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^^;|

I u KE'S SHRINE

GRANT ALLEN

At' i ifuK or

■..led Ordfis,- •' Bahylon," «' Philistia,"
"The V/onun Who Did," Etc.

AMSTI
■IF Til .

> OMPANY
■V : YORK

' 'S^^:.:.-~j:M^tii^,'^"Si£WSmf.'^--x '

KALEE'S SHRINE

GRANT ALLEN

AUTHOR OF

«*Under Sealed Orders," "Babylon," " Philistia,**
"The Woman Who Did," Etc.

NEW AMSTERDAM BOOK COMPANY
156 : FIFTH : AVENUE : NEW : YORK

Authorized edition for the United States

KALEE'S SHRINE.

PROLOGUE.

IN INDIA.

White-robed and dusky-faced, the ayah hurried
with trembling: footsteps along the narrow path
that threaded tortuously the tangled underbrush
of that arid thicket. Her feet and ankles were bare
to the knee, and the fine gray dust that covered
them deep with its clinging powder bore witness
eloquently to the distance she had already carried
her precious burden— a pretty, sleeping, two-year-
old baby. It was not her own, but a white man's
daughter ; and the white man was a great English
sahib. At every rustle of the bushes in the jungle
by her side, the woman shrank back with terrible
earnestness— shrank, and pressed the sleeping baby
tight to her bosom ; for tigers lurked among the
tangled brake, and the cobra might at any moment

6 Kalee's Shrine.

cross her path with his deadly hood erect and hiss-
ing. But still she hurried on. alone and breathless,
that one solitary Hindu figure, tall and graceful in
her snowy robes, with the unconscious white child
strained against her breast, and her heart leaping
wildly as at every step the bangles clanked together
on her brown ankles. The fierce hot sun poured
down upon her head mercilessly from above, and
the little green lizards darted away with lithe' and
sinuous motion at the fall of her naked dusky foot
upon the staring gray line of the path behind them.
The woman was flying, though no one pursued
her; flying with the stealthy, noiseless Indian tread,
and looking back furtively over her dark shoulder
with eager fear every now and again, to listen for
the hoofs of approaching horses. But no one came ;
no one followed her: and she wound her way
silently, alone, through the jungle, with the instinct
of the serpent, and the light, unwearied, gliding
motion of the Hindu race. The sun had reached
the summit of the heaven now, and the sahibs at
home would soon be thinking it time for tiffin.

She had risked all upon one desperate throw. If
only she could return in time to escape detection I

Presently a little clearing in the thicket appeared,
and the grimy path ended at last in front of a tiny'

Kalee's Shrine. 7

shabby, brick-built temple. Around it, the cleared
area lay thick in dust, and the garish Indian sun
glared hotter than ever on the crumbling plaster of
that neglected shrine— the shrine of a hated and
proscribed worship.

An old man crouched in the dust before the door.
He was a squalid old man, wrinkled and discolored
with age and filth ; his matted white locks straggled
wildly about his black forehead, and his lean ribs
showed in visible outline through the dark skin that
seemed to hang loose in folds around them. A few
foul rags just covered his loins, and the rags and the
mrm seemed almost to have grown together into
one huddled mass by long companionship and as-
cetic filthiness. He did not lift his eyes as the
woman approached, but went on staring vacantly
at the temple before him, and repeating, in a low
monotonous sing-song, the burden of a ghastly
Hindu hymn to the terrible Kalee :

" Oh, thou that delightest in fresh warm blood, in red blood,
in uhe slaughter of thine enemies; girt round with skulls!
we offer up to thee the heart of the victim."

An outcast dog that lay by the ascetic's side was
munching away at an oddly-shaped bone. It was
round and smooth, and bare at the top ; on the sides

Kalet's Shrine.

some fragments of long black hair still clung to tiie
horrid object. The dog pawed it and gnawed it
with his teeth, and the shallow scalp, rolled in the
dust, yet showed raw and hideous where his fangs
had bared it. A vulture perched on top of the
shrine ; his beak was red, and his eyes closed
stupidly in the broad sunshine.

The woman placed herself full in front of the beg-
gar-priest, and with an imperious gesture of her
soft round hand and arm, beckoned his attention.
The old man slowly rose at her bidding, shook off
the dust from his back and shoulders, and stood, a
tottering mass of bones and rags, a gaunt outline of
fleshless humanity, bowed double almost to the
ground, before her.

**Well?" he asked inquiringly, in a shrill quaver.
*'What do you wish? Why have you come.?
What brings you here to-day, to the shrine of
Kalee?"

The woman trembled, ai.d drew back with awe at
the uttered soand of that unspeakable name.

"See! see!" she cried, holding out the child at
both cirms' length and quivering as she spoke. "I
have brought you an offering— a votary for Kalee."

The old man peered at the child incredulously.
His eyes were bleared and dim with sleeplessness.

Kalee's S'uine. g

"But this is an English baby," he said at last,
after a long pause. "What is the use of bringing it
here to us? The child will serve tho gods of the
Christians. Kalce needs no half-hearted votaries.
The Ulaclc One is a jealous goddess indeed, visiting
the neglect of the fathers on the children ; and those
who serve her must serve none other."

The woman gazed at him with wistful eyes.
They were beautiful eyes— large, and soft, and dark,
'•nd tender,

"Girjee," she said slowly, "it is not true, Iknow
the child can be dedicated to Kalee. Listen to me,
and I will tell you why I wish to make her over
to the greatest of the goddesses. She shall not serve
the gods of the Christians. She is my child. I love
her ! I love her ! "
The fakir smiled a horrible, lean, hungry smile,
"Then give her over willingly as a sacrifice to
Kalee, " he an.swered dryly.

The dog ceased from gnawing at the skull, and
looked up in haste into the woman's eyes with eager
expectation. The vulture shifted his perch uneasily.
"Not that! not that" she cried, drawing back
the child to her bosom in terror. "I give her lo
Kalee— freely, willingly— but as a worshipper, a vo-
tary, not as a sacrifice."

Kalee's Shrine.

The fakir smiled with grim deh'ght once more.
"Kaleewill have victims and not votaries," he
answered in his feeble, tremulous, senile quLver.
"Give her, above all, the blood of her enci-iies.
One sacrifice is worth many novices."
The ayah bowed down her face to the child's.
"Kalee is great," she cried, kissing it hard ; "but
I love the baby. She is very dear to me. I have
nursed her at these breasts. She is like my own
daughter. I love her better than I love Jumnee.
See thes- dimples : she is smiling now. Kalee
protect her ! I love her ! I love her ! "

The dog returned to his bone, disappointed, once
more, and licked the raw scalp all over afresh,
cheated of his hope of another meal. The vulture
blinked his eyes sleepily.

"Girjee," the woman went on again, with trem-

bhng hps, "this is why I want to make her over to

Kalee. They will take her away across the great

black water, away to England, to the land of the

Christians, far off from her foster-mother altogether.

To-day the sahib said to his wife, 'Olga shall go

soon to England.' I heard. I said to myself in my

heart, 'They will rob me of my child, and she will

love mt no longer, and forget her foster-mother.'

But if I make her over to-day to Kalee, though they

Kalee's Shrine.

teach her to love the gods of the Christians, the
cold white gods that stand on pedestals in the public
places, she will only be theirs durino- the wakin<r
hours of the white daytime ; at night, in the black
darkness, she will be mine— mine and Kalee's ! Is
it not so, brother ? "

"It is so, Gungia. You have heard rightly. If
a child be dedicated to one of our gods or goddesses
of India, though she serve her own gods faithfully
during the day, in her sleep she will be theirs for-
ever and ever. If you give the sahib's baby to
Kalee, Kalee will watch over her in the dead of
night, and be a bond of union between her and her
foster-mother for all the incarnations."

•'Then take her, Girjee ! Make her over to
Kalee ! "

The old man squatted on the doorstep of the tem-
ple. "Do you know the penalty .? "he asked; "the
token of Kalee ? The child made over to the great
goddess, can never again close her eyelids in slumber.
All night long she lies with her soul spellbound, but
her eyes staring wide open and fixed upon Kalee.
The sahibs will see it : they will notice her eyes :
they will know that the child has been given to the
Black One."

♦*No matter," the woman cried eat^erlv : "thfv

Kalee's Shrine.

shall not rob me altogether of my pet, my darling.
Though the great black water roll between us, she
shall know me and love me in her sleep always."

Girjee rose once more from his seat, and, stretch-
ing out his gaunt and haggard arms, took the un-
conscious baby in his lean long fingers. At his
touch the child awoke, and began to cry. The man
dipped one skinny forefinger in the double gourd
that hung by a string at his lank thigh, and touched
little Olga's lip for a moment gently with some
sweet white mixture. In a few minutes the child
was asleep once more, and Girjee and the ayah turned
solemnly to the brick-built temple.

The lintels were smeared with some reddish-
brown coloring matter that bore a suspicious re-
semblance to stale blood. Within, a little bronze
figure held up a row of seven small lamps, all alight,
burning perpetually before the altar of Kalee. In
the central shrine, a tiny black image of the awful
■goddess herself held the only niche ; for Kalee, as
the priest had said, is a jealous deity. Her lips
were stained with fresh red blood. Kalee that day
had drunk of her victim.

The priest motioned the ayah silently to his left.
She stood beside him, her full round arms crossed
reverently upon her half-open bosom : a beautiful

Kalee's Shrine.

woman, in the purest type of Hindu beauty. Tiie
fakir, lean and skinny and wrinkled, took his place
in his rags beside her, before the shrine of Kalee.
The white child slumbered all unconscious in his
hands. He laid her down in silence tenderly on the
altar. ^

For a moment there was an awful hushed stillness.
The priest bent his head slowly to the ground : the
ayah allowed her own to fall in muttered prayer
upon her bosom. Both with mute lips murmured
beneath their breath the short litany of the great
goddess Kalee.

Then the priest, taking Olga once more in his
arms, cried aloud in a chanting monotone :

"Oh, Kalee, goddess of the Thugs, whose lips may only be

steeped in human slaughter;
Oli, Kalee, goddess of the Thugs, who delightest in the hot

red blood of the victim ;
Oh, Kalee, goddess of the Thugs, who tearest the babe from

the bosom of its mother ;
Oh, thou Black One, thou fierce, thou terrible ; oh, thou bloody

toothed ; mighty and unspeakable ;
Dark as the night ; of mis-shapen eyes ; crowned with the

trident ; riding on a tiger ;
Horrible of horribles ; Kalee the pitiless, whose fangs are

red with the flesh of thy victims ;
Take, we beseech thee, this child for thine own, and save her-

for ever from tlie gods of the English,
That she may worship Kalee her whole life long, and bring

sacrifice to the Black One in her sleeping hours.

Kalee's Shrine.

Though through the bright day. and while the sun shines
she worship the cold white gods of the Christians

Yet in the dark night, and when the shadows fall, may her
eyes be ever open for Kalee :

Open for Kalee. goddess of the Thugs, whose lips are steeped
inhuman slaughter; ^

Who delights in the warm red blood of the victim, and tears
the babe from the bosom of its mother.

As he spoke he swayed his lean body to and fro
with horrible writhings, and dipping his right hand
in a bowl on the shrine, traced a trident with his
skinny fc efinger on the soft skin of the child's white
forehead. The trident came out a deep scariet.
There was blood in the bowl • the fresh blood of a
human victim.

The woman quivered at the awful sound and
sight ; but the lean priest smiled ecstatically. His
blear eyes looked away vaguely into the dim dis-
tance. He saw but Kalee. He was lost in the
worship of his hideoi goddess.

There was silence again. Presently the man took
from the altar once more a small dark object. It
was a piece of flint, sharp and clear-cut. Girjee
felt its thin edge caiefully with his skinny
finger.

"Keen, keen," he cried, -like tempered steel-,
the black dagger pf the unspeakably K^lee I "

Kalee's Shrine.

The ayah started, and laid her round hand eagerly
upon his haggard arm.

" You will not hurt her ! " she cried in terror.
Girjee pushed her back with a gesture of scorn.
"Kalee must needs be worshipped with blood,"
he said. -The child is at rest : she knows not and
feels not. Her body— her body only is here : her
soul is away in the air with Kalee."

At the word he brought down the flint with dex-
terous gentleness at a particular spot, first on the
right, then on the left temple. The child winced,
and puckered its little forehead in its sleep, but did
not wake. A small round drop of blood oozed slowly
from the tiny severed vessel on either side. The
priest dipped his finger solemnly in each, and
smeared the blood on the lips of the goddess. He
smeared it with deft sleight of hand, so as to pro-
duce a faint upward laughing curi at the corners of
the black image's mouth.

"See ! " he cried to the trembling ayah, ^ Kalee
is pleased to accept the offering. The Black One
smiles. She smiles on her votary."
The woman bowed her head in awe-struck assent.
" Kalee is great," she murmured. -'All praise to
Kalee, the swarthy fury, of a hideou. countenance,
dripping with gore, crowned with venomous snakes,

Kalee's Shrine.

hung round with a garland of skulls at her girdle !
Kalee is great ! Kalee is fierce ! Kalee is terrible !
Victory to Kalee ! "

Girjee held up the child before the image for a
second.

''Olga," he said aloud, for he had caught at the
name, - I give you to Kalee. You are Kalee's now,
henceforth and for ever. Though your waking
hours belong to your own gods, in the hours of
your sleep you shall serve Kalee. Remember that
Kalee delights in slaughter. Other gods are merciful
and kindly and compassionate ; but Kalee, the Black
One, thirsts ever for the living blood of her victims."
He hung a little silver image by a thread round her
neck. '* This is the badge that you belong to Kalee.
Steep her lips in English blood, beyond the great
black water, and Kalee will love you as her faith-
ful votary. Milk and rice and oil we offer in pro-
I pitiation to the other deities ; but blood, blood alone,
is the fitting food and proper drink for the thirsty lips
and soul of Kalee."

He struck the altar thrice with his open palm. A
tame snake glided noiselessly, at the well-known
summons, from beneath the shrine. Girjee held it
gently in his hand, and placed its speckled head
against the baby's white forehead. The snake, pro-

Kalee's Shrine.

trudingf its forked tongue with rapid vibrations,
licked the fresh blood greedily from the trident he
had smeared there. When he gave the child back
to the ayah's arms not a trace was left upon her face
or forehead of that mystical ceremony. The woman
turned and hurried from the door, crying out as she
fled back, " Kalee, Kalee ! "

And Olga Trevelyan was ever thenceforth the
votary of Kalee.

Kalee's Shrine.

CHAPTER I.

PERSONS AND PLACES.

Thorboroi;gh-on-Sea ranks as the most paradoxi-
cally pleasant of all our minor English watering,
places. Paradoxically pleasant I say. because in its
exterior appearance there is really nothing on earth
visible io r^ake it seem so. A drained marsh
stretches to the north of it : a drained marsh extends
to the south of it : and a drained marsh merges on
the west of ii into low wild fiats of bracken-covered
common. To the east, of course, lies the German
Ocean. The town itself-if town it can be called
that town is none, but a mere long line of old-
fashioned lodging-houses-occupies a petty stunted
islet of dry land in the midst of so much unpictur-
esque marshiness. Nothing in Thorborough com-
mands one's love. And yet everybody who has
once been there, still would go; he knows not why
and asks not wherefore. The whole borough like
the chameleon of popular natural history, lives on
air : for the air of Thorborough is most undeniable

Kalee's Shrine.

To say it is bracing: fs to say too little. It exhila-
rates the heart of man (and woman) like the best
Sillery. People say to one another, with an apolo-
gQtic smile, "Oh yes, of course, it's very ugly ; but
the air, you know— the air is really all that one
comes for. " Whenever a place has absolutely noth-
ing else on earth to recommend it, you may look
upon it as a foregone conclusion that it will infal-
hbly plume itself on the purity of its atmosphere.

The little river Thore that drains the surrounding
marshes, by the aid of windmills at the side sluices
runs into the sea at Thorborough Haven. There
lie the fishing-smacks that keep the good folk of the
town alive in winter, when they have no visitors to
exploit (as men exploit a silver mine), and no lodg-
ers to drain of their gold, as in the summer months^:
and there the longshoremen ply their mysterious
trade of picking up an honest livelihood, in the off-
season, by standing all daylong v.ith their hands in
their pockets, and a short black clay stuck idly be-
tween their teeth for mute companionship. Around
that mud-blocked Haven centres the slumbrous life
of Thorborough, knowing but two alternative
phases: in summer, pleasure-boats; in winter,
bloaters. An ancient and a fish-like smell pervades
the quay, where superannuated mariners lean u'^oi^*

Kalee's Shrine.

the old cannon, half-buricd in the ground as posts,
and survey mankind from their coigns of vantage in
that broad spirit of generous impartiality begotten
of long contact with danger and vicissitude.

Nobody (who is anybody) ever goes to Thorbor-
ough-on-Sea without getting to know Mrs. Hilary
Tristram. Society at Thorborough sums itself up in
her pleasant, cultivated, and hospitable person.
Her house stands near the upper end of the Shell
Path— the sole marine parade of Thorborough,-^
embowered by the only trees the place can boast,
much blown on one side by the stern east winds of
March and April. In the season, which lasts for six
feverish weeks of August and September, Mrs. Hil-
ary Tristram's expensive house teems with visitors.
She descends upon Thorborough then from town,
accompanied by a brilliant horde of followers-old
men and matrons, young men and maidens,— and
pervades the place, as long as she remains', with
ubiquitous detachments of herself and her com-
pany.

"Olga," said Mrs. Hilary Tristram, at one of her
biggest garden-parties, "allow me to introduce you
to Mr. Alan Tennant. Mr. Tennant, this is my
friend Miss Trevelyan. You've heard of her father
Qf course-Sir Everard Trevelyan-Com mission er of

Kalee's Shrine.

BritifMi Bhootan, and the eminent botanist ? Ah ! I
tliought so ; I knew you'd remember him ; you take
such an interest in everything scientific."

Oiga Trevelyan bowed slightly to the handsome
young man her hostess had introduced to her. She
was a beautiful girl, lithe and stately ; a daughter
of the gods, divinely tall and most divinely dark,
with large soft eyes, and a lavish wealth of silky-
black hair that blew lightly about her high white
forehead. Something strange in those big brown
eyes struck Alan Tennant at once as very unusual
— a sort of falling droop of the lids and lashes that
he had but once before observed in any one. For
reasons of his own Alan Tennant was profoundly
interested in eyes and eyelashes.

"Do you live in Thorborough ? " Olga asked,
simply, raising the long lashes as she spoke with
a sort of curious effort, and speaking in a sweetly
musical voice ; "or are you only a summer visitor
down here, like all the rest of us ? "

"A visitor," Alan Tennant answered, with a
pleasant smile : "a bird of passage. I come, like
everybody else, from the big ant-hill. A London
doctor, in fact, out for my holiday. We work hard,
you know, through the London season, and we're
glad enough to get away now and then for a breath

*#•*•

Ka'ee's Shiine.

of fresh air and a little respite. We don't quite ful-
fil the apostoh'c precept, I 'm afraid : we 're often
weary with weIl-doin^^"

"Ah! but it is well-doing:, you know," Olga
said, timidly. " It s almost the only profession, of
course, where a man can be quite certain he's
really and truly doing good. That must be a great
consolation to you, after all, among the endless
discomforts of a doctor's life."

" Mr. Tennant hasn't many discomforts," a pretty
little girl at her side interrupted briskly. "Have
you, Mr. Tennant.? He doesn't have to run about
at night and visit patients. Don't you recollect his
name, Olga ? He's the great oculist, you know ;
the famous oculist. He only has to sit at home iii
his own house, with a most imposing butler to open
the door, and wait for people to pour in upon him
and be cured immediately."

Olga's face colored up sligh'iy. "I beg your
pardon," she said, with still more marked timidity.
"I— I suppose it's very stupid of me not to know
it ; but one can't know a// Mrs. Tristram's friends,
can one, Norah ? She seems to me to know half
London."

"And the other hnlf Isn't worth knowing," Norah
Bickcrsteth answered il -htly.

Kalee's Shrine.

uite fiil-
e often

"Miss

pretty
' Have

about
ect his
know ;
•me in
3 open
n him

your
lidity.
know
iends,
V half

STorah

The youngf doctor smiled once more.
Bickersteth overrates my humble merits," he said
with a careless disclaimer. "I can't pretend to
be so very famous that not to know mc argues
oneself unknown. To recognize all Mrs. Tristram's
acquaintances would be to pose as a walking edition
oi Men 0/ the Time, with a bowing knowledge of
all the bishops, judges, and painters in England.
Nobody else ever expects to keep pace in that
matter with your aunt, IMiss Bickersteth."

Just as he spoke, the hostess herself came up
once more, and, with an apologetic smile to Alan
Tennant, turned gently to Olga Trevelyan.

''My dear," she said, **I'm going to carry you
off again, to introduce you to Lady Mackinnon. Sir
Donald knows your papa in India, and they 're both
of them just dying to make your acquaintance.
Mr. Tennant, I see you're in my niece's hands:
take care Mr. Tennant is introduced to everybody,
Norah. This way, Olga, my dear : that 's Lady
Mackinnon, the dear ugly old lady on the chair
over yonder, in the speckly dress and impossible
bonnet."

"An Indian girl .? ' Alan Tennant asked inter-
rogatively as she turned away.

"Yes, an Indian girl," Norah Bickersteth an-

Kalee's Shrine.

s wered with a smile. ' ' A great favorite of auntie's.
Isn't she beautiful, Mr. Tennant? Isn't she deli-
cious ? Isn 't she charming ? "

"She ts beautiful," the young man replied frankly.
*' Delicious and charming are epithets of maturer
knowledge ; but I can safely say at first sight, I
don't know that I ever before saw anybody quite'so
beautiful. "

" I'm so glad you think so. She 's just a darling.
We were at school together, you know, Olga and I,
and I positively love her."

*' You have every excuse," the young doctor an-
swered pensively, glancing after Olga as she moved
with lithe and graceful motion through the crowd
on the terrace. "What exquisite eyes! It may,
perhaps, be a professional instinct ; but I think,
Miss Bickersteth, a pair of lovely eyes really move
me more than anything else in human beauty."

"Aren't they lovely! So soft and big!" And
Norah Bickersteth lifted her own laughing little blue
ones to the young doctor's face. "They seem to
have some strange fascination about them that I
never saw in anybody else's ! "

A military bachelor of sixty would promptly have
responded, "That's because you've never seen your
own; "but Alan Tennant was younger and wiser:

Kalee's Shrine.

auntie's,
he deli-

frankly.
maturer
sight, I
quite so

dadine.
I and I.

tor an-

moved

crowd

■ may,

think,

move

r."

' And
le blue
3em to
that I

r have
1 your
rt'iser :

he merely said, " Exactly, Miss Bickersteth ; I quite
agree with you."

"There's one very odd thing about them, too,"
Norah Bickersteth went on carelessly. "Isn't it
funny ? 0!ga always sleeps with her eyes open ;
she never shuts them day or night. You can't
imagine anything so queer as it looks to see her
sleeping with her eyes staring right up at the
ceiling."

The young doctor pricked up his ears. "Dear
me ! " he said. "Are you sure of that? I noticed
the lids had a very curious, unusual appearance.
There seems to be a sort of falling droop about
them, as though they half closed of themselves,
and were hardly under full control of the muscles."

"Oh ! I 'm quite sure it 'sso, Mr. Tennant ; I' ve
seen it often. Olga and I sleep together, and you
can never know whether she 's awake or asleep un-
till you 've touched her, or roused her, or spoken to
her, or something. She lies with her eyes wide
open, and her eyeballs staring out blankly at noth-
ing, as if she were looking at some invisible person
ever so far away in the dim distance."

" She comes from India," Alan Tennant repeated
stroking his moustache with meditative fingers.
" Odd ; very odd : most odd, certainly. I had once

Kalee's Shrine.

just such a case before— and that was from India
too,— but he was a native : a terrible-looking old
man, with bushy eyebrows, who came over in the
retinue of the Maharajah of somewhere-or-other un-
pronounceable. They said he had been a Thug in
his youth. I could easily believe it : a fearful old
wretch, with white moustaches and beard and
whiskers, and a wicked leer about his bad old eyes,
like a born murderer's."

"A Thug!" Norah said, shuddering slightly.
''That's one of the dreadful strangling and murder-
ing sect, isn't it ? "

" Yes ; a homicidal caste or sect or tribe, I think,
who worship nobody but the goddess Kalee, I
fancy they call her. They used to catch travellers
by the roadside, strangle them and rob them, and
offer their blood up in a bowl on the altar of their
goddess. A very neat thing indeed in the way of
religions ! However, I believe that 's all put down
long ago now. Old Sir Donald Mackinnon there
stamped the very last of it out ; he tells the story
himself at great length— something about some
little forgotten jungle temple, and some awful
creature of a mendicant priest— a hungry, half-
starved, murderous ascetic, to whom the last of
the Thugs used to bring the blood of their human

iij

Kalee's Shrine.

victims. Capital title for a novel that — The Last
of the Thugs. Don't mention the subject to Sir
Donald, though, or he won't let you off under
three hours and the minutest details. Nothing on
earth would induce him to forego a single item
of all the horrors ; he perfectly revels in human
gore, as if he had caught it from the Thugs in
person."

" Horrid old man ! How very dreadful of him !
But this Thug patient of yours — did he keep his
eyes always open too, just like Olga Trevelyan ? "

"Well, so they said; and, by Jove! when I
cam.e to examine him, it was certainly true. I
found two tiny scars, one on each temple, most
cleverly cut ; the operator had severed a particular
nerve which governs the opening and closing of the
eyelids. No European surgeon could have done
it more admirably. I made inquiries about it, but
could learn nothing from the man himself ; he was
very reticent on the subject — afraid I should sus-
pect him of complicity with Thuggee, as the Anglo-
Indians call it, and perhaps get him hanged, as he
richly deserved to be. However, I found out by
asking elsewhere that this was a regular custom of
the Thugs. Whenever any child was dedicated to
Kalcc, as was the case with every well-conducted

Kalee*s Shrine.

Thug baby the priest used to make a little incision
on each s.de of the forehead, and oSer a drop of

he t M 1" ' ""'■''' '° "^ ^°'''^^^' A' '«-t -

ius h t' T": '"™'' ^ '"* '" "^"'y' -"» 'hat's
us the tnck of .t, he very cleverly cut the nerve

that moves the erector muscles of the eyelid- and
after that, the child could never close L ey'el or
open them wide, except with a distinct and un-
pleasant effort."

