
THE PHOTOGRAPH
That same night Amber dined at the Residency, on the
invitation of Raikes, the local representative of Govern-
ment, seconded by the insistence of Colonel Farrell. It
developed that Sophia's telegram had somehow been lost
in transit, and Farrell's surprise and pleasure at sight
of her were tempered only by his keen appreciation of
Amber's adventitious services, slight though they had
been. He was urged to stay the evening out, before pro-
ceeding to his designated quarters, and the reluctance
with which he acceded to this arrangement which worked
so happily with his desires, may be imagined.
Their arrival coincided with the dinner-hour; the
meal was held half an hour to permit them to dress.
Raikes put a room at Amber's disposal, and the Vir-
ginian contrived to bathe and get into his evening
clothes within less time than had been allowed him.
Sophia, contrary to the habit of her sex, was little
tardier. At thirty minutes past eight they sat down to
dine, at a table in the garden of the Residency.
Ease of anxiety was more than food and drink to
Amber; his feeling of relief, to have convoyed Sophia
to the company and protection of Anglo-Saxons like
himself, was intense. Yet he swallowed his preliminary
brandy-peg in a distinctly uncomfortable frame of
mind, strangely troubled by the reflection that round
311


212
THE BRONZE BELL
that lone white table was gathered together the known
white population of the State; a census of which ac-
counted for just five souls.
In the encompassing, exotic gloom of that blue
Indian night—the kind of night that never seems
friendly to the Occidental but forever teems with hints
of tragic mystery—the cloth, lighted by shaded candles,
shone as immaculate and lustrous as an island of snow
in a sea of ink—as a good deed in a naughty world.
Its punctilious array of crystal and silver was no more
foreign to the setting than were the men who sat round
it, stiff in that black-and-white armour of civilisation,
impregnable against the insidious ease of the East, in
which your expatriate Englishman nightly encases him-
self wherever he may be, as loath to forego the ceremony
of "dressing for dinner" as he would be to dispense
with letters from Home.
Raikes presided, a heavy man with the flaming red
face of one who constitutionally is unable to tan; of mid-
dle-age, good-natured, mellow, adroit of manner. On
his one hand sat Amber, over across f rom Sophia. Next
to Amber sat Farrell, tall and lean, sad of eye and slow
of speech, his sun-faded hair and moustache streaked
with grey setting off a dark complexion and thin, fine
features. He wore the habit of authority equally with
the irascibility of one who temporizes with his liver.
Opposite him was a young, mild-eyed missionary, too
new in the land to have lost his illusions or have blunted
the keen edge of his enthusiasms; a colourless person
with a finical way of handling his knife and fork, who
darted continually shy, sidelong glances at Sophia, or


THE PHOTOGRAPH
213
interpolated eager, undigested comments, nervously into
the conversation.
The table-talk was inconsequent; Amber took a cour-
teous and easy part in it without feeling that any strain
was being put Upon his intelligence. His attention was
centred upon the woman who faced him, flushed with
gaiety and pleasure, not alone because she was once more
with her father, but also because she unexpectedly was
looking her best. If she had been well suited in her
tidy pongee travelling costume, she found her evening
gown no less becoming. It was a black affair, very
simple and individual; her shoulders rose from it with
intensified purity of tone, like fair white ivory gleaming
with a suggestion of the sleek sheen of satin; their
strong, clean lines rounded bewitchingly into the fair,
slender neck upholding the young head with its deftly
coiffed crown of bronze and gold. . . .
Tall, well-trained, silent servants moved like white-
robed wraiths behind the guests; the dishes of the many
courses disappeared and were replaced in a twinkling,
as if by slight of hand. They were over plentiful; Am-
ber was relieved when at length the meal was over, and
Miss Farrell having withdrawn in conformance with
inviolable custom, the cloth was deftly whisked away
and cigars, cigarettes, liqueurs, whiskey and soda were
served.
Amber took unto himself a cigar and utilised an ob-
servation of the Political's as a lever to swing the con-
versation to a plane more likely to inform him. Far-
rell had grumbled about the exactions of his position as
particularly instanced by the necessity of his attending


214
THE BRONZE BELL
tedious and tiresome native ceremonies in connection
with the tamasha.
"What's, precisely, the nature of this tamasha,
Colonel Farrell?"
"Why, my dear young man, I thought you knew.
Isn't it what you came to see?"
"No," Amber admitted cautiously; " I merely heard
a rumour that there was something uncommon afoot.
Is it really anything worth while?"
"Rather," Raikes interjected drily; ''the present
ruler's abdicating in favour of his son, a child of
twelve. That puts the business in a class by itself."
"There's been one precedent, hasn't there? " said the
missionary, pretending to be at ease with a cigarette.
"The Holkar of Indore?"
"Yes," agreed Farrell; "a similar case, to be
sure."
"But why should a prince hand over the reins of
government to a child of twelve? There must be some
reason for it. Isn't it known?" asked Amber.
"Who can fathom a Hindu's mind?" grunted Far-
rell. "I daresay there's some scandalous native intrigue
at the bottom of it. Eh, Raikes?"
The Resident shook his head. "Don't come to this
shop for information about what goes on in Khandawar.
I doubt if there's another Resident in India who knows
as little of the underhand devilment in his State as I
do. His Majesty the Rana loves me as a cheetah loves
his trainer. He's an intractable rascal."
"They grease the wheels of the independent native
States with intrigue," Farrell explained. "I know


THE PHOTOGRAPH
215
from sore experience. And your Rajput is the deepest
of the lot. I don't envy Raikes, here."
"The man who can guess what a Rajput intends to
do next is entitled to give himself a deal of credit,"
commented the Resident, with a short laugh.
"I've travelled a bit," continued Farrell, "and have
seen something of the courts of Europe, but I've yet
to meet a diplomat who's peer to the Rajput. You hear
a great deal about the astuteness of the Russians and
the yellow races, and a Greek or Turk can he with
a fairly straight face when he sees a profit in deception,
but none of them is to be classed with these people. If
we English ever decide to let India rule herself, her
diplomatic corps will be recruited exclusively from the
flower of Rajputana's chivalry."
"I'll back Salig Singh against the field," said Raikes
grimly; "he'll be dean of the corps, when that time
comes. He'd rather conspire than fight, and the Raj-
puts—of course you know—are a warrior caste. I've
a notion "—the Resident leaned back and searched the
shadows for an eavesdropper—" I've a notion," he con-
tinued, lowering his voice, " that the Rana has got him-
self in rather deep in some rascality or other, and wants
to get out before he's put out. There's bazaar gossip.
. . . Hmm! Do you speak French, Mr. Amber?"
"A little," said Amber in that tongue. "And I,"
nodded the missionary. The talk continued in the lan-
guage of diplomacy.
"Bazaar gossip ?"Farrell repeated enquiringly.
"There have been a number of deaths from cholera
in the Palace lately, the grand vizier's amongst them."


216
THE BRONZE BELL
"White arsenic cholera?"
"That, and the hemp poison kind."
"Refractory vizier?" questioned Farrell. "The kind
that wants to retrench and institute reforms—railways
and metalled roads and so forth?"
"No; he was quite suited to his master. But the
bazaar says Naraini took a dislike to him for one
reason or another."
"Naraini?" queried Amber.
"The genius of the place." Raikes nodded toward
the Raj Mahal, shining like a pearl through the dark-
ness on the hill-side over against the Residency. "She's
Salig's head queen. At least that's about as near to her
status as one can get. She's not actually his queen,
but some sort of a heritage from the Rutton dynasty—
I hardly know what or why. Salig never married her,
but she lives in the Palace, and for several years—ever
since she first began to be talked about—she's ruled
from behind the screen with a high hand and an out-
stretched arm. So the bazaar says."
"I've heard she was beautiful," Farrell observed.
"As beautiful as a peri, according to rumour. You
never can tell; very likely she's a withered old hag;
nine out of ten native women are, by the time they're
thirty." Raikes jerked the glowing end of his cigar
into the shrubbery and reverted to English. "Shall
we join Miss Farrell?"
They arose and left the table to the servants, the
Resident with Amber following Farrell and young
Clarkson.
"Old women we are, forever talking scandal," said


THE PHOTOGRAPH 217
Raikes, with a chuckle. "Oh, well! it's shop with us,
you know."
"Of course. . . . Then I understand that the tam-
asha is the reason for the encampment beyond the
walls?"
"Yes; they've been coming in for a week. By to-
morrow night, I daresay, every rajah, prince, thakur,
baron, fief, and lord in Rajputana, each with his ' tail,'
horse and foot, will be camped down before the walls of
Kuttarpur. You've chosen an interesting time for your
visit. It'll be a sight worth seeing, when they begin
to make a show. My troubles begin with a State ban-
quet to-morrow that I'd give much to miss; however,
I'll have Farrell for company."
"I'm glad to be here," said Amber thoughtfully.
Could it be possible that the proposed abdication of
Salig Singh in favour of his son were merely a cloak
to a conspiracy to restore to power the house of Rut-
ton? Or had the tamasha been arranged in order to
gather together all the rulers in Rajputana without
exciting suspicion, that they might agree upon a con-
certed plan of mutiny against the Sirkar? This state
affair of surpassing importance had been arranged for
the last day of grace allotted the Prince of the house
of Rutton. What had it to do with the Gateway of
Swords, the Voice, the Mind, the Eye, the Body, the
Bell?
"By the way, Mr. Raikes," said the Virginian sud-
denly, " what do they call the gate by which we entered
the city—the southern gate?"
"The Gateway of Swords, I believe."


218
THE BRONZE BELL
Farrell, on the point of entering the house, overheard
and turned. "Is that so? Why, I thought that gate-
way was in Kathiapur."
"I've heard of a Gateway of Swords in Kathiapur,"
Raikes admitted. "Never been there, myself."
"Kathiapur?"
"A dead city, Mr. Amber, not far away—originally
the capital of Khandawar. It's over there in the hills to
the north, somewhere. Old Rao Rutton, founder of the
old dynasty, got tired of the place and caused it to be
depopulated, building Kuttarpur in its stead—I believe,
to commemorate some victory or other. That sort of
thing used to be quite the fashion in India, before we
came." Raikes fell back, giving Amber precedence as
they entered the Residency. "By the way, remind me,
if you think of it, Colonel Farrell, to get after the
telegraph-clerk to-morrow. There's a new man in
charge—a Bengali babu—and I presume he's about as
worthless as the run of his kind."
Amber made a careful note of this information; he
was curious about that babu.
In the drawing-room Raikes and Farrell impressed
Clarkson for three-handed Bridge. Sophia did not care
to play and Amber was ignorant of the game—a defect
in his social education which he found no cause to
regret, since it left him in undisputed attendance upon
the girl.
She had seated herself at a warped and discouraged
piano, for which Raikes had already apologised; it was,
he said, a legacy from a former Resident. For years its
yellow keys had not known a woman's touch such as that


THE PHOTOGRAPH
219
to which they now responded with thin, cracked voices;
the girl's fine, slender fingers wrung from them a plain-
tive, pathetic parody of melody. Amber stood over her
with his arms folded on the top of the instrument, com-
fortably unconscious that his pose was copied from any
number of sentimental photogravures and "art photo-
graphs." His temper was sentimental enough, for that
matter; the woman was very sweet and beautiful in his
eyes as she sat with her white, round arms flashing over
the keyboard, her head bowed and her face a little
averted, the long lashes low upon her cheeks and tremu-
lous with a fathomless emotion. It was his thought that
his time was momentarily becoming shorter, and that
just now, more than ever, she was very distant from his
arms, something inaccessible, too rare and delicate and
fine for the rude possession of him who sighed for his
own unworthiness.
Abruptly she brought both hands down upon the keys,
educing a jangled, startled Crash from the tortured
wires, and swinging round, glanced up at Amber with
quaint mirth trembling behind the veil of moisture in
her misty eyes.
"India!" she cried, with a broken laugh: "India
epitomised: a homesick, exiled woman trying to drag a
song of Home from the broken heart of a crippled
piano! That is an Englishwoman's India: it's our life,
ever to strive and struggle and contrive to piece to-
gether out of makeshift odds and ends the atmosphere
of Home! . . . It's suffocating in here. Come." She
rose with a quick shrug of impatience, and led the way
back to the gardens.


2£0
THE BRONZE BELL
The table had been removed together with the chairs
and candles; nothing remained to remind them of the hour
just gone. The walks were clear of servants. Their
only light came from the high arch of stars smitten
to its zenith with pale, quivering waves of light from
the moon invisible behind the hills. Below them the city
hummed like a disturbed beehive. Somewhere afar a
gentle hand was sweeping the strings of a zitar, sound-
ing weird, sad chords. The perfumed languor of the
night weighed heavily upon the senses, like the woven
witchery of some age-old enchantment. . ...
Pensive, the girl trained her long skirts heedlessly
over the dew-drenched grasses, Amber at her side, him-
self speechless with an intangible, ineluctable, unreason-
ing sense of expectancy. Never, he told himself, had a
lover's hour been more auspiciously timed or staged;
and this was his hour, altogether his! . . .If only he
might find the words of wooing to which his lips were
strange! He dared not delay; to-morrow it might be
too late; in the womb of the morrow a world of chances
stirred—contingencies that might in a breath set them a
world apart.
They found seats in the shadow of a pepul.
"You must be tired, Mr. Amber," she said. "Why
don't you smoke?"
"I hadn't thought of it, and hadn't asked per-
mission."
"Please do. I like it."
He found his cigarette-case and struck a match,
Sophia watching intently his face in the rosy glow of
the little, flickering flame.