0,''a?';;"^'? '"'' "'^'' "^^ ■"^«- --'h dear
Olga! the girl ans,vered quickly. "She can only
shut her eyes if she tries to on purpose. "

"Ah ! I dare say," the young doctor .-ent on in
an unconcerned tone. "In her case, no doubt
heres been some slight unintentional injury to
the nerves, probably from disease, or perhaps con-
genital, and the eyelids refuse to obey the will
except w.th a strong and deliberate effort. But
these Thugs, of course did it on purpose ; it was
a way of showing the power of the goddess. The
pnest tells them, if once a child is dedicated to
Kalee, U will sleep for ever after with its eyes
ope.i. Kalee, it seems, is the goddess of black-
ness and darkness as well as of murder-murder
bemg presumably a dark deed,-and so the votary
of Kalee never shuts his eyes, but looks out for

Kalee's Shrine.

incision
drop of
least, so
id that's
5 nerve
id; and
eyes or
nd un-

■h dear
m only

: on in
doubt,
iry to
s con-
5 will
But
t was
The
3d to
eyes
)Iack-
urder
otary
t for

ever on the night and the goddess. A very inter-
esting and poetical superstition ! "

*' And did you cure your Thug patient? "
"Oh! of course; cured him easily. Merely a
quesdon of cutting through another nerve — an
inhibitory, they call it, — and the thing at once
recovers its normal habit. In a case like the
Thug's, I mean, that is to say : your friend Miss
Trevelyan probably owes her peculiarity to disease,
and that would be a far more difficult matter to
tackle. I shall watch her closely now — only don't
tell her so. She's very beautiful (which is always
interesting), and this gives me a professional in-
terest in her as well. But I shall watch her all
the better if she doesn't know about it. I notice
that young ladies, when they know you 're watch-
ing them, fail to exhibit that regularity of demean-
or and unconsciousness of action which is indis-
pensable to the medical mind."

Norah laughed. "I should think not," she said
gayly. "How on earth can you expect us to be
light and natural if we know you 've got your
searching eyes fixed firmly upon us for a scientific
purpose ?

I n

Alan Tennant certainly kept his searching eyes

Kalee's Shrine.

firmly fixed upon Olga Trevelyan all that afternoon.
Wherever she moved, his keen gaze followed her.
And he was vaguely aware in his own mind that
his interest was something more than merely pro-
fessional. He had achieved fame with extraordi-
nary rapidity ; but after all, a man can't live on
fame alone; he requires some emotion a little
more human to cheer and sustain him. At twenty-
nine, men are still very human. And at twenty-
one, women, for their part, are very attractive.
Those were just the respective ages of Alan Ten-
nant and Olga Trevelyan.

Once more in the course of the afternoon he had
a few minutes' passing conversation with Olga.
Norah Bickersteth took them round together, not
perhaps quite by accident, *o look at the ferns' and
bananas in the big conservatory. Olga's voice
was sweet and low, ana she spoke with a grave
yet delightful earnestness that mightily took the
fancy of the young doctor. "With a woman like
that," he thought seriously to himself, "a man
might do some good in the world in his genera-
tion." He picked a superfluous blossom or two
from the conservatory pots, without asking for
leave, and fastened them together with a spray of
maidenhair into two tiny dress-bouquets^rcd and

Kalee's Shrine.

had

white for Olg:;, yellow and blue for Norah. Then
he handed them over to the two girls with not un-
graceful ok'-fashioned politeness. Norah took her
little bunch coquettishly, and stuck it at once be-
tween the opening of her bodice.

" I shall tell everybody," she said with her laugh-
ing voice, "that these were given me by the great
Mr. Tennant."

But Olga held hers pensively in her hand, and
hardly seemed to know whether or not she ought to
wear them. Later in the day he saw she had pin-
ned them daintily in her bosom, and he went away
feeling the happier for it. To such absurd little
flutters and tremors of that central vascular organ,
the he?'"*^, is even the scientific breast at twenty-
nine a , Uing victim.

Kalee's Shrine.

CHAPTER ir.

KALEE IN SUFFOLK.

It was a wild and awful night, some evenings
later, on the shore at Thorborough. Tlie east wind
was dashing the breakers fiercely upon the beach,
a mere narrow barrier of cast-up shingle, that ill^
protected the long line of parade and lodging-houses
in its rear from the fury of their onslaught. Sailors
and coastguardsmen were gathered in little knots
upon the Shell Path, eageriy watching the fishing,
smacks that fought bravely for life against the teeth
of the gale in their fierce endeavor to make the
mouth of the tiny harbor. With scarcely a rag of
sail up, in the face of that terrific tempest, one after
another rode aloft upon the surf of the bar, and sank
again invisible in the intervening troughs. One
after another, dexterously steered by strong hands
and stout hearts through spray and billows, made
its way at last, groaning and creaking, into the
haven of safety. The wind howled ominously
through the slender rigging, and shrieked around

Kalee's Shrine.

the corners of the Thorborough houses. Anxious
women watching from the beach, wrung their
hands in terror and suspense as each well-known
hull, driving half-helplessly ahead before the force
of the gale, approached the long white battling
breakers of the bar, and tossed about like a cock-
boat on that yeasty turmoil of wandering waters.
Strong men held their breath and strained their eyes
to watch the fate of each in turn as it fought for life
with terrible earnestness in that desperate struggle
against the maddened elements.

But inside Mrs. Hilary Tristram's house on the
North Parade, nobody noticed the storm or its fury.
Now and again, to be sure, the groaning of the wind,
as it tore round the gables and shook the beams to
their very foundations, disturbed a little the tone of
the grand piano. But who thinks of wind or sea in
a well-lighted room, full of guests and music, at ten
in the evening? By two o'clock, to be sure, it is
very different : then, when one lies awake alone in
bed, the deep roar of the breakers as they crash upon
the beach, and the wild cries of the wind as it rages
among the chimney-stacks, absorb and engross and
appall one's spirit. But, earlier in the evening, lights
and company make all the difference. While the
fisherwomen outside, but ten yards off, were wring-

Kalee's Shrine.

mg their hands, and straining; their eyeballs to
eatch the dim outline of the tossing hulls by the
faint glimmer of the long August twilight, Olga
Trevelyan, in the drawing-room within, was singing
a pretty English song ; while AlanTennant, kaning
over the piano, was pretending sedulously to turn
the music, which he could only read by the aid of
Olga's nod. Alan Tennant was always handsome,
but in evening clothes he looked handsomer than
ever ; and the graceful attitudes into which he seemed
naturally to throw himself added not a little to his
manly beauty.

" How warm and cosy you all look in here ! " the
latest comer cried cheerily, as he entered the room
to fetch his sister, a Thorborough native. " It 's an
awful night outside with a vengeance, I can tell you.
I never remember anything at Thorborough like it.
You'd better sit up all night, I should say, Mrs.
Tristram, and be prepared with an ark to carry off
your goods and chattels, in case of the deluge ; for
the sea 's dashing over the Shell Path like a young
Niagara, and I expect half Thorborough '11 be washed
av/ay to the bottom of the ocean by to-morrow
morning, Future generations of fishermen will
earn a precarious livelihood by pointing out to
future generations of London tourists on calm morn-

Kalee's Shrine.

ings the foundations of Mrs. Hilary Tristram's cele-
brated marine villa, under five fathoms of the North

Sea. "

" Is it really so very rough ? " Olga asked in sur-
prise, rising hastily from her seat at the piano.
"You don't mean to say there's any danger, is

tliere ? "

"Well, not exactly danger," the visitor answered,
with a careless wave of the hand : "that is to say,
at present, you know. I dare say Thorborough '11
weather the gale somehow till morning. You're
pretty safe up at the north part here, though down
below, at the poor end of the town, some cottages
may really go squash before long. But the fisher
people are in an awful way : the smacks are half of
them out there still. What was that you were
singing as I came in — wasn't it 'The harbor bar is
moaning ' ? "
' Olga blushed a deep crimson, and clasped her
hands nervously as she answered, in a half-penitent
voice, "Yes, it was: 'The Three Fishers.' I'm
sorry 1 sang it. How terrible to think that while
r ve been singing about it so carelessly in here,
the poor souls outside have been really living it and
feeling it in grim earnest ! Why, just listen now to
the shrieking- of the wind ! How could we ever

"Hi

Kalee's Shrine.

come to overlook it ? I shall never forgive myself
as long as I live for singing that song while the
men have been working and the women weeping
in stern reality so close beside me I "

"Only ten yards off," the yomig man of the
town answered casually.

"Life is always very full of misery," Alan Ten-
nant put in, endeavoring to relieve the poor girl's
evidently genuine distress. "Nobody knows that
better than we doctors do. We 're accustomed,
unhappily, to coming away from some bed of pain'
and going right off, with a smiling face and a flower
in our buttonhole, into somebody's drawing-room,
just as if we really thought life was all champagne
and Italian opera. It 's well for most of us that we
don't always realize the full extent of the misery
around us : if we did, we should never be happy at
all, and tl.e world would be only a loser in the end
by the destruction of so much innocent merriment.
I don't think you have anything to reproach yourself
with to-night, Miss Trevelyan."

"It wasn't a comic song, anyhow," the native
ventured to suggest good-humoredly. "Very ap-
propriate to the situation, I should have said, for my
part."

"Ah, but when the misery comes so very near

Kalee's Shrine.

myself
hile the
veeping-

of the

m Tell-
er girl's
vs that
tomed,
»f pain,
flower
-room,
ipag-ne
^at we
misery
ppy at
le end
:ment.
)urself

native
•y ap-
OT my

near

one!" Olga cried earnestly. "When one seems
even to insult it to its face by one's untimely hap-
piness ! See — the blinds are up over yonder : the
poor ])eople on the Shell Path can look in upon us,
all chatting and laughing and enjoying ourselves in
here, with the red shades on the lamps and the
bright dresses on the women ; while they must be
watching in fear and wretchedness and despair out
there, wringing their hands and wiping their eyes,
and praying for their sons and their fathers and
their brothers ! Oh, it's too awful ! I can't bear to
think of it ! How terribly cruel and wicked we
must seem to them I The least we can do is to shut
out the light. "

And as she spoke she moved [^.ntly to the win-
dow, and began pulling down the blinds that, with
seaside freedom, has been left undrawn for the
whole evening.

"You did look awfully jolly in here, certainly,"
the native murmured, with the air of a man who
makes a candid admission. "It must really have
seemed just a little bit heartless."

Olga answered never a word. She was clearly
too much distressed at the incongruity of their occu-
pations to care for any more conversation.

"I think, Mr, Tennant, " she said in a low voice,

Kalee's Shrine.

" I shall just go up to my own room. I can look
out there upon the poor people on the beach outside.
I wonder, whether any of the sailors are lost ? I shall
never forgive myself: never, never ! "

She touched his hand lightly with her own, and
then glided unobtrusively, with a slight bow, from
the room. Alan noticed that she singled him out, as
it were, from the whole company for the sole honor
of a farewell that evening. He noticed it, and felt
once more that peculiar tremor-due, as he im-
agined, to a withdrawal of inhibitory nervous action
from the muscles of the heart. (What a blessed
thing it is to be a man of science !) But then, the
next moment he chilled himself by reflecting, on the
other hand, that he was the only person in the whole
room with whom she was just then and there en-
gaged in conversation, and that she was evidently
very anxious to quit the company as unostentatiously
and quietly as possible. Anyhow, she was a very
tender-hearted girl, and her conscience was reproacli-
ing her far too bitterly for a mere act of unconscious
thoughtlessness, which she had amply shared with
all the rest of the party. Alan liked her all the better
for that, however. Earnest men are always attracted
by earnestness in women much more than by flip-
pancy.

Kalee's Shrine.

can look
1 outside.
? I shall

)vvn, and
3VV, from
Ti out, as
>le honor
and felt
he iin-
is action
blessed
hen, the
?:, on the
le whole
lere en-
vidently
atiously
1 a very
jproacli-
»nscious
ed with
e better
ttracted
by flip-

He went back soon to his hotel, and Mrs. Tristram's
party broke up for the night. At the hotel, which
lay at the south end of the town, Alan Tennant
called for a brandy and soda, lit his cigar, and sat up
reading a sensational novel of Gaboriau's late into
the evening. He wanted to see if the smacks all
got in safely ; and from time to time he rose from
his chair, leaned out of his window with his elbows
on the frame, and inquired from the little knot of
men below how the fishermen were faring through
that terrible weather.

Human nature is very complex . Alan Tennant
reflected somewhat remorsefully to himself that his
main interest in the fishermen's fate was not for the
sake of their wives and children (whom he did not
know), but for the sake of Olga Trevelyan's tender
conscience. " What would you have ? " he thought
to himself, puffing away reflectively at his big
cigar. He had never seen the worthy fisher-folk. He
had seen Olga Trevelyan. The smallest headache
or heartache of those whom you know — and love
— he thought it deliberately — is ten thousand times
worse to you, rightly or wrongly, than the bitterest
griefs of the vast unknown and unnumbered multi-
tude. A child's cut finger affects his mother more
\h^x\ £i ft^mine in China or an cc^rthcjuake in P^ru.

■If

f 7

Kalee's Shrine.

■

It must needs be so. How can you help it ? The

man you do not know is an abstract idea to you ;

and you can't possibly sympathize to any profound

extent with a mere abstraction.

By-and-by, a stir and noise on the beach below
roused Alan dreamily from the terrors of Gaboriau.
Something more real and serious was evidently
afloat. Lights appeared on the foreshore beneath,
and men were running eagerly about before him.

Alan put his head out of the window and called
once more : - What s up now.? Anything wrong?
Smack in danger.? "

"No, sir, " the coastguardsman answered with a
loud shout, in a lull of the wind ; - smacks are all in,
the Lord be praised ! Vessel in distress off the bar
there. Seemingly collier. We're putting out life-
boat. "

Alan rose and looked at his watch. Gaboriau had
proved too wickedly enticing. The novel was a
thrilling one. It was two in the morning.

He seized his hat and a light dust-coat, and
hurrie<! down to the front door. It stood open
still : one or two of the guests were on their way to
see the launch of the Thorborough lifeboat.

The boat was safely pushed through the surf, and
began to make its way with toilsome lunges among

Kalee's Shrine.

the big billows. It was a moonlight night, in spite
of the storm, and Alan could see the whole scene
from where he stood, distinctly. A crowd was
gathering opposite Mrs. Hilary Tristram's. The
vessel lay there, a black hulk, driving helplessly
before the gusts of that awful storm. Alan Ten-
nant followed the rest of the world to the scene of
action. Only, for some reason best known to him-
self, he walked, not by the beach, but along the
Shell Path, till he came to Mrs. Hilary Tristram's.
As he passed the house he looked up. All the
windows were dark save one with a balcony. There
a candle burnt upon a table, and a huddled figure in
a soft white wrap lay with its face buried in its arms
inside the window. Whoever it was, he or she had
evidently fallen asleep without undressing, perhaps
after long watching at the window. Alan's heart
beat fast and high. He wondered if that room was
Olga Trevelyan's.

His hand fell for a moment to his side. The last
time he had worn the dust-coat was to the theatre in
London. His opera-glasses were still in his pocket.
He took them out and focussed them on the vessel.

It was an awful sight. The bare black hull drifted,
drifted, drifted hopelessly among the huge white
breakers that roared and shivered and careered

42 Kalee's Shrine.

around her. She was a collier, no doubt, a heavily-
laden collier, loaded down to the very verge of Plim-
soll's line, and a rackety, unseaworthy tub at that-
a coffin-ship of the worst type in fact, if ever there
was one. Her masts and rigging were all long since
torn away, and a bit of loose canvas, hastily fas-
tened to the broken stump of the mainmast, alone
carried her on before the raging tempest. One dark
figure stood beside the stump ; another, dimmer and
harder to make out, still grasped the tiller. The rest
were gone : all washed overboard.

Presently the moonlight fell fuller upon her Alan
then saw by the shimmer of the rays that the shape
by the stump was a tall man ; but the other hud-
dled up in frantic terror at the helm, was the figure
of a woman.

The lifeboat tugged and urged her course in vain
The storm was too fierce for her to make any defi-
nite headway against its overwhelming force. The
man on the wreck beckoned them frantically on
Accustomed as he was to sights of pain, this sight
of terror made Alan Tennant's blood curdle in his
vems, and his breath seemed to fail heavily in his
nostrils.

Next moment a huge breaker dashed over the hull.

When the foam riparf»rj q^r^,. i xi. , , ,

,...., ^— ,,v^ ana/, aua Uie Ui^cl? yVTQQU

Kalee's Shrine.

reappeared for a second against the gray horizon on
the crest of a wave, the man was gone. The woman
alone, drenched and dripping, clung madly and des-
perately to the unbroken tiller. It was clear she
was lashed there. They might yet save her.

The lifeboat drew a little nearer. Stroke after
stroke, she gained upon the wreck. It was a neck-
and-neck race, now, between death and the deliver-
ers. Every heart within that watching crowd on
shore stood still and waited as the light craft almost
touched the broadside of the sinking vessel. Then
a terrible billow burst upon her once more ; the life-
boat bounded away like a cork on the surface ; and
the wreck, foundering before their very eyes, sank
to the bottom in a great round eddy.

As it sank the w^oman threw up her bare brown
arms toward heaven in unspeakable horror. Every
eye saw her for a second silhouetted black and aw-
ful against the moonlit sky : the next instant she
was gone forever. Not a sound rose above the
roaring of the sea; but Alan Tennant, watching
with his glass, seemed actually to behold in the ex-
pression of her face her wild death-scream of unut-
terable agony.

At that moment a strange noise burst suddenly
and incongruously upon hit? startle^ ears— Ji M0i5§

10, ■

Kalee's Shrine.

audible even in the midst of that terrible turmoil :
the loud aiAd joyous laugh of a woman. It was no
hysterical outburst of emotion at the ghastly sight :
it was no uncontrollable explosion of feehng : it was
simple laughter, merry and triumphant ^^ -cstatic
paean of a victorious player. The laug: . seemed
to mock the agonized death-throes of the drowning
woman. There was something positively fiendish
and inhuman in the reckless glee of that inopportune
merriment.

What ghoul could thus insult the most frantic ter-
ror of dying humanity? What devilish joy could
thus brutally obtrude itsel upon the wrought-up
feelings of those awestruck spectators ?

Alan Tennant turned to look. On the lighted bal-
cony of Mrs. Hilary Tristram's house the window
had been flung carelessly open, and a young girl, in
evening dress, a woollen wrap cast lightly round
her shoulders, and a faded bouquet of red and white
flowers held tight in her right hand, stood gazing
out with big luminous eyes straight upon the blood-
curdling scene before her. The girl was tall, and
graceful, and beautiful: but in her proud face,
lighted up by the solitary candle, appeared no tinge
of sympathy or suspense or terror. She looked

with calm pvpxsnf th'^onnt »«'V,'>r'^ *-V- ' ' » •

7 _^ — —^ tis^^puL vviicrc lac vviucK nadjust

Kalee's Shrine.

foundered so awfully, and she laughed like a maniac
at the horrible catastrophe ; laughed, and laughed,
and laughed again, with inextinguishable merriment,
as though the sight of the drowning woman were to
her unnatural soul the most amusing and delightful
episode in all creation.

Alan Tennant stood there spellbound. The girl
in evening dress was Olga Trevelyan !

Kalee's SJirine.

CHAPTER III.

■m

SECOND THOUGHTS.

For a minute or two he could neither move nor
speak : the jar of that horrid unearthly laughter
bursting upon him at so solemn a juncture had too
wholly unmanned him for word or motion. His
head swam. He merely steadied himself feebly
with his hand on the broken windlass that stood,
gaunt and rusty, upon the bare Leach, and gazed
up, horror-struck, at the balcony window.

Then, slowly, his senses came to him again, and
his professional instinct got the better once more of
his half-superstitious awe and amazement. Gabo-
riau and the terrible scene before him combined
must have conspired to deprive him for a moment
of his wonted calmness. The weird sight had tem-
porarily overcome him : but now, with a sudden
effort of will, he faced and explained to himself the
whole mystery. Olga, his beautiful, tender Olga—
(he would call her so still !)-could never knowingly
have laughed like that at so ^wful m episQde, If©

Kalee's Shrine.

)ve nor
aughter
lad too
n. His
feebly-
stood,
I gazed

in, and
nore of
Gabo-
Tibined
loment
id tern-
sudden
elf the
Olga-
ivingly

remembered at once what Norah had told him.
Olga slept always with her eyes open. Clearly—
clearly she was asleep now ! That must be the ex-
planation of her seeming callousness. Callousness ?
Nay, rather, if she were really awake, devilish ex-
ultation at a fellow-creature's dying agony.

He cast his eyec nervously towards the beach.
Had any of the crowd observed or overheard his
beautiful Olga .? Thank heaven ! No, not a soul
of them anywhere ! They were all too absorbed
with the incident of the wreck to think of watching
Mrs. Tristram's windows. They were eagerly fol-
lowing the half-overpowered lifeboat in its d'^spair-
ino- struggle to return shoreward from its vain and
fruitless errand of mercy. No eye or ear on earth
save his own had noted in any way that appalling
interlude of unconscious laughter. No living soul
but himself knew anything about it; and he— he
could never misunderstand or distrust in any way
his beautiful Olga.

He hated himself for having, even for one second,

seemed to doubt her.

For like a flash of lightning, at that supreme
moment, the truth had forced itself with startling
vividness upon Alan Tennant's wavering soul, that
he was profoundly in love with Olga Trevelyan.

4«

Kalee's Shrine.

I:" I

He knew he loved her. He was certain he loved
her. The very force and intensity of his momentary
revulsion, when for one brief space of time he
imagined the laughter was really wrung from her
by that awful sight, in itself revealed to him the
depth and reality of his new-born passion. It was
long past midnight, and in those deepest hours of
the waning night the heart of man knows itself
with more profound intensity than ever elsewhere.
Alan Tennant knew now without a shadow of
doubt thrt he was desperately in love with Olga
Trevelyan.

He grasped his opera-glass feverishly in his hand.
The last time he used it was at the theatre in Lon-
don. And the opera that night— ha— it w-^s La
Sonnamhula ! The coincident gave him a pregnant
hint at once. Olga Trevelyan must clearly be a
somnambulist !

He levelled the glass at the window once more.
Olga stood gazing out tranquilly still, with spark-
ling eyes, directed now at him, and now at the spot
where the ship had just foundered. Already Alan
had almost forgotten the terror of the wreck. His
whole interest and anxiety centred now on this
deadly mystery of Olga's proceedings.

"My darling!" he murmured to himself, half

Kalee's Shrine.

below his breath. "My darling! My darling!
She shouldn 't expose herself at night like that, even
in August ! The cold will hurt her : it will chill her
blood. Shall I call them up, and tell them to wake

her ? "

A dark figure stood unseen behind him : hidden
from his sight by the windlass on the beach. The
dark figure was watching too— watching them both

with a strange and half-superstitious eagerness.

It was Sir Donald Mackinnon, the retired Anglo-
Indian, who had brought down his yacht, and
leased the Manor House at Thorborough for the
season. A weird fancy seemed to chain him to the
spot. He cast his eyes from Alan to Olga, and
from Olga to Alan, in alternate scrutiny.

Alan gazed still at the balcony window, in doubt
what action he should take to recall her once more
to her senses.

lust at that moment, a white shape, dimly seen
in the room behind, glided with noiseless feet across
the floor, and putting forth a soft fair hand, with a
bangle gleaming on the wrist, caught Olga's arm
ju^t below the shoulder, and pulled her gently from
the open balcony. A curtain screened the shape
from fuller view, but Alan Tennantknew intuitively
that it was irorah ijickerstetfi,
4

ill
<1

Kalee's Shrine.

With a sudden cry, Olga started in alarm and
flung up her hands— flung them up, as Alan noticed
half-unconsciously in the haste of the moment,
exactly as the woman lashed to the wreck had flung
up hers to the heavens above in her last death-
throes.

Sir Donald Mackinnon, unseen behind, noted the
coincidence as eagerly as Alan did.

There was an instantaneous flurry and excite-
ment in the house, a ringing of bells and lighting of
candles, as Alan judged by the glare at the upper
windows ; and then the front door opened suddenly,
and a man-servant, half-dressed and loosely muffled
round the throat, came out in haste, as if sent at full
speed in search of a doctor.

"Anything the matter?" Alan cried, coming
up to him hurriedly.

" Miss Trevelyan's took ill, sir," the man answered
with a start. "Had a fit or something. I'm going
for Dr. Hazleby."

"Go quickly," Alan said with an eager heart.
"But it '11 be some time before you can get him
up : he sleeps soundly. I 'm a medical man myself.
In such an emergency, I think it would be no breach
of etiquette if I were to watch Miss Trevelyan until
he comes to see her. Every minute'3 precious in

Kalee's Shrine.

cases like this. I'll go into the house at once and

see her. "

He walked to the door and rang the bell. Mrs.
Hilary Tristram herself (in a becoming dressing-
gown and mob-cap—nobody ever took Mrs. Hilary
Tristram at a disadvantage) opened the door for him
in much agitation.

"Oh, Mr. Tennant," she cried, "I'm so glad
you Ve come. What late hours you must keep, to
be sure ! Naughty man : ruining your constitution.
Poor Olga's had such a dreadful turn ! She was
sleeping in Norah's room, as usual ; and when thov
went up to bed; you know, Olga would sit up and
watch the waves— she's so sentimental ! And she
said perhaps the fishermen would be drowned.
Poor souls ! but then, I supi>ose they 're used to it.
Been accustomed to drowning all their lives, of
course ; though I know it 's only once fatal. Well,
Norah went to bed, like a sensible girl, and fell
asleep : but Olga sat up, watching by the window,
and by-and-by, as might naturally be expected, she
dozed off, with her arms on the table. In time, it
seems, she got up, still fast asleep,— I 'd no idea the
poor child was a somnambulist,— and opened the
window, and stepped on to the balcony. There
she stood, catching her death of cold, heaven knows

Kalee's Shrine.

how long, till Norah happened to wake with a start,
and found her laughing, positively laughing— in her
sleep, you understand— at the top of her voice too I
Nora crept out and touched her with her hand, and
the poor child she just sprang back, and screamed
and fainted. I've sent for Dr. Hazleby, who lives
quite near ; but, meanwhile, perhaps you'd like to
go up yourself and see her."

Alan followed her, without a word, into the room
where Olga was lying on a sofa, still dressed in her
evening dress, and grasping in her hand— his heart
beat fast— the little bouquet he himself had given
her I

She was very white and cold and pallid. He felt
her pulse: it beat feebly. Clearly she had just
passed through some nervous crisis, which had left
her weak, and weary, and flaccid. He had seen a
good deal of hospital practice before an almost
accidental success in a critical operation had
brought him name and fame as an oculist; and
he recognized at once, from Olga's condition,
that the crisis must have been a very severe
one.

Her face was turned to the sofa-back as she lay.
Alan took her head gently and reverently in his
hands, and turned it towards him. As he did so he

'. n

Kalee's Shrine.

gave a little involuntary start : the eyes were staring

wide and open.

He knew it before. He fully expected it. And
yet the sight of that vacant stare— not fixed on any-
thing near or earthly, but gazing intent, with rigid
pupils, as on some terrible object at an infinite
distance— alarmed and appalled him in some myste-
rious manner.

"Olga! Olga!" he half whispered in his dis-
may. Then, recollecting himself hastily, he said
aloud, " Miss Trevelyan ! Miss Trevelyan ! "

Olga lay as motionless as a corpse, and never
turned or seem to hear him.

The young man leaned over her closely and
watched her face. Round her neck a little silver
image hung by a silken thread ; Indian work ; he
scarcely noticed it. The corners of her mouth were
pinched and firm. The nostrils, still distended a
little, showed signs by their tremor of recent
violent passion. The eyelids hardly quivered
perceptibly. The pupils were dilated and very

brilliant.

What made the eyelids keep unclosed? The
young doctor examined them narrowly. Defective
nourishment, or some accidental lesion of the nerve
supplied to the elevator muscle. From what

Kalee's Shrine.

cause? . . . Great heaven! how he started!
. . . Close to the corner of either temple his
quick eye detected at once a tiny scar— a very tiny
scar— a long-healed cicatrix, almost invisible. Those
two small marks must have been produced when
Olga herself was quite a baby. The line remained,
scored deep in the skin, exactly like the scar of vac-
cination. They were not accidental : that much was
certain. No accident on earth could possibly have
severed both nerves alike on either side with such
admirable dexterity. They had been cut on purpose ;
and not with a knife either. Alan Tennant's quick,
experienced senses recognized in a second the dis-
tinctive broad-cut scar of a piece of glass or a stone
implement. Steel and the metals generally cut
deeper and clearer, with a fainter cicatrix.

Precisely the same scars, and in precisely the

same spot, as in the case of his one Thug patient !

How very strange, how more than strange, that

Olga Trevelyan too, like the Thug himself, should

have come from India !

However, this was no time for idle speculation.
Olga was ill. Olga was in danger. Too hasty
an awakening from the somnambulist state had
been followed, as usual, by collapse and possible
utter prostiation. Unless restoratives were applied

Kalee's Shrine.

at once, the action of the heart might cease alto-
gether.

"You ought not to have waked her," he said, gen-
tly, to Norah. " In future take care, when you see
her Hke that, you never wake her ; or at least, only
very gradually, if absolutely indispensable. The
sudden recall to intermittent consciousness migh!:
easily prove fatal. Brandy at once, please ; brandy
and sal- volatile."

They brought them in haste, and Alan poured a
glassful quickly down the poor girl's throat. After
a little while she revived somewhat, and feebly held
up the faded flowers.

**0h, Norah 1 " she murmured, half below her
breath, her eyes meanwhile coming back to earth
with a gradual return from the abysses of infinity ;
''I've had such a terrible, terrible dream. . . .
A ghastly dream ! ... but I am sure I don't
know what on earth it was about. ... I was
laughing, laughing, laughing so hard. ... I
can't remember most of my dream, but just the

end. I thought " and she looked at the

flowers dreamily; *' I thought I saw Mr. Alan

Tennant."

Alan's heart leaped up in his breast. It was too
terrible ... or too delightful. Had she really

Kalee's Shrine.

seen him with her staring; wide eyes ? Then if so,
she must have seen, too, that awful episode. Or
had she merely been dreaming a maiden's dream
about him ? Then if so, at that his very heart within
him was reverently silent.

He dropped the hand whose pulse he was slowly
counting, and glided from the room, unseen by
Olga. He could never let her know he had possibly
surprised even so much (if anything) of her heart's
vague imaginings. It would be cruel and unfair
to her— a mean advantage. He beckoned Norah
and Mrs. Tristram silently from the room. They
left Olga for the minute in charge of the servants.

"I'll go below till Dr. Hazleby comes," he said,
"in case I should be needed. Meanwhile, go on
giving her the brandy frequently. But don't let her
know I 've seen her at all. Poor child ! it might
make her feel awkward with me afterward."

Norah smiled a knowing little smile. " Very
well," she said, with a meaning look. "We can
keep our own counsel, you may be sure, Mr. Ten-
nant. . . . But how strange you should happen
to be so near at hand just at the very moment when
dear Olga wanted you ! Quite in the Romeo and
Juliet style, you know. A serenade by midnight—
without the music. It strikes me, Mr. Tennant,

Kalee's Shrine.

you must have been taking a moonlight stroll
very late right under Olga's window too, lor a

wonder ! " ^^

Alan drew himself up shortly. " I was out, he
said - watching the lifeboat, which had just put off
to assist a wreck. The wreck went down exactly
opposite your aunt's windows. It was a terrible
sight, indeed, Miss Bickersteth ; the most terrible,
save 'one, I ever beheld in all my life. . . . Miss
Trevelyan is in a very excited and nervous condi-
tion. She 's a voung lady whose nerves should not
be overwrought. If possible, keep the facts about
the wreck from her. In her present state, I 'm afraid
they might do her serious injury."

" He's very much in love," Norah whispered to
her aunt as they went back to the sick-room again.
- He doesn't like to be teased about her. When a
man doesn't like to be teased about a pretty girl,
you may be fairly sure there 's something serious
in it.

Alan slipped down to the dimly-lighted drawing-
room, and waiting there patiently till Dr. Hazleby
arrived, briefly explained what he had seen and
heard, and waited for his final verdict. In a few
minutes Dr. Hazleby came down again, with his

;

Kalee's Shrine.

heavy tread resounding on the staircase, and reported
the patient as distinctly better.

** She doesn't know you've seen her, I gather,"
he said brusquely.

**No," Alan aswered with some hesitation. *<I
hope you didn't mention it ? "

"I didn't," the country doctor replied, taking up
his hat. "And as I was walking down the stairs I
heard her say to Mrs. Tristram— admirable woman,
Mrs. Tristram—' For heaven's sake, don't mention
a word of all this to Mr. Tennant' So you see, my
dear sir, you mustn't be supposed to know anything
about it. Don't tell the young lady you saw her at
all. She's a poor, nervous, weak-minded crea-
ture ! "

There 's nothing on earth more exasperating to
a well-balanced masculine mind than the common-
place way in which other people discuss the char-
acteristics of the admirable girl you yourself are
profoundly in love with! They positively talk
about her for all the world just the same as if she
were any other fellow's ordinary sweetheart I

Kalee's Shrine.

CHAPTER IV.

DREAM FACES.

It may be accepted as a general rule in life that
everything always looks very different the next
morning. As Alan Tennant sat by himself at his
ten o'clock breakfast in the comfortable coffee-room
of the Royal Alexandra (formerly the old White
Lion) he reflected with his own mind that after all
he too, as well as his patient, had been in a horri-
bly overwrought condition the previous evening.
Gaboriau, and brandy and soda, and three cigars,
and the small hours of the night, and a violent storm,
all piled one on top of the other, had evidently
combined to make him that evening most absurdly
and stupidly morbid and hysterical. But in his
sober moments, a man of science ought not to give
way to such weak romanticism. After all, what
did the evening's horrors really amount to ? There
had been a wreck ; and wrecks, at least, are unhap-
pily common objects of the seashore in this favored
country. Then, in addition, Miss Trcvelyan had

. H"

Kalee's Shrine.

had a slight turn of somnambulism. A turn of som-
nambulism, even if interfered with, is not a very
serious or mysterious affair. Finally, as to his ideas

about Miss Trevelyan herself, why

But no. That is a point on which even the man
of science (especially at twenty-nine years of age)
is by common consent allowed to be romantic.
Alan Tennant said it outright to himself once more
by broad daylight. He was in love with Olga
Trevelyan.

All through his breakfast he was longing to know
how she had borne last evening's shock. Had she
really seen the episode of the wreck, and tortured it
somehow into something utterly different in her
dreaming consciousness? Would she vaguely re-
member it now she had come to herself again.?
Would somebody incautiously blurt out all about it,
and so recall it with a terrible rush to her half-obliv-
ious memory ? He hoped not ! He trusted not !
But people are always so very imprudent. And in
a little place like Thorborough, too, a wreck would
surely be the talk of the town for the next fortnight.
He wished he could manage to get her well out of
it ! The incident was one that might haunt and
dog a sensitive nature like hers for months together !
At the risk of being thought too obtrusively soli-

.i^rssjs;

Kalee's Shrine.

citous, he had scribbled off a hasty pencil-note early
in the morning to Mrs. Tristram :

" For heaven's sake, whatever you do, try to keep the news of
the wreck from her."

Then, remembering himself, with a "Pshaw" and
a smile, he changed the last word carefully into
" riss Trevelyan," just as if he really thought there
was only one her in the whole universe !

After breakfast he lighted his cigar,— tobacco was
Alan Tennant's one weakness,— and strolled round
to inquire about-well, about Olga. Why not
frankly, in his own mind, say Olga? When a man
is just beginning to fall in love, he feels himself
quite a daring person if he ventures to call the ob-
ject of his choice by her Christian name in his
unspoken thoughts even. He could only inquire
about her : he mustn't ask to look at her. She
wasn't his patient, but Dr. Hazleby's ; and medical
etiquette, that vast organized professional trades-
unionism, effectually prevented him from asking to
see her. But he could at least inquire. No harm
in inquiring. Mrs. Tristram met him in the garden
as he entered. Olga was very much better this
morning, thank you ; in fact, apparently, quite her-
self again. Dear child, she had just had a horrid fit

Kalee's Shrine.

of walking in her sleep, and been alarmed and fright
ened at her sudden waking ; but this morning, after
a night's rest and a good breakfast, she seemed as
if nothing at all was the matter with her. Mrs.
Tristram had sent her out with the girls and young
men to stroll along the beach— looking for amber.
She thought it would take their minds off last
nights troubles. Amber was always thrown up
upon the beach between Thorborough and Yarford
after stormy weather, The big lump with the two
large flies in it on the drawing-room whatnot had
been picked up after the great storm last November.
The girls all wanted to go out amber-hunting. It
was so amusing. Would Mr. Tennant walk that
way and meet them }

A vague dread smote upon Alan's mind. They
were sure to come upon some planks of the wreck
then. The beach was certain to be covered with
fragments. If so, it would be impossible any longer
to conceal the truth from Olga.

He hurried off eagerly along the beach towards
Yarford, walking on the narrow strip of sand for
greater expedition, and scanning the shore for any
indication of Mrs. Tristram's party.

Half a mile from Yarford Gap, he saw them in
front of him, all closely intent, upon the edge of the

Kalef^'s Shrine.

beach at the pohit where the wet and matted sea-
weed had been tossed and left by the storm in its

frenzy.

As he came up, Norah bowed to him with an arch
little smile, as who should say, "I know your se-
cret." Olga, prettier than ever in her blushes and
her morning print, gave him her hand with a dainty
K;;5erve that thrilled straight to the young man's
heart from the tips of her fingers. She was looking
perfectly well and even rosy ; and she held out a
small round lump of rough amber with a smile of
triumph, saying as she did so, "You see, Mr. Ten-
nant, I'm the only one, so far, whom the gods have

fav^^ed." *

What was there about that pretty smile that struck
a cold chill for a second to Alan's heart ? He hardly
even knew himself : and yet, in some vague back-
chamber of consciousness, he remembered to have
seen it before— and shuddered. It was a smile of
triumph— innocent triumph ; but it smote him hard
with an awful sense of imperfect recognition.

They walked along, homeward now, and Alan

and Olga led the way : the rest, with little smiles

and nods of wise observation, allowing them to head

the tiny procession.

Olga talked charm.ingly and prettily. She really

Kalee's Shrine.

■ft

I '

was the very sweetest girl Alan Tennant had evei
come across. Her mood that morning was a tritie
more girlish and less earnest than usual : she watched
the big waves still tumbling on the beach with nai/-
delight, and seemed somehow happier and more
thoroughly at home than Alan had ever yet seen
her.

"All the fishermen got back quite safe at last, you
know," she said with a light smile, as she gazed at
the huge breakers curling on the foreshore; -so
one can admire the high sea with a clear conscience
now. I love to watch ft foaming like that, when
I 'm perfectly sure nobody s in any danger from
it."

"It is beautiful," Alan said, hurrying her on none
the less. - Very beautiful. Just like a bit of Henry
Moore. How exquisite the shimmer on their great
crests as they curve and flash over on to the bar-
rier of shingle ! Do you paint. Miss Trevelyan ? "

"Oh, yes. I'm simply just wild about painting.
I paint continually. Not sea, though, of course :
sea is only for the great artists. Flowers, and cot-
tages, and rustic children, and that sort of thing :
the regular amateur subjects, you know."

"The fresh seaweed looks lovely in the sun, too,
doesn't it ? " Alan went on, carelessly, as they ap'-

Kalee's Shrine.

proached a great tang^led mass near the high-water
line. "Such delicate tints of brown and yellow,
glistening wet. There's nothing else in all nature
like them."

"Nothing," Olga answered, turning over the mat-
ted fronds lightly with her parasol. "Why, Mr.
Tennant, what on earth 's that ? Just look : a wo-
man's dress among the new seaweed ! "

Before Alan could utter a word of warning, or
divert her attention by some petty stratagem, she
had turned up the mass that lay above the dress,
and stood rooted to the ground, with eyes of horror
wildly staring at the ghastly object that now fronted
her on the foreshore.

A faint cry burst from her lips. Then in a mo-
ment she was suddenly and ominously silent.

The thing that gazed upon her awfully from the
sands was a woman's face : a woman's face, battered
and distorted, livid with long tossing and tumbling
on the shore, bronzed with the sun, but now pale
in death, and terribly ghastly. The body was lashed
to a broken spar— the tiller of the coal vessel that
went down in the storm before Alan Tennant's eyes
the previous evening.

In his tender anxiety, the young man took her
unconsciously by the arm., and tried to lead her

Kalee's Shrine.

away perforce from the sickening sight. But Olga
could noi be moved or distracted. She gazed with
one long fixed stare at the face, mutilated and hor-
rible, but still perfectly recognizable. Its eyes lay
open, staring back at her own ; staring through them,
as it were, into dim infinity.

"Miss Trevelyan," Alan cried with a tone of
authority, "you must come away : you must come
home immediately. This is no fit sight for such as
you, Leave us men to do all that is necessary. A
wreck took place last night off the coast here at
Thorborough, and this poor creature is one of the
victims. We did not wish you to know anything
about it : but now that you know, you must go
home at once : you mustn't terrify yourself by
looking at it any longer."

"It isn't that/' Olga cried convulsively, finding
tongue at last, and clutching at Norah, who had
just come up, and was gazing awestruck by her
side at the pallid corpse: "it isn't that, but, oh,
Norah ! darling ! . . . Mr. Tennant ! Mr.
Tennant, I know the face. ... I'm sure I
know it. I've seen it somewhere. I recollect it
well. Oh, so vividly : with eyes staring open wide
like that, and arms flung up— so— piteously to
heaven. . . . Where could I have seen her?

Kalee's Shrine.

Oh, Norah, Norah ! For heaven's sake tell me,
where could I have seen her ? "

And then, with a sudden burst of recollection,
burying her face in her friend's hands, she cried
akr.d in a voice broken with horror, " It was last

ni<rht ! In my dream, Norah ! And I thought

Oh, heaven, I don't know what I thought. . . .
But I never, never knew the poor soul was drown-
nig !

Alan Tennant took one arm tenderly. "Lift her
up," he said to Norah's brother, young Harry Bick-
ersteth. They lifted her up between them in their
arms, and carried her, a listless, half-fainting
burden, as far as the first bench on the walk outside
tlie town. There Alan laid her gently down, and
sent Harry for a fly to the Royal Alexandra to drive
her back to Mrs. Tristram's.

"She must have perfect quiet." he said in a tone
of command to Norah. "This double shock is a
terrible strain on so excitable a nature. Take her
home and send for Dr. Hazleby. I must go back
now and see after the body. "

Kalee's Shrine.

CHAPTER V.

A SOAP BUBBLE.

At twenty-one, nature is happily very elastic.
Three weeks of quiet at Mrs. Hilary Tristram's
seemed quite to restore Olga's shattered nerves :
and Norah Bickersteth was certainly the very best
nurse and companion in the world at such a time
for such a patient. Norah's gayety was beyond
eclipse : and her lively talk and innocent merriment
proved better for Olga than a thousand doctors.
Indeed, one doctor, if unmarried and handsome, is
often worth a great deal more than a full thousand.
And Alan Tennant, looking in unprofessionally as
often as politeness permitted, noticed with plea-
sure that Olga's temperament, though very subtle,
possessed plastic powers of recuperation. " What
a blessed thing it is to be young," he thought to
himself. At twenty-nine, a man considers himself
entitled to assume a middle-aged air and tone to-
wards the foibles and follies of early adolescence.
And yet twenty-nine itself is not very old. A man

Kalee's Shrine.

of twenty-nine has still a heart, and that heart is
still capable at times of a not wholly disagreeable
fluttering palpitation.

Mrs. Hilary Tristram noticed, too, that Alan's
visits were unnecessarily frequent. Last summer,
she said, Mr. Tennant had been a perfect martyr
to the royal game of golf : this year, the links were
completely neglected, and the only manly amuse-
ment for which he seemed to retain the slightest
taste was boating on the river. Now boating, as
an acute intelligence wiU immediately perceive, is
not a selfish or monopolist pleasure : in a boat, for
example, you can carry passengers. Alan's boat,
manned as a rule by himself and Harry Bickersteth,
carried three or four inside : and among them were
generally Olga and Norah, marshalled by that dis-
creet and amiable chaperon, Mrs. Hilary Tristram.
The mysterious game of golf does not readily lend
itself to the softer pleasures of female society, or the
practice of the innocent art of flirting. A boat, on
the contrary, as everybody knows, forms one of the
most harmless, even if necessarily space-restricted,
meeting-places of the young, the gay, the giddy,
and the thoughtless. That perhaps— though it
is always rash to speculate on human motives
—was the main reason why Alan Tennant had

il\

Kalee's Shrine.

desertea golf and taken instead to an aquatic
existence.

Mrs. Hilary Tristram was not unaware that Alan
Tennant had "formed an attachment" (such is, I
believe, the correct phrase for these earlier stages)
towards Olga Trcvelyan. On that point, Mrs.
Tristram wisely reserved judgment : or, to speak
more correctly, assumed the attitude of a benevolent
neutral. She would have wished, indeed, it had
been dear Norah : Mr. Tennant was such ap ex-
cellent, well-principled young man : but dear Norah
was still very ycang, and a niece of IMrs. Hilary
Tristram's need never fear the lack of fitting mat-
rimonial opportunities in London society. One
doubtful question alone remained — would Sir
Everard Trevelyan, that stern civil servant, away
over in Bhootan or whatever they called it, consider
Mrs. Tristram had done right in allowing his
daughter to contract an affection (correct phrase
again) for the young oculist ?

Of course, Mr. Tennant was a very distinguished
coming man — extraordinarily distinguished for his
age and profession— and sure to rise, and to be
knighted and so forth, and really a very excellent
catch— in these hard times, you know— for anybody
below the rank of an earl's daughter. For it must

Kalee's Shrine.

at once be admitted, to put it bluntly, that a gen-
eral tightness 'prevails in the marriage market.
Husbands are not so abundant as they used to be
a few years since, and when found, they are apt,
hke all other commodities when the demand ex-
ceeds the supply, to put a fancy price upon them-
selves. They give themselves airs, in short, and
think hardly anybody good enough for them.
Still, your Indian magnate has often such an exag-
gerated idea of his own mightiness, that Mrs. Tris-
tram scarcely knew whether Sir Everard would ap-
prove of his daughter's marriage with a mere ocu-
list—a common surgeon, you observe, not even
physician ! So she prudently abstained from overt
recognition of this little affair, for good or for evil.
It was not her fault, of course, if Mr. Ten lant and
dear Olga privately formed a mutual attachment
for one another. She, at any rate, had done nothing
in any way to throw the young people together or
to promote an engagement.

And yet, need it be said that in her heart of hearts
(so profound is the love of match-making among
women) Mrs. Hilary Tristram would have been
vastly disappointed if Alan Tcnnant had not pro-
posed to Olga Trevelyan, or, having proposed, had
been rejected by her ?

Kalee's Shrine.

1^(1

!■■:

At the end of three weeks, Sir Donald and Lady
Mackinnon gave a picnic.

Lady Mackinnon's picnics were grandiose and
Anglo-Indian. Sir Donald, like a canny Scot that
he was, had married money. This money, origi-
nally accumulated by his respected father-in-law in
the engrossing pursuit of the nimble quotation (as
quotation is understood in Capel Court), enabled
him to rent the Manor House at Thorborough, and
support the dignity of a K. C. S. L with a becoming
degree of social munificciice. The picnics attested
and enforced that dignity. Sir Donald's steam
yacht made its way solemnly up the river Thorc to
a convenient point, laden with as many young
men and maidens as it could conveniently hold ;
and there, standing aside from the main channel,
under the shadow of the low sandstone cliff at Pon-
ton, anchored seriously, with many premonitory
puffs and snorts, for the discussion of luncheon.
Everything was done decently and in order. The
champagne was unexceptionably iced, and the
tablecloth was spread on deck on an improvised
table of polished boards and mock-rustic trestles.
The lobster blushed ingenuous in the silver dishes,
and the salad smiled serenely complacent in a deli-
cate bowl of Persian pottery. In short, the picnic

Kalee's Shrine.

was reduced as nearly to the level of a civilized din-
ner party as v^^as possible under the circumstances
of river yachting: and stewards and footmen did
their level best to get rid of that delicious primitive
simplicity which is the very breath of life and rai-
son dttre of the genuine unsophisticated natural

picnic.

Alan and Olga were among the bidden to this
particular feast, as well, of course, as the remainder
of Mrs. Hilary Tristram^ expansive party. Norah
was there, looking simply enclmnting in a sweet
little figured mcrning dress, and chatting away in
her childish gayety to all and sundry about every
thing and nothing Alan sto id talking to her long
by the gunwale, peering at the herons fishing in the
streams left by the ebbing tide, and listening to her
charmingly ;i(Z?/' remarks about men and things and
the universe generally. At last, a more favored
youth absorbed her conversation, and Alan, stroll-
ing forward, came suddenly upon Olga, watching
the water almost alone near the yacht's bow.

''What a delightful little person your friend Miss
Bickersteth is," he said to her, with a smile.
" She 's been keeping us all amused over yonder
this last half-hour with her funny little speeches." ^
'* Yes, isn't she clever ! " Olga cried enthusiasti-

Kalee's Shrine.

fi '

cally. - And so pretty, too. And so deliglitfully
natural. And such a sweet girl, Mr. Tennant, when
you really get to know her. Not a bit spoiled by
all the admiration she receives, though she lives so
much in such great society ! I'm so glad you ad-
mire her ! She 's my dearest friend in all the world,
Just look at her now ! Did you ever see anybody
so perfectly graceful and so perfectly beautiful ? "

"She's certainly very pretty," Alan answered,
glancing across at her with an admiring eye.'
" Pretty rather than beautiful, I should say. Those
mignonne figures are extremely charming, but not
exactly what one calls beautiful."

"Oh, but prettiness after all is more than beauty,
Mr. Tennant. It implies something. It 's a speak-
ing quality. It means they 're good and true and
sweet and lovable as well as merely pleasing objects
for the eye to look at."

Alan nodded. "I'm glad you are so enthusi-
astic about her," he said warmly. He hated jeal-
ousy. It's a great point in a girl'.: favor when
she can be frankly enthusiastic over another girls
beauty.

Olga smiled a pretty little smile. She was pleased
that Mr. Tennant admired her friend. Dear little
Norah. Nobody on earth-except perhaps Mr.

'-.

Kalee's Shrine.

Tennant — was really and truly quite good enough
for her.

A flower on an islet of mud in the side stream
attracted for a passing moment Olga's attention.

" How curious ! " she said, pointing to it with her
fan ; " I never saw it before. So light and feathery.
It 's a beautiful thing. I should love to paint it."

" It's peculiar to the Eastern counties," Alan said,
at a glance. "I know it well. I've botanized it
before now. I'll try to get you a bit one day for
painting."

A small circumstance, unnoted at the time, but
not uneventful. These small circumstances govern
our lives for us.

Sir Donald came up as they stood and talked.

"Insufferable old bore ! " Alan said to himself
with scant courtesy to his host — pardonable under
the circumstances. "Can't he see I want to get a
few words by myself with Miss Trevelyan ? "

She was "Miss Trevelyan" to him still before
others, and in the white daytime: "Olga" only
when he rehearsed afresh her slightest movements
and speeches to himself at night in his own cham-
ber.

"Fine view," Sir Donald said, pointing with a
Inroad sweep of liis bronzed hand over the barren flats

i f I

k '■•■all)

lil

Kalee's Shrine.

to east and ./est of them. "Beautiful prospect I
Lovely weather ! "

•' It ts beautiful in its wa>^ " Alan said, distractedly,
gazing at the long fl.nt banks of unrelieved mud on
either hand, shining iridescent in tlie broad sunlight.
"There's a vast wealth of undiscovered beauty for
the true artist in common mud. It lights up won-
derfully now into cloth ofgold and Tyrian purple. I
saw Wyllie make an exquisite sketch of these very
flats when I was boating here last summer. Do you
think, Miss Trevelyan, you could ever paint them? "
"No," Olga answered, gazing at the glistening
expanse dreamily. "It would 'ake a great colorist
to do it full justice. You're quite right. Sir Donald.
It's really beautiful."