"the woman was very sweet and beautiful in his eyes
as she sat with her white, round arms
flashing over the keyboard"





THE PHOTOGRAPH 221
"Are you in the habit of indulging in protracted
silences? " she rallied him gently. "Between friends of
old standing they're permissible, I believe, but"
"A day's journey by tonga matures acquaintance-
ships wonderfully," he observed abstrusely.
"Indeed?" She laughed.
"At least, I hope so."
He felt that he must be making progress; thus far
he had been no less inane than any average lover of the
stage or fiction. And he wondered: was she laughing
at him, softly, there in the shadows?
"You see," she said, amused at his relapse into rev-
erie, " you're incurable and ungrateful. I'm trying my
best to be attractive and interesting, and you won't pay
me any attention whatever. There must be something
on your mind. Is it this mysterious errand that brings
you so unexpectedly to India—to Kuttarpur, Mr.
Amber?"
"Yes," he answered truthfully.
"And you won't tell me?"
"I think I must," he said, bending forward.
There sounded a stealthy rustling in the shrubbery.
The girl drew away and rose with a startled exclama-
tion. With a bound, a man in native dress sped from
the shadows and paused before them, panting.
Amber jumped up, overturning his chair, and in-
stinctively feeling for the pistol that was with his
travelling things, upstairs in the Residency.
The native reassured him with a swift, obsequious
gesture. "Pardon, sahib, and yours, sahiba, if I
have alarmed you, but I am come on an errand of


222
THE BRONZE BELL
haste, seeking him who is known as the Sahib David
Amber."
"I am he. What do you want with me?"
"It is only this, that I have been commissioned to bear
to you, sahib."
The man fumbled hurriedly in the folds of his sur-
tout, darting quick glances of apprehension round the
garden. Amber looked him over as closely as he could
in the dim light, but found him wholly a stranger
—merely a low-caste Hindu, counterpart of a million
others to be encountered daily in the highways and
bazaars of India. The Virginian's rising hope that he
might prove to be Labertouche failed for want of en-
couragement ; the intruder was of a stature the English-
man could by no means have counterfeited.
"From whom come you?" he demanded in the
vernacular.
"Nay, a name that is unspoken harms none, sahib."
The native produced a small, thin, flat package and
thrust it into Amber's hands. "With permission, I go,
sahib; it were unwise to linger"
"There is no answer?"
"None, sahib." The man salaamed and strode away,
seeming to melt soundlessly into the foliage.
For a minute Amber remained astare. The girl's
voice alone roused him.
"I think you are a very interesting person, Mr. Am-
ber," she said, resuming her chair.
"Well! . . . I begin to think this a most uncom-
monly interesting country." He laughed uncertainly,
turning the package over and over. "Upon my


THE PHOTOGRAPH 223
word !I haven't the least notion what this can
be!"
"Why not bring it to the light, and find out?"
He assented meekly, having been perfectly candid in
his assertion that he had no suspicion of what the packet
might contain, and a moment later they stood beneath
the window of the Residency, from which a broad shaft
of light streamed out like vaporised gold.
Amber held the packet to the light; it was oblong,
thin, stiff, covered with common paper, guiltless of
superscription, and sealed with mucilage. He tore the
covering, withdrew the enclosure, and heard the girl
gasp with surprise. For himself, he was transfixed with
consternation. His look wavered in dismay between
the girl and the photograph in his hand—her photo-
graph, which had been stolen from him aboard the
Poonah.
She extended her hand imperiously. "Give that to
me, please, Mr. Amber," she insisted. He surrendered
it without a word. "Mr. Amber!" she cried in a voice
that quivered with wonder and resentment.
He faced her with a hang-dog air, feeling that now
indeed had his case been made hopeless by this con-
tretemps. "Confound Labertouche!" he cried in his
ungrateful heart. "Confound his meddling mystery-
mongering and hokus-pokus!"
"Well?" enquired the girl sharply.
"Yes, Miss Farrell." He could invent nothing else
to say.
"You—you are going to explain, I presume."
He shook his head in despair. "No-o ..."


THE BRONZE BELL
"What!"
"I've no explanation whatever to make—that'd be
adequate, I mean."
He saw that she was shaken by impatience. "I
think," said she evenly—" I think you will find it
best to let me judge of that. This is my photograph.
How do you come to have it? What right have you
to it?"
"I . . . ah . . ." He stammered and paused,
acutely conscious of the voices of the Englishmen, Far-
rell, Raikes, and young Clarkson, drifting out through
the open window of the drawing-room. "If you'll be
kind enough to return to our chairs," he said, " I'll try
to make a satisfactory explanation. I'd rather not be
overheard."
The girl doubted, was strongly inclined to refuse
him; then, perhaps moved to compassion by his abject
attitude, she relented and agreed. "Very well," she
said, and retaining the picture moved swiftly before him
into the shadowed garden. He lagged after her, in-
venting a hundred impracticable yarns. She found her
chair and sat down with a manner of hauteur moderated
by expectancy. He took his place beside her.
"Who sent you this photograph of me? " she began
to cross-examine him.
"A friend."
"His name?"
"I'm sorry I can't tell you just now."
"Oh! . . . Why did he send it?"
"Because ..." In his desperation it occurred
to him to tell the truth—as much of it, at least, as his


226
THE BRONZE BELL
"Because I'd told him."
"I don't mean that. Why do you value it so
highly?"
"Because of its original." He took heart of despair
and plunged boldly.
She looked him over calmly. "Do you mean me
to understand that you told this friend you had
followed me to India because you were in love with
me?"
"Precisely. . . . Thank you."
She laughed a little, mockingly. "Are you, Mr.
Amber?"
"In love with you? . . . Yes."
"Oh!" She maintained her impartial and judicial
attitude admirably. "But even were I inclined to be-
lieve that, your whole story is discredited by the simple
fact that through no combination of circumstances
could this picture have come into your possession in
America."
"I give you my word of honor, Miss Far-
rell."
"I wish you wouldn't. If you are perfectly sincere
in asserting that, you force me to think you"
"Mad? I'm not, really," he argued earnestly. "It's
quite true."
"No." She shook her head positively. "You say
you obtained it from a man, which can't be so. There
were only a dozen prints made; four I gave to women
friends in England and seven I sent to people out here.
The other one I have."
"I can only repeat what I have already told you.


THE PHOTOGRAPH 227
There are gaps in the story, I know—incredible gaps;
they can't be bridged, just now. I beg you to believe
me."
"And how soon will you be free to tell me the whole
truth?"
"Only after . . . we're married."
She laughed adorably. "Mr. Amber," she protested,
"you are dangerous—you are delightful! Do you
really believe I shall ever marry you?"
"I hope so. I came to India to ask you—to use
every means in my power to make you marry me. You
see, I love you."
"And . . . and when is this to happen, please—
in the name of impudence?"
"As soon as I can persuade you—to-night, if you
will."
"Oh!"
He was obliged to laugh with her at the absurdity of
the suggestion. "Or to-morrow morning, at the very
latest," he amended seriously. "I don't think we dare
wait longer."
"Why is that?"
"Delays are perilous. There might be another
chap."
"How can you be sure there isn't already?"
He fell sober enough at this. "But there isn't, is
there, really?"
She delayed her reply provokingly. At length, "I
don't see why I should say," she observed, " but I don't
mind telling you—no, there isn't—yet." And as she
spoke, Farrell called "Sophia?" from the window of


228
THE BRONZE BELL
the drawing-room. She stood up, answering clearly
with the assurance that she was coming, and began
deliberately to move toward the house.
Amber followed, deeply anxious. "I've not offended
you?"
"No," she told him gravely, "but you have both
puzzled and mystified me. I shall have to sleep on this
before I can make up my mind whether or not to be
offended."
"And . . . will you marry me?"
"Oh, dear! How do I know?" she laughed.
"You won't give me a hint as to the complexion of
my chances?"
She paused, turning. "The chances, Mr. Amber,"
she said without affection or coquetry, " are all in your
favour . . .if you can prove your case. I do like
you very much, and you have been successful in rousing
my interest in you to an astonishing degree. . . .
But I shall have to think it over; you must allow me
at least twelve hours' grace."
"You'll let me know to-morrow morning?"
"Yes."
"Early?"
"You've already been bidden to breakfast by Mr.
Raikes."
"Meanwhile, may I have my photograph?"
"Mine, if you please! . . . I think not; if my
decision is favourable, you shall have it back—after
breakfast."
"Thank you," he said meekly. And as they were
entering the Residency he hung back. "I'm going


OVER THE WATER
«31
too much to hope for, that she should smile upon him
in the morning. . . . Yet he hoped.
Unconscious of the passage of time, he was roused
only by the pausing of the tonga and its escort before
the Gateway of the Elephants—the main octroi gate
in the northern wall of the city. There ensued a brief
interchange of formalities between the sergeant of his
escort and the captain of the Quarter Guard. Then the
tonga was permitted to pass out, and for five minutes
rattled and clattered along the border of the lake, stop-
ping finally at the rest-house.
Alighting in the compound, Amber disbursed a few
rupees to the troopers, paid off Ram Nath—who was
swift to drive off city-wards, in mad haste lest the
gates be shut upon him for the night—and entered the
bungalow. An aged, talkative, and amiable khansamah
met him at the threshold with expressions of exaggerated
respect, no doubt genuine enough, and followed him,
a mumbling shadow, as the Virginian made a brief round
of inspection.
Standing between the road and the water, the rest-
house proved to be moderately spacious and clean;
on the lake-front it opened upon a marble bund, or
landing-stage, its Up lapped by whispering ripples of
the lake. Amber went out upon this to discover, sepa-
rated from him by little more than half a mile of black
water, the ghostly white walls of the Raj Mahal climbing
in dim majesty to the stars. A single line of white lights
outlined the topmost parapet; at the water's edge a
single marble entrance was aglow; between the two,
towers and terraces, hanging gardens and white scarp-


232
THE BRONZE BELL
like walls rose in darkened confusion unimaginable—
or, rather, fell like a cascade of architecture, down
the hillside to the lake. A dark hive teeming with
the occult life of unnumbered men and women—Salig
Singh the inscrutable and strong, Naraini the mysteri-
ous, whose loveliness lived a fable in the land, and how
many thousand others—living and dying, working and
idling, in joy and sadness, in hatred and love, weaving
forever that myriad-stranded web of intrigue which is
the life of native palaces . . .
The Virginian remained long in rapt wondering con-
templation of it, until the wind blowing across the waters
had chilled him to the point of shivering; when he
turned indoors to his bed. But he was to have
little rest that night. The khansamah who attended
him had hardly turned low his light when Amber was
disturbed by the noise of an angry altercation in the
compound. He arose and in dressing-gown and slippers
went to investigate, and found Ram Nath in violent
dispute with the sergeant of the escort—which, it ap-
peared, had builded a fire and camped round it in the
compound: a circumstance which furnished food for
thought.
Amber began to suspect that the troops had been
furnished as a guard less of honour than of espionage,
less in formal courtesy than in demonstration of the
unsleeping vigilance of the Eye—kindly assisted by the
Maharana of Khandawar.
A man who, warmed by the ardour of his first love,
feels suddenly the shadow of death falling cold upon
him, is apt to neglect nothing. Amber considered that


OVER THE WATER 233
he had given Ram Nath no commission of any sort, and
bent an attentive ear to the communication which the
tonga-wallah insisted upon making to him.
Ram Nath had returned, he asserted, solely for the
purpose of informing Amber in accordance with his de-
sires. "The telegraph-office for which you enquired,
sahib, stands just within the Gateway of the Elephants,"
he announced. "The telegraph-babu will be on duty
very early in the morning, should you desire still to send
the message."
"Oh, yes," said Amber indifferently. "I'd forgotten.
Thanks."
He returned to his charpoy with spirits considerably
higher. Ram Nath had not winked this time, but the
fact was indisputable that Amber had not expressed
any interest whatever in the location of the telegraph-
office.
Wondering if the telegraph-babu by any chance wore
pink satin, he dozed off on the decision that he would
need to send a message the first thing in the morning.
Some time later he was a second time awakened by
further disputation in the compound. The troopers
were squabbling amongst themselves; he was able to
make this much out in spite of the fact that the sepoys,
recruited exclusively from the native population of
■Khandawar, spoke a patois of Hindi so corrupt that
even an expert in Oriental languages would experience
difficulty in trying to interpret it. Amber did not
weary himself with the task, but presently lifted up his
voice and demanded silence, desiring to be informed if
his sleep was to be continually broken by the bickerings


234
THE BRONZE BELL
of sons of mothers without noses. There followed in-
stantaneous silence, broken by a chuckle and an ap-
plausive " Shabash!" and nothing more.
Amber snuggled down again upon his pillow and
soothed himself with the feel of the pistol that his fingers
grasped beneath the clothes.
A bar of moonlight slipped through the blinds and
fell athwart his eyes. He cursed it bitterly and got up
and moved his charpoy into shadow. The sibilant lisp-
ing of the wavelets against the bund sang him softly
toward oblivion . . . and a convention of water-fowl
went into stormy executive session out in the middle of
the lake. This had to be endured, and in time Amber's
senses grew numb to the racket and he dropped off into
a fitful doze. . . .
Footfalls and hushed voices in the bungalow were
responsible for the next interruption. Amber came to
with a start and found himself sitting up on the edge
of the charpoy, with a dreamy impression that two peo-
ple had been standing over him and had just left the
room, escaping by way of the khansamah's quarters.
He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and went out to
remonstrate vigorously with the khansamah. The lat-
ter naturally professed complete ignorance of the visi-
tation and dwelt with such insistence upon the plausi-
bility of dreams that Amber lost patience and kicked
him grievously, so that he complained with a loud voice
and cast himself at the sahib's feet, declaring that he
was but as the dust beneath them and that Amber was
his father and mother and the light of the Universe
besides. In short, he raised such a rumpus that some