She turned her face up to him as she spoke, in the
full glare of the August sun ; and the old Indian,
looking gently down at her, smiled with delight like
a child for a moment at discovering that so intelli-
gent and discerning a sense had been read by them
both into his casual observation. It 's so delightful
to find you've made a brilliant remark without even
yourself either knowing it or meaning it ! The old
man was pleased and gratified. Next instant, some-
thing unusual in Olga's face seemed strangely to
attract and rivet his attention. He gazed at her

Kalee's Shrine.

closely, almost rudely, till Olga drew back a little
abashed from his wondering stare. Then he gave a
sudden backward jerk of his head muttered some-
thing inaudible l^elow his mustache to himself, and
remained silent for a few seconds.

At last he spoke: ''You were born in adia, I
believe, my dear," he said, not unkindly.

But Olga evidently resented his manner. "I was,
Sir Donald," she answered with some cu ness.

**H'm," he rep ated. "Born in India ! Curious !
Curious ! One hardly ui lerstands it. Bu^ queer
things will turn up sometimes. Queer '^^ace, India,
Queer events often happen there. I knev\ } our father,
when I was in the service, my dear. Very odd thing
happened to me once, in a district where your father
was then stationed "

"Indeed!" Olga said with quiet dignity. She
did not seem anxious to pursue the subject.

"Yes, Mr. Tennant," Sir Donald wem op turn-
ing round to the young doctor in his auAiety for a
listener. ' ' It must have been when this young lady
here was in th nursery, I suppose ; T came across
one of the last remnants of that abominable Thug-
gee."

"I thought it was all put an end to long ago,"
Alan said with a suppressed yawn.

idt

I'ln

if;

78 Kalee's Shrine.

"Put an end to? Not a bit of it!" Sir Donald
responded. "It lived on spasmodically till very
lately. Why, in the IJenjral famine of '66, \u a
temple of Kalee, only 150 miles np country from
Calcutta, we found a boy vvitli his throat cut; tiie
eyes starln<,r vvide open ; and tho clotted tongue
thrust out between the teeth :— a very horrible sight,
I promise you. And in your fathers district, my
dear, in your father's district, when you were a baby
almost, I came upon one very serious case of Thug-
gee. I had sat on the Thuggee commission, you
know— helped to stamp tlie wliole thing out—
and so, of course, I knew all about it. Horrid prac-
tice that of the Thugs. They used to catch wayfar-
ing victims, entice them to dine and then to sleep,
—drugged, no doubt,— strangle them with a hand-
kerchief as they slept on the ground, and offer up
their blood to their goddess Kalee. But we stamped
it out, stamped it out at last, sir, entirely. Benefi-
cent rule of the British Government stamped out
Suttee, stamped out infanticide, stamped out Thug-
gee, stamped out everything."

"Except famine," Alan said, smiling. He was
anxious now to divert the conversation ; for he could
see that Olga, in spite of an affected air of nonchal-
ance, was eagerly drinking in the whole conversa-

Kalee's Shrine.

tion, and he dreaded the effect upon her nervous
constitution of so exciting a ruhject. He took, as
he fancied, a sort of paternal interest in her.

"Except famine, to be sure," the ohl An<;lo-Indian
answered good-humorcdly, refusing to follow the
red rag so industriously trailed across the track of
conversation. " Of course, we can't expect to put
down famine. We 're not answerable if the monsoon
doesn't burst at the time it ought to do. Well, as T
was telling you, I came across the last relic of Thug-
gee in the very district where this young lady — at
the age of four, I suppose — was then residing. In
the midst of a jungle, a dense jungle, as impassable
as a cactus thicket, we found a httle dirty squalid
temple — Thugs, if you please — all covered with
blood, after their nasty fashion : and a lean old
wretch of a fakir inside, squatting on his haunches,
huddled in his rags, and actually taken in the
very act of cutting up a dead body. I give you
my word of honor for it, my dear young lady,
with a flint knife, cutting up and mutilating a dead

body."

Sir Donald paused and wiped his glasses signifi-
cantly. Olga shuddered visibly as he gazed hard at
her.

** And what became of the old man ? " she asked.

BMUmMliiiMV^

hlili

Kalee's Shri

ne.

looking up in his face

oni

more with a strange
interest.

"Oh, the old man! Hanged him, of course-
hanged him : hanged him. He was caught red-
handed, and we naturally hanged him. Girjee was
the old wretch's name, I remember. Died hard
with the rope round his neck, cursing us all in the
name of Kalee, and predicting all sorts of hideous
vengeance in the future against us. Gave your
father quite a turn, the old fellow was so perfectly
sure Kalee would avenge his execution on Sir Ever-
ard himself and h^s children's children."

"It was very dreadful," Olga said shuddering
"My dear," the old Indian asked, turning sud-
denly upon her, " do you happen to speak any
Hindastani?"

"I did once," Olga answered, with a faint blush,
"but I ve forgotten it all ages ago. Only, some'
tmies in my sleep, a little of it seems still to come
back faintly to me."

He looked her hard in the face with a critical
gaze. Olga shrank half alarmed from his inquiring-
eyes. ^

"H'm?" he said again, glancing casually at her
neck. "What's that you've got there.? Eh? Tell
me ! A piece of Indian silver-work, isn't it ? "

\i ;

Kalee's Shrine.

"Yes," Olga replied, fingering the image nerv-
ously. "A present from my old ayah at Moozuff-
ernugger. I wear it always, I 'm sure I don't know
why. I 've grown accustomed to it. It's a sort of
sentiment."

Just then, to Alan's unspeakable relief, Norah ran
up to take her friend aft and consult her on some
small point being eagerly debated by a little crowd
in Sir Donald's cabin.

"A pretty girl," Sir Donald muttered confiden-
tially to Alan, "but, by Jove,, sir, I wouldn't take
ten thousand pounds to be the man that marries
her ! "

"Perhaps not," Alan said sLortly. " But happily
you're not called upon to make the effort, and I
don't thiuK she'll have much difficulty in getting a
husband in due time without offering such an extra-
vagant figure."

" Ah, I dare say the fellow who marries her
wouldn't find her out all at once : but he 'd soon
discover what was the matter after it was too late,
I'm thinking, Mr. Tennant."

" Love is blind," Alan said oracularly.

"Aye, but marriage is just like yourself, — a great

oculist," the old Anglo-Indian retorted laughing,

Alan answered nothing. He merely glanced
6

Iff

^ ' i\

I nil

& f

Kalee's Shrine.

after Olga's retreating figure with some little trepi-
dation. Everything that in any way disturbed
her mind was now to him a subject for sincere
regret.

" She looks to me too beautiful and good to hnve
anything on earth but goodness within her," he said
at last, half thinking aloud.

Sir Donald started. "Eh," he said : "That's the
way the wind blows, is it, then, Mr. Tennant?
Take care what you do. You don't mean to say,
young man, you're going yourself to marry that
wild young lassie there, are you ! "

"If I were," Alan answered evasively with quiet
dignity, "it is probable I would take the young lady
herself before anybody else into my confidence."

He walked aft to join Norah and Olga. As he
reached their group, Norah was just remarking some-
thing in a slight undertone about their excellent
host.

"Oh, yes, he 's a dear old man in his own way,"
she said smilingly ; -but like all Highlanders, you
know, he's terribly superstitious."

Kalee's Shrine.

^fil

■ I

CHAPTER VI.

! i;i|

THE HERO EMERGES.

After lunch, the yacht had to wait two hours for
the tide to serve before she could make her way
back again in safety down the shrunken channel.

The river Thore, which debouches into the sea
at Thorborough (good word, debouches : you will
find it in the guide-book), is one of those sluggish
tidal East Anglian rivers which meander along, with
infitiitc twists and turns, for miles together through
two inimitable boundary plains of festering mud-
l)ank. At high tide, the estuary hlls from side to
side, and >x>ks like a splendid widespread lake :
at low wat^, H father resembles a vast desert of
unutterable slush, with a narrow thread of river
trickling slowly down a hollow in its centre. Land-
ing is impossible on either shore : deep banks of
slime and ooze intercept your passage in every
direction. You can only keep to the mid-channel,
and wait till you come to the rare quays where an
artificial landing-place has been duly provided by
human means tor your special convenience.

Kalee's Shrine.

i;i

i i

The afternoon seemed rather tame as they lay at
anchor : so the two row-boats of the yacht were put
under requisition, and most of the party went off
together, rowed by the attendants, down the side
streamlets. The big gig, manned by the two sailors,
the footmen, and some of the young men, turned
off in one direction to put up the herons on the
great mud flats : in the smaller boat, Norah and her
brother went with a couple of others to explore the
water that ran down a tributary channel from the
neighboring paper mills. Olga complained of a lit-
tle headache— the sun and the water, she said : and
she stayed behind. Alan (oddly enough) preferred
to stop with her. In a little while, they were left
to themselves, not without the guilty connivance,
it is to be feared, of Mrs. Hilary Tristram, wdio en-
gaged Sir Donald and Lady Mackinnon in an elderly
gossip all by themselves beside the companion
ladder.

Olga and Alan leaned over the gunwale and
talked their own talk confidentially alone, leav-
ing the respected seniors to their private re-
sources.

"Yes," Mrs. Hilary Tristram said, with a confess-
ing smile, in answer to some casual remark of Sir
Donald's: "I know I am. I admit the impeach-

Kalee's Shrine.

ment. It 's so pleasant to make young people happy.
The difficulty is, nowadays, how to do it. There
are so many good girls, and nice girls, and pretty
girls, and clever girls, all over England, waiting to
be married, and never a man anywhere to marry
them. Where are the men ? All gone abroad — in
the Army, in the Navy, in India, in the Colonies —
wood-cutting in Canada, sheep-farming in New Zea-
land, tea-planting in Assam, sugar-boiling in Jamai-
ca, — doing anything and everything on earth but
what they ought to be — making love at their ease to
the nice girls here at home in England. And the
consequence is, the nice girls are left alone by them-
selves disconsolate. I really wish I could introduce
a Universal British Empire Telephonic Matrimonial
Agency, to bring the young people everywhere to-
gether. But as I can't, I 'm reduced to the sad neces-
sity of inviting the miserable remnant of the men to
meet the whole host of nice girls at dinners and
dances."

"You're a benefactor of humanity," Lady Mac-
kinnon answered with a nod. "Or ought the right
words to be benefactress of femininity? "

** I 'm not so sure about the young couple by the
gunwale over yonder," Sir Donald interrupted, with
a mysterious shake of his sagacious head. "I'm

I k 'A

1 's a

An
'I If

1 1

! f

i^i

t 4 'flIHHD

*^^B^K

-^HHH

Kalee's Shrine.

)

not so sure of your benefaction there, do you know,
Mrs. Tristram."

"Not so sure of Mr. Tennant, Sir Donald ! " Mrs.
Tristram cried, bridling up at once and arching her
eyebrows suddenly. "Oh, I assure you, he 's a
most charming young man, and so well principled
too." (Ladies of Mrs. Tristram's age, it may be
parenthetically observed, invariably attach a pro-
found importance to those mystic entities known as
Principles.) " He 'd be a most eligible husband for
any good girl : I can't allow you to say a single
word against my ]\lr. Tennant."

'*It wasn't of Jiim I was thinking, thank you,"
Sir Donald muttered dryly. " It wasn't of him. It
was of the young lady."

" What } Olga ! My dear Sir Donald, you must
really excuse me, but Olga's one of my most par-
ticular favorites. The only doubt I had on my
mind was whether my Mr. Tennant, nice as he is,
was quite nice enough for dear Olga. I hesitated
as to whether I ought to permit the young people to
be thrown so very much together."

Sir Donald shrugged his shoulders slightly : that
was a Celtic-Scotch trick which his Indian experi-
ences had rather strengthened than otherwise.

"It's none of my business, I'm sure, my dear

Jill 15

Kalee's Shrine.

madam," he said shortly: "but you know I'm a
Scotchman, and we Scotch are a trifle eerie. I have
a wee bit of the second sight about me, myself; and
1 don't just like that young lady's eyes. I've seen
something like them in India. . . No, no : I 'm not
going to tell you, for you'd only laugh at me : but
I know this much, that if I were a young man I 'd
think twice before I put my fate, for better for worse,
into such hands as Miss Olga Trevelyan's. She 's a
friend of yours, and I '11 say naught aganist her : but
if second sight counts for anything nowadays, I tell
you there 's mischief brewing ahead for Mr. Alan
Tennant."

]\Irs. Hilary Tristram traced a circle uneasily with
her parasol on the deck.

"I've had the good fortune to be born south of
the Tweed, Sir Donald," she said at last, after an
awkward pause, "so the second sight doesn't great-
ly trouble me."

But it did trouble her, for all that. Being a wo-
man, and therefore impressionable, the mere sug-
gestion of misfortune affected her happiness. She
spent a sleepless night that memorable Wednesday,
thinking over in her own soul by herself all possible
evils that could ever be supposed to overshadow in
the future Olga Trevelyan and Alan Tennant. Per-

-''Mil

Kalee's Shrine,

haps Sir Everard M'ould be ve-y angry, and then
what a dreadful fuss she would gee into for having
encouraged this unfortunate love affair. The more
she thought about it, the more nervous she grew.
It 's an awful thing to undertake the ro/e of earthly
providence to two aspiring ana grateful young
lives !

Never suggest ill omens to a woman. You are
raising more ghosts than all your philosophy can
ever exorcise.

Meanwhile, Alan and Olga stood by the gunwale,
looking over into the deep clear central stream that
moved unsuUied between its muddy banks, like a
good woman in this wicked world of ours. The
boat in which Norah and her party had taken
their departure was winding its way slowly up a
narrow channel, towards the low bridge some two
miles beyond the paper mill. Norah s bright crim-
son parasol, held open behind her head, made a
capital mark to track their course by. Even when
the boat itself lay half hidden by the tall mud
banks, that brilliant patch of sunlit color sufficed to
reveal at once their exact progress up the tributary
channel.

*' Take my glass," Alan said, handing it to Olga.

Kalee's Shrine.

"One can sec the whole course of the stream with
it up as far as the paper mill, spread out just like a
map from the deck here before us. How it twists
and turns as it crawls along ! I went up there wild-
fowl shooting, 1 remember, last summer."

''I'm sorry you shoot," Olga said, turning her
deep brown eyes full upon him. ' ' I suppose it s
very girlish and all that of me, but I hate bloodshed
— even an animal's. Members of a great humane
profession like yours, whose very mission it is to
alleviate pain, ought surely to amuse themselves
with something nobler and better than going wild-
fowl shooting."

"You are right," Alan answered, converted in a
moment from the error of his ways by the tender
light in those beautiful eyes of hers. "Forgive the
past. In future, Miss Trevelyan, I shall never
handle a gun again,"

There was a short pause, during which a few
distinct words were wafted over towards them from
the region of the quarter-deck.

"The Hindus," Sir Donald was saying in a loud
voice, so loud that it broke in for a moment on the
young people's colloquy, "will never willingly
injure any living creature, especially cows, bulls, or
oxen. It 's part of their religion. A confoundedly

Kalee's Shrine.

queer religion, I always thought it. Odd that the
people who won't eat beefsteak or tread upon a
cockroach should have invented the custom of burn-
ing their widows, practised infanticide, and winked
at the abominable atrocities of Thuggee ! "

"Sir Donald has really Thugs on the brain, "Olga
murmured smiling. " I Ve never yet once met him
that he hasn't gone back over and over again to that
same old subject. Where have they got to now, I
wonder, Mr. Tennant.? Can you see Norah any-
where ? "

**0h, yes. There's Miss Bickersteth's parasol
by the beacon yonder. I 've been watching it
all the way along the stream ever since they
started."

'Tm so glad, Mr. Tennant," Olga said with
meaning. " She's a dear little soul, and she 's well
worth watching."

Alan Tennant felt a faint blush rise to his cheek,
but he said nothing. Clearly, Olga was on the
wrong tack : but the present moment, with Lady
Mackinnon's eyeglass fixed stonily upon them, was
not exactly the best opportunity for a candid ex-
planation.

** They 're getting to the bridge now," he said
carelessly. "It's a nasty bridge, that: too low

Kalee's Shrine. 9:

aln v-r a boat to get under. The . . . thedick-

boa 'v'ou know — i allu(i merely to the sins of the
past .)y way of .^lus iti' :he duck-boat could
jjst manag-e to escape , lut 1 don't suppose Miss
Bickersteth's craft can possibly clear it. Lend me
theglass; mo. ent, please. Thanks. . . . Ah, yes :
the water's somewhat lower than usual to-day.
They can just get under. . . . Why, now they're
stopping half-way throu' ^\ the bridge. ]\Iiss Bicker-
steth's putting out a mie, I fancy. Excuse me.
Miss Trevelyan, if I trample again on your tenderest
feelings, but I really think — yes, 1 m quite sure —
she's going to do a little fishing."

Olga laughed. "I'm afraid I 'm not quite true
there, " she said, ' * to ni)^ own principles. You mustn't
expect consistency in a woman. I confess I don't
somehow feel as if fishing was really quite so bad as
shooting. I wouldn't fish myself, of course, because
I wouldn't willingly give pain to any living creature ;
but I don't feel called upon to be angry with dear
Norah if she chooses to do it. For one thing, the
fish don't seem quite so much alive, you know, as
pheasants and partridges. I don't think they can
feel anything like so keenly. And then, besides,
one doesn't actually shed their blood, you see : they
only choke and die, I suppose, poor creatures."

^r r

IMAGE EVALUATION
TEST TARGET (MT-3)

1.0

I.I

1.25

^ m

2.2

2.0

M. 111.6

PhoiDgi^phic

Sciences
Corporation

23 WEST MAIN STREET

WEBSTER, NY. 14580

(716) 872-4S03

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Kalee's Shrine.

Once more Sir Donald's voice broke through to
where they sat.

"Strangled them with a big silk handkerchief
they called a roomal,"he said impressively, "and
offered thern up as an expiatory sacrifice to their
goddess Kalee."

"But what's become ot the Thugs themselves
now?" Mrs. Tristram ventured languidly to ask
with a faint smile. "They can't all be extinct, of
course. They must be doing something or other."

"Ah, yes," Sir Donald replied, with a long,
sagacious nod of his head. "Beneficent action of
the British Government stamped out the Thugs,
viewed as a caste, but left the survivors. They 're
all now otherwise engaged— as professional poi-
soners ! "

"Really, one may have too much of a good
thing," Alan remarked, half beneath his breath, in
answer to Olga's silent smile of amusement. " Even
the Thugs, blood-curdling as they are, pall at last
upon the twentieth repetition. And how very char-
acteristic of our British tinkering ! We stamp out
infanticide— and substitute a famine : we stamp out
the Thugs— and get professional poisoners! .
Will you take the glasses again ? What's that upon
the stream away above the bridge there ? A ijight of

:!ill

Kalee's Shrine.

herons ? or wild ducks, is it ? Too white for either,
1 think ! See, see, that long pale band upon the
face of the stream yonder. It seems to be moving
— moving rapidly."

" It 's water," Olga answered, scanning it closely
with the glass. "Foam on the river. A sort of
bore or big wave, like the one they sometimes
get on the Severn. Only it seems to go the op-
posite way, down stream, you know, instead of up-
wards."

"Give me the glass," Alan cried in haste. " Let
me see what it is ! ... By Jove, I thought so ! It 's
the water coming down — coming down like mad.
Oh, what shall we do ! What shall we do for them !
They 've opened the flood gates at the sluice by the

paper mill ! "

"And Norah ! " Olga cried, clasping her hands
frantically. "Do they see it? Do they know it?
Are they in any danger ? "

"If the water catches them there, "Alan answered

at once, "it '11 rise to the level of the bridge above-
it always does— I know it of old— and they '11 every
one of them be drowned to a certainty. They v/on't
be able to get their heads above water, because of
the bridge, and they'll be crushed in, as it were, be-
tween the boat and the timbers."

Kalee's Shrine.

ri:.

Olg.. started back in an agony of fear. "Oh
save her, save her, Mr. Tennant,"she cried aloud
in her terror.

"Who .? what .? " Sir Donald exclaimed, roused by
her cry. Then, his experienced eye taking in at a
glance the danger of the situation, as Alan pointed
mutely with his hand to the low bridge and the
rushing flood above it, he called aloud to the stoker
below, the one other man left on board the yacht,
''Quick, quick ! The boat ! the boat ! Down with
it immediately. We must put out this moment and
warn them of the danger ! "

"There isn't another boat aboard her, sir," the
stoker answered with a gesture of despair, silently
appreciating the difficulty in his turn. "They're
both out with the young gentlemen and ladies."

"Shout ! Shout ! Wave ! Call to them ! Whistle !
Attract their attention ! " Sir Donald cried hastily.

"There 's ro steam on," the stoker answered;
" I 've let the fire down. We can't whistle ! "

They all raised their voices together in a loud
halloo. Unhappily the wind was blowing against
them. A waving of hands and beckoning of hand-
kerchiefs, long repeated, proved equally ineffectual.
Norah, sitting at her ease in the stern, with her
parasol still needlessly open, and the low bridge

Kalee's Shrine.

half hiding her from their sight, blocked the view
of all the others. They were too intent upon their
fishing to look behind them. It seemed as though
they must needs be swamped without hope of rescue
by the onward rush of the approaching waters, and
drowned in the boat, a perfect death-trap, as the
projecting timbers must infallibly catch it and hold
it tight with the first flood, while the surging waves
rose around and filled it.

"Thank God, there's time still," Sir Donald cried
aloud, the perspiration standing in great co^ 1 bsads
upon his bronzed forehead. "Though it 's coming
down fast, it has a long way, a very long way yet to
go, and many turns to make, before it reaches them.
Perhaps we may still succeed in attracting their at-
tention. Perhaps they '11 see it coming themselves.
How does the river twist beyond the bridge, Wil-
liam ? If there 's an open reach ahead, they '11 notice
the wave, and get well away before it 's down upon
them. Below the bridge they may get upset, but
they can cling for dear life to the boat, anyhow.
Do you know how the river runs, Tennant ? "

Alan shook his head ominously. "There's a
sharp turn, and high mud-banks, just above the
bridge," he answered with a shudder. "They can't
see it coming, even if they were looking, until it 's

<i if

1 if

I 'I

ll!

Kalee's Shrine.

Close upon them : and besides, they're not looking:
they 're intent upon their fishing."

Mrs. Hilary Tristram burst into tears. "Oh, No-
rah, Norah!" she cried piteously. -Sir Donald!
Mr. Tennant ! Save her ! Save her ! "

" There s only one way ! " Olga cried, trembling
and pale as death, but quite firmly. "Somebody
must swim out at once and warn them. A good
swimmer would have time to do it. Can you swim
William ? "

"Not a stroke. Miss, worse luck, to save my life
even." ^

Alan Tennant answered nothing, but pulled off
his boots and coat in silence. He loosened his col-
lar and flung it on the deck. Then he stepped reso-
lutely on to the parapet of the gunwale. " I'm not
an expert," he said, simply; "but perhaps I can
manage it. It 's a race against time, that 's all.
There may be just margin enough. Anyhow, a
medical man's business is to save life at all hazards."
Olga held out her hand for a second, as if she
would check him : then drew it back again irreso-
lutely to her side. "Take care of the wave," she
cried in trembling accents; "don't let it swamp
you. But save Norah ! save Norah ! "
Alan plunged at the word with a header into the

Kalee's Shrine.

stream, and swam with ail his might and main
across the main channel towards the little river.
Tide had turned now, and that was in his favor.
He was a powerful man, though not, as he said, an
expert swimmer; and swimming just then, all for
haste, as if for dear life, with one arm alternately
held above the water— the best way for speed— he
stemmed the stream with the flow on the very turn,
and made rapid way with his vigorous impulses
through the deep water. The eyes of the watchers
followed him with eager suspense. It was an awful
moment. The bridge and boat and red parasol
stood out distinctly in the middle distance. The
white wave, with its sea of waters behind, came
steadily onward, advancing from up-stream towards
those unconscious young folks in the light pleasure
boat. And in front, breasting the water with the
mad energy of despair, Alan Tennant's head and
arms showed ever and anon between the half-bury-
ing mud-banks of the lesser river. Would he reach
them in time ?— that was the question. Would he
get near enough to shout aloud, and be heard, and
warn them? Oh, for a chance of raising their
voices and making themselves noticed to call their
attention ! The wave was advancing, advancing,

advancing ! He would never reach them ! He
17

Kalee's Shrine.

would never get near enough ! It was hopeless I
hopeless ! The wave was gaining on them !

The wind ! The wind ! That cruel wind !
They could hear Norah's soft and musical laughter
borne to their ears distinctly by the breeze, and
yet their own loud cries, wafted the opposite
way, were utterly unnoticed, unheeded, undreamt
of!

At last Olga had a burst of inspiration.

"The gun ! The gun !" she cried, pointing an
eager finger to the little brass mortar that stood by
the tiller.

They had none of them thought of it.

Fortunately it was loaded for the customary sa-
lute. Quick as lightning, the stoker had brought a
live coal up on deck from the smouldering fur-
nace, and hastily, tremulously, touched the prim-
ing : Boom !— the sound reverberated along the
water. Down went the red parasol for a single
moment, and the four young people in the boat
beneath the bridge, startled by the report, looked
round in surprise to see Alan's hand earnestly beck-
oning to them, and his arm raised in solemn warn-
ing well above the level of the surrounding water.

He was almost within earshot now, and gather-
ing up all his voice for a supreme effort, he cried

Kalee's Shrine.

aloud in one wild shout, "Jump out on to the
bridge, Harry ! Floodgates opened ! "

It was just in time. The three lads, taking in his
meaning with the rapidity of instinct, pulled the
boat out without touching the oars, by pushing at
the timbers overhead, leaped on to the low wooden
roadway of the bridge, and handed out Norah, in
trembling haste, on to the place of safety. Even
as they did so, and before they had time so much
as to secure the boat, the flood burst upon them
with a wild sweep from round the corner, raised the
water in the channel to the level of the bridge, and
bore down the skiff, tossed lightly bottom upward,
on to the foaming summit of its mad forefront.