OVER THE WATER
285
of the sepoys came in to investigate and—went out
again, hastily, to testify to their fellows that the hazoor
was a man of fluent wrath, surprisingly versed in the
art and practice of abuse.
Somewhat mollified and reflecting, at the same time,
that this was all but a part of the game, to be expected
by those who patronise rest-houses off the beaten roads
of travel, the Virginian returned to his charpoy and
immediately lapsed into a singularly disquieting dream.
. . . He was strolling by the border of the lake when
a coot swam in and hailed him in English; and when he
stopped to look the coot lifted an A. D. T. messenger-
boy's cap and pleaded with him to sign his name in a
little black book, promising that, if he did so, it would
be free to doff its disguise and be Labertouche again.
So Amber signed "Pink Satin" in the book and the
coot stood up and said, "I'm not Labertouche at all,
but Ram Nath, and Ram Nath is only another name
for Har Dyal Rutton, and besides you had better come
away at once, for the Eye thou dost wear upon thy
finger never sleeps and it's only a paste Token any-
way." Hearing which, Amber caught the coot by the
leg and found that he had grasped the arm of Salig
Singh, whose eyes were both monstrous emeralds without
any whites whatever. And Salig Singh tapped him on
the shoulder and began to say over and over again in a,
whisper . . .
But here Amber another time found himself wide
awake and sitting up, his left hand gripping the wrist
of a native and his right holding his pistol steadily
levelled at the native's breast. While the voice he heard


236 THE BRONZE BELL
was real and no figment of a dream-mused imagination;
for the man was whispering earnestly and repeatedly:
"Hasten, hazoor, for the night doth wane and the
hour is at hand."
"What deviltry's this?" Amber demanded sharply,
with a threatening gesture.
But the native neither attempted to free himself nor
to evade the pistol's mouth. "Have patience, hazoor,"
he begged earnestly, "and make no disturbance. It is
late and the sepoys sleep; if you will be circumspect
and are not afraid"
"Who are you?"
"I was to say, '/ come from you know whom,'
hazoor."
"That all?"
"In the matter of a certain photograph, hazoor."
"By thunder!" Labertouche's name was on Amber's
lips, but he repressed it. "Wait a bit." He gulped
down the last dregs of sleep. "Let me think and—see."
This last was an afterthought. As it came to him
he dropped the pistol by his side and felt for matches in
the pocket of his coat, which hung over the back of a
bedside chair. Finding one, he struck it noiselessly and,
as the tiny flame broadened, drew his captive nearer.
It was a fat, mean, wicked face that stood out against
the darkness: an ochre-tinted face with a wide, loose-
lipped mouth and protruding eyes that blinked nerv-
ously into his. But he had never seen it before.
"Who are you?" He cast away the match as its
flame died and snatched up his weapon.
"I was to say"


OVER THE WATER
237
"I heard that once. What's your name?"
"Dulla Dad, hazoor."
M And who are you from?"
"Hazoor, I was not to say."
"I think you'd better," suggested Amber, with grim
significance.
"I am the hazoor's slave. I dare not say."
"Now look here"
"Hazoor, it was charged upon me to say, '/ come
from you know whom.'"
"The devil it was. . . . Well, what do you want?"
"I was to say, ' Hasten, hazoor, for the night"
"I've heard that, too. You mean you're to lead me
to somebody, somewhere—you can't say where?"
"Aye, hazoor, even so."
"Get over there, in the corner, while I think this
over—and don't move or I'll make you a present of a
nice young bullet, Dulla Dad."
"That is as Allah wills; only remember, hazoor, the
injunction for haste."
The mani a small stunted Mohammedan, sidled fear-
somely over to the spot indicated and waited there,
cringing and supplicating Amber with eloquent ges-
tures. The Virginian watched him closely until com-
forted by the reflection that, had murder been the
object, he had been a dead man long since. Then he
put aside the revolver and began to dress.
"Only Labertouche would have to communicate with
me by such stealth," he considered. "Besides, that
reference to the photograph"
He slipped hurriedly into his clothing and ostenta-


OVER THE WATER
Two-thirds of the way across the Virginian sur-
rendered to his mistrust and drew his pistol. "Dulla
Dad," he said gently; and the man ceased paddling with
a shudder "Dulla Dad, you're taking me to the
palace."
"Yea, hazoor; that is true," the native answered,
his voice quavering.
"Who awaits me there? Answer quickly!"
"Hazoor, it is not wise to speak a name upon the
water, where voices travel far."
"Dulla Dad!"
"Hazoor, I may not say!"
"I think, Dulla Dad, you'd better. If I lose
patience"
"Upon my head be your safety, hazoor! See, you
can fire, and thereafter naught can trouble me. But
I, with a single sweep of this paddle, can overturn us.
Be content, hazoor, for a little time; then shall you
see that naught of harm is intended. My life be forfeit
if I speak not truth, hazoor!"
"You have said it," said Amber grimly, "Row
on." After all, he considered, it might still be Laber-
touche. At first blush it had seemed hardly credible
that the Englishman could have gained a footing in that
vast pile; and yet, it would be like him to seek precisely
such a spot—the very heart of the conspiracy of the
Gateway, if they guessed aright.
The boat surged swiftly on, while again and again
Amber's finger trembled on the trigger. Though al-
ready the white gleaming walls towered above him, it
was not yet too late—not too late; but should he with-


240
THE BRONZE BELL
draw, force Dulla Dad to return, he might miss . . .
what?
He did nothing save resign himself to the issue. As
they drew nearer the moonlit walls he looked in vain
for sign of a landing-stage, and wondered, the lighted
bund that he had seen from over the water being in-
visible to him round an angle of the building. But
Dulla Dad held on without a pause until the moment
when it seemed that he intended to dash the boat bows
first against the stone; then, with a final dextrous twist
of the paddle, he swung at a sharp angle and simultane-
ously checked the speed. Under scant momentum they
slid from moonlight and the clean air of night into a
close well between two walls, and then suddenly beneath
an arch and into a cavernous chamber filled with the
soft murmuring of water—and with darkness.
Here the air was sluggish and heavy and dank with
the odour of slime. Breathing it, seeing nothing save
the spectral gleam of moonlight reflected inwards, hear-
ing nothing save the uncanny lapping and purring of
the ripples, it was not easy to forget the tales men told
of palace corruption and crime—of lovers who had
stolen thus secretly to meet their mistresses, and who
had met, instead, Death; of assassins who had skulked
by such stealthy ways to earn blood-money; of spies,
of a treacherous legion who had gained entry to the
palace by such ways as this—perhaps had accom-
plished their intent and returned to tell the tale, perhaps
had been found in the dawn-light, floating out there
on the lake with drawn, wan faces upturned to the pallid
skies. . . .


OVER THE WATER
241
"Hazoor!"
It was Dulla Dad's voice, sleek with fawning. For
all the repulsiveness of the accents, Amber was not sorry
to hear them. At least the native was human and . ,., .
this experience wasn't, hardly. . . . He leaned to-
ward the man, eyes aching with the futile strain of
striving to penetrate the blackness. He could see noth-
ing more definite than shadows. The boat was resting
motionless on the tide, as if suspended in an abyss of
night, fathomless and empty.
"Well, what now?" he demanded harshly. "Be
careful, Dulla Dad!"
"Still my lord distrusts me? There is naught to
fear, none here to lift hand against you. Your servant
lives but to serve you in all loyalty."
"Indeed?"
"My lord may trust me."
"It seems to me I have—too far."
"My lord will not forget?"
"Be sure of that, Dulla Dad. . . . Well, what are
you waiting for?"
"We are arrived, hazoor," said the native calmly.
"If you will be pleased to step ashore, having care
lest you overturn the boat, the steps are on your left."
"Where? . . .Oh!" Amber's, tentative hand,
groping in obscurity, fell upon a slab of stone,
smooth and slippery, but solid. "You mean here?"
"Aye, hazoor,"
"And what next?"
"I am to wait to conduct you back to your place of
rest."


248
THE BRONZE BELL
"Um-m. You are, eh?" Amber, doubtful, tried
the stone again; it was substantial enough; only the
boat rocked. He struck a match; the short-lived flame
afforded him a feeble, unsatisfactory impression of a
long, narrow, vaulted chamber, whereof the floor was
half water, half stone. There was a landing to the left,
a rather narrow ledge, with a low, heavy door, bossed
with iron, in the wall beyond.
Shaking his head, he lifted himself cautiously out
of the boat. "You stay right there, Dulla Dad," he
warned the native, "until I see what happens. If I
catch you trying to get away—the boat '11 show up
nicely against the opening, you know—I'll give you
cause for repentance."
"I am here, hazoor. Turn you and knock upon the
door thus"—rapping the gunwale of the boat—
"thrice."
Amber obeyed, wrought up now to so high a pitch
of excitement and suspense that he could hardly have
withdrawn had he wished to and been able to force
Dulla Dad to heed him. As he knuckled the third signal,
the door swung slowly inward, disclosing, in a dim
glow of light, stone walls—a bare stone chamber il-
lumined by a single iron lamp hanging in chains from
the ceiling. Across the room a dark entry opened upon
a passageway equally dark.
By the door a servant stood, his attitude deferential.
As the Virginian's gaze fell upon him he salaamed re-
spectfully.
Amber entered, his eyes quick, his right hand in his
pocket and grateful for the cold caress of nickelled


OVER THE WATER
243
steel, his body poised lightly and tensely upon the balls
of his feet—in a word, ready. Prepared against the
worst he was hopeful of the best ■ apprehensive, he re-
minded himself that he had first r et Labertouche under
auspices hardly more prepossessii g than these.
The clang of the door closing behind him rang hol-
lowly in the stillness. The warder moved past him to
the entrance of the corridor. Amber held him with a
sharp question.
"Am I to wait here?"
"For a moment, Heaven-born!" He disappeared.
Without a sound a door at Amber's elbow that had
escaped his cursory notice, so cunningly was it fitted in
the wall, swung open, and a remembered voice boomed
in his ears, not without a certain sardonic inflection:
"Welcome, my lord, welcome to Khandawar!"
Amber swung upon the speaker with a snarl. "Salig
Singh!"
"Thy steward bids thee welcome to thy kingdom,
hazoor!"
Dominating the scene with his imposing presence—
a figure regal in the regimentals of his native army—
the Rajput humbled himself before the Virginian,
dropping to his knee and offering his jewelled sword-
hilt in token of his fealty.
"Oh, get up!" snapped Amber impatiently. "I'm
sick of all this damned tomfoolery. Get up, d'you
hear?—unless you want me to take that pretty sword
of yours and spank you with it!"
A quiver, as of self-repression, moved the body of the
man at his feet; then, with a jangle of spurs, Salig


244
THE BRONZE BELL
Singh leaped up and stood at a distance of two paces,
his head high, his black eyes glittering ominously with
well-nigh the sinister brilliance of his vibrating emerald
aigrette.
"My lord!" he cried angrily. "Are these words to
use to one who offers thee his heart and hand? Is this
insolence to be suffered by a Rajput, a son of Kings?"
"As for that," returned Amber steadily, giving him
look for look, " your grandfather was a bwnia and you
know it. Whether or not you're going to ' suffer ' what
you call my insolence, I don't know, and I don't much
care. You've made a fool of me twice, now, and I'm
tired of it. I give you my word I don't understand
why I don't shoot you down here and now, for I believe
in my heart you're the unholiest scoundrel unhung. Is
that language plain enough for you?"
For an instant longer they faced one another offen-
sively, Amber cool enough outwardly and inwardly boil-
ing with rage that he should have walked into the trap
with his eyes open, Salig Singh trembling with resent-
ment but holding himself in with splendid restraint.
"As for me," continued Amber, "I suspect I'm the
most hopeless ass in the three Presidencies, if that's any
comfort to you, Salig Singh. Now what d'you want
with me?"
A shadowy smile softened the blackness of the Raj-
put's wrath. He shrugged and moved his hands
slightly, exposing their palms, subtly signifying his
submission.
"Thou art my overlord," he said quietly, with a
silky deference. "In time thou wilt see how thou hast


OVER THE WATER
245
wronged me. For the present, I remain thy servant. I
harbour no resentment, I owe thee naught but loyalty.
I await thy commands."
"The dickens you do!" Amber whistled inaudibly,
his eyes narrowing as he pondered the man. "You pro-
test a lot, Salig Singh. If you're so much at my serv-
ice . . . why, prove it."
By way of reply Salig Singh lifted his sword in its
scabbard from its fastenings at his side and, with a
magnificent gesture, cast it clanking to the floor be-
tween them. A heavy English army-pattern revolver
followed it. The Rajput spread out his hands. "Thou
art armed, my lord," he said, " I, at thy mercy. If thou
dost misjudge my purpose in causing thee to be brought
hither, my life is in thy hands."
"Oh, yes." Amber nodded. "That's very pretty.
But presuming I chose to take it?"
"Thou art free as the winds of the morning. See,
then." Salig Singh strode to the outer door and threw
it open. "The way of escape is clear—not even
locked."
The lamplight fell across the stone landing and made
visible the waiting boat with Dulla Dad sitting patiently
at the oar.
"I see," assented Amber. "Well?"
Salig Singh shut the door gently. "Is there more to
say?" he enquired. "I have shown thee that thou art
free."
"Oh, so far as that goes, you've demonstrated pretty
clearly that you're not afraid of me. Of course I know
as well as you do that at the first shot Dulla Dad would


246
THE BRONZE BELL
slip out to the lake and leave me here to die like a rat in
a corner."
"Thou knowest, lord, that no man in Khandawar
would do thee any hurt. Thy person is sacred"
"That's all bosh. You don't expect me to believe
that you still stick to that absurd fiction of yours—
that I'm Rutton?"
"Then mine eyes have played me false, hazoor. Sha-
bash!" Salig Singh bowed resignedly.
"Well, then, what do you want? Why have you
brought me here?"
"Why didst thou come? There was no force used:
thou didst come of thine own will—thine own will, which
is the will of the Body, hazoor!"
"Oh, damnation! Why d'you insist on beating round
the bush forever? You know well why I came. Now,
what do you want?"
"My lord, I move, it seems, in the ways of error. A
little time ago the words of the Voice were made known
to thee in a far land; thou didst answer, coming to this
country. A few days agone I myself did repeat to you
the message of the Bell; thou didst swear thou wouldst
not answer, yet art thou here in Kuttarpur. Am I to
be blamed for taking this for a sign of thy repentance?
i. . . Hazoor, the Body is patient, the Will benignant
and long-suffering. Still is the Gateway open."
"Is that what you wanted to tell me, Saligh Singh?"
"What else? Am I to believe thee a madman, weary
of life, that thou shouldst venture hither with a heart
hardened against the Will of the Body? I seek but
to serve thee in thus daring thy displeasure. Why


248
THE BRONZE BELL
"My life be forfeit if thou dost not return unharmed
to the rest-house ere sunrise. Wilt thou come?"
"To what end, Salig Singh?"
"Furthermore," the Rajput persisted stubbornly,
his head lifted in pride and his nostrils dilated a little
with scorn—" furthermore I offer thee the word of a
Rajput. Thou are my guest, since thou wilt have it
so. No harm shall come to thee, upon my honour."
Curiosity triumphed. Amber knew that he had ex-
acted the most honoured pledge known in Rajputana.
His apprehensions were at rest; nothing could touch him
now—until he had returned to the bungalow. Then, he
divined, it was to be open war—himself and Laber-
touche pitted against the strength of the greatest con-
spiracy known in India since the days of '57. But for
the present, no pledge of any sort had been exacted
of him.
"So be it," he assented on impulse. "I follow."
With no other word Salig Singh turned and strode
down the corridor.


CHAPTER XV
FROM A HIGH PLACE
The passageway was long and dark and given to sud-
den curves and angles, penetrating, it seemed, the very
bowels of the Raj Mahal. It ended unexpectedly
in a low arch through which the two men passed into an
open courtyard, apparently given over entirely to
stables. Despite the lateness of the hour it was tenanted
by several wideawake syces, dancing attendance upon a
pair of blooded stallions of the stud royal, who, saddled,
bridled and hooded, pawed and champed impatiently
in the centre of the yard, making it echo with the ring-
ing of iron on stone and the jingling of their silver
curb-chains.
Salig Singh paused, with a wave of his hand calling
Amber's attention to the superb brutes.
"Thou canst see, hazoor, that all is prepared!"
"For what?"
But Saligh Singh merely smiled enigmatically, and
shaking a patient head, passed on.
A second arch gave upon a corridor which led up-
wards and presently changed into a steep flight of
steps, of ancient stone worn smooth and grooved with
the traffic of generations of naked feet. At the top
they turned aside and passed through a deserted hang-
ing garden, and then, through a heavy door which
Salig Singh unlocked with a private key, into a vast,
249


FROM A HIGH PLACE 251
plants and shrubs threaded by narrow walks that led to
secluded nooks and unsuspected pleasaunces, and lighted
by low-swung festoons of dim lamps, many-coloured.
A banian grew curiously in its midst, and there also
they found a great tank of crystal water with a bed of
brilliant pebbles over which small golden gleaming fish
flashed and loitered. Here, where the walls of acacia,
orange, thuia and pepal shut out every breath of wind,
the air was dense with the cloying sweetness of jasmine,
musk and marigold. . . .
"My lord," said the Maharana, pausing, "if thou
wilt wait here for a little, permitting me to excuse
myself?"
"All right," Amber told him tolerantly. "Run
along."
Salig Singh quietly effaced himself, and the Ameri-
can watched him go with an inward chuckle. "I pre-
sume I'll have to pay for my impudence in the end," he
thought; "but it's costing Salig Singh a good deal to
hold himself in." He was for the time being not ill-
pleased with this phase of his adventure; he had a notion
that this must be a sort of very private pleasure-ground
of the rulers of Khandawar, and that very few, if any,
white people had ever been permitted to inspect it.
What the Maharana's next move would be he had not
the lea?t suspicion; but since he must be content and
abide the developments as they came, he was minded to
amuse himself. He moved away from the cistern, idling
down a path in a direction opposite that taken by
Salig Singh.
An abrupt turn brought him to the outer wall, and


252
THE BRONZE BELL
he stopped to gaze, leaning upon the low marble
balustrade.
From his feet the wall fell away sheer, precipitous, a
hundred feet or more, to another hanging garden like
that which lay behind him. From this there was an-
other stupendous drop. On all sides the marble walls
spread over the hillsides, descending it in great strides
broken by terraces, gardens, paved courts, all white and
silver and deep violet shadow, with here and there a win-
dow glowing softly yellow or a web of saffron rays peep-
ing through the intricacies of a carved stone lattice.
Far below, on the one hand, the lake lay like a sheet of
steel; on the other the city stretched, a huddle of flat
roofs not unlike an armful of child's building blocks.
At that great height the effect was that of peering over
the upper lip of an avalanche of masonry on the point
of tumbling headlong down a mountainside to crush all
beneath it.
In the hush there rose to Amber a muted confusion
of sounds—the blended voices of the multitude that
inhabited the hidden chambers of the palace: the paw-
ing and shrill neighing of the stallions in the lower court-
yard, a shivering clash of steel against steel, some-
where the tinkle of a stringed instrument and a soft
voice singing, a man's accents weighty with authority,
the ripple of a woman's laugh—all relieved against an
undertone like a profound sigh, waning and waxing: the
breathing of the Raj Mahal . . .
Amber turned away to rejoin Salig Singh by the
cistern. But the Rajput was not there; and, pres-
ently, another path tempting him to unlawful explora-


FROM A HIGH PLACE
253
tion, he yielded and sauntered aimlessly away. A sud-
den corner cloaked with foliage brought him to a little
open space, a patch of lawn over which a canopy had
been raised. Beneath this, a woman sat alone. He
halted, thunderstruck.
Simultaneously, with a soft swish of draperies, a
clash of jewelled bracelets, dull and musical, and a flash
of coruscating colour, the woman stood before him,
young, slender, graceful, garbed in indescribable splen-
dour—and veiled.
For the space of three long breaths the Virginian
hesitated, unspeakably amazed. Though she were
veiled, it were deep dishonour for a woman of a Raj-
put's household to be seen by a stranger. It seemed
inexplicable that Salig Singh should have wittingly left
him in any place where he might encounter an inmate
of the zenana. Yet the Maharana must have known.
. . . Amber made an irresolute movement, as if to
go. But it was too late.
With a murmur, inaudible, and a swift, infinitely
alluring gesture, the woman swept the veil away from
her face, and looked him squarely in the eyes. She
moved toward him slowly, swaying, as graceful as a
fawn, more beautiful than any woman he had ever
known. His breath caught in his throat, for sheer
wonder at this incomparable loveliness.
Her face was oval without a flaw, and pale as newly-
minted gold, with a flush of red where the blood ran
warm beneath the skin. Her hair was black as ebony
and finer than the finest silk, rich and lustrous; her jet-
black eyebrows formed a perfect arch. Her mouth


FROM A HIGH PLACE .255
heavily to him and made no resistance when he lifted
her in his arms. The error was fatal; he had designed
to get her on her feet and then stand away. But no
sooner had he raised her and succeeded in disengag-
ing his hands, than soft round arms were clasped
tightly about his neck and her face—if possible, more
ravishing in tears than when first he had seen it—pil-
lowed on his breast. And for the first time she spoke
coherently.
"Aie! " she wailed tremulously. "Aie! Now is the
cup of my happiness full to brimming, now that thou
hast returned to me at last, O my lord! Well-nigh had
I ceased to hope for thee, O Beloved; well-nigh had this
heart of mine grown cold within my bosom, that had no
nourishment save hope, save hope! Day and night I
have watched for thy coming for many years, praying
that thou shouldst return to me ere this frail prettiness
of mine, that made thee love me long ago, should wane
and fade, so that thy heart should turn to other women,
O my husband!"
"Husband! Great—Heavens! Look here, my dear,
hadn't you better come to your senses and let me go
before"
"Let thee go, Lalji, ere what? Ere any come to
disturb us? Nay, but who should come between hus-
band and wife in the first hour of their reunion after
many years of separation? Is it not known—does not
all Khandawar know how I have waited for thee, almost
thy widow ere thy wife, all this weary time? . . .
Or is it that thy heart hath forgotten thy child-bride?
Am I scorned, O my Lord—I, Naraini? Is there no


FROM A HIGH PLACE 257
golden-faced woman who recognised him for her hus-
band. He was wholly dismayed and aghast. But while
he lingered in indecision, staring in the woman's face,
her look of petulance was replaced by one of divine
forgiveness and compassion. And she gave him no time
to think or to avoid her; in a twinkling she had thrown
herself upon him again, was in his arms and crushing
her lips upon his.
"Nay," she murmured, "but I did wrong thee, Be-
loved! Perchance," she told him archly, "thou didst
not think to see me so soon, or in this garden? Per-
chance surprise hath robbed thee of thy wits—and thy
tongue as well, O wordless one? Or thou art overcome
with joy, as I am overcome, and smitten dumb by it, as I
am not? Aho, Lalji! was ever a woman at loss for
words to voice her happiness?" And nestling to him
she laughed quietly, with a note as tender and sweet
as the cooing of a wood-dove to its mate.
"Nay, but there is a mistake." He recovered the
power of speech tardily, and would have put her from
him; but she held tight to him. "I am not thy hus-
band, nor yet a Rajput. I come from America, the far
land where thy husband died. . . . Nay, it doth pain
me to hurt thee so, Ranee, but the mistake is not of my
making, and it hath been carried too far. Thy hus-
band died in my presence"
"It is «o, then!" she cut him short. And his arms
were suddenly empty, to his huge relief. "Indeed they
had warned me that thou wouldst tell this story and
deny me—why, I know not, unless it be that thou art
unworthy of thy lineage, a coward and a weakling!"


FROM A HIGH PLACE 259
rise; for he had little doubt but that he was to die if
he remained obdurate, and the hospitality of the Raj-
put would cease to protect him the moment he set foot
upon the marble bund of his bungalow.
But the woman sprang after him and caught his arm.
"Of thy pity," she begged breathlessly, "hold for a
space until I have taken thought. . . . Thou knowest
that if what thou hast told me be the truth, then am I
widow before my time—widowed and doomed!"
"Doomed?"
"Aye!" And there was real terror in her eyes and
voice. "Doomed to sati. For, since I am a widow—
since thou dost maintain thou art not my husband—
then my face hath been looked upon by a man not of
mine own people, and I am dishonoured. Fire alone can
cleanse me of that defilement—the pyre and the death
by flame!"
"Good God! you don't mean that! Surely that cus-
tom has perished!"
"Thou shouldst know that it dieth not. What to
us women in whose bodies runs the blood of royalty, is
an edict of your English Government? What, the Sir-
kar itself to us in Khandawar?" She laughed bitterly.
"I am a Rohilla, a daughter of kings: my dishonour
may be purged only by flame. Arrel that I should live
to meet with such fate—I, Naraini, to perish in the
flower of my beauty. . . . For I am beautiful, am I
not?" She dropped the veil which instinctively she
had caught across her face, and met his gaze with child-
ish coquetry, torn though she seemed to be by fear and
disappointment.


FROM A HIGH PLACE 261
however hard it be to credit: even so, am / not reward
enough for thy renunciation?"
"I know not thy meaning, Ranee, I"
"Come, then, and I will show thee, my king. Come
thou with me. . . . Nay, why shouldst thou falter?
There is naught for thee to fear—save me." She
tugged at his hand and laughed low, in a voice that
sang like smitten glasses. "Come, Beloved!"
Unwillingly, he humoured her. This could not last
long. . . . The woman half led, half dragged him
to the northern boundary of the garden, where they
entered a little turret builded out from the walls over
an abyss fully three-hundred feet in depth. And here,
standing upon the verge of the parapet, with naught
but a foot high coping between her and the frightful
fall, utterly fearless and unutterably lovely, Naraini
flung out a bare, jewelled arm in an eloquent gesture.
"See, my king!" she cried, her voice vibrant, her
eyes kindling as they met his. "Look down upon thy
kingdom. North, south, east, west—look!" she com-
manded. "Wherever thine eyes may turn, and farther
than they can see upon the clearest day, this land is all
thine . . .for the taking. Look and tell me thou
hast strength to renounce it . . . and me, Beloved!"
A little giddy with the consciousness of their perilous
height, his breath coming harshly, he looked—first
down to the lake that shone like a silver dollar set in
velvet, then up the misty distances of the widening val-
ley through which ran the stream that fed the lake, and
out to the hills that closed it in, miles away, and then
farther yet over the silvered summits of the great,


FROM A HIGH PLACE 263
reign an undisputed king in two kingdoms—Khandawar
and thy Naraini's heart!"
"I am very sorry," he returned with the same precise-
ness. "It is quite impossible. Besides, it seems that
you leave the Sirkar altogether out of your calcula-
tions. It may not have occurred to you that the Su-
preme Government of India may have something to say
about the contemplated change."
He saw her bite her lips with chagrin, and the look
she flashed to his face was anything but kind and
tender. "Arre!" she laughed derisively. "And of
what account is this frail, tottering Sirkar's will besides
the Will of the Body? Of what avail its dicta against
the rulings of the Bell? Thou knowest"
"Pardon, I know nothing. I have told thee, Ranee,
that I am not Har Dyal Rutton."
She was mistress of a thousand artifices. Brought
to a standstill on the one line of attack, she diverged to
another without the quiver of an eyelash to betray her
discomfiture.
"Yea, thou hast told me," she purred. "But I,
Naraini, J know what I know. Thou dost deny thy-
self even as thou dost deny me, but . . . art thou
willing to be put to the proof, my king?"
"If you've any means of proving my identity, I
would thank you for making use of it, Ranee."
"There is the test of the Token, Lalji."
"I am not aware of it."
"The test of the Token—the ring that was brought
to thee, the signet of thy House. Surely thou hast it
with thee?"