Norah was safe ! So much Olga could clearly
see from her post on deck : but Alan Tennant ? On
what an errand was this that she had so hastily sent
him ? The fierce flood swept madly onward still,
gurgling and roaring like a winter torrent. It boiled
and seethed and careered in its frenzy. Could he
stem its force— he who was no expert swimmer —
or would it drown and overwhelm him without
chance of respite ?

The high mud-bank on either side hid him now
from their view in the narrow channel. They could
only see the one white ridge of water where the

f'JI

100

Kalee's Shrine.

pent-up flood rushed on rejoicing on its mad course
seaward.

Olga stood and watched in breathless suspense.
Next moment, in the midst of the great white wave,
a soHtary black object rose bobbing for a second.
She saw what it was : Alan Tennant's head. In
another instant— oh, agony I oh, horror I—the white
wave swept on resistless, and the black object in
its midst, sinking from their view, was no longer
visible.

Olga clasped her bloodless hands in terrible self-
accusation. "Drowned, drowned!" she cried, in
a voice of anguish : "Drowned after saving them ?
And it was I who sent him ! "

They strained their eyes eagerly to watch for the
reappearance of the head once more, as the white
wave emerged at last from the muddy banks of the
minor stream, and joined with a burst the main
current of the Thore in the central channel. But
no head was anywhere to be seen ; and what was
stranger still, no boat either. Had both been
sucked under by the eddying flood, and would they
only reappear again in the calm water a hundred
yards or so lower down, where the Thore broadened
out into a wide estuary ?
As Olga strained and watched and wondered

Kalee's Shrine.

to I

with bated breath, a sudden cry from Sir Donald
made her turn her eyes further up the little tribu-
tary river, where the old Indian was pointing his
thin forefinger. With an involuntary sigh of joy
she recognized the reason. Alan had caught the
drifting boat, and was clinging to its side, and push-
ing it up stream as well as he was able against the
battling force of the released current !

In a minute or two more, as the first rage of the
flood gradually subsided, he had righted the light
boat, and was seated in it, and paddling his way
(for the oars were gone) with a short foot-rest which
had luckily stuck in its rack in spite of the capsizing.
Stirring episodes occupy small space. In far less
than a quarter of an hour from the time when he
jumped overboard off the yacht's deck, Alan Ten-
nant had reached the bridge, and was standing in
safety by Norah's side.

Olga's heart, which had stood still within her
while she watched ahd waited, bounded now with
a wild tremor of delight. They were saved, saved I
Both of them saved ! Norah and— and Alan.

In that moment of agony; her heart, too had con-
fessed its own secret to itself. She knew she loved
him I She was certain that she loved him 1

102

Kalce's Shrine.

CHAPTER VII.

HEROISM DRY.

A HERO, it may be confidently asserted, is no hero
at all in wet clothes. On the contrary, ne is a
wretched, dripping, bedraggled creature, suggestive
rather of the need for immediate charity than of the
praise and honor due to his tried heroism. Alan
Tennant, though new to the role in this particular
fashion at least (for every doctor is after all by pro-
fession a hero in his own way), so instinctively
grasped at that obvious element in the theatrical
recognition of the heroic character, that he ab-
stained from returning to the yacht as he stood, and
displaying himself before Olga's admiring eyes in
his wet, torn, and muddy garments. This is as it
should be. On the stage, indeed, the hero who has
saved a beautiful lady from imminent drowning ap-
pears on deck immediately afterwards in spotless
white shirt and blue nankin trousers, and hiS his
hand warmly grasped by the lady's friends, or is
even embraced bodily before an admiring circle by

Kalee's Shrine.

103

her grateful mother, her cousins, and her aunts.
But tlien tho stage hero comes up from the great
deep dry and unliurt (even his hair is not put
out of curl), as though water ran off him, by some
occult arrangement, in the common fashion of the
domestic duck. But in real life, unfortunately, the
hero's head emerges from the wave distinctly disar-
ranged ; his collar is moist limp, and uncomfortable,
c4iid his clothes cling to him with most unpictu-
resque and unromantic tightness. Alan Tennant
judged it best, therefore, to leave to the lads the
task of paddling Norah back to her grateful chape-
ron : while he himself, dripping wet, coatless and
hatless, ran back to Thorborough at the top of his
speed by the nearest road without waiting for any
theatrical reception. This was certainly not roman-
tic heroism : but it was warmer and safer : and be-
sides, what man cares to appear before the maiden
of his choice, even as a hero, draped from head to
fool ir. damp and dingy mud-bespattered clothing?
That evening, however, at half-past seven, the
young doctor issued forth once more resplendent
from his hotel, in black coat and white necktie, by
special invitation to dine at Mrs. Hilary Tristram's,
in his new character as Norah's preserver. A hero
in evening clothes, now,— look you— why, that of

'"fl

Ri 1 1

! ;

lit

104

Kalee's Shrine.

course is quite another matter. When a man is tall
and handsome and rejoices in the possession of a
black mustache, there must certainly be somthing
very wrong about him somewhere if he doesn't
look, on due occasion given, every inch a hero,
standing up by the fireplace, in a swallow-tail coat
and white necktie.

Olga Trevelyan thought so indeed as she entered
the drawing-room ea'-liest of the party, and found
Alan already there, looking none the worse in any
way for his afternoon's adventure. In fact, if any-
thing, he looked all the better : for every man's
appearance is much improved in certain circum-
stances by a not ungraceful consciousness of hav-
ing acquitted himself well and manfully under
trying conditions.

Olga took his hand tremulously. He saw she had
been crying : she had not quite succeeded after
many efforts, in obliterating the traces of it from
her swollen eyelids. She said nothing, but held his
hand nervously in hers for a moment with a sudden
access of mute gratitude. She was too deeply
moved to know precisely what she w^as doing.
Thinking only of Norah's safety (and his), she held
it long, and let it go reluctantly.

''Mr. Tennant," she said at last, in a trembling

Kalee's Shrine.

105

ii ^

voice, '*we can never, never, never sufficiently
Ihank you. You have given us back our darHng
Norah. If it hadn't been for you, we should cer-
tainly have lost her. I won't try to tell you how
much I admire you for it. It was splendidly done
—I am glad in my heart I was there to see it."

Alan smiled and made light of it, of course. (It
is part of the role of a hero, once more, you know,
always to make light of the danger afterwards.)
"Oh, it wasn't really a long swim," he answered
carelessly. "The only real difficulty was when
that nasty wave came bursting over one. I cer-
tainly did think then for a minute I should never
live through it : and if I hadn't just happened to
clutch at the boat as it passed on the crest of the
ridge, I fancy I shouldn't have pulled through,
either. But don't think," and here he lowered his
voice a moment, "it was all pure devotion to duty,
and saving life, and all that sort of thing, I 'm not
quite sure, Miss Trevelyan, that for anybody else I
should ever have had strength to do it."

Olga looked up at him with a delightful smile.
" I 'm glad to hear it," she said frankly. " Then I
suppose to-night, of course, you'll seize the oppor-
tunity at once and propose to her. After that she

1:1/ il

\i \\

i ' ' .

could never refuse you.

lu. }Ou oiiuuiu jusv

io6

Kalee's Shrine.

hear, Mr. Tennant, all the things she 's been saying
to me upstairs about you."

P'or a moment, Alan drew back in surprise. He
could hardly understand what Olga meant by it.
Then, as her misconception dawned slowly upon
him, he took her hand, unresisted, gently in his
own, and led her passive for a moment on to the
lawn outside, through the open window.

"Miss Trevelyan," he said, very low and soft,
"you don't understand me. I 'm not sure that for
any other woman on earth but you, I should have
had strength to do it. But j'ou asked me;jyou sent
me : and if you had told me that moment to go to
the world's end, I would gladly have done it. I
will take your advice and seize the opportunity.
Olga, Olga, I love you, I love you. "

Olga stood away for a second in surprise. Then
she lifted her big eyes slowly to his, and said in the
same simple straightforward tone as before, " Why,
Mr. Tennant,— I thought— I thought— I thought it
was Norah. "

Alan Tennant gazed at her with eyes of mingled
admiration and amusement.

"Norah!" he cried. "Norah! Norah! Oh,
no; oh, no ; it wasn't Miss Bickersteth. Ask her,
ask her : she knows better. She knows I love vou.

Kalee's Shrine.

107

From the very first moment I ever saw you, I felt
in my heart I could never love any lesser creature.
And you will let me love you ? You will let me
love you ? "

She paused a moment. " But Norah ? " she said.
" What about Norah ? "

"Norah!" Alan cried, in an impassioned voice.
" Norah ! Norah ! Oh, no : I never cared a pin for
Norah ! Norah knows I am in love with you, and
expects me to tell you so ! 01<;a, Olga, you will not
refuse me ! You will take me ! You will take me ! "

Her hero looked absolutely heroic then : — and
besides, the five minutes just before dinner is a
most cramped and awkward time to choose for such
an interview. Olga's face flushed crimson for a
moment — Mrs. Tristram would be down before she
could get him back safe into the drawing-room : and
everybody would notice it and read her secret ! She
paused again while a man might count ten, and
looked at him hesitatingly with her beautiful big
eyes. Then she laid her hand once more in his for
a brief second, and answered in an almost inaudible
voice, "Yes, Mr. Tennant." Next instant, he was
standing by himself on the grass, andOlga, crimson
still and very tremulous, had run in by the front
(ioor, and hurried up again to her own bcdroum.

^h ll

If!

io8

Kalee's Shrine.

They had to wait dinner full ten minutes for
her; and when she came down once more, she
looked flushed and agitated. But happily Alan, as
the guest of the evening, did not sit beside her. He
took down Mrs. Hilary Tristram, and had Norah
(the preserved) on his left hand. That was a great
comfort to poor Olga. To be sure, it was rather
hard, just after such an interview as hers and Alan's,
to engage spasmodically in the small talk of society
with the young dragoon who took her into dinner :
but at any rate it was better than if she had had to
talk to Alan. That, under the circumstances, would
have been too embarrassing.

Of course neither of them said anything to any-
body about the little episode that had happened be-
fore dinner. But women have eyes whose keenness
wonderfully puzzles us poor purblind men. As the
ladies roso to go into the drawing-room, Norah
slipped her arm around Olga's waist playfully in the
hall, and whispered in her ear, "I'm so glad, dar-
ling. I knew he would. I was quite certain of it ! "
And Olga only blushed once more— she was sweet
when she blushed— rnd gave her pretty little friend's
hand a silent squeeze with her burning fingers.

Of course the engagement was ''not announced.'

Kalee's Shrine.

109

Engagements of that informal and purely personal
sort never are announced, until the consent of the
superior authorities has been duly obtained. But
they get whispered about unofficially for all that.
And when Mrs. Hilary Tristram mentioned in con-
fidence the very next day to Sir Donald Mackinnon
that Norah had told her that Olga had as good as
admitted that Alan Tennant had made her an offer,
Sir Donald twirled his gray moustache and shook
his heavy head ominously.

"Young bodies won't be warned," he said with a
gloomy look of intense foreboding. "I was afraid
of as much when yon lad spoke of her to me
yesterday. People may laugh at the second-sight
as much as they, will, but I told you then— and you
see it's coming true already— there was mischief
brewing ahead for young Alan Tennant. The girl 's
a good lass, and a pretty lass, and a clever lass, and
she means no evil : but there's a Thing within her,
driving her on, that '11 lead her into trouble when
she least expects it."

- I

Kalee's Shrine.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE STORM GATHERS.

Time wore on. Alan Tennant's holiday was
drawing to a close. Six weeks is a long rest for a
busy and successful London specialist : and Alan
Tennant had made the best of his, for himself and
for Olga. A few days before he was to leave Thor-
borough, Norah Bickersteth happened to meet him
on the Shell Path.

**0h, I'm so glad I've knocked up against
you, Mr. Tennant," she said with a sunny smile,
holding out her pretty Httle gloved hand to
him. "Auntie gave me a message for you to-
day. You 're going up the river with Harry, aren't
you ? "

"Yes," Alan answered. "We're going in the
duck-boat — the Indian Princess, you know — ^just to
let Harry have a general view of the prospects of
the wild-fowl shooting."

" Well, auntie wants you to come in this evening,
after dinner— you '11 excuse our sayine after dinner.

Kalee's Shrine. m

won't you ? Sir Donald 's going to bring round Mr.
Keen— the great mesmerist, you know, and thought-
reader, and so forth : he does such wonderful tricks,
they say : and auntie wants you to come and see
him, because you 're so clever, and you '11 under-
stand all about it."

Alan smiled. "Oh, yes, I'll come," he said.
"Only Mrs. Tristram mustn't expect to find me
very much of a believer in thought-reading and so
forth. Is Mr. Keen stopping with Sir Donald ? Ah,
yes, I thought so. Sir Donald 's a Highlander, with
Highland superstitions well ingrained in him, and a
little improved (like good Madeira) by twenty years
of India. But Miss Bickersteth, mind, there must
be no mesmerizing or thought-reading on any ac-
count with Olga. " (He had seen a good deal of her
since the trip on the yacht, and it had come to be
plain "Olga" by this time.) "She isn't strong, and
she 's had a great deal of nervous excitement to up-
set her lately, and she should be kept from any-
thing that will excite her in any way. Tell Mrs.
Tristram I shall be delighted to drop in. I mustn't
keep you : Harry 's waiting for me with the boat
down yonder at the Haven. Good morning. Till
after dinner."
And he lifted his hat

illi II

and walked aw

i^-,'~

ay onskly

112

Kalee's Shrine.

That evening, Mrs. Hilary Tristram's informal
party was larger than usual. Half the visitors at
Thorborough had been invited to drop in for the
purpose of seeing the celebrated mesmerist's extra-
ordinary performance. Only Harry Bickersteth and
Alan Tennant were still absent : delayed up the
river, no doubt, by the turn of the tide, and not to
be looked for back again till late in the evening.

" It's very odd Alan doesn't turn up," Olga whis-
pered uneasily in Norah's ear. "Ever since that
trouble the other day with you, dear, I hate the
river. It 's so awfully dangerous. I wish he 'd
come : it quite frightens me,"

"Oh, nonsense, darling," Norah answered with a
smile, "Of course I know you're very anxious to
see him. That 's natural ; I should be myself, I 'm
sure. But he 's all right : don't be afraid. They 'd
come home late, and have dinner together in flannels,
at the Royal Alexandra ; and then they 'd have to
dress, you know ; and they couldn't be here till a
good deal later. Hush, hush : Mr. Keen 's going to
begin the mesmerism now. 'Observe, ladies and
gentlemen, there's no deception.' You see he's roll-
ing up his sleeves beforehand, just like a conjurer,
in order to let us notice he hasn't got any ghosts or
spirits or supernatural agents concealed anywhere in

Kalee's Shrine.

113

his cuffs or coat-lining. What funny thin hands-GO
strange and ghost-like."

There was a general hush, and the company
drew up in a hasty circle, the ladies seated, the men
standing behind their chairs, with a clear space for
Mr. Keen and his - subjects" in the centre, where a
solitary seat was placed for the person to be mes-
merized.

"I will begin," Mr. Keen said, looking round him
carelessly at the assembled company with the bland
smile of the practised performer, ''I will begin first
upon this young gentleman. " He singled out a boy
quickly from the group behind. "I see you're
susceptible. Stand forward, please. Take a seat
there, will you? Now, look steadily into my
eyes, my boy, and think about nothing until I tell
you."

The boy took the seat where the mesmerist mo-
tioned him, and looked as requested deep into his
eyes. After a few minutes, his eyelids dropped,
and he began to fall back heavily in the chair.

The performer, with practised ease, put him
rapidly through all the usual and well-known tricks
by which the mesmerist is wont to show the abey-
ance of the will and the absolute acquiescence of the

subiect " in hie fv^r^' <^ii~f-""i'

• <

114

Kalee's Shrine.

"You're a bird, aren't jou?" Mr. Keen asked,
addressing- him authoritatively.

And the boy, with a nod of the head, began
at once to flap his arms, run forward flightily,
and behave as if he thought himself really fly-
ing.

"What are you ? " the mesmerist asked in a coax-
ing voice.

"A bird," the boy answered with the instanta-
neous force of complete conviction.

"A bird ?" dubiously.

"Well— I think so."

"No, not a bird ! A bird ! Ridiculous I "

The boy laughed. "No, not a birdj" he said.
" A bird ! What nonsense."

"Of course not, "the mesmerist went or. confident-
ly. "You're a fish, you know. A fish, most de-
cidedly."

The boy laughed once more, a nervous laugh.
"A fish," he repeated in a bewildered fashion, and
throwing himself on the floor began to move his
arms slowly and regularly, as if swimming with fins
in a sluggish river.

"The stream runs fast," the mesmerist suggested.

The boy immediately quickened the movement,
and seemed to be struggling in the violent effort

Kalce's Shrine.

115

to make headway against some unseen but over-
whelming power.

"Do you believe in it?" Norah whispered in a
low undertone to Olga.

"Not a bit," Olga answered, shaking her heu.

"The boy's shamming; that's my idea about it.

It must be a preconcerted thing between them."

Low as she spoke, the mesmerist overheard her."

"You shall try in your turn, young lady," he said

severely, glancing at her with his great cold dull

blue eyes— eyes that seemed totally devoid of all

life or meaning. '« You shall see for yourself before

the evening's out whether there's anything in it or

nothing. "

Olga blushed, and remained silent.

"What's that?" the mesmerist cried to the boy
suddenly, striking an attitude of attention and listen-
ing in surprise. " Do you hear ? Do you hear it ?"

The boy jumped up immediately from the floor,
and stood looking about him and turning his head,'
first this way, then that, as if straining his ear for
some distant sound or other.

"You mus/ hear it," the mesmerist said in a half-
angry voice. "It's quite distinct. Listen! What
is it?"

*'lhear it," the boy answered. **I hear it of

i^^^.M

Ui:

Ii6

Kalee's Shrine.

course, right enough. But I can't make out exactly
what it is, for the life of me, somehow. "

"Bells," the mesmerist sugg^ested with confi-
dence.

"Ah," the boy assented. "So it is. Chimes,
by Jingo." And he beat time in a jangling sing-
song with his hand to the quick lilt of the imaginary
music.

" It 's the cathedral," the mesmerist cried, seizing
his arm suddenly. "Let's go inside. What a
glorious anthem! By George, it's splendid! I do
love to hear the pealing of the organ."

The boy answered nothing, but stood entranced,
listening with all his ears to the unheard sounds,
and smiling with a face of glowing delight at the
inaudible melody.

"Pah," the mesmerist muttered after a minute's
pause: "a false note! The Mlow plays badly.
Inexcusable, quite. The dean and chapter ought
really to keep a better organist."

The boy set his teeth on edge at once and drew
up his lips with a pained expression, as we all do
instinctively at the sound of a discord in the midst
of music.

"If it's acting," -'T:^ Tristram whispered low to
Olga, " it 'sconsumix ate acting. Perfectly consum-

Kalee's Shrine.

117

mate. T don't think Charlie M ^edith has got it in
him."

"Let us take another subject," the mesmerist
said quietly, making a few rapid passes, and releas-
ing the boy. "Will you try, Miss Bickersteth?
Thanks. How very good of you. Everybody will
know —with a glance at Olga— "that you at least
are above suspicion."

Norah walked out timidly into the centre, and
took her place, blushing, on the experimenter's
chair. In a few minutes, she too was asleep, and
doing at once all the mesmerist's bidding.

"Take this cup," Mr. Keen said, handing the
girl a lacquered Japanese bowl from the little what-
not. "There, drink it off, that's a good girl. It 's
very nasty, but you mustn't mind it. It 's to do you
good ! Dr. Hazleby's orders ! "

Norah drained off the imaginary draught, and

made a most comical wry face after it. "It's

very bitter," she said. "I don't like it. Please

don t make me take any more of it, will you,

•auntie ? "

"Oh, no," the mesmerist responded promptly,
glancing round with a look of triumph at Olga.
"Here, have a cup of coffee to take the taste
away." And he handed \\er hnrt +he ooif^o

Ii8

Kalee's Shrine

bowl with a little mocking bow of pretended polite-
ness.

Norah took it and emptied it (in imagination)
once more. *'It's very nice coffee," she said.
"Excellent coffee. I'll take another cup of that
coffee, thank you. "

"Let Mr. Keen try with you, Olga dear," Mrs.
Hilary Tristram suggested gently, turning to her.
"Don't wake up Norah yet, Mr. Keen. Let's have
a little comedy of two together."

"Oh, please not," Olga cried, shrinking timidly
back from the performer's hands, as he took her

fingers gently in his. "I don't know whether "

and then she checked herself with a sudden blush.
. . . She didn't know whether Alan would ap-
prove of it.

Norah could have said her nay at once had Norah
been awake : but Norah sat in the chair, silent,
bound body and soul in a deathlike trance by the
art of the mesmerist.

Mr. Keen, however, had no intention of letting*
his sceptical hearer off. "Excuse me, young lady,"
he said severely. " I heard you remark just now
that you didn't believe in it. You will have to be-
lieve in it before the evening 's out, whether you
will or no. Come out into the middle ! Follow

Kalee's Shrine.

119

me ! Do as I bid you ! Don't disobey. Take a
seat there ! "

He spoke sternly, in a tone of command. Olga
followed him reluctantly, but obedient like a child,
and sat down, still blushing and trembling, with a
sweet shy air, in the centre of the circle. The I
man s strong will seemed absolutely indisputable :
she couldn't even make the necessary effort of will
to disobey it.

Sir Donald's eyes were fixed firmly upon her.
She averted her own w^ith a violent struggle, and
beckoned hastily to Mrs. Tristram.

"Suppose," she whispered low in her hostess's
ear, "suppose he were to ask me — you under-
stand, dear Mrs. Tristram— some awkward ques-
tion .? "

Mrs. Tristram smiled and nodded reassuringly.
"Don't be afraid, dear," she answered with a smile.
"I'll take care of that. He shall ask you nothing
about Mr. Tennant."

Olga threw back her beautiful head, a little reas-
sured, and lifted her eyes, half against her will, and
full of misgivings, to meet the mesmerist's as he
began his passes.

Sir Donald Mackinnon, watching her closely,
noticed soon that a weird change came over her

i'l

t;!l

120

Kalee's Shrine.

II'

face. She did not close her eyes, indeed, like Norah,
but gradually sank back, with her eyelids open, and
her pupils dilated, staring hard, as it were, into dim
vacancy. Then suddenly, with a rise and fall of
her heaving bosom, she seemed t(^ become aware
of some unseen Presence. She clasped her hands,
bending forward eagerly as one who listens, while
her whole slight frame quivered and trembled, like
a leaf before the wind, with suppressed emotion.
A muttered word hung unspoken on her lips. Sir
Donald could hardly catch the sound, but he fancied
to himself from the shape of the mouth that the
word was " Kalee ! "

Meanwhile the mesmerist, moving his hands
rapidly to and fro before her, redoubled his exertions
to close her eyes with the intensest energy. He
darted his fingers with strange gestures towards the
unclosed lids, and seemed by his grimaces to be
struggling hard with some invisible enemy. All
was in vain : the eyelids still remained obstinately
open : and the performer gasped for breath heavily.
Big clammy drops stood on his moistened brow :
he was straining every nerve and wearying every
muscle in the unequal contest. Do what he would,
he could not make this obstinate girl shut her eyes :
and the very persistence with which she held them

Kalee's Shrine.

121

open seemed to put him more and more earnestly
upon his mettle.

At last he sank exhausted into a chair. " It s no
use," he muttered discontentedly, folding his arms.
"I was never so utterly baffled in my life before.
The girl 's an enigma ! She s too self-willed for me !
And a mere chit of a child too ! I must give it up.
She ivoiit be mesmerized."

As he spoke, Olga rose slowly, staggering from
her seat, and stood gazing with a wild stare into
blank space before her.

The mesmerist observed her eyes in sudden
amazement. "Great heavens!" he cried, slowly
realizing the true state of the case : "she is asleep !
Asleep already ! Fast asleep all the time, by Jove,
and with her eyes open ! "

''She always sleeps so," Mrs. Hilary Tristram
whispered softly in his ear. "Mr. Tennant told
dear Norah it was due to some slight congenital
injury to the nerves of the eyelids."

Sir Donald IMackinnon whistled low. "I thought
so," he muttered. "Odd— confoundedly odd, too.
Keen, come here ; I want to tell you something."

The two men whispered together alone for a
second, and then Sir Donald, as by mute assent,
standing forth in the middle by the mesmerist's

1:1

itti

122

Kalee's Shrine.

side, spoke out a loud sliort sentence in Hindu-
stani.

Olga started like a frightened fawn, and bowed
her head humbly at the sound. "Great Kalee,"
she cried, in the came language, but in low and
strangely altered accents, "I hear thy behest. I
obey the summons."

Not a soul present save Sir Donald and Lady
Mackinnon knew the precise import of those terrible
words : but the deep earnestness and thrilling con-
viction with which Olga spoke them made every one
in the drawing-room shudder with horror. A terrible
change had come at once over her voice and coun-
tenance. It was no longer Olga— their gentle, soft-
souled Olga, that spoke ; it was the low, suppressed
implacable murmur of a human tigress.

Sir Donald uttered another word or two, incom-
prehensible to the rest of the visitors ; and then
Olga, moving forward a step or two wildly from her
seat, cast her hungry eyes around in doubt upon the
assembled company.

She scanned them all, with a searching glance :
presently, her great glittering pupils fixed themselves
upon Norah, where she sat helpless on the chair in
the centre. The mesmerist touched Norah's eyes
with his flabby fingers, and they opened at once

Kalee's Shrine.

123

as if by magic. She gazed at Olga in mute fascina-
tion. A violent wave of passionate emotion swept
with fierce force over the elder girl's agitated features.

"Must that be the sacrifice?" she murmured
slowly in English, but with concentrated horror.
"Must that be the sacrifice? Hard: hard! ButKalee
wills it ! It is well ! It is well ! I obey the goddess ! "

She drew from her neck her large silk kerchief—
an Indian kerchief, delicately figured, folded round
her dress diagonally as a sort of fichu ; and proceeded
to twist it into a running noose. Then she slowly
took three steps forward towards the vacantly
smiling Norah.