FROM A HIGH PLACE 267
of men only when Har Dyal Rutton had returned to
his kingdom, and then only when he wore the Token?
Even as it was said, so has it been. . . . And now art
thou prepared to go?"
"Whither?"
"To Kathiawar—even to the threshold of the Gate-
way? . . . There is yet time, before the dawn, and
it were wise to go quickly, my king; but for one night
more is the Gateway open to receive thee. Thou didst
see the saddled stallions in the courtyard? They wait
there for thee, to bear thee to Kathiawar. . . . Nay,
it were better that thou shouldst wait, mayhap, for the 1
hours be few before the rising of the sun. Go then to
thy rest, heart of my heart, since thou must leave me;
and this night we shall ride, thou and I, together to the
Gateway."
"So be it," he assented, with a grave inclination of
his head. Convinced of the thanklessness of any fur-
ther attempt to convince the woman against her will,
he gave it up, and was grateful for the respite promised
him. In twelve or eighteen hours he might accomplish
much—with the aid of Labertouche. At worst he would
find some means to communicate with the Farrells and
then seek safety for himself in flight of <hiding until
what he had come to term "that damned Gateway-
thing" should be closed and he be free to resume his
strange wooing. Some way, somehow, he could contrive
to extricate himself and his beloved.
Therefore he told the woman: "Be it so, O Queen!
Now, I go."
"And leave me," she pouted prettily, " with no word
■


268
THE BRONZE BELL
but that, my king? Am I not worth a caress—not even
when I beg for it?"
He smiled down at her, tolerant and amused, and
impulsively caught her to him. "The point's well
taken," he said. "Decidedly you're worth it, Naraini.
And if you were not, the show was!"
And he kissed and left her, all in a breath.


CHAPTER XVI
SUNRISE FOR TWO
I
Amber found his way out of the garden without dif-
ficulty; at the doorway an eunuch waited. The Maha-
rana himself, perhaps in deference to the dictates
of discretion, did not reappear, and Amber had no
desire to see him again. He was eager only to get
away, to find a place and time to think, and to get into
communication with Labertouche.
The eunuch bowed submissively to his demand to be
shown out, and silently led him down through the echo-
ing marble corridors and galleries of the many-tiered
palace. They took a different way from that by which
Amber had ascended; had his life depended on it, he
could not have found his way back to the garden of
Naraini, but by accident.
As they passed through the lower court of stables he
remarked the fact that the stallions were being led away
to their stalls. The circumstances confirmed Naraini's
statement; the hour of their usefulness was ended for
the day—or, rather, for the night.
The Virginian wondered dully if ever he would find
himself astride one of the superb'animals. After what
he had witnessed and been a part of there was for him
no longer any circumscribing horizon to the world of
269


270 THE BRONZE BELL
possibility. For him the improbable no longer existed.
He had met the incredible face to face and found it
real.
In the cavern-like chamber at the water-level Dulla
Dad had the boat in readiness. Amber embarked, not
without a sigh of relief, and the Mohammedan with his
double-bladed paddle drove the boat out of the secret
entrance, in an impassive silence. In the stern Amber
watched the indefinite grey light of dawn wavering over
the face of the waters and wondered . . .
The boat swung in gently to the marble steps of the
bund. Amber rose and stepped ashore, very tired and
very much inclined to believe he would presently wake
up to a sane and normal world.
"Hazoor," the voice of Dulla Dad hailed him. He
turned. "Hazoor, I was to say that at the third hour
after sunset to-night this boat will be in waiting here.
You are to call me by name, and I will put in for you,
hazoor."
"What's that? I don't understand. . . . Oh,
very well."
"And I was to say further, my lord, these words:
* You shall find but one way to Kathiapur.'"
Amber shook his head, smiling. "If you don't mind
getting yourself disliked on my account, Dulla Dad, you
may take back to the author of that epigram this an-
swer: 'You shall find but one way to Jehannum, and
that right speedily.' Good-morning, Dulla Dad."
"The peace of God abide always with the Heaven-
born!"
With a single, strong stroke the creature of the


SUNRISE FOR TWO 271
palace sent the boat skimming far out from the bund,
and, turning, headed for the palace.
Amber entered the bungalow, to find the khansamah
already awake and moving about. At the Virginian's
request he shuffled off to prepare coffee—much coffee,
very strong and black and hot, Amber stipulated. He
needed the stimulant badly. He was sleepy and his
head was in a whirl.
He sat lost in thought until the khansamah brought
the decoction, then roused and drank it as it came from
the pot, without sugar, gulping down huge bitter
mouthfuls of the scalding black fluid. But the effect
that he expected and desired was strangely long in mak-
ing itself felt. He marvelled at his drowsiness, nodding
and blinking over his empty cup. Out of doors the skies
were hot and blue-white with forerunners of the sun,
and the world of men was stirring and making prepara-
tion against the business of the day; but Amber, who
had a work so serious and so instant to his hand, sat on
in dreamy lethargy, musing. . . .
The faces of two women stood out vividly against the
misty formless void before his eyes: the face of Naraini
and that of Sophia Farrell. He looked from one to the
other, stupidly contrasting them, trying to determine
which was the lovelier, until their features blurred and
ran together and the two became as one and . . .
The khansamah tiptoed cautiously into the room and
found the Virginian sleeping like a log, his head upon
the table. His face was deeply coloured with crimson,
as if a fever burned him, and his breathing was loud
and stertorous.


272 THE BRONZE BELL
Pausing, the native beckoned to one who skulked with-
out, and the latter entering, the two laid hold of the un-
conscious man and bore him to the charpoy. The second
native slipped silver money into the khansamah's palm.
"He will sleep till evening," he said. "If any come
asking for him, say that he has gone abroad, leaving no
word. More than this you do not know. The sepoys
have an order to prevent all from entrance."
The khansamah touched his forehead respectfully.
"It is an order. Shabash!" he muttered.
A shaft of sunlight struck in through the window
and lay stark upon the sleeper's face. He did not move.
The khansamah drew close the shades, and with the
other left the room in semi-dusk.
n
Beneath the spreading banian, by the cistern of the
goldfish, Naraini with smouldering eyes watched Amber
disappear in the wilderness of shrubbery. He walked
as a man with a set purpose, never glancing back. She
laughed uneasily but waited motionless where he had
left her, until the echo of his boot-heels on the marble
slabs had ceased to ring in the neighbouring corridor.
Then, lifting a flower-like hand to her mouth, she
touched her lips gently and with an air of curiosity.
The resentment in her eyes gave place to an emotion less
superficial. "By Indur and by Har!" she swore softly.
"In one thing at least he is like a Rajput: he kisses as
a man kisses."
She moved indolently along the walk to the rug
beneath the canopy where he had found her, her lithe,


SUNRISE FOR TWO
273
languid, round body in its gorgeous draperies no whit
less insolent than the flaming bougainvillea whose glow-
ing magenta blossoms she touched with idle fingers as
she passed.
The east was grey with dusk of dawn—a light that
grew apace, making garish the illumination of the
flickering, smoking, many-coloured lamps in the garden.
Naraini clapped her hands. Soft footsteps sounded in
the gallery and one of her handmaidens threaded the
shrubbery to her side.
"The lamps, Unda," said the queen; " their light, I
think, little becomes me. Put them out." And when
this was done, she composedly ordered her pipe and
threw herself lazily at length upon a pile of kincob
cushions, her posture the more careless since she knew
herself secure from observation; the garden being
private to her use.
When the tire-woman had departed, leaving at
Naraini's side a small silver huqa loaded with fine-
cut Lucknow weed, a live ember of charcoal in the
middle of the bowl, she sat up and began to
smoke, her face of surpassing loveliness quaintly
thoughtful as she sucked at the little mouthpiece
of chased silver and exhaled faint clouds of aromatic
vapour. From time to time she smiled pensively and
put aside the tube while she played with the rings
upon her slender, petal-like fingers; five rings there
were to each hand, from the heavy thumb circlet that
might possibly fit a man's little finger to the tiny band
that was on her own, all linked together by light strands
of gold radiating from the big, gem-encrusted boss of


SUNRISE FOR TWO 275
of cushions. "If I have accomplished the task thou
didst set for me, what concern hast thou with the means
I did employ? Thou art only Salig Singh, Maharana
of Khandawar, but I am Naraini, a free woman."
"Thou !" Rage choked the Rajput. "Thou,"
he sputtered—" thou art"
"Softly, Heaven-born, softly—lest I loose a thun-
derbolt for thy destruction. Is it wise to forget that
Naraini holds thy fate in the hollow of her hands?"
She sat forward, speaking swiftly and with malice.
"Thou art pledged to produce Har Dyal Rutton in the
Hall of the Bell before another sunrise, and none but
Naraini knows to what a perilous resort thou art driven
to redeem thy word."
"I was lied to," he argued sullenly. "A false tale
was brought me—by one who hath repented of his
error! If I was told that Har Dyal Rutton would be
in India upon such-and-such a day, am I to blame that
I did promise to bring him to the Gateway?"
"And seeing that the man is dead, art thou to blame
for bringing in his place a substitute, even so poor a
changeling as this man Amber? .Nay, be not angry;
do I blame thee? Have I done aught but serve thee to
the end thou dost desire? . . . Thou, shouldst be grate-
ful to me, rather than menace me with thine anger. . . .
And," she added sweetly, "it were well for thee that
thou shouldst bear always in mind my intimacy with thy
secret. If thou art king, then am I more than queen,
in Khandawar."
"I am not angry, Naraini," he told her humbly,
"but mad with love for thee"


276 THE BRONZE BELL
"And lust, my lord, for—power," she interpolated.
"But if what thou hast said be true"
"' Who lies to the King, is already a dead man.'
Why should I trouble to deceive thee, Heaven-born? I
tell thee, the man is won. The day shall declare it: this
night will he ride with me to Kathiapur. Why didst
thou not tarry to eavesdrop? Indeed thou hast lost an
opportunity that may never a second time be thine—to
learn of the wiles of woman."
"There was work to be done," he repeated. "I
went to take measures against thy failure."
"O thou of little faith!"
"Nay, why should I neglect proper precautions?
Whether thy confidence be justified or no, this night
will Har Dyal Rutton—or one like him—endure the
Ordeal of the Gateway."
"So I have told thee," she assented equably. "He
will come, because Naraini bids him."
"It may be so. If not, another lure shall draw
him."
She started with annoyance. "The Englishwoman
of the picture?"
"Have I named her?" He lifted his heavy brows in
affected surprise.
"Nay, but"
"Secret for secret," he offered: " mine for thine. Is
it a bargain, 0 Pearl of Khandawar?"
"Keep thy silly secret, then, as I will keep mine own
counsel," she said, with assumed disdain. It was no part
of wisdom, in her understanding, to tell him of her in-
terview with Amber. A man's jealousy is a potent


278 THE BRONZE BELL
"Har Dyal Rutton shall die within the hour," Salig
Singh concluded grimly. "But ... I am troubled.
I cannot but ask myself continually: Were it not wiser
to confess failure and abide the outcome?"
"How long wouldst thou abide the outcome, my
king, after thou hadst informed the Council of this de-
ception to which thou hast been too willing and ready a
party? . . . He who misled you died a dog's death.
But thou—art thou in love with death?"
"Unless thy other name be Death, Naraini . . ."
"Or if the Council should spare thee—as is unlikely?
The patience of the Body is as the patience of Kings—
scant; and its mercy is like unto its patience. . . . But
say thou art spared: what then? How long art thou
prepared to wait until the Members of the Body shall
again be in such complete accord as now? When again
shall all Hindustan be ripe for revolt? . . . Aho!
Thou wouldst have sweet patience in the waiting, Salig
Singh! . . . Let matters rest as they be, my lord "—
this a trace imperiously. "Leave the man to me: I
stand sponsor for him until the Gateway shall have
received him and—and perhaps for a little after-
wards."
"Thou art right as ever." He lifted his gaze to
meet hers and his eyes flamed. "I leave my life on your
knees, Naraini. I love thee and ... by all the gods,
thou art altogether a woman!"
"And thou ... a man, your Highness?" she
countered provokingly. "Nay!" she continued, evad-
ing him with a supple squirm, "be content until this
affair be consummated. Wait until the time when an


SUNRISE FOR TWO
279
empress shall reign over all Bharuta and thou, my lord,
shall be her Minister of State."
The man's voice shook. "That hour is not far off,
my queen. Thou wilt not keep me waiting longer?"
She gave him the quick promise of her eyes. "Thou
shouldst know—thou of all men, my lord. . . . But
see!" It was necessary to distract him and she seized
hastily upon the first pretext. "The last day of the
old order dawns . . . and the dawn is crimson, my
lord, as with blood!" Her soft scarlet lips- curled
thirstily and showed her teeth, small, sharp and white
as pearls. "I think," she added with somber convic-
tion, " this omen is propitious!"
She swept away from him, toward the parapet. He
took a single step in pursuit and halted, following her
with a glance that was at once a caress and a threat.
She paused only when she could go no further, and
stood in silent waiting.
Deep down in the valley the city was stirring from
its sleep; the dull and peaceful humming of its hived
hordes rose to her, pulsating in the still air. Above the
eastern ridge the sky was hot and angry, banded with
magneta, scarlet, and cadmium, and shot with expand-
ing shafts of fierce radiance, like ribs of a fan of fire.
In a long and breathless instant of suspense the hilltops
blushed with the glare and threw down the light to the
night mists swimming in the valley, rendering them
opalescent, as with a heart of flame.
With eyes half-veiled by long languorous lashes the
woman threw back her head until her swelling throat
was tense. She raised her arms and stretched them


280
THE BRONZE BELL
wide. The sun, soaring suddenly, a crimson disk above
the ridge, seemed to strike fire from her strange, savage
beauty as from a jewel. Bathed in its ruddy glare she
seemed to embody in her frail, slight form all that was
singular to that cruel, passionate land of fire and steel.
Her face became suffused, her blood leaping in response
to the ardour of the sun.
Her parted hps moved, but the man, who had drawn
near enough to hear, caught two words only.
"Naraini! . . . Empress!"