Sir Donald started in a perfect agony of expecta.
tion. "Great powers!" he cried. "The girl is
twisting that handkerchief round exactly as if she
were noosing a roomal."

"What is a roomal?" Mrs. Hilary Tristram
asked in an awed undertone.

"A roomal ! " Sir Donald answered with affected
carelessness. "Oh, nothing, nothing. Just merely
a handkerchief A handkerchief used by the Thugs,
you know, to throttle and garrote their helpless vic-
tims. The girl looks as if she meant to try it, too.
Just notice her action ? "

Olga turned and stared him stoutly in the face.

fit!

124

Kalee's Shrine.

I '

She stared with a bold and impudent air, and
answered in a voice of low effrontery, "This isn't
a roomal, you see," shaking it out; "it's only
a neckerchief — a common neckerchief."

" Leave her alone," Mr. Keen interposed in alow
undertone. "Let us see the natural end of the
whole little drama. We won't interfere. We '11 let
her act it out. We '11 leave her entirely to her own
devices and her own promptings."

Olga turned away once more with a glance over
her shoulder, and continued twisting the noose in
the handkerchief. Then she stepped yet one pace
nearer to the unconscious Norah, who sat now with
wide-open eyes, gazing helpless at her friend, as if
some snake had fascinated her with its fatal glance.
A cold chill ran through the fair girl's slight figure
as Olga approached, stiL ceiling the handkerchief in
her slender fingers. Norah had no power to stir or
speak ; but with a paralyzed air she watched and
waited, as the fluttering bird watches and waits for
the advancing serpent. Next moment, she knew,
in her dimly conscious mind, that coiling handker-
chief would be around her own neck to strangle her
pitilessly. It was not her sweet friend who was
creeping slowly upon her ; it was some evil spirit,
•some irreat black creature, coming- nearer, nearer.

Kalee's Shrine.

125

And yet, she knew not why, she was not afraid;
merely spellbound, fascinated, immovable. She
did not cry, or try to cry, as in a hideous nightmare :
she waited calmly and awfully for her approaching
destiny.

As Olga stood there, irresolute and hesitating,
with the handkerchief coiled and noosed like a lasso
in her tremulous fingers, a sign from Sir Donald
informed the mesmerist that enough of the drama
had now been acted. The next step in the play
would have been far too hideous for public rehearsal.
Sir Donald was satisfied : his conjecture was cor-
rect : the votary of Kalee stood openly confessed
and unm-'-ked before him. He motioned to Mr.
Keen, ar : Mr. Keen, with a sigh of regret, placing
himself behind Norah's chair, began a series of re-
versed passes, intended to bring the unconscious
Olga back to her own waking personality. At the first
pass, the bloodless hands ceased as if by magic from
twisting the kerchief. Two or three more sufficed to
rouse Olga to her first mesmeric stage, as she stood
with her big beautiful eyes staring vacantly into
space before her. But there the mesmerist's power
failed him. He endeavored in vain to fully wake
her. Pass after pass was tried with no effect.

A tun I uu ii, iic iiiUiierea angrily at last. " 1

1 ^ *;;

!l'-

126

Kaliv's Slirino.

!li

I Hi

\V(>rk»Ml so hanl at i>ultinj^ hvv into the comatose
condition tluat I can't tor the life of nje now i^-et
her out of it ai^iin. I'm faint, faint: I have h)st
power. I went too far. Ihandy, brandy, (luick !
l>rinj;' me some brandy !

lie sank upon a couch, with Ids arms fohied Hst-
lessly in tront (^f 1dm. 'I'hey broui^ht the brandy,
and he pouii'd himsiMf out a bij;- wine<;lassful, which
he t(^ssed otf neat without a moment's hesitation.
Then he waited and fanned himself with his hand-
kiMchief a little. At last, as the spirit j^avc him
fresh streni^th, he n^-^e slowly, and once nu)re con-
frt)nted that immovable statue, standing cold ami
white with the untwisted hamlkerchief hang-ing-
h)osely ncnv from the i>alliil lini^crs. A few more
passes undid the spell. 01s.;a gave a great start —
a short sharp cry — and woke up suddenly with a
terrible awakening. Her eyes came back at once
to measurable space from the remote distance. The
expression of concentrated deteiriunation and fero-
city in her I'lxed features gave way first to one of
pure bewiUlerment and next to another of unspeak-
able shamefaced horror. She gazed around her in
awe for a moment as if barely conscious of her pres-
ent surroundings : then, with the one word " Kalec "
bursting painfully from Jier blanched lips, she

Kalcc's Siiriiic.

127

drnpj)C(l llio hamlkcrcliief in a frenzy of shame, and
darted, conscientx'-slricken, liastily from the room.
Mrs. Tristram made a sij^n with her liand to one of
the elder ^'uIh. 'I'iie ^^rl understood anil liurriedly
followed her.

The mesmerist, with a smile of self-conscious
triumph on liis inexpressive face, glanced round for
applause at the attentive company. Nobody ap-
plauded. It was all too life-like, too vivid, too ter-
rible. The line which separates illusion from fact
had been overstepped. The suggested tragedy
came too near a real one.

Mr. Keen, baffled of his expected applause, moved
over quietly to the still smiling Norah. He waved
his hands once or twice before her, and she woke
forthwith, breathing hard and deep, in a weary
fashion.

"What did you think you felt ? " Sir Donald asked,
coming mysteriously with a whisper to her side.
' "I don't exactly remember," Norah answered
with a sigh. "I feel so awfully dreamy still. I
don't like it I wish I hadn't allowed Mr. Keen to
mesmerize me. But I think I fancied I was some-
where in India, in a sort of jungle— I don't know
what — but something or other terrible was going
to happen. . , , It wasn't snakes and it wasn't

k fcl

128

Kalee's Shrine.

; j

1 ( i

{F
hi

tigers. . . . There was a woman ... a
black woman ... a tall black woman — with

awful eyes " She broke off suddenly. "Give

me a glass of wine," she cried in a pained ^oice.
" I can't bear to think any more about it"

Kalee's Shrine.

129

CHAPTER IX.

LOWERING CLOUDS.

Sir Donald turned and walked into the garden.
His brow was hot, and liis fancy fired. He paced
the lawn quickly and excitedly The mesmerist
stepped with a dejected air in long strides beside
him.

"Keen," the old Indian cried at last, "I don't
half like the look of it. This is not all right. I 'm
superstitious, I know, but I don't care a straw what
you call me in that matter. Did you see yourself
what the girl was doing? She was noosing that
kerchief, regular Thug fashion, to strangle Norah
Bickersteth I "

The mesmerist bit his lip reflectively. "Never
saw such an unappreciative audience in all my life,"
he said in a testy voice. - They might have given
me a round with their hands at least. It 's the best
bit of mesmerism I ever did in my born days. The
girl's acting was simply magnificent ! "

"Acting!" Sir Donald echoed contemptuously.

N ! I

130

Kalee's Shrine.

"It wasn't acting! It was sheer reality! The
lassie s a Thug ! She 's been dedicated to Kalee ! "

Mr. Keen glanced curiously sideways at his
companion. Scotchmen have certainly got some
queer ideas of their own. Besides, tlic old fellow
had obviously appreciated Mrs. Hilary Tristram's
excellent cognac. Drunk or mad, one or the other !
The mesmerist marvelled, and said nothing.

Presently Sir Donald spoke again. He clutched
his friend's arm in the shadow of the lilac bushes.

"Keen," he said, " I want to tell you something.
I knew Everard Trevelyan well in India. He had
but two children, this girl Olga, and a boy called
Theodore. . . . Now, listen to me, and don't
make light of it. It's a deuced odd fact, Keen,
but it 's true for all that, what I *m going to tell you.
As I stood there and watched her just this minute, a
picture rose distinctly before my eyes — a picture
I'd clean forgotten for years— picture of Everard
Trevelyan's bungalow at Moozuffernugger. The
boy was lying dead in his cot— her little brother-
two days before she came away from India. There
was a mystery about it, never cleared up. Some
said the bearer, and some the ayah ; but anyhow
the thing was very remarkable. The child had a
dark blue line traced right around his throat, and his

Kalee's Shrine.

131

eyes and tongue protruded horribly, for all the world
as if he 'd been suffocated. One would say, a hand-
kerchief tied about his neck. They never discovered
how it happened. Nobody could be convicted of
it. . . . They never thought of his little sister.
. . . Deuced odd, I call it, Keen, don't you,
really ? "

The mesmerist looked at him with glassy eyes.

"Re-markably odd," he said in a careless voice.

•* Re-markably. Re-markably."

Sir Donald took another turn and muttered half
to himself— it was clear his companion was wholly
unsympathetic— "Suspicion never pointed to any-
one. Ayah, desperately fond of the children, wept
like a child when Olga was taken from her. .
And yet it 's certainly very odd. The girl seemed
guileless and simple enough. . . . But who
can tell.? Kalee's emissaries go forth unconscious
in their deep sleep. Depend upon it, there's some-
thing in it, there's something in it."

He j)aced the lawn once more feverishly : then
he spoke again : " I remember well when the news
was broken to her ! She cred as if her little heart
v/ould burst. Poor little soul, I can see her this
minute ! . . . It's very strange. I don't half
like the look of it."

I H

132

Kalee's Shrine.

^ i

ihi

ill

The mesmerist turned and stared him in the
face. "My dear Mackinnon," he said testily,
"you 're talking an awful lot of pure rubbish. Mes
merism 's a very powerful agency. It brought back
forgotten old Indian reminiscences to the girl's mind:
stirred the inmost chords and fibres of her most in-
timate nature : set her even speaking her outlandish
lingo, in which you and she can jabber together so
glibly. She must have heard some Indian servant,
who was about her as a child, talk much of the
Thugs, or whatever you call them : and that set
her excited fancy working, and made her go off at
once on the Thug hallucination. Believe me, you
underestimate the power of mesmerism."

Sir Donald only looked up meditatively at the
stars. "There are more things in heaven and
earth, Horatio;" he muttered in aslow drawl, " than
are dreamed of in your philosophy."

''f

Meanwhile, Olga, in her own room, had been
joined by Norah, who came up pale and trembling
to inquire for her.

"What has made you ill, darling?" the younger
girl asked her tenderly, throwing her soft arm in a
caressing attitude round her friend's neck.

Olga drew back instinctively from her touch.

((

Kalee's Shrine.
Oh, don't put your hand on me, don't

133

come near

me, Norah," she cried in alarm. "I don't know
what 's the matter with me to-night. 1 don 't feel a
bit like myself at all. I seem to be so wicked, so
terribly wicked. You mustn't touch me ! "

"Fou wicked, dariing!" Norah echoed, kissing
her. "You're not wicked. You could never be
wicked. You 're just a saint ; that 's what I call you
Olga."

Olga brushed away a rising tear. "I can't
understand it at all, Norah pet," she said dreamily.
" For the very first time in all my life, I seemed half
conscious in my sleep just now of my own actions.
I wish— I wish to goodness they hadn't mesmerized
me."

Norah drew back with a sudden look of alarm.
" Mesmerized you, Olga?" she cried in much sur-
prise. "You don't mean to say you let them
mesmerize you.? Why, Mr. Tennant begged me
not to allow them. I wouldn't have let them if
only I 'd been awake myself and known all about
it."

"But they did," Olga answered, "and I seemed
to be dimly aware all the time I was asleep of
what I was doing. And when I awoke— oh, it was
too horrible ! . . . Norah, Norah,

.. ^^4. ,_

/ F

CI,

^MjMBBfc liaiiWi ■■■«»'M

134

Kalee's Shrine.

I*'

(ft

darling, don't, don't come near me ! I beg of you.
I implore you."

"Why, Olga, why?"

"Oh, Norah, darling, as I stood there in the draw-
ing-room, waking yet sleeping,— I'm afraid to tell
you, — I seemed to be aware of some awful being,
bloodthirsty, pitiless, black, invisible, floating in
front of me, under whose orders I acted without
hope of resistance. I saw her before me with my
bodily eyes, and I heard her speak to me in some
strange language. I had to obey whatever she told
me : I had to obey her, though I hated and detested
it. I don't know what it all meant, my darling, but
I feel as if I was terribly, terribly wicked. . .
And what's worst and most awful of all, Norah, I
feel, now with my quickened senses, as if that
terrible being had always, always been quite familiar
to me."

Norah soothed her neck with one hand, and
pressed her fingers tenderly with the other, but
answered nothing.

Ths terrified girl laid her face gently on her
friend's shoulder and sobbed away her grief for
some moments in silence. Then she raised her
head once more and murmured, " And Alan didn't
want me to be mesmerized ! I've disobeyed Alan

Kalee's Shrine.

135

without knowing it ! Where's Alan ? Has he come
back yet ? '"

"No," Norah answered. " Harry and he haven't
returned. They '11 be back soon. Don't worry,
darling. Oh, I wish to goodness you hadn't been
mesmerized."

"Not comeback," Olga cried in alarm. "Oh,
he's lost! he's lost! Norah! Norah! I saw
her smiling, smiling horribly. I remember the
smile ! It means evil ! She always smiles like that,
I know, when she sees death or misfortune happen
to any one. It was a ghastly smile— so fiendish
and exultant. Oh, Norah, Norah, it makes me faint
even to think of her."

"Of whom.? of whom.?" Norah cried in horror.

"I don't know. I can't say, my darling. I can't
remember her right name this minute; but I saw
her just now ! I saw her I I saw her ! . . .
He 's dead ! He 's dead ! I 'm perfectly sure he
is ! I know that smile ! Oh, Norah, Norah, her
smile is so deadly ! "

She flung herself down at full length on the couch,
buried her face between her outstretched palms,
and cried to herself long and silently.

At last she lifted her head once more. **And

lift

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136

Kalee's Shrine.

I didn't finish doing what she bid me ! " she cried
in anguish. "It was very wrong of me ! I left
off in the midst ! I ought to have finished doing
what she bid me 1 "

Kalee's Shrine.

137

CHAPTER X.

THE STORM BURSTS.

The party in the drawing-room had broken up
rather suddenly. Everybody felt, in a certain dim
instinctive fashion, there was something uncanny
about this mesmerizing business. Sir Donald and
Mr. Keen were idly pacing the lawn outside to-
gether : Norah and Olga had retired to the obscurity
of their own bedroom. Conversation languished.
Mrs. Hilary Tristram tried in vain the recuperative
effect of a little music. One of the guests sat down
to the piano, and touching the keys lightly de-
clared in a loud soprano voice she was *'a happy
haymaker. " Nobody took the slightest notice of the
romantic and obviously inopportune declaration.
The elder men suggested cards: but the younger
(as usual) all disclaimed the most elementary knowl-
edge of the game of whist, and sidled off moodily
in little knots into remote corners. It was clear
the harmony of the evening had been quite spoilt.
That unfortunate mesmerizing had totally upset the

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138

Kalee's Shrine.

delicate nerves of the assembled company. Mrs,
Hilary Tristram, best and ablest of hostesses, re-
linquished the position at last as hopeless. Retreat-
ing gracefully, she subsided of herself into an easy-
chair, and assumed the attitude of one r , ,■; >olly
indisposed at an early hour to speed the ^^arting
guest with a glass of seltzer and a friendly valedic-
tion.

The guests for their part soon interpreted the lan-
guid attitude of their hostess aright. One after an-
other dropped off rapidly, with mechanical thanks,
as they bowed themselves out for a very pleasant
and interesting evening. ''Deuced slow," the men
murmured one to the other, as they lit their cigars
from borrowed lights outside the front porch.
" That mesmerizing rubbish simply spoilt the whole
evening. Hard lines on those two poor girls, too,
to go trying their constitutions in that stupid fashion!
Quite surprised at it, for my part, in a sensible,
amiable woman of the world like Mrs. Hilary Tris-
tram. "

Before the last guests had muttered their farewells,
Norah glided softly into the room once more for a
brief moment, and whispered something in her aunt's
ear. Mrs. Tristram motioned back Dr. Hazleby to
a chair with her hand.

Kalee's Shrine.

139

*'I want to speak with you," she said in alow
voice as he took his seat again. "Norah and Olga
may wish to consult you."

Dr. Hazleby sat back and waited for the other
guests to go. His conscience smote him for having
permitted the mesmerist to ''carry this wretched
nonsense so far with Miss Trevelyan." In his heart
of hearts, he was fain to confess to himself, .vith a
tinge of self-contempt for the avowal, that there
was "something in it."

So there was. More than he imagined.
Presently Mrs. Tristram ran upstairs, and soon
came down again, looking very agitated.

" Poor dear Olga seems dreadfully hysterical,"
she said with sigh. "She doesn't look yet as if
she 'd quite got over that horrid mesmerism. I ought
never to have allowed the man to work upon her
feelings so. She s talking in a rambling, delirious
sort of way, poor dear, about somebody having
compelled her against her will to do something or
other that she thinlcs dreadfully wicked. And she
says there's someone or other smiHng horribly at
her. Don't you think Dr. Hazleby, just to quiet
her nerves, you ought to give her something? "

Ladies, even learned ladies like Mrs. Tristram,
regard medical science as a form of magic, and

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Kalee's Shrine.

■

If'

drugs as a sort of charm or fetish. Their universal
remedy for all the ills that female flesh is heir to,
from paralysis or heart disease down to fainting or
hysteria, is to "give her something." What, is
immaterial. Morphia or sal-volatile, strychnine
and arsenic or eau sucree tempered with orange
flower water : a drug, a drug, in the name of all
that 's merciful.

Dr. Hazleby went up at once to see the interest-
ing patients. Olga's pupils were very dilated. Her
pulse was slow, yet bounding and unnatural. She
seemed in a very marked state of exhaustion and
excitement.

" Don't you think, young ladies, "he said cheerily,
''you ought each to have a glass of port wine, just
to set you up, now ? "

Olga assented readily enough, and the good doc-
tor went down in his clumsy, hearty way, himself,
to fetch it. - Wait a bit," he said in a stage aside'
as Mrs. Tristram poured it out from the decanter.
"I'll just run home and get a wee drop of some-
thing stronger— something to quiet the nerves, you
know. Miss Trevelyan seems to have something
weighing on her mind. Your nephew and Mr. Ten-
nant haven't come in yet from the river, I fancy.'

"No," Mrs. Tristram answered. " Thev wpnf

It is ,

Kalee's Shrine.

141

up the river this afternoon in the duck-boat. I 'm
beginning to get a little nervous about them my-
self, to tell you the truth, my dear Dr. Hazleby."

"Oh, they '11 be all right, ma'am," the doctor re-
plied, with gruff kindliness. "Young men are al-
ways getting into scrapes, and frightening their
friends, and then turning up again. Depend upon
it, that 's what 's the matter with MissTrevelyan. She
won't sleep a single wink to-night if she doesn't have
something to quiet her nerves a bit."

And he ran hastily out of the door, to his own sur-
gery just round the next corner.

When he came back, he brought a little phial loose
in his hand, and poured a few drops of a sweet white
fluid from it into each of the glasses. It was the
same white fluid the fakir had taken from his double
gourd and smeared on Olga's lips the day she was
first dedicated to Kalee !

*'What is it? " Mrs. Tristram ventured timidly to
ask.

"What is it? Oh, haschish."

"And pray what's haschish ? "

" Haschish ? Why, haschish is Indian hemp.
You know the stuff-— a common drug. It 's a pow-
erful narcotic. The Hindu ascetics use it to produce
illusions. I always find it a capital soothing draught

142

Kalee's Shrine.

J i

for nervous excitement. I 've frequently given it
with the very best results in similar cases."

He took the glasses up on a little tray. Olga was
sitting still on the couch, with her head between
her hands, and her bosom heaving and falling visi-
bly. "Has— Harry Bickersteth come back yet?"
she asked with eager haste. The doctor nodded a
sagacious nod to Mrs. Hilary Tristram.

"I told you so." the nod seemed visibly to say.
"She s troubling her head about young Alan Ten-
nant."

"No, they 've not come back yet," he answered
cheerily, handing her the glass, *'but they're ex-
pected home now every minute. There 's no dan-
ger : not the slightest danger. Tide was late, owing
to the surf on the bar. They '11 be back immediately.
Here, drink the port. It 's very good for you."

Olga took it and drained it off mechanically.
Then she buried her head once more in the sofa
cushion.

"Come, come," the doctor said, with kindly in-
sistence. "This won't do, my dear young lady.
You must both get to bed now, this very minute.
It's high time you two were fast asleep and snoring.
Young people need plenty of beauty-sleep. Miss
Norah, see thai your friend goes to bed at once, and

Kalee's Shrine.

doesn't He awake cryincr. And you too. Vou shall
hear about your brother and Mr. 7'ennant the very
first thing when you wake in the morning."

Mrs. Hilary Tristram sat up very late by herself
that evening, wondering when her nephew would
ever come back, and full of dim unshaped forebod-
ings about him. She wished she hadn't let him go
out on the river with Mr. Alan Tennant. What was
that Sir Donald had said the day of the picnic about
the second sight, and misfortune brewing for the
young oculist.? She didn't believe in the second
sight ; but still, one can't uclp feeling just a little bit
nervous. Duck-boats, she knew, were fearfully un-
safe, and the branches of the Thore were always
shifty. She sat up alone till long past two, watch-
ing and waiting eagerly for Harry's arrival. But
no Harry came at last, and she was fain in the end
to take up her candlestick with a sinking heart, and
mount the lonely staircase tremulously to her own
bedroom.

As she passed by Olga's and Norah's door, she
heard the sound of a voice or voices. Those naughty
girls hadn't fallen asleep yet ! They were still talk-
ing. Had they too waited and watched v.^ there

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Kalee's Shrine.

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liii

for Harry and Alan ? . . . She listened awhile
on tiptoe at the lintel. Her heart beat fast. A
voice was certainly speaking— it was evidently
Olga's. She caught the very words. It said in
clear and definite accents,

"It was very wrong of me I I left off in the

midst I I OUGHT TO HAVE FINISHED DOING WHAT SHE BID
ME ! "

Mrs. Hilary Tristram went on relieved. They
were awake, no doubt, but talking about some quite
indifferent matters. Some little dereliction of every-
day duty. Olga's voice was perfectly wakeful.
What a pity the draught had had so little effect upon
her.

But if Mrs. Tristram could have looked that mo-
ment through the panels of the door, she would
have seen Norah lying fascinated in her own bed,
and Olga, with wide-staring eyes fixed wildly upon
her, standing in her delicate white-frilled night-dress
b/ *he rustling curtains, and coiling in her bloodless
trcn>bling fingers that big silk handkerchief— the In-
dian roomal I

Kalee's Shrine.

CHAPTER XI.

AFTER THE TEMPEST.

Next morning, Olga remembered in a dim way
that she had slept very, very soundly : and she
awoke with that painful weary feeling in the
muscles of the throat and neck which often follows
a strong dose of any powerful narcotic. She was
sure Dr. Hazleby had given her something to make
her doze off: and as she glanced askance at Norah,
still sleeping heavily on her onn bed -there were
two in the room— she felt certain that Norah too had
drunk something other than wine in the draught the
doctor had so carelessly handed her.

She looked in the glass, and saw there were deep
dark rings round her big eyes. Alan would think her
quite plain to-day. ... Had Alan come back ?
. . . The thought, recurring slowly, as in a
dream, made all her fears revive again. She felt
the drug hadn't worn itself out yet, or she would
have remembered him sooner ! She dressed quickly
without waking Norah.

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146

Kaiee's Shrine.

-II

"Poor darling, "she thought ; '^ she was tired too.
Let her sleep her sleep out. It will do her good.
She isn't as anxious to know about her brother,
of course, as I am to hear about dear, dear
Alan."

She went downstairs looking pale and haggard.

Mrs. Tristram rose to kiss her as she entered the

breakfast-room.

''My dear," she said, "you're not well this

morning. That horrid mesmerism did you no good.

I shall never allow you again, as long as I live, to
play such tricks with your constitution."

"Oh, I shall be all right soon, thanks," Olga
answered distractedly, sitting down to the table
and turning over the envelope of a letter on her
plate with careless fingers. ''It tired me rather—
that was all. . . . Have Harry Bickersteth and
Mr. Tennant come back home yet.? "

"No," Mrs. Tristram replied gravely. "But
I'm not frightened, dear. . . . At least, not very.
If anything serious had happened, wed surely have
heard it long before this time. The fishermen
would have told us. Boys will be boys, and will
get into mischief. They Ve gone up the river and
got too far or sor.ething, and had to stop the night
no doubt at Ponton. We shall have a telegram, I

ilt

Kalee's Shrine.

147

fancy, before we 've finished breakfast. Is Norah
coming down ? How is she this morning ? "
Olga blushed, she knew not why. "No," she

answered with incomprehensible evasiveness. '-She
isn't dressed yet. She . . . she hasn't got up, in
fact. She s sleeping so soundly. I think . . .in
fact, I fancy ... Dr. Hazleby must have given
us something to make us sleep, you know."

Mrs. Tristram smiled a knowing smile. '*So
he did," she answered. ''Indian hemp. That's
what's making Norah so oversleep herself."

Olga gave a faint little shudder. "Indian hemp !'
she murmured. ''Always something Indian ! I
hate India and all that belongs to it. It seems
somehow to be a sort of fatality with me that every-
thing Indian should always bring some kind of mis-
fortune."

"Oh, don't say that," Mrs. Tristram cried in
evident alarm. - Please don't. You mustn't even
think it. Why, Harry s duck-boat— the boat they Ve
both gone up the river in, you know— it 's called the
Indum Princess, Olga. Harry named it in joke after
the little Maharanee he met last autumn down in
Norfolk. "

At the word, Olga suddenly dropped the knife and
fork with which she was pretending to play with

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Kalee*s Shrine.

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her breakfast, and stood staring- hard before her,
with the same strange far-away look in her eyes
Mrs. Tristram had noticed the previous even
ing during the whole of those horrid mesmeric
experiments. A single word rose once more
to her lips. She muttered it twice, — '* Kalee !
Kalee ! "

At that very moment, the door opened, and Sir
Donald Mackinnon entered unannounced.

"We old Indians are inquisitive," he said gravely,
with a slight bow, " but I ve come round early to
inquire this morning after my friend. Miss Norah.
I haven't slept a single wink to-night, with this
second sight of mine, thinking about her, Mrs.
Tristram. I 've lain awake and listened to the owls
hooting, and the waves breaking, and imagined all
manner of evil things, and fancied I could hear her
moaning and groaning. How is she this morning,
can you tell me, Miss Trevelyan ? Not up yet, ah?
I hope there's nothing serious the matter with her.
. . . Eh .? what ? . . . Why, what ails the lassie ?
You 're looking uncommon pale and ill and gash
yourself, too."