CHAPTER XVII
THE WAY TO KATHIAPUE
Gall and wormwood in his mouth, more bitter than re-
morse, Amber became conscious. Or perhaps it were
more true to say that he struggled out of unconscious-
ness, dragging his ego back by main will-power from
the deep oblivion of drugged slumber. One by one his
faculties fought their way past the barrier, until he was
fully sentient, save that his memory drowsed. His head
was hot and heavy, his eyes burned in their sockets like
balls of live charcoal, a dulled buzzing sounded in his
ears, his very heart felt sore and numb; he was as one
who wakes from evil dreams to the blackness of fore-
known despair.
He lay for a time without moving. Because it was
dark and his memory not working properly, time had
ceased to be for him, and to-day was as yesterday and
to-morrow. The ceiling-cloth above him was blood-red
with light from the sepoys' fire in the compound, and
all was as it had been when he had first lain down the
night before. And yet . . .
Suddenly he raised himself upon the charpoy and
called huskily for the khansamah. Promptly the squat
white figure that he remembered appeared in the door-
way. "Bring lights," Amber ordered, peremptory.
"Bring lights quickly—and water." And when the
man had returned with a lamp, which he put on the
281


282 THE BRONZE BELL
table, Amber seized the red earthenware water-jug and
drained it greedily. Returning it, empty, to the brown
hands, he motioned to the man to wait, while he con-
sulted his watch. It had run down. He thrust it back
into his pocket and enquired: "What's o'clock?"
"Eight of the evening, sahib."
Amber gasped and stared. "Eight of the . . . Let
me think. Go and bring me food and a brandy-peg—
or, hold on! Bring a bottle of soda-water and a glass
only."
The khansamah withdrew. Amber fell back with his
shoulders to the wall and stared unwinking at the lamp.
He distinctly remembered undressing before going to
bed; he now found himself fully clothed. He felt of
his pocket, and found the emerald ring there, instead of
in its chamois case. Then it had not been a nightmare!
He had a bottle of brandy which had never been un-
corked, in his travelling-kit. Rising, he found it and
inspected the cork narrowly to make sure it had not
been tampered with; then he drew it.
The khansamah returned with the glass and an un-
opened bottle of Schweppe's, and prepared the drink
under eyes that watched him narrowly. While Amber
drank he laid a place for him at the table. When he
left the room a second time the Virginian produced his
automatic pistol and satisfied himself that it remained
loaded and in good working order.
In the course of a few minutes the native reappeared
with a tray of food and pot of coffee. These ar-
ranged, he stood by the chair, ready to serve the guest.
Then he found himself looking into the muzzle of


THE WAY TO KATHIAPUR 285
calmly seated at the table and enjoying one of Amber's
choicest cigarettes.
"Thank God," he said, with profound emotion, " for
a civilised smoke!"
"Labertouche!" cried Amber.
The pseudo-khansamah rose, bowed formally, and
shook hands with considerable cordiality. "It's good
to see you whole and sound," he said. "I had to wait
until Ram Nath's work began to show results. He's out
there, you know, keeping the bottle moving. I don't be-
lieve those damned sepoys will bother us much, now, but
we've got no time at all to spare. Now tell me what
you have to tell, omitting nothing of the slightest com-
sequence."
Amber dropped into a chair, and the Englishman sat
near to him. "I say, thank God for you, Laber-
touche! You don't know how I've needed you."
"I can fancy. I've had a ripping time of it myself.
Sorry I couldn't communicate with you safely before
you left Calcutta. But we've not a minute to waste.
Get into your yarn, please; explanations later, if we
can afford 'em."
Inhaling with deep enjoyment, he narrowed his dark
eyes, listening intently to Amber's concise narrative of
his experiences since their parting before the stall of
Dhola Baksh in the Machua Bazaar. Not once was
he interrupted by word or sign from Labertouche; and
even when the tale was told the latter said nothing, but
dropped his gaze abstractedly to the smouldering stump
of his cigarette.
"And you?" demanded the Virginian. "Have pity,


286
THE BRONZE BELL
Labertouche! Can't you see I'm being eaten alive by
curiosity?"
Labertouche eyed him blankly for an instant.
"Oh!" he said, with an effort freeing his mind from
an intense concentration of thought. "I? What's
there to tell? I've been at work. That's all. . . .
I was jostled off to one side when the row started
in the bazaar, and so lost you. There was then
nothing to do but strike back to the hotel and wait for a
clue. You can figure my relief when you dropped out
of that ticca-ghari! I gave you the word to go on to
Darjeeling, intending to join you en route. But you
know why that jaunt never came off. I found out my
mistake before morning, wired you, and left Calcutta
before you, by the same train that conveyed his Majesty
the Maharana of Khandawar. Fortunately enough
we had Ram Nath already on the ground, working up
another case—I'll tell you about it some time. He's
one of our best men—a native, but loyal to the core,
and wrapped up in his work. He'd contrived to get a
billet as tonga-wallah to the Kuttarpur bunia who has
the dak-service contract. I myself had arranged to
have the telegraph-babu here transferred, and myself
appointed in his place. So I was able to attach myself
to the 'tail' of the Maharana without exciting com-
ment. Miss Farrell came by the same train, but Salig
Singh was in too great a hurry to get home to pay any
attention to her, and I, knowing you'd be along, ar-
ranged that tonga accident with Ram Nath. He bribed
his brother tonga-wallah to bring it about."
"Thank you," said Amber from his heart.


THE WAY TO KATHIAPUR 287
Labertouche impatiently waved the interruption
aside. "I looked for you at the telegraph office this
morning, but of course when you didn't appear I knew
something was up. So I concocted a message to you
for an excuse, came down, engaged the khansamah in
conversation (I think he had some idea I was an agent
of the other side) and . . . he is an old man, not very
strong. Once indoors, I had little trouble with him.
He's now enjoying perfect peace, with a gag to insure
it, beneath his own charpoy. Ram Nath happened
along opportunely and created a diversion with his gin-
bottle. That seems to be all, and I'm afraid we mayn't
talk much longer. I must be going—and so must you."
He glanced anxiously at his watch—a cheap and
showy thing, such as natives delight in. Both men rose.
"You return to the telegraph station, I presume?"
said Amber.
"Not at all. It wouldn't be worth my while."
"How's that?"
"The wires haven't been working since ten this morn-
ing," said Labertouche quietly.
Amber steadied himself with the back of his chair.
"You mean they've been cut?"
"Something of the sort."
"And that means"
"That this infernal conspiracy is scheduled to come
to a head to-night—as you must have inferred, my dear
fellow: this is the last night of your probation. The
cutting off of Khandawar from all British India is a bold
move and shows Salig Singh's confidence. It means
simply:' Governmental interference not desired. Hands


THE WAY TO KATHIAPUR 289
"Exactly," agreed Labertouche, smiling. "I'm only
here to help you escape to the Residency. Raikes and
Colonel Farrell have already been advised to make prep-
arations for a siege or for instant flight, if I give the
word. They need you far more than I shall. It would
be simple madness for you to venture to Kathiapur to-
night. The case is clear enough for you to see the
folly of doing anything of the sort."
"It may be clear to you . . ."
"See here," said Labertouche, with pardonable impa-
tience; "I'm presuming that you know enough of In-
dian history to be aware that the Rutton dynasty in
Khandawar is the proudest and noblest in India; it has
descended in right line from the Sun. There's not a
living Hindu but will acknowledge its supremacy, be he
however ambitious. That makes it plain, or ought to,
why Har Dyal Rutton, the last male of his line, was—
and is—considered the natural, the inevitable, leader of
the Second Mutiny. It devolved upon Salig Singh to
produce him; Salig Singh promised and—is on the
point of failure. I can't say precisely what penalty
he'll be called upon to pay, but it's safe to assume that
it'll be something everlastingly unpleasant. So he's
desperate. I can't believe he has deceived himself into
taking you for Rutton, but whether or no he intends by
hook or crook to get you through this Gateway affair
to-night. He's got to. Now you are—or Rutton is—
known to be disloyal to the scheme. Inevitably, then,
the man who passes through that Gateway in his name
is to be quietly eliminated before he can betray anything
—in other words, as soon as he has been put through


290
THE BRONZE BELL
the ' Ordeal,' as they call it, for the sake of appearances
and the moral effect upon the Hindu race at large. Now
I think you understand."
"I think I do, thanks," Amber returned drily.
"You're quite right, as I said before. So I'm off to
the Residency. But how to get through that guard
out there?"
He received no response. In as little time as it took
him to step backwards from Amber, Labertouche
had resumed his temporarily discarded masquerade. In-
stantaneously it was the khansamah who confronted the
Virginian—the native with head and shoulders submis-
sively bended, as one who awaits an order.
Amber, surprised, stared, started to speak, received a
sign, and was silent, the excuse for Labertouche's sudden
change of attitude being sufficiently apparent in an up-
roar which had been raised without the least warning
in the compound. The advent of a running horse
seemed to have been responsible for it, for the clatter of
hoofs as the animal was checked abruptly in mid-stride
was followed by a clamour of drunken cries, shrieks of
alarm, and protests on the part of the sepoys disturbed
in the midst of their carouse. Over all this there rang
the voice of an Englishman swearing good, round, hon-
est British oaths.
"Stand aside, you hounds!"
Amber turned pale. "That's Farrell's voice!" he
cried, guessing at the truth.
Labertouche made no answer, but edged toward the
khansamah's quarters.
The din subsided as Farrell gained the veranda. His


292 THE BRONZE BELL
and turned to meet Labertouche's eyes, and to see that
the same thought was in both their minds. Salig Singh
had found the way to lure Amber to Kathiapur.
No spoken word was needed; their understanding was
implicit on the instant. Indeed the secret-agent dared
not speak, lest he be overheard by an eavesdropper and
so be the cause of his own betrayal. With a flutter of
white garments he slipped noiselessly from the room,
and Amber knew instinctively that if they were to meet
again that night it would be upon the farther side of the
Gateway of Swords. For himself, his path of duty lay
clear to the Virginian's vision; like Labertouche's, it
was the road to Kathiapur. He had no more doubt that
Sophia had been conveyed thither than he had of Far-
rell's presence before him. And in his heart he cursed,
not Naraini, not Salig Singh, but himself for his inept
folly in bringing to India the photograph which had
been stolen from him and so had discovered to the con-
spirators his interest in the girl.
He thought swiftly of Dulla Dad's parting admoni-
tion: "You shall find but one way to Kathiapur."
"Well, sir? Well?" Exasperated by his silence
the Political sprang to his feet and brought the riding-
crop against his leg with a smack like a gun-shot.
"Have you nothing to say? Don't you realise what it
means when a white woman disappears in this land of
devils? Good God! you stand there, doing nothing, say-
ing nothing, like a man with a heart of stone!"
"Speak French," Amber interposed quietly. He con-
tinued in that tongue, his tone so steady and imperative
that it brought the half-frantic Englishman to his


THE WAY TO KATHIAPUR 293
senses. "Speak French. You must know that we're
spied upon every instant; every word we speak is over-
heard, probably. Tell me what happened—how it hap-
pened—and keep cool!"
"You're right; I beg your pardon." Farrell col-
lected himself. "There's little enough to go on. . . .
You disappointed us this morning. During the day
we got word from a secret but trustworthy source to
look out for trouble from the native side. Nevertheless,
Raikes and I were obliged, by reason of our position,
representing Government, to attend the banquet in honor
of the coronation to-morrow. We called in young Clark-
son—the missionary, you know—to stay in the house
during our absence. When we returned the Residency
was deserted—only we found Clarkson bound, gagged,
and nearly dead of suffocation in a closet. He could tell
us nothings—had been set upon from behind. Not a
servant remained. . . . But, by the way, your man
Doggott came in by the evening dak-tonga."
"Where's Raikes?"
"Gone to the palace to threaten Salig Singh with an
army corps."
"You know the telegraph wires are cut?"
"Yes, but how"
"Never mind how I know—the story's too long. The
thing to do is to get troops here without a day's delay."
"But how?"
"Take Raikes, Clarkson, and Doggott and ride like
hell to Badshah Junction. Telegraph from there.
The four of you ought to be able to fight your way
through."


THE WAY TO KATHIAPUR 295
wise the compound was as empty as the night was quiet.
Mounting, the Political waved a silent farewell and
spurred off toward the city. Amber passed back
through the bungalow to the bund.
It was a wonderful blue night of clear moonlight,
quickened by a rowdy wind that rioted down the valley
from the north. The roughened surface of the lake
was dark save where the moon had blazed its trail of
shimmering golden scales. There was no boat visible,
and for the first time Amber's heart misgave him and
he doubted whether it were not best to seek a mount
from the stables of the Residency and try to reach
Kathiapur on his own initiative. But his ignorance of
the neighbouring topography was too great a handicap
to be overcome; and now that Labertouche had gone,
he was without a friendly, guiding hand. He could but
deliver himself into the hands of the enemy and do what
he might thereafter.
He lifted his voice and called: " Ohe, Dulla Dad!"
There came a soft shuffle of feet on the stones behind
him, and the stunted, white-clad figure of Dulla
Dad stood at his side, making respectful obeisance.
"Hazoor!"
"You damned spying scoundrel!" Amber cried, en-
raged. "You've been waiting there by the window,
listening!"
"Hazoor," the native quavered in fright, "it was
cold upon the water and you kept me waiting over-
long. I landed, seeking shelter from the wind. If your
talk was not for mine ears, remember that you used a
tongue I did not know."


296
THE BRONZE BELL
"So you were listening!" Amber calmed himself.
"Never mind. Where's your boat?"
"I thought to hide it in the rushes. If the hazoor
will be patient for a little moment ..." The native
dropped down from the bund and disappeared into the
reedy tangle of the lake shore. A minute or so later
Amber saw the boat shoot out from the shore and swing
in a long, graceful curve to the steps of the bund.
"Make haste," he ordered, as he jumped in and took
his place. "If I have kept you waiting, as you say,
then I am late"
"Nay, there is time to spare." Dulla Dad spun the
boat round and away. "I did but think to anticipate
your impatience, knowing that you would assuredly
come."
"Ah, you knew that, Dulla Dad? How did you
know?"
The man giggled softly, plying a busy paddle. "Am
I not of the palace, hazoor? What are secrets in the
house of kings? Gossip of herders and bazaar-women!"
"And how much more do you know, Dulla Dad?"
Amber's tone was ominous.
"I, hazoor? Who am I to know aught? . . . Nay,
this have I heard"—he paused cunningly: "' You
shall find but one way to Kathiapur.'"
Amber, realising that he had invited this insolence,
was fair enough not to resent it, and held his peace until
he could no longer be blind to the fact that the native
was shaping a course almost exactly away from the Raj
Mahal. "What treachery is this, dog? " he demanded.
"This is not the way"


THE WAY TO KATHIAPUR 299
lifted her incomparably fair face to his, and he was
conscious that he trembled a little, and that his voice
shook as he answered evasively: "Thou shouldst know,
Ranee."
"AM! Then am I a happy woman, to think that,
though thou wert in open mutiny against the Voice,
when I called, thou didst yield. . . . And thou art
ready?"
"Am I not here?"
"Now of a verity do I know that thou art a man, my
king!—a Rajput, a son of kings, and . . . my hus-
band!" Pitched to a minor, thrilling key, her accents
were as musical as the singing of a 'cello. "For thou
dost know what thou must dare this night of nights, and
he is a brave man who can dare so much, unfaltering.
Tell me thou art not afraid, my king?"
"Why should I be?"
"Thou wilt not draw back in the end?" Her arms
clipped him softly about the neck and drew his head
down so that her breath was fragrant in his face, her
lips a sweet peril beneath his own. "Thou wilt brave
whatever may be prepared for thy testing, for the sake
of Naraini, who awaits thee beyond the Gateway; O my
Beloved?"
"I shall not be found wanting."
Lithe as a snake, she slipped from his arms. "Nay,
I trust thee not!" she laughed, a quiver of tenderness
in her merriment. "Let my lips be mine alone until
thou hast proven thyself worthy of them." She raised
her voice, calling: " Ohe, Run jit Singh!"
The cry rang bell-clear in the stillness, and its silver


300
THE BRONZE BELL
echo had not died before it was answered by one who
stepped out from the black shadow of a spreading
banian, some distance away, and came toward them,
leading three horses. As the moonlight fell upon him,
Amber recognised the uniform the man wore as that of
the Imperial Household Guard of Khandawar, while the
horses seemed to be the stallions he had seen in the
palace yard, with another but little their inferior in
mettle or beauty.
"Now," announced the woman in tones of deep con-
tentment, "we will ride!"
She turned to Amber, who took her up in his arms
and set her in the saddle of one of the stallions; who,
his bridle being released by the trooper, promptly
leaped away and danced a spirited saraband with his
shadow, until Naraini, with a strength that seemed in-
credible when one recalled the slightness of her wrists,
curbed him in and taught him sobriety.
"By Har!" she panted, "but I think he must know
that he carries to-night the destinies of empire! Mount,
mount, my lord, and bear me company if this son of
Eblis tries to run away with me!"
The sowar surrendered to Amber the reins of the
other stallion, and stepped hastily aside. The Virginian
took the saddle with a flying leap, and a thought later
was digging his knees into the brute's sleek flanks and
sawing on the bits, while the path flowed beneath him,
dappled with moonlight and shadow, like a ribbon of
grey-green silk, and trees and shrubbery streaked back
on either hand in a rush of melting blacks and greys.
Swerving acutely, the path ran into the dusty high-


THE WAY TO KATHIAPUR 303
Above the broken rim of the three-fold walls the
moon's unearthly splendor made visible a vast confusion
of crumbling cornices, blank walls, turrets, domes, and
towers, the gnarled limbs of dead trees, the luxuriant
dark foliage of banian and pepal, palm and acacia. But
nothing moved and there Was not a light to be seen.
These things with the silence told the tale of death.
With the cessation of the ringing hoofbeats the stillness
had closed down upon the riders like a spell to break the
which were to invite the wrath of the undying gods
themselves. Other than the silken breathing of the
horses, an occasional muffled thud or the jingle of a
bridle-chain as one pawed the earth or tossed his head,
they heard no sound. The unending hum of a living city
was not there. Sister of Babylon, Nineveh and Tyre,
kin to Chitor and that proud city of the plains that Jai
Singh abandoned when he built him his City of Victory,
Kathiapur is as Tadmor—dead. The shell remains; the
soul has flown.
A gasp from the woman and an oath from the sowar
startled Amber out of somber apprehensions into which
he had been plunged by contemplation of this impreg-
nable fortress of desolation. Gone was his lust for
peril, gone his high, heedless joy of adventure, gone the
intoxication which had been his who had drunk deep of
the cup of Romance; there remained only the knowledge
that he, alone and single-handed, was to pit his wits
against the invisible and mighty forces that lurked in
hiding within those walls, to seem to submit to their de-
signs and so find his way to the woman of his love,
tear her from the grasp of the unseen, and with her
escape . . .


THE WAY TO KATHIAPUR 305
"Perhaps not," he admitted, thoughtful. "' In
whose power I shall shortly be.' . . . Well, of
course!"
"And thou wilt go on? Thou art not minded to
withdraw thy hand?"
"Not so that you'd notice it, Naraini."
"For the sake of the reward Naraini offers thee?"
she persisted dangerously.
"I don't mind telling you that you'd turn 'most any
man's head, my dear," he said cheerfully, and let her in-
terpret the words as she pleased.
She was not pleased, for her acquaintance with Eng-
lish was more intimate than she had chosen to admit; but
if she felt any chagrin she dissimulated with her never-
failing art. "Then bid me farewell, O my soul, and
go!"
"Up there? " he enquired, lifting his brows.
"Aye, up the causeway and over the bridge, into the
city of death."
"Alone?"
"Aye, alone and afoot, my king."
"Pleasant prospect, thanks." Amber whistled, a
trifle dashed. "And then, when I get up there?"
"One will meet thee. Go with him, fearing naught."
"And what will you do, meanwhile?"
"When thou shalt have passed the Gateway, my lord,
Naraini will be waiting for thee."
"Very well." Amber threw a leg over the crupper,
handed the stallion's reins to the sowar, who had dis-
mounted and drawn near, and dropped upon his feet.
Naraini nodded to the sowar, who led the animal


306 THE BRONZE BELL
away. When he was out of earshot the woman leaned
from the saddle, her glorious eyes to Amber's. "My
king!" she breathed intensely.
But the thought of Sophia Farrell and what she
might be suffering at that very moment was uppermost
—obtruded itself like a wall between himself and the
woman. He had no further inclination for make-
believe, and he saw Naraini with eyes that nothing
illuded. Quite as casually as though she had been no
more to him than a chance acquaintance, he reached up,
took her hand, and gave it a perfunctory shake.
"Good-night, my dear," he said amiably; and, turn-
ing, made off toward the foot of the causeway.
When he had gained it, he looked back to see her
riding off at a wide angle from the causeway, heading
out into the plain. When he looked again, some two or
three minutes later, Naraini, the sowar, and the horses
had vanished as completely as if the earth had opened
to receive them. He rubbed his eyes, stared, and gave
it up.
So he was alone! . . . With a shrug, he plodded on.


308
THE BRONZE BELL
the dark. Scowling over this, he stumbled on, telling
himself that he was a fool: a conclusion so patent that
neither then nor thereafter at any time did he find
reason to dispute it.
After some three-quarters of an hour of hard climbing
he came to the wooden bridge, and halted, surveying it
with mistrust. Doubtless in the olden time a substantial
but movable structure, strong enough to sustain a troop
of warriors but light enough to be easily drawn up, had
extended across the chasm, rendering the city impreg-
nable from capture by assault. If so, it had long since
been replaced by an airy and well-ventilated lattice-
work of boards and timbers, none of which seemed
to the wary eye any too sound. Amber selected the
most solid-looking of the lot and gingerly advanced a
pace or two along it. With a soft crackling a portion
of the timber crumbled to dust beneath his feet. He
retreated hastily to the causeway, and swore, and
noticed that the Eye was watching him with malevolent
interest, and swore some more. Entirely on impulse he
heaved a bit of rock, possibly twenty pounds in
weight, to the middle of the structure. There fol-
lowed a splintering crash and the contraption dissolved
like a magic-lantern effect, leaving a solitary beam
about a foot in width and six or eight inches thick,
spanning a flight of twenty and a drop of sixty feet.
The river received the rubbish with several successive
splashes, distinctly disconcerting, and Amber sat down
on a boulder to think it over.
"Clever invention," he mused; "one 'd think that,
after taking all this trouble to get me here, they'd


THE HOODED DEATH 313
in black from his head to his heels and seemed the more
strikingly peculiar in view of the fact that, as far as
Amber could determine, he had neither eyes nor features
although his head was without any sort of covering.
He gulped over the proposition for an instant, then
stepped forward.
"Evidently my appointed cicerone," he considered.
"Unquestionably this ghost-dance is excellently stage-
managed. . . . Though, of course, I had to pick out
that particular tomb."
He followed in the wake of the figure, which sped on
with a singular motion, something between a walk and a
glide, conscious that his equanimity had been restored
rather than shaken by the incident. "You wouldn't
think," he reflected, " that a man like Salig Singh would
lend himself to anything so childish. Still, I'm not
through with it yet." He conceived a scheme to steal
up behind his guide and strip him of his masquerade,
but though he mended his pace he got no nearer, and
eventually abandoned it on the consideration that it was
probably most inadvisable. After all, he had to re-
member that he was there for a purpose, and a very
serious one, and that properly to further that purpose
he must comport himself with dignity, submissively, ac-
cepting, at least with a show of ease, each new develop-
ment of the affair along its prearranged lines. And so
he held on in pursuit of the black shadow, passing for-
saken temples and lordly pleasure-houses, all marble
tracery and fretwork, standing apart in what had once
been noble gardens, sunken tanks all weed-grown and
rank with slime, humbler dooryards and cots on whose


314 THE BRONZE BELL
hearthstones the fires for centuries had been cold—his
destination evidently the temple of the unspeakable Eye.
As they drew nearer the leading shadow forsook the
shade of the walls which he had seemed to favour,
sweeping hastily across a plaza white with moonglare
and without pause on into the black, gaping hole beyond
the marble arch.
Here for the first time Amber hung back, stopping
a score of feet from the door, his nerves a-jangle. He
did not falter in his purpose; he was going to enter the
inky portal, but . . . would he ever leave it? And the
world was still sweet to him. His quick, darting gaze
registered a dozen impressions in as many seconds: of
the silver splendour spilled so lavishly upon the soulless
corpse of the city, of the high, bright sky, of dead black
shadows sharp-edged against the radiance, of the fleet
flitting spectre that was really a flying-fox . . .
Afar a hyena laughed with a sardonic intonation
wholly uncalled-for—it was blood-curdling, besides.
And down the street a melancholy air breathed gently,
sighing like a soul astray.
"This won't do," he told himself; " it can't be worse
inside than out here."
He took firm hold of his reason and went on across the
dark threshold, took three uncertain strides into the
limitless unknown, and pulled up short, hearing noth-
ing, unable to see a yard before him. Then with a
terrific crash like a thunder-clap the great doors swung
to behind him. He whirled about with a stifled cry,
conscious of a mad desire to find the doors again, took
a step or two toward them, paused to wonder if he were


THE HOODED DEATH
815
moving in the right direction, moved a little to the left,
half turned, and was lost. Reverberating, the echoes
of the crash rolled far away and back again, diminish-
ing in volume, dying until they were no more than as a
whisper adrift in the silence, until that was gone. . . .
Profound night enveloped him, vast, breathless, with-
out dimensions. One can endure the blackness that
abides within four well-kenned walls; but night un-
relieved by the least gleam of light, night without
bounds or measurements, enfolding one like a stifling
blanket and instilling into the brain the fear of name-
less things, quickening the respiration and oppressing
the heart—that is another thing entirely, and that is
what Amber found in the Temple of the Bell. Dark-
ness swam visibly before his eyes, like a fluid. The
sound of his constrained breathing seemed most loud and
unnatural. He could hear his heart rumbling like a
distant drum.
Digging his nails into his palms, he waited; and in
the suspense of dread began to count the seconds.
One minute . . . two . . . three . . . four . . .
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. . . .
Seven . . .
He passed a hand across his face and brought it
away wet with perspiration. . . .
Nine . . .
In some remote spot a bell began to toll; at first
slowly — clang! . . . clang! . . . clang! — then
more quickly, until the roar of its sonorous, gong-like
tones seemed to fill all the world and to set it a-tremble.
Then, insensibly, the tempo became more sedate, the