"Norah 's asleep," Olga answered, trembling,
she knew not why, and shrinking horribly from the
old man's keen and searching glance. *♦ I I

1 i

Kalee's Shrine.

149

3re her,
er eyes
s even
esmeric
J more
Kalee !

and Sir

ravely,
;arly to
Norah.
th this
■, Mrs.
le owls
led all
ear her
)rning,
3t, ah ?
h her.
lassie ?
1 gash

iblingf,
)m the
"I— I

thought it was best not to wake her. She seemed
so very ill and weak and tired."

Sir Donald gazed at her coldly and sternly.
"Young lady," he said in a harsh voice, "I'm think-
ing it 's not all right this morning with my friend,
Miss Norah. Will you go up and call her, please,
Mrs. Tristram.? There's mischief, I'm afraid, in
this young lady's eyes. We Highlanders know the
eerie look in them, and what it portends in the way
of evil !"

Mrs. Hilary Tristram ran upstairs with vague
forebodings of trouble in her heart. Olga followed
her, half unconscious with terror, and weighed down
with some awful burden of remorse,— for what, she
knew not.

The room had two little cretonne-curtained beds
in it. In one of them, Olga had slept that night.
The curtains of the other were half drawn, and
Norah's form was still lying, quite stiff and motion-
less, beneath the dainty coverlet.

Olga approached softly on tiptoe. "Norah!"
she whispered. " Darling Norah ! "

A corner of the sheet just covered her face. Norah
neither stirred nor answered.

With gentle fingers, Olga drew the bedclothes
from her face and neck. Then wi'fh n f*^qrf„i oUrW

I !

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150

Kalee's Shrine.

she fell back and fainted. The shriek rang and vi-
brated through the whole house. It was a death-
like cry of unutterable agony.

In a moment, the awful truth had burst upon her
soul. She remembered it all, all quite clearly now.
Norah was dead, and she herself was her murderer.
She herself was her murderer : she herself— and
Kalee !

The cry roused the whole household like a tocsin.
Sir Donald and the servants hurried to the room.
They found Olga insensible, supported in Mrs.
Tristram's arms, while Norah, stretched upon the
bed, with head thrown back, lay motionless and still
as a marble statue. Her pretty blue eyes stood
wide open, fixed in a deathly stare on the blank
ceiling ; the soft dimpled cheeks showed white and
ashen ; and, most terrible of all, around her smooth
fair neck appeared in awful distinctness a dark blue
line—the livid death-markof that fatal handkerchief.
For one solemn moment no one stirred or spoke
or even breathed almost. They stood stricken and
petrified at the horrid sight. Then Sir Donald,
slowly awaking as if from a hideous dream, lifted
the senseless Olga in his arms, and carried her off
to another room unresisting.

''This is a matter for the police," he said sternly.

u t-

Kalee's Shrine.

151

"There's been murder done, and we know who
did it."

He looked suspiciously at the little silver image
on her neck— the image of Kalee that the fakir had
hung there. A dark red smear passed across its face.
He gazed closer. It was blood— blood— blood on
her lips— the fresh clotted blood of a human victim !

Blood had spurted for a moment from Norah's
mouth in the agony of the throttling. Kalee that
night had drunk of her sacrifice.

As Mrs. Tristram, unable yet to realize the terri-
ble truth, stood wringing her helpless hands by
Norah's bedside, a servant came in with a message
from the boatmen.

"Something about Master Harry," she whispered
soft below her breath. "They're afraid he's lost.
The boatmen say the Indian Princess has come
floating down the river with the tide this morn-
ing . . . empty, quite empty, and bottom up-
ward. "

Mrs. Tristram answered never a word. Her cup
was full already. Nothing else would make much
difference. She merely stood and rocked herself
idly backward and forward, in the impotent reckless-
ness of utter misery.

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152

Kalee's Shrine.

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li!

Next minute, Olga glided to her side. She had
come back to herself, and stood now erect and pale
and tremulous and beautiful.

"Send for the police," she said in a stony tone.
"I know I did it. I give myself up. I have noth-
ing to say for myself.— Norah is dead. It was I
who killed her.— Alan is dead. I have heard the
message.— I loved them both. I shall be glad to
die. I have nothing to live for. I deserve it ! I
deserve it ! "

Once more a servant entered in hot haste, and
held a telegram which she handed half hesitatingly
on the salver to Olga. The girl dashed it aside with
an imperious wave of her white hand.

"Perhaps," Mrs. Tristram murmured in a low
voice, "it may be from Harry or Mr. Tennant."

Sir Donald opened it mechanically and read it
aloud :

" Congratulations, dear Olga, and best wishes for your future
happiness. You have chosen well.

" EVERARD AND MaRION TrEVELVAN."

It was an Indian telegram ! Always India !
What mockery it seemed at such a moment !
Surely, surely Kalee had sent it ! It was Kalee's
appropriate greeting to her votary.

Kalee's Shrine.

153

CHAPTER XII.

AN AQUATIC EXCURSION.

Meanwhile, where were Harry Bickersteth and
Alan Tennant ?

Up the river in the India7i Princess, they had had
an easy voyage, lazily paddling for the first hour or
two. The mud-banks of the Thore, ugly as they
seem at first sight, have nevertheless a singular and
unwonted interest of their own ; the interest derived
from pure weirdness, and melancholy, and loneli-
ness—a strange contrast to the bustling life and
gayety of the bright little watering place whose
church tower rises conspicuously visible over the
dykes beyond them. On the vast soft ooze-flats,
solemn gulls stalk soberly, upheld by their broad
web-feet from sinking: while among the number-
less torrents caused by the ebbing tide tall long-
legged herons stand with arched necks and eager
eyes, keenly intent on the quick pursuit of the elu-
sive elves in the stream below. The grass -wrack
waves dark in the current underneath, and the prett"

154

Kalee's Shrine.

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sea-lavender purples the muddy islets in the side
channels with its scentless bloom. Altogether a
strange, quaint, desolate spot, that Thore estuary,
bounded on either side by marshy saltings, where
long-horned black cattle wander unrestrained, and
high en})ankments keep out the encroaching sea at
floods and spring-tides. Not a house or a cottage
lies anywhere in sight. Miles upon miles of slush
in the inundated channels give place beyond to
miles upon miles of drained and reclaimed marsh-
land by the uninhabited saltings in the rear.

They had paddled their way quietly and noise-
lessly among the flats and islets for a couple of
hours, carefully noting the marks of the wary wild-
fowl on either side, and talking in low tones together
about that perennial topic of living interest to all
past or present generations of Oxford men, the dear
old 'Varsity. Alan still held a fellowship at Oriel,
and Harry was an undergraduate of Queen's : so
the two found plenty of matter to converse about in
common, comparing notes as to the deeds of daring
in bearding the proctors, feats of prowess in town
and gown rows, the fatal obsequiousness of the Ox-
ford tradesm;in, and the inevitable final evolution-
ary avatar of that mild being under a new and ter-
rible form as the persistent dun, to the end of their

Kalee's Shrine.

155

tether. Such memories are sweet— when sufficient-
ly remote : and the Oxford man who does not love
to talk them over with the rising spirits of a younger
generation deserves never to have drunk Archdea-
con at Merton or to have smoked Bacon's best
Manillas beneath the hospitable rafters of Christ
Church common room.

At last, in turning up a side streamlet, on the

southern bank,— Thorborough, as everybody knows,

lies to the northward,— they passed an islet of the

usual soft Thore slime, on whose tiny summit grew

a big bunch of that particular local East Anglian

wild-flower which Olga had said she would like to

paint, on the day of Sir Donald Mackinnon's picnic.

"I say, Bickersteth," Alan suggested lightly, as

they passed close beneath it : "don't you think we

could manage to pick a stem or two of the artemisia

—that feathery fluffy yellow flower there.? Miss

Trevelyan "—and he tried not to look too conscious

— "wants to make a little picture out of it, she told

me. I expect we could pull in and get near enough

to clutch at a branch or so."

"No," Harry answered, shaking his head confi-
dently. "I know by heart all the tricks and man-
ners of the creeks and the river here. I know every
twist and turn of the backwaters. No quicksand

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Kalee's Shrine.

on earth could possibly be more treacherous than
our Thore mud. Ii 's a mud per se, quite unique in
its own way for stickiness. If you try to land on
it, you go on sinking, sinking, sinking, like an ele-
phant in a bog, or a Siberian mammoth, till you dis-
appear at last bodily below the surface with a gentle
gurgle ; and the mud closes neatly over your head ;
and they fish you out a few days later with a
crooked boat-hook, as Mr. Mantalini says, 'ademd
moist unpleasant corpse,' and dirty at that into the
bargain. You must wait and get a bit of the stuff
a little further on. There 's plenty more growing
higher up the backwater. We can land easier there
on some of the hards, where the side creeks run deep
and clear over solid pebble bottoms."

They paddled on noiselessly through the water
as before, away up the silent, unpeopled inlet,
am.ong the lonely ooze and great stranded islands
of salt-marsh vegetation. At every stroke, the
aspect of the country grew wilder and more deso-
late. At last they came to a broad expansion of the
tributary creek. Alan could hardly have believed
any place so solitary existed in England. Some of
the islands, surrounded on every side by slimy
channels of deep ooze, could only be approached by
a boat at high spring-tides, and even then nowhere

, i

Kalee's Shrine.

157

save at a single unobtrusive landing-place. They
were thickly overgrown with rank brown hay.

"And even the owners," Harry said laughing,
and pointing to one such dreary flat with demon-
strative finger, "only visit them once a year in a
shallow punt or low barge at hay-making time to
cut the hay-crop. Sometimes the bargemen from
up stream at Ponton come for a lark in the night,
before the owner harvests it, and mow the crop,
and carry it away down the river and out by sea to
market in London ; and nobody ever knows a word
about it till the owner turns up disconsolate a week
or so later, and finds his hay clean gone, and not
a soul en earth to tell him what the dickens has ever
become of it."

" It s fearfully lonely," Alan said with a shudder,
looking round him in surprise at the trackless waste
of ooze and sedges. " If a man were to get lost or
murdered in one of these dreary channels, novi^, it
might be weeks and weeks — ay, and years too —
before anybody on earth ever discovered him."

"It might," Harry answered. "You say the
truth. A capital place indeed for a murder. As De
Quincey says, you could recommend it confidently
to a friend. Nobody 'd ever be one penny the
wiser. — See, there 's some more of your flower nod-

pii

158

Kalee's Shrine.

I j

ding away on the bank over yonder— what did you
call it?— artcmisia, wasn't it? Well, here we can
get at it, I expect, with a little trouble, if you don't
mind wading. You 're prepared to go through fire
and water, I suppose, for Miss Trcvelyan ? "

Alan's face grew somewhat graver. "I'm pre-
pared to get my bags wet through in the sea," he
said, "if that's all, to do anything reasonable, for
any lady. Miss Trevelyan said she 'd like the flower,
and I thought I might as well try to get a little bit
for her. "

'MVell, you needn't be so huffy about it, anyhow,"
Harry went on, good-humoredly. "No harm in
being in love with a pretty girl, that I know of: at
least it doesn't say so in the Ten Commandments.
Stick the pole firm into the bottom there, will you?
By Jove, the stream runs fast! How deep is it?
About two feet, eh ? Well, we can tuck our trousers
up to the thighs and wade ahead then. Tlie chan-
nel of the stream 's firm enough here. Pebble bot-
tom ! I expect it 's pebble right up to the island."

They pulled off their shoes and socks hurriedly,
and rolled up their trousers as Harry had suggested.
Then the younger lad stepped lightly out of the
boat on to the solid floor, and drove the pole deep
into the slimy mud-bank beside it. The mud rose

Kalee's Shrine.

159

in a veritable cliff, and seemed to the eye quite firm
and consistent; but it -fave before the pole like slush
in the street, where the brushes have heaped it on one
side by the -utters. He tied the duck-bont to the
pole by the painter, and gave a hand to Alan as his
friend stopj)cd out with a litrht foot into the midst of
the little rapid channel.

"Bottom 's quite solid just here," he said. "You
needn't funk it. We can walk close up to the side
of the island. These streams run regularly over
hard bottoms, though the mud rises sheer on either
side of them, till you get quite up to the head
waters. There they lose themselves, as it were,
in the mud : or at least, ooze out of it by little
driblets from nowhere in particular. Come along,
Tennant. We can pick some of Miss Trevelyan s
specialite on the far side of the island, I fancy."

They waded slowly up the rapid current, Alan
pushing his stick as he went into the mud-bank,
which looked as firm and solid as a rock, but really
proved on nearer trial to be made up of deep soft
light-brown slush. They attacked the island from
every side— a double current ran right round it—
but all in vain : an impenetrable barrier of oozy mud
girt it round unassailably on every side like the
moat of a castle.

. !j

liii

< '< \

.mJ

i6o

Kalee's Shrine.

i >

1 :

"I shall try to walk through it" Alan cried at
last in a sort of mock desperation, planting one
foot boldly in the midst of the mud. "What's
slush and dirt, however thick, compared with the
expressed wishes of a fair lady ? "

As he spoke, he began to sink ominously into
the soft deep ooze, till his leg was covered right
up to the thigh.

Harry seized his arm with a nervous grasp in
instant trepidation. "For Heaven's sake," he
cried, "what are you doing, Tennant ? The stuff's
got no bottom at all. Jump, back, jump back-
here, take my hand for it ! You '11 sink right down
into an endless mud slough."

iVlan felt himself still sinking : but instead of
drawing back as Harry told him, and letting his
whole weight fall on to the one foot still securely
planted on the solid bed of the little river, he lifted
that one safe support right off the ground, and tried
with his stick to find a foothold in the treacherous
mud-bank. Next instant, he had sunk with both
legs up to his waist, and was struggling vainly to
recover his position by grasping at the overhanging
weeds on the island.

Harry, with wonderful presence of mind, did not
try at all to save him as he stood, lest both should

r '

Kalee's Shrine.

i6i

tumble together into the slough ; but running back
hastily for the pole, fastened the boat to his own
walking-stick which he stuck into the mud, and
brought back the longer piece of wood in his hands
to -...here Alan stood, still struggling violently, and
sunk to the armpits in the devouring slush. He
took his own stand firmly on the pebbly bottom of
the little stream, stuck the far end of the pole on
the surface of the island, and then lowered it to the
level of Alans hands, so as to form a sort of rude
extemporized crane or lever. Alan clutched at it
quickly with eager grip ; and Harry, who was a
strong young fellow enough, gradually raised him
out of the encumbering mud by lifting the pole to
the height of his shoulders. Next minute, Alan
stood beside him on the hard, and looked ruefully
down at his wet and dripping muddy clothes, one

malodorous mass of deep black ooze from waist to
ankle.

"You must stand up to your arms in the
stream," Harry said laughing, in answer to his
comically rueful glance, -and let the water wash
away the mud a little. A pretty pickle you look, to
be sure. By George, I thought for a minute it was
all up with you ! You won't trifle with Thore ooze
again in a hurry, 1 fancy."
II

■ ;

1 • ■' !

;»i

i i

! ■• !1

Vji I

ill

162

Kalee's Shrine.

Alan pulled off his flannel boating jacket and his
once white ducks with a gesture of disgust, and
began scrubbing them between his hands in the
discolored water.

" I must sit on the island and let them dry," he
said in no very pleasant voice, "I can't go home
to Thorborough looking such a mess as this, you
know, Harry."

"How '11 you get on the island.?" Harry asked
incredulously.

"Why, you just hold the pole as you did, so, and
I '11 go hand over hand, like a British acrobat on
parallel bars, across the mud-bank."

"And leave me to stand here in the water alone
till your clothes have dried to your perfect satisfac-
tion ! No thank you, no thank you, my dear
fellow."

" I can get you over when once I 've got across,
myself," Alan answered lightly. "Hold the pole
out a little below the middle, and lift you, so, as if
I were a circus man."

"I venture to doubt your gym.nastic capabili-
♦I'es "

" Try me, anyhow. If it doesn 't succeed, I '11
come back at once to you."

Harry fixed the pole on the island once more,

Kalee's Shrine.

163

aiK

1 his

St,

and

the

iry,

"he

) h

ome

lis,

you

and Alan, clasping it tight with his hard grip, and
lifting up his legs well above the mud-bank, made
his way, hand over hand, as acrobats do along a
tight rope or a trapeze, to the solid surface of the
little island. There he laid out his clothes care-
fully to dry, and ,at down, holding the pole as he
had suggested, lever fashion, for Harry. By dex-
terous twisting, he managed to land his friend
safely on the island, where they both sat down on
the sun-dried top, and gazed disconsolate on the
fearful waste of mud arounri them.

"Curious how hard the bottom is," Alan said
after a while, -in the midst of so much soft ooze
and slush and stuff! "

"The currrent washes away the soft mud, you
see," Harry answered glibly, as he lighte-', his pipe,
^'leaving only the pebbles it selects at the bottom.'
Segregation ! segregation ! It s always so over all
these flats. You can walk anywhere on the bottom
of these streamlets."

"Well, at least," Alan said, glancing about him
complacently, "we 've got the flowers— any number
we want of them. I should have felt like a fool
indeed if I 'd sunk up to my waist in that beastly
ooze there, and yet never succeeded in getting
what I came for. The flowers alone are the trophy

1 64

Kalee's Shrine.

of victory. It 's a foreign artemlsia, got stranded
here by accident. Indian Wormwood or Lover's
Bane the herbalists call it." And he gathered a big
bunch of the yellow blossoms from the summit of
the island, tying them together loosely with a shred
from his handkerchief (Men in love think nothing,
it may be parenthetically observed, of tearing up a
new cambric handkerchief. At a later date, it is to
be feared, the person for whose sake they tear it up
takes good care to repress any future outbursts of
such absurd extravagance.)

They sat on the island for nearly an hour, and
then, as the sun was shining hot overhead, Alan's
clothes were sufficiently dried for him to put them
on again in a somewhat dingy, damp, and clinging
condition. The problem now was to get back
again. Alan successfully lifted down his friend at
the end of the pole, in true acrobat fashion : but
just as Harry touched ground in the centre of the
little stream, the pole creaked and gave ominously
in the middle.

"Take care of it, Tennant," the young man
cried, as he fixed it once more across his shoulder.
"Don't trust the weak point in the middle too
much. Glide lightly over the thin ice ! Hand over
hand as quick as you can manage ! "

tranded
Lover's
id a big
nmit of
a shred
othing,
ig up a
it is to
ar it up
irsts of

ir, and
Alan's
t them
inging
t back
end at
1 : but
of the
iiously

f man

)ulder.
[e too
d over

Kalee's Shrine.

165

"All right," Alan cried, suiting the deed to the
word, and hastily letting himself glide with a rapid
sliding motion along the frail support.

As he reached the middle, with a sudden snap,
the pole broke. Alan did not hesitate for a minute.
If he fell where he was, he would sink helplessly
into the engulfing mud. He had had enough of
that, and knew what it m^eant now. With the im-
petus of the breakage, he sprang dexterously for-
ward, and just clearing the mud, fell on his hands
and knees upon the hard, right in front of Harry.

"Hurt yourself, eh?" his friend asked, picking
him up quickly.

"Not much," Alan answered, flinging the broken
pole angrily into the stream. "Barked my knees
a little : that 's about all. We 're unfortunate to day.
The stars are against us. There 's a trifle too much
adventure to suit my taste, it strikes me somehow,
in your East Anglian rivers ! "

"Here 's a nice fellow ! " Harry retorted, laugh-
ing. "Adventures are to the adventurous, don't
they say. You first go and try a mad plan to
pick a useless little bunch of fluffy small flowers
for a fair lady, quite in the most approved romantic
fashion, for all the world like the London Reader ;
and then when vou fall anH hnrV Tronr i'"^

••• V3 W V X^l.

': i

{ i

l]iii

t \A

i66

ii^

Kalee's Shrine.

it, you lay the blame of your own mishaps on our
poor unoffending East Anglian rivers ! "

"I've got the flowers still, anyhow," Alan an-
swered triumphantly, holding them up and waving
them above his head, crushed and dripping, but
nevertheless perfectly intact, in his bleeding hand.
He had knocked his fist against the bottom to break
his fall, and cut the skin rather badly about the
wrist and knuckles.

" Well, it 's high time we got back to the boat,"
Harry continued carelessly. "If we don't make
haste, we shan't be back soon enough for me to
dress for dinner. I must get home before seven.
Aunt 's got the usual select dinner-party stirring this
evening."

They turned the corner, wading still, but through
much deeper water than that they had at first en-
countered (for the tide was now steadily rising),
and made their way to the well-remembered spot
where they had loosely fastened the light duck-
boat.

To their annoyance and surprise, no boat was
anywhere to be seen in the neighborhood. Only
a mark as of a pole dragged by main force out of
the mud,— the mark left by Harry's walking-
stick.

Kalee's Shrine.

167

s on our

Uan an-
vvaving
ing, but
ig hand,
to break
out the

e boat,"
t make
r me to
seven,
ing this

:hrough
[irst en-
rising),
ed spot
t duck-

They gazed at one another blankly for a moment.
Then Alan burst into a merry laugh.

"Talk about adventures," he said; "they'll
certainly never be ended to-day. The duck-boat
must have floated off on its own account quietly
without us."

But Harry, instead of laughing, turned deadly
pale. He knew the river better than his com-
panion, and realized at oncc the full terror of the
situation.

"Tennant," he cried, clutching his friend's arm
nervously and eagerly ; " we 're lost .? we're lost!
The duck-boat has floated off without us : there 's
no getting away, no getting away anyhow ! No
living power on earth can possibly save us from
drowning by inches as the tide rises I "

iBl

at was

Only

out of

aiking-

i68

Kalee's Shrine.

CHAPTER XIII.

LOST.

f i

■f i

Alan stared at his friend in blank dismay. It was
some time before he could fully take in the real
seriousness of their present position. But he knew
Harry was no coward, and he could see by his
blanched cheek and bloodless lips that a terrible
danger actually environed them.

" Where 's she gone ?" he asked at last tremulously.

Harry screened his eyes from the sun with his
hands.

''Down stream, at first," he said, peering about
in vain, ''till tide rose high enough; then up, no
doubt, heaven knows where, but out of sight, out
of sight anyhow ! "

Alan examined the bank closely. He saw in a
moment how the accident had happened. Harry,
in his haste to fetch the pole to save him, had driven
his own walking-stick carelessly into the larger and
looser hole left by the bigger piece of wood ; and the
force of the current, dragging at the boat, liad pulled

Kalee's Shrine.

169

It was

the real

he knew

e by his

I terrible

uilously.
with his

ig about
n up, no
ight, out

aw in a
Harry,
d driven
rger and
and the
id pulled

it slowly out of the unresisting mud-bank. It might
have been gone a full hour : and where it had got
to, no earthly power could possibly tell them.

" Can't we swim out ? " he asked eagerly at last.
"You and I are both tolerable swimmers."

Harry shook his head very gloomily. " No good,"
he said. " No good at all, I tell you. The river s
bounded by mud for acres. It 's six miles at least
down to Hurdham Pier, the very first place there 's
a chance of landing. If you tried to land anywhere
else before, you'd sink in mud like the mud you stuck
in just now at the island. We 're bounded round by
mud on every side. We stand on a little narrow shelf
of pebble, with a vastswampy quagmire of mud gird-
ing it in for miles and miles and miles together."

** Can't we walk up to the source.?" Alan en-
quired despondently, beginning to realize the full
terror of the situation. ''It may keep hard till we
reach terra firma ? "

"It may, but it doesn't, I'm pretty sure," Harry
answered with a groan. "However, there's no
harm anyhow in trying. Let's walk up and see
where we get to.'

They waded on in silence together, feeling the
bottom cautiously at each step with their sticks,
till the stream began to divide and sub-divide IntQ

170

Kalee's Shrine.

i-i

little finger-liko muddy tributaries. Choosing the
chief of these, they waded up it. Presently the
bottom grew softer and softer, and a firm footing
more and more impossible. At last, their feet sank
in ominously. Harry probed a step in advance with
the broken end of the pole that Alan had (lui.g away.
The next step was into the muddy quagmire. Land
still lay a mile distant apparently in that direction.
The intervening belt was one huge waste expanse
of liquid treachery.

They tried again up another tributary, and then
a third, and a fourth, and so on throuf-h all the ra-
diating minor streamlets, but still ahvays with the
same disheartening result. There was no rest for the
sole of their foot anywhere. Above, the o^.^eams all
ended in mud ; below, they slowly deepened to the
tidal river. A few hundred yards of intervening
solid bottom alone provided them with a lirm foott
hold.

''I wish to goodness," Alan cried petulantly,
''we'd never got out of that confounded duck^
boat ! "

"It's too late wishing now," Harry murmured
half to himself, with a remorseful glance at the ill-
omened flowers. -We've got to face the very
worst. The tide 's rising^. It rises above the level

Kalee's Shrine.

171

of the mud. Not enough for us to swim in, though.
We'll have to stand here as well as w Ccdi on the
hard till we can stand no more, and then swim or
float for dear life as far as our strength or chance
will carry us."

Alan bit his lip in utter despair. He had but ojie
thought now. That thought was for Olga. Olga
would miss them ! Olga would be fright-ned !
Should he try the riskiest course of all, and swim if
possible the long six miles to the pier at Hurdham.?
No, no. That after ah would he sheer suicide.
Better hang or to the last wild chance at all I /ards,
and wait for the possible approach up stream of a
barge or row-boat.

He took out his watch. It was half-past six.
They were going upstaii s to dress for dinner now at
the Tristram's at Thorboroueh.

"Couldn't we manage to get back on top ( the
island?" he said at last. "We might wait ei
then for almost any length of time, till we could
signal with a handkor hief to some passing eel-boat.
That'd be better at ieast 'han waiting here in the
middle of the channel till the tide rises."

Harry shook his head with almost sullen despair.
"No, no," he cried. 'Impossible, impossible!
You know how^ sticky you found the mud, With--

^PP

172

Kalee's Shrine.