316 THE BRONZE BELL
fierce clamour of it moderated, and Amber abruptly was
alive to the fact that the bell was speaking—that its
voice, deep, clear, sound, metallic, was rolling forth
again and again a question couched in purest Sanskrit:
"Who is there? . . . Who is there? . . . Who is
there? ..."
The hair lifted on his scalp and he swallowed hard in
the effort to answer; but the lie stuck in his throat: he
was not Rutton and . . . and it is very hard to lie
effectively when you stand in stark darkness with a
mouth dry as dust and your hair stirring at the
roots because of the intensely impersonal and aloof ac-
cents of an inhuman Bell-voice, tolling away out of
Nowhere.
"Who is there?"
Again he failed to answer. Somewhere near him he
heard a slight noise as of a man moving impatiently;
and then a whisper: " Respond, thou fool!"
"Art thou come, O Chosen of the Gateway?" the
Bell-voice rang.
"I ... I am come," Amber managed to reply.
And so still and small sounded his own voice in the huge
spaces of the place that he was surprised to find he had
been heard.
"Hear ye!" rang the Bell. "Hear ye, 0 Lords
and Rulers in Medhyama! O Children of my Gateway,
hear ye well! He is come! He stands upon the thresh-
old of the Gateway!"
Resonant, the echoes of those awe-inspiring tones
died upon the stillness, and in response a faint sighing
rose and, momentarily growing in volume, became as the


THE HOODED DEATH 317
roaring of a mighty wind; and suddenly it was
abrupted, leaving only a ringing in the ears.
A great drum roared like the crack of Doom; and
Amber's jaw dropped. For in the high roof of the
temple a six-foot slab had been noiselessly withdrawn,
and through it a cold shaft of moonlight fell, cutting
the gloom like a gigantic rapier, and smote with its
immaculate radiance the true Gateway of Swords.
Not six paces from him it leaped out of the darkness
in an iridescent sheen: an arch a scant ten feet in height,
and in span double the width of a big man's shoulders,
woven across like a weaver's frame with ribbons of
pale fire. But the ribbons were of steel—steel blades,
sharp, bright, gleaming: a countless array of curved
tulwars and crescent scimetars, broad jataghans, short
and ugly kukurees, long kutars with straight ends,
slender deadly patas, snake-like bichwas; swords with
jewelled hilts and engraved and damascened blades;
sabres with channels cut from point to guard wherein
small pearls ran singing; khands built for service and
for parade; swords of every style and period in all the
history of India. With their pommels cunningly
affixed so that their points touched and interlaced, yet
swung free, they lined the piers of the arch from base to
span and all the graceful sweep of the intrados, a
curtain of shimmering, trembling steel, barring the way
to the Mystery beyond. Which was—darkness.
"O ye Swords!" belled the Voice. ..." 0 ye
Swords that have known no dishonour! 0 ye Swords
that have sung in the grasp of my greatest! Swords
of Jehangar, Akbar, Alamgir! Swords of Alludin,


318 THE BRONZE BELL
Humayun, Shah Jehan! Swords of Timur-Leng,
Arungzeb, Rao Rutton! . . ."
The invocation seemed interminable. Amber recog-
nised almost every name noted in the annals and legends
of Hindustan. . . .
"Hearken, O my Swords! He, thy Chosen, prayeth
for entry! What is thy welcome?"
One by one the blades began to shiver, clashing their
neighbours, until the curtain of steel glimmered and
glistened like phosphorescence in a summer sea, and the
place was filled with the music of their contact; and
through their clamour boomed the Bell:
"0 my Chosen!" Amber started and held himself
firmly in hand. "Look well, look well! Here is thy
portal to kingship and glory!"
He frowned and took a step forward as if he would
throw himself through the archway; for he had sud-
denly remembered with compelling vividness that Sophia
Farrell was to be won only by that passage. But as he
moved the swords clattered afresh and swung outwards,
presenting a bristle of points. And he stopped, while
the Voice, indifferent and remote as always, continued to
harangue him.
"If thy heart, O my Chosen, be clean, unsullied with
fear and guile; if thy faith be the faith of thy fathers
and thy honour rooted in love of thy land; if thou hast
faith in the strength of thy hands to hold the reins of
Empire . . . enter, having no fear."
"Trick-work," he told himself. He set his teeth
with determination. "Hope they don't see fit to cut
me to pieces on suspicion. Here goes." He moved


THE HOODED DEATH 319
forward with a firm step until his bosom all but
touched the points.
Instantaneously, with another clash as of cymbals,
the blades were deflected and returned to their first posi-
tion, closing the way. He hesitated. Then, "That
shan't stop me!" he said through his teeth, and pushed
forward, heart in mouth. He breasted the curtain and
felt it give; the blades yielded jealously, closing round
his body like cold caressing arms; he felt their chill
kisses on his cheeks and hands, even through his cloth-
ing he was conscious of their clinging, deadly touch.
Abruptly they swung entirely away, leaving the
entrance clear, and he was drawing a free breath when
the moon glare showed him the swords returned to posi-
tion with the speed of light. He jumped for his life
and escaped being slashed to pieces by the barest inch.
They swung to behind him; and again the drum roared,
while afar there arose a furious, eldritch wailing of
conches. Overhead the opening disappeared and the
light was shut out. In darkness as of the Hall of
Eblis the conches were stilled and the echoes ebbed into
a silence that held sway for many minutes ere again the
Bell spoke.
"Stretch forth thy hand."
Somewhat shaken, Amber held out an open palm be-
fore him. A second time the gusty sighing arose and
breathed through the night, increasing until the very
earth beneath him seemed to rock with the magnitude of
the sound, until, at its highest, it ceased and was as if
it had not been; not even an echo sang its passing.
Then out of nothingness something plopped into Am-


322
THE BRONZE BELL
burning in a bowl," he explained the phenomenon; " and
a native with his arm wrapped to the wrist in black
is feeding it. Not a bad effect, though."
It was, perhaps, as well that he had not been de-
ceived, for there was a horror to come that required all
his strength to face. He became conscious that some-
thing was moving between him and the brazier—some-
thing which he had incuriously assumed to be a piece of
dirty cloth left there carelessly. But now he saw it
stir, squirm, and upend, unfolding itself and lifting its
head to the leaping flame: an immense cobra, sleek and
white as ivory, its swelling hood as large as a man's two
hands, with a binocular mark on it as yellow as topaz,
and with vicious eyes glowing like twin rubies in its vile
little head.
Amber's breath clicked in his throat and he shrank
back, rising; but this instinctive move had been provided
against and before his knees were fairly off the rocky
floor he was forced down again by the hands on his
shoulders. He was unable to take his eyes from the
monster, and though terror such as man is heir to lay
cold upon his heart, he did not again attempt to stir.
There was now no sound. Alone and undisturbed the
bleached viper warmed to its dance with the pulsing
flame, turning and twisting, weaving and writhing in
its infernal glare. . . .
"Hear ye, O my peoples!"
Amber jumped. The Voice had seemed to ring out
from a point directly overhead.
He looked up and discovered above him, vague in the
obscurity, the outlines of a gigantic bell, hanging


THE HOODED DEATH 323
motionless. The green glare, shining on its rim and
partly illumining its empty hollow (he saw no clapper)
revealed the sheen of the bronze of which it was fash-
ioned.
Out of its immense bowl, the Voice rolled like
thunder:
"Hear ye, O my peoples!"
A responsive murmur ascended from the company
round the walls:
"We hear! We hear, O Medhyama!"
"Mark well this man, O Children of my Gateway!
Mark well! Out of ye all have I chosen him to lead
thee in the work of healing; for I thy Mother, I Med-
hyama, I Bharuta, I the Body from which ye are
sprung, call me by whatever name ye know me—I am
laid low with a great sickness. . . . Yea, I am stricken
and laid low with a sickness."
A great and bitter wailing arose from the multitude.'
"Yea, I am overcome with a faintness, and my
strength is gone out from me, and my limbs are as
water; I am sick with a fever and languish; in my veins
runs the Evil like fire and like poison; and I burn and
am stricken; I toss in my torment and murmur, and the
sound of my Voice has come to thine ears. Ye have
heard me and answered. The tale of my sufferings is
known to ye. Say, shall I perish?"
In the brazier the flame leaped high and subsided, and
with it the cobra leaped and sank low upon its coils.
From the people a mighty shout of negation went up,
so that the walls rang with it, and the echoes were
bandied back and forth, insensibly decreasing through


THE HOODED DEATH 327
A subdued murmur came from the men clustered
round the idols, in semi-darkness.
The Bell boomed forth like an organ.
"O hooded Death. . . . O Death, who art trained
to my service! Thou before whom all men stand af-
frighted! Thou who canst look into their hearts and
read them as a scroll that is unrolled. . . . Look deep
into the heart of my Chosen! judge if he be worthy or
wanting, judge if he be false or true. . . . Judge
him, O Death!"
Before Amber the great serpent was oscillating like
a pendulum, its little tongue playing like forked red
lightning, its loathsome red eyes holding his own. Ter-
ror gripped his heart, and his soul curdled. He would
have cried out, but that his tongue clave to the roof of
his mouth. He could not have moved had he willed to.
"Look well, O Death, and judge him!"
The dance of the Hooded Death changed in char-
acter, grew more frenzied; the white writhing coils
melted into one another in dizzying confusion; figure
merged into figure like smoke. . . . The suspense grew
intolerable.
"Hast thou judged him, O Death?"
Instantly the white cobra reared up to its utmost and
remained poised over Amber, barely moving save for
the almost imperceptible throbbing of the hood and the
incessant darting of the forked tongue.
"If he be loyal, then spare him . . ."
The hood did not move. Amber's flesh crawled with
unspeakable dread.
"If he be faithless, then . . . strike!"


330
THE BRONZE BELL
and knew that both their lives depended upon his stick-
ing 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. Neverthe-
less 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 encoun-
tered 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


RUTTON'S DAUGHTER 339
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


RUTTON'S DAUGHTER 341
"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 out-
right, 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 Eng-
lishman 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, see-
ing 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 ac-
coutrements; while a voice, thick with a brogue that
was never bred cut of hearing of Bow Bells, was hec-
toring them to surrender.
"'Ands up, ye bloomin' black beggars! 'Ands up,
I s'y!"


RUTTON'S DAUGHTER 347
Beneath its folds of tightly drawn, bespangled gauze
her bosom swelled and fell convulsively, and on her per-
fect 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 disap-
pointment, 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 protec-
tion 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 in-
sisted, 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 de-
serted and abandoned me, hath denied me even as he
denies his birthright, when it doth please him, and for-
swears 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 dan-
gerous as a wildcat!"


348
THE BRONZE BELL
"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, 0 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, be-
fore 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. . . .


RUTTON'S DAUGHTER
349
To Amber it was as if his body had been penetrated
thrice by a needle of fire. The anguish of it was exqui-
site, 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.


XX
A LATER DAY
A man awoke from a long dream of night and fear, of
passion, pain, and death, and opened eyes whose vision
seemed curiously clear, to realise a new world, very un-
like that in which the incoherent action of his dream
had moved—a world of light and lively air, as sweet and
wholesome as glistening white paint, sunshine, and an
abundance of pure, cool air could render it.
Because he had known these things in a former exist-
ence, he understood that he lay in the lower berth
of a first-cabin stateroom, aboard an ocean steamship;
a spacious, bright box of a room, through whose open
ports swayed brilliant shafts of temperate sunlight, to-
gether with great gusts of the salt sweet breath of the
open sea. Through them, too, he could see patches of
unclouded blue, athwart which now and again gulls
would sweep on flashing, motionless pinions.
The man lay still and at peace, watching, wondering
idly, soothed by the sense of being swung through space,
only vaguely conscious of the plunging pulsations of the
ship's engines, hammering away indomitably far in the
hold beneath him. His thoughts busied themselves
lightly with a number of important questions, to whose
answers the man realised that he was singularly indif-
ferent. Who was he? What had happened to bring
350


A LATER DAY
351
him back to life (for he was sure that he had died, a long
time ago)? How had he come to that stateroom?
What could the name of the vessel be? Where . . .
Deep thoughts were these and long; the man drowsed
over them, but presently was aroused by the sensation
of being no longer alone, of being watched.
His eyeballs seemed to move reluctantly in their sock-
ets, and his head felt very light and empty, although
so heavy that he could not lift it from the pillow. But
he managed to shift his gaze from the window until it
rested upon a man's face—a gaunt, impassive brown
face illuminated by steady and thoughtful eyes,
filled with that mystic, unshakable spirit of fatalism
that is the real Genius of the eastern peoples. The head
itself stood out with almost startling distinctness against
the background of pure white. It was swathed with
an immaculate white turban. The thin, stringy brown
neck ran into a loose surtout of snowy white.
The sick man felt that he recognised this counte-
nance—had known it, rather, in some vague, half-
remembered life before his latest death. The name
. . .? He felt his lips move and that they were
thin and glazed. Moistening them with his tongue he
made another attempt to articulate. A thin whisper
passed them in two breaths: "Ram . . . Nath ..."
Hearing this, the dark man started out of his abstrac-
tion, cast a swift, pitiful glance at the sick man's face,
and came to hold a tumbler to his lips. The liquid, col-
ourless, acrid, and pungent, slipped into his mouth, and
he had to swallow whether he would or no. When the
final drop disappeared, Ram Nath put down the glass,