I' i\

^1^

out the pole we could never by any chance get
there. We 'd only sink over head and ears in that
devilish slush. You don't know the ways of the
Thore as well as I do. Sinking in water's bad
enough, but sinking in mud's ten thousand times
more terrible. It clogs you and hampers you on
every side. Struggling or swimming only makes
things worse. You go down in it helplessly, suf-
focating as you go, and there isn't a chance of re-
covering even your dead body. If we drown in
peace and let the tide drift us afterwards down the
river, they'll bury us decently anyhow at Thor-
borough."

Alan went back once more to the neighborhood
of the island. He scanned it eagerly now all
around. It was no longer a question of getting a
handful of pretty tiowers for Olga-it was a pressing
urgent life-and-death necessity. But the more he
looked at it, the more utterly imp.)ssible and im-
practicable it seemed. Only seven or eight feet of
light-brown mud separated them with its gap from
that haven of refuge ; and yet the seven or eight feet
proved a greater barrier than miles and miles of land
or water could ever have done. Water you can
swim through, land you can walk over, but mud is
absolutely and utterly impassable.

!■■ i

Kalee's Shrine.

173

nee get
i in that
i of the
?r's bad
d times
you on
makes
ily, suf-
e of re-
own in
>vvn the
; Thor-

orhood
ovv all
tting a
ressing
ore he
iid im-
feet of
p from
ht feet
)f land
u can
nud is

He returned to where Harry sat crouching in the
stream, hugging his knees, and gazing blankly and
wildly straight in front of him.

"Sit down," Harry said: "this is the highest
point. The water here perhaps may not rise above
our heads. But we '11 have to wait and let it rise
slowly. You must sit as long as you can, till tide
reaches about to your neck. Then kneel ; and after
that, stand up and face it. The water rises warm
over these basking shallows. If it lay cold, it would
be much worse for us. We shall hold out now for
about six hours. If a boat comes by, well and
good. If not "

He threw his head back significantly, and closed
his eyes, gurgling low with his throat in a speaking
pantomime.

Alan thought only of Olga.

They sat there silent in the running water, hug-
ging their knees, for twenty minutes. Then Harry
took his handkerchief slowly from his pocket, and
tied it to the broken end of the pole.

"We must hold this up, turn about," he said.
" Perhaps some boat may pass and see it."

For many minutes, neither spoke again. Then
Alan said once more, " Hadn't we better try swim-.

.v.: 3"

174

Kalee's Shrine.

"No," Harry answered. -For-our friends' sake
-no. Let us wait on the chance. If the worst
comes to the worst, at last, we can swim for dear
life. But hold on to the hard as long as it serves
you."

"Ah, but then we shall be gradually chilled and
powerless. If we swin, now, we mifjht manage to
keep up for dear life-and for what s dearer than life
—till we reached Hurdham."

"Impossible," Harry answered with a shake of
his head. •• Tide s against us by this time. If we
swam up, as tide now runs, we should only be
landed on worse mud-banks in the Ponton direction
Wait till midnight-the turn s at midnight. Then
we might manage to float on our backs, with
tide n. our favor, and high water too, to one of
the firmer islands a little way down towards Thor-
borough. At high tide, some of them are approach-
able. "

"Till midnight ! " Alan cried. " My dear fellow,
do you mean to say we must stop here till mid-
night? All in the dark, and with the water rising
everywhere around us ? Oh, Harry, Harry, I 'd ten
thousand times rather swim for it at once and face
it anyhow ! "

Harry seized his arm impressively, "It's your

ij n

Kalee's Shrine.

175

■■»> >i

one chance, Tennant," he said in a low firm voice.
"Wait! ... For Olga ! "

In a moment Alan noticed the strangeness of the
tone.

" For Olga ?" he cried. " For Olga .? For Olga?"
"Yes," Harry answered, almost bitterly. "Do
you think I'm thinking only of myself.? What a
coward you must .^ncy me .? We young fellows
always fall in love, they say, with girls older than
ourselves. And do you think I haven't fallen in
love with Olga Trevelyan .? How could I help it?
Who could help it ? As much as you have, I tell
you, Tennant : every bit as much as you have. For
her sake, you've got to get baci: ; and for her sake
I 've got to help you. What s the use of making
secrets between us now? I know you love her. I
know she loves you. If you don't come back, it '11
break her heart. She 's got a heart of the kind that 's
given to breaking. Well, I love her too. I know
I 'm a young fellow, and I know I shall get over it.
In the end, I shall do like all the rest of us, marry
some other girl younger than myself, and try to
fancy she 's as good and as pure and as beautiful as
Olga. But while it lasts, it 's as real to me as it is to
you, I tell you, Tennant. It 's Olga who 's got us
both into this scrape. If I hadn't aided and abetted

nil

JtMii'

1/6

Kalee's Shrine.

■■J

f i '

you this afternoon, you wouldn't have got on the
island there, to pick the bunch of flowers for Olga.
I helped you, because I knew she 'd be pleased that
you 'd got them for her, and that you 'd taken a little
trouble to g-et them-and risked a little danger into
the bargain. And now we Ve both got to get you
back to Olga. Never mind about me : that doesn't
matter. You 're taller than me : you can overtop
the water a good half-hour longer. If I get drowned,
you can take my body, and put it on the mud by
the island yonder, and use it as a stepping-stone to
get across upon. I expect it 'd bear you up for a
minute; enough to jump safe on to the top of the
island. Somebody's sure to be up here with a boat
within the next day or two. You could hold out for
two or three days even without food, on top of the
island, and then you could get back home at last-
to Olga."

Alan could answer nothing in return. The tears
stood thick in his eyes. He took the young fellow's
hand in his and wrung it in silence with a long hard
grip.

"Harry," he said at last in a choking voice,
' • you 're a splendid fellow. If we Ve got to die we
shall die together. Nor even for her, not even for
her could I ever desert you. Let 's tie the flowers

Kalee's Shrine.

177

around our waists. Then if we die, Olga '11 knovy
we died at any rate for her sake."

"No," Harry murmured in a low soft voice.
" Let's throw them away : far, far away from us.
Then if we die, Olga '11 have nothing at all in future
to reproach herself with. She '11 think we died up
the creeks and backwaters looking after the wild-
fowl shooting for our own pleasure.'*

Alan answered never a word. But he felt in his
heart that the young man's thought was the truest
and noblest. He flung the bunch far from him into
the middle of the stream. The rising tide brought
it back to his hands, and then carried it vaguely up
on its fl^x>d among the fiats behind them.

i •

178

Kalee's Shrine.

CHAPTER XIV.

SUSPENSE.

The water had now risen up to their waists as
they sat dripping in the middle current. They
shifted their position, and took to kneeling. The
shades began to fall slowly over the land. The stars
came out overhead one by one. The gulls and rooks
retired in slow procession from the purple mud-
flats : the herons rose on flapping wings from fish-
ing in the streams, and stretched their long necks,
free and full, homeward towards the heronry.

Nothing on earth could have seemed more aw-
some in its ghastly loneliness than that wide ex-
panse under the gathering shades of autumn
twilight. The water rose slowly, slowly, slowly,
slowly. Inch by inch it gained stealthily but stead-
ily upon them. It reached up to their waists, to
their sides, to their breasts, to their shoulders.
Very soon they would have to cease kneeling, and
take to the final standing position. And after that
^the deluge !

Kalee's Slirine,

179

aists as
They
r. The
he stars
d rooks
3 mud-
m fish-
necks,

re aw-
de ex-
utumn
[ovvly,
stead-
its, to
ilders.
I, and
;r that

Bats began to hawk for moths in number over
the mud-flats. A great white owl hooted from
the open sky above. Now and again, the scream of
the sea-swallows, themselves invisible, broke sud-
denly from the upper air. Even the clang of the
hours from the Thorborough church tower floated
faintly across the desolate saltings to the place
where they waited for slowly-coming death.

" I should like one pipe before I die," Harry
said stoically, feeling in his pockets for a box of
matches. ** You haven't got such a thing as a light
about you, have you, Tennant.? "

''I've got a flint and steel," Alan answered, pull-
ing it out, *' but I 'm afraid it 's wet with the mud by
the island."

He opened the box. To Harry's surprise and
delight, the tinder within — a long coil of yellow
wick — was dry and untouched, preserved from
harm by the metal covering.

"This is better than a match," he cried with new
hope. "It's better than a pipe, Tennant. It's a
signal : a signal ! Keep the tinder alight, and hoist
it on a pole, and perhaps it '11 attract some one of
the mud-anglers."

"Who are the mud-anglers ? " Alan asked shiv-
ering.

I :^

i8o

Kalee's Shrine.

I i

"Men who come out fishing for eels in the
streams as the tide rises," Harry answered, fired
with fresh expectation. "They walk across the
mud, with a lantern in their hands, and catch eels
in the tidal channels."

" Walk on the mud ! " Alan cried. "But how
can they ? How can they ? And if they can, why
can't we too, Harry .? "

Harry waved his hand a little impatiently.
"They walk with mud-shoes, "he answered with
a slight cough. " Alud-shoes are thin flat pieces of
board, turned up at the end and strapped on the
foot, like small boats ; and they glide on them
across the mud as people glide with snow-shoes
over the snow in Canada. In shape they 're very
much like the toboggans we used to slide on when
I was a boy down the hills at Halifax. You 've seen
pictures of toboggans in the papers, haven't you?
Well, that 's a mud-shoe : and the mud-anglers wear
them. There are pretty sure to be mud-anglers
about to-night, and this light might possibly hap-
pen to attract one."

As he spoke, he tore a shred from his handker-
chief, and with it fastened the smouldering wick to
the broken pole. Below the sparks of light thus pre-
cariously obtained, he tied the remainder of the

s in the
ed, fired
OSS the
itch eels

3ut how
in, why

ed with
ieces of
on the
1 them
v-shoes
re very
1 when
ve seen
t you?
s wear
anglers
f hap-

ndker-
inck to
LIS pre-
Df the

Kalee's Shrine.

i8i

handkerchief itself The wick lighted it up with a
faint illumination, and together they served to form
a slight danger-signal, sufficient to take the atten-
tion of a passing mud-angler, if any should chance
to come within sight of the feeble illuminant.

The evening fell darker and darker. The tide
rose slowly, remorselessly. The mud-flats ceased
to glimmer faintly with the long reflection of the
twilight afterglow. All was silent and black and
invisible, save for the shrill cry of the bats as they
swooped overhead, and the tiny glow of the
saltpetre tinder-wick on the flapping handker-
chief.

The water compelled them now to stand. Arm-
in-arm they stood before it, facing together that
crawling, slow, resistless enemy. If it had been
waves to buffet and overcome, however fierce, even
that would have been better. One would have felt
then one was at least fighting them. But the utter
sense of helplessness and impotence in face of that
quiet, noiseless creeping flood was too appalling.
Harry's teeth began to chatter with cold. The long
immersion, even in that sun-warmed water, was
gradually telling upon him. His limbs were stiff,
and his blood coursed slowly.

They passed the pipe silently from one to the

I 1.1

I '1

1 82

Kalee's Shrine.

I I

ill

Other, for Alan's last cigar was long since finished.
It helped to warm and comfort them a little.

"Thank heaven," Harry said with real fervor as
he took it once from his friend's mouth, "thank
heaven for tobacco. "

Half-past eight. Nine. Half-past nine. The
bell clanged it out loudly from the Thorborough
steeple, and the echoes, stole reverberant with end-
less resonance across the lonely intervening mud-
flats. How long the intervals seemed between !
Twenty times in every half-hour the two young men
lowered the slowly smouldering wick, and held
Harry's watch up to the light, to read how the min-
utes went on its dial. Half-past nine, and now
breast high ! Ten, eleven, twelve, still to run !
The water would rise far above their heads ! Each
minute now was an eternity of agony. Save for
Olga's sake, they would have taken to swimming,
and flung away the last chance of life recklessly.
It is easier to swim— and die at once-than to stand
still, with the cruel cold water creeping slowly and
ceaselessly up you.

At twenty-five minutes to ten, they lowered the
light and looked once more. As they did so, a
faint long gleam streaming along the mud-flats
struck Harry's eyes in the far distance. The light

Kalee's Shrine.

183

inished.

jrvor as
"thank

. The

)o rough
ith end-
g: mud-
tween !
ngmen
id held
le min-
d now
3 run !
Each
^ve for
iming,
:lessly.
> stand
ly and

2d the

so, a

d-flats

5 light

from which it came lay below their horizon ; but the
gleam itself, repeated and reflected, hit the side of the
bank opposite them. Harry's quick senses jumped
at it in a moment.

"A mud-angler! A mud-angler!" he cried ex-
citedly, and waved the pole and handkerchief above
with a sudden access of feverish energy.

Would the mud-angler see them ? that was the
question. The flicker of the wick was but veryslight.
How far off could it possibly be visible.? They
waved it frantically on the bare chance of attracting
his attention.

For five minutes there was an awful suspense ;
and then Harry s accustomed ear caught a faint noise
borne dimly across the long low mud-flats.

"He 'scorning! He's coming!' he cried joy-
ously. And then putting his two hands to his
mouth, he burst into a long, sharp, shrill coo-ee.

"You'll frighten him away!" Alan suggested
anxiously. " He '11 think it 's a ghost or something
like one."

But even as he spoke, the gleam of a lantern struck
upon the mud, and the light shone clearer and ever
clearer before them.

"Hallo!" Harry cried. "In distress here!
Help ! help ! We 're drowning ! We 're drowning ! "

i84

Kalee's Shrine.

A man's voice answered from above. "Ahoy!
ahoy ! Mow did yow git there ? "

Thank heaven ! they were saved !— Or next door
toitl

The man approached the cdj^-c of the mud-bank as
close as he dare (for the edges are very steep and
slippery), and turning his lantern full upon them,
stood looking at the two half-drowned men, as they
gasped up to their breasts in water.

" How did yow git there, I say ? " he asked once
more sullenly.

"Can you help us out?" Harry cried in return.

The man shook his head.

"Dunno as I can!" he answered with a stupid
grin. ' ' I can 't go no nearer the edge nor this. It s
bad walking. Mud 's deep. How did yow git
there?"

"Waded up, and our boat floated off," Harry cried
in despair. "Can't you get a rope? Can't you
send a boat? Can't you do anything anyhow to
help us?"

The man gazed at them with the crass and vacant
stupidity of the born rustic.

"Dunno as I can," he muttered once more.
"Yow'd ought to a stuck to your boat, yow 'ad.
That's just what yow 'd ought to a done, I take it."

Knloc's Shrine.

185

*' Is thcr " bv>at anywhere near? " Alan cried dis-
tracted, oiiUln't you pat ly boat out from
somevvhcri. > sjvc us? "

"Tlu c ain't no boat," the •" luswercd slowly
and stolidly. " T.caslvviiys none nearer nor Thor-
borough. Or m dit 'Urdhani. Tom Wilkes, 'e
'ave a boat up yonder at Ponton. Ikit that 's right
across t'other side o' the water." And he gazed at
them still with rural indiflerenco

"My friend," Alan cried, h a burst of help-
lessness, "we've been here in the water since six
o'clock. The tide 's rising slowly around us. In a
couple of hours, it "11 rise above our heads. We 're
faint and cold and almost exhausted. For heaven's
sake don't stand there idle : can't you do something
to save two fellow-creatures from drowning ? "

The man shook his head imperturbably once
more.

" I dunno as I can," he murmured complacently,
" Mud hereabouts is terrible dangerous. Yow 'd
ought to 'a stuck to your boat, yow know. There
ain't no landing anywheres hereabouts. If I was
to give yow a hand, I 'd fall in, myself. I ex-
pect yow '11 have to stick there now till yow 're
right drownded. I can't git no nearer yow
nohow. "

( :i

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WEBSTER, NY. 14580

(716) 872-4503

<^.

fr-<Cr " ^

V^ #? ^ #/

^0 ■'m^5

1 86

Kalee's Shrine.

rf i

I i* '

There was something utterly appalling and sick-
ening in this horrible outcome of all their hopes.
The longed-for mud-angler had arrived at last : they
had caught his attention : they were within speak-
ing distance of him : there he stood, on the edge of
the ooze, lantern in hand, and wooden floats on
feet, plainly visible before their very eyes : yet for
any practical purpose of assistance or relief he might
just as v/ell have been a hundred miles on shore
clean away at a distance from them. A stick or a
stone could not have been more utterly or horribly
useless.

The man stood and gazed at them still. If they
had only allowed him, he would have gazed imper-
turbably open-mouthed till the waters had risen
above their heads and drowned them. He had the
blank stolidity of silly Suffolk well developed in his
vacant features.

Alan w^as seized with a happy inspiration. He
would use the one obvious argument adapted to the
stupid sordid soul of the gaping mud-angler.

*'Go back to the shore," he cried, glaring at the
fellow, ''and tell the others we 're here drowning.
Do as you're told. Don't delay. Bring a boat or
something at once to save us. If you do, you shall
have fifty pounds. If you don't, they'll hnng you

III

i I i'

Kalee's Shrine.

187

nd sick-
hopes,
t : they
speak-
edge of
:)ats on
yet for
e might
1 shore
ck or a
lorribly

If they
imper-
1 risen
lad the
i in his

. He

to the

at the
vning.
oat or
i shall
^ you

for murder. Fifty pounds if you save us, do you
understand me? Fifty pounds to-morrow morn-
ing ! "
The man's lower jaw dropped heavily.

** Fifty pound," he repeated, with a cunning leer.

It was too much. Clearly he didn't believe it
possible.

"Fifty pounds," Alan reiterated with the energy
of despair, taking out his purse and looking at its
contents. "And there's three pound ten on account
as an earnest."

He tied the purse with all that was in it on to the
end of the pole and pushed it up to the man, who
clutched at it eagerly. Looking inside, he saw the
gold, and grinned.

"Fifty pound ! " he said with a sudden chuckle.
"That's a powerful lot o' money. Mister."

"Go quick," Alan cried, " and tell your friends.
There's not a moment to be lost, and tide 's rising.
If you can bring a boat or do anything to save us,
you shall have fifty pounds, down on the nail,
to-morrow morning. I'm a rich man, and I can
promise to pay you."

The fellow turned doggedly and began to go.
Next moment, a nascent doubt came over him, and
clouded i\is mind,

1 88

Kalee's Shrine.

til

j, ..

n^il

i ■■■

"How shall I know where to find yow ? " he
said, staring back once more, and gaping foolishly.

"Watch the beacons," Harry cried, taking up the
parable, "and mark which stream we're in as well
as you 're able. Let 's see. How long shall you be
gone, do you reckon? "

"Might bean hour," the man answered, drawl-
ing. ' ' Might be two hours. "

"The light won't last so long," Harry said anx-
iously, turning to Alan, "I say, my friend, can't
you leave us your lantern ? "

The man shook his head with a gesture of dis-
sent.

" Couldn't find my way back nohow without it,"
he said, still grinning. "Fifty pound! That's a
lot o' money."

"Go!" Alan cried, unable any longer to keep
down for very prudence' sake his contempt and
anger. "Go and tell your other fishermen. If
you want to earn your fifty pounds to-night, there 's
no time to spare. When you come back, we may
both be dead men, if you don't go on and hurry.—
Harry, we can light the wick again at eleven
o'clock. Let's put it out now. We can do without
it. We shall hear the church clock strike the
hours. "

Kalee's Shrine.

189

>w ? " he
3olishly.
g: up the
I as well
I you be

, drawl-
aid anx-
d, can't

of dis-

lOUlit,"

hat 's a

:o keep
pt and
en. If
there 's
^e may
urry. —
eleven
I'ithout
ke the

The man nodded a stolid acquiescence, and turn-
ed once more slowly on his heel. They watched
him silently receding — receding. Light and reflec-
tion faded o^radually away. The faint plash of his
wooden mud-shoes on the flat surface was heard no
more. Nothing remained save the gurgling of the
water. They were left alone — alone with the
darkness.

That second loneliness was lonelier than ever.
Too cold to speak, almost too cold even to hope,
they stood there still, linked arm-in-arm, ready to
faint, with the speechless stars burning br'j^^ht over-
head, and the waters rising pitilessly around them.
In that last moment, Alan's thoughts were turned to
Olga. Beautiful, innocent, ger tle-souled Olga. If
he died that night, he died, on however petty an
errand it might be, for Olga's sake — for Olga — for
Olga. And then he relapsed into a kind of chilly
stupor.

irtHlli

I !

190

Kalee's Shrine.

-a

!!i

CHAPTER XV.

HIGH TIDE.

Ten o'clock. . . . Half-past ten. .
Eleven. Numbed and half-dead, they heard the
clock strike out, as in some ghastly dream, and
waited and watched for the return of the mud-
angler.

It was n't so very far to the shore. Surely, surely
he should be back by this time.

The waters in the estuary rose by slow, by
almost imperceptible degrees. But still they rose.
They went on rising. They were up to Harry's
neck now. He rested his chin on the edge of the
water. Five minutes more, and all would be up.
Faint and weary, he would fall in the channel.

"Look here, Tennant," he murmured at last,
grasping his friend's hand beneath the surface in
a hard long grip : " I 'm going to swim now. It 's
no use waiting. I 've only got five minutes to live.
... I mustn't stop here. If I stop, you know,
when the water rises, I shall choke and struggle.

Kalee's Shrine.

191

;ard the
m, and
e mud-

, surely

)w, by
y rose.
Harry's
: of the
be up.
3l.

it last,
face in

r. It's

to live.

know,

rug:gle.

Then you'll clutch me hold, and try to save me,
and that '11 spoil your own last chance of living.
I 'm going to swim. It won't be far. But it 's better
at any rate than dying like a dog with a stone round
its neck, still here on the bottom. Good-bye, old
fellow. Good-bye forever. Never let Olga know if
you get back safe, what it was we did it for ! "

Alan held him hard with whatever life was yet
left in him.

"Stop, stop, Harry," he cried in dismay.
"There 's still a chance. Every minute 's a chance.
Don't go, don't go. Stop with me, for heaven's
sake, and if we must die, let 's die together."

"No, no," Harry answered in a resolute voice.
"You 've got half-an-hour's purchase of life better
than I have, now, Tennant. For Olga's sake^ you
must let me go. For Olga's sake, you must try
to save yourself."

"Never," Alan cried, firmly and hastily. "Not
even for Olga's sake ! Never ! Never ! "

At that moment, a loud shout of inquiry re-
sounded over the mud flats ! A noise of men ! A
glimmer of lanterns ! Alan seized his friend, and
lifted him in his arms.

"Saved! Saved!" he cried. "Shout, Harry I
Shout ! Shout, shout, my dear, dear Harry I "

192

Kalee's Shrine.

|S'

i \

Harry shouted aloud with a long wild cry. It was
the despairing cry of a dying man, and it echoed
and re-echoed along the undulating mud-flats.

Alan lighted the wick, which he had held all this
time for dryness in his teeth, and fitted it once
more into the crack of the pole. Harry v/aved it
madly about over his head. One moment more of
deadly suspense. Then an answering cry told
them at last that the men with the lanterns saw
them and heard them.

Next instant, the men were on the brink of the
mud, and the light of the lanterns poured full upon
them.

A voice very different from that of their friend the
mud-angler shouted aloud in a commanding tone,
" Shove off the raft ! Look out for your heads
there ! "

Before they knew exactly what it was that was
happening, a great square raft, roughly improvised
from two cottage doors, nailed together by cross-
pieces, floated on the stream full in front of them :
and Alan, scrambling on to it with a violent strug-
gle, lifted up the faint and weary Harry in his arms
to the dry and solid place of safety.

The men pulled them alongside w'ith two ropes
attached to the raft ; and the same voice that had

HI it

i.r \'*

Kalee's Shrine.

193

It was
echoed
ts.

I all this
it once
.^aved it
more of
:ry told
ns saw

: of the
ill upon

end the
ig tone,
■ heads

lat was
rovised
'• cross-
them :
t strug-
s arms

ropes
lat had

spoken first said once more in kindly tones, ' ' Brandy,
hot. Take a good pull at it ! Don't be afraid.
Next, your turn. . . . After that, this. A pull
o' soup. It '11 warm your heart, man. Now, sit on
the raft and recover a little."

Alan sat on the raft giddily, as he was bid, and
laid Harry's head on his lap like a woman. One
of the men — not their mud-angler — pulled off his
dry jersey at once, and handed it over to Alan with
native kindliness. Alan laid it under Harry's head.
The poor fellow was half fainting, half asleep with
exhaustion. They gave him more beef-tea, and
more brandy. He revived slowly ; and meanwhile,
the raft lay idle alongside, the men in mud-shoes
standing on the bank and looking over.

"We must get along soon," one of them said,
after a pause. "Water's rising. Soon be over the
flats. Can you walk?" kindly, to Alan. And he
held up a pair of mud-shoes in his hand to explain
his question.

"I never tried them," Alan answered, looking at
them dubiously: "but I dare say I could. Any-
how, I '11 risk it.

He sat on the raft and put them on as the man

directed him. Then they reached down a pole,

which the four men held ; and with it they lifted
13

(

III

lltii

194

Kalee's Shrine.

Iiiin up on to the mud-hank. He took his stand
there uneasily cnouj^h.

"Don't fall, whatever you do," the chief speaker
said encoura^^^ns;ly ; "and don't stumble. Glide
along on 'em the same as if you was skating.
Keep from stumbling, and you '11 be all right. Are
you getting warmer? Have another pull at the
soup, and a bit o' biscuit."

Alan ate the proffered food thankfully. Thank
heaven, their first mud-angling acquaintance was
no fair sample of the whole fraternity.

"Now for the other one," the speaker continued.
" It ain 't no good giving him mud-shoes. He ain't
in no fit state at all for walking. We must drag
him along somehow on the raft, Billy. Here you,
sir ; hold on to the raft. Now, all together ! Heave
him up ! heave oh ! "

The four men took hold of the ropes at once, and
pulled the raft, with Harry on it, over the shelving
bank, now nearly level with the rising water, and
on to the mud-flats. Then they tied the two ropes
firmly to the pole : placed it in front of them as a
sort of support or axletree, and all pulling at it, with
Alan in the middle, began to make their way shore-
ward.
They struck across the flats by the nearest way,

II:

lis stand

f speaker

Glide

skating.

lit. Are

11 at the

Thank
nee was

ntinued.
He ain't
ist dr.ig
ere yon,
Heave

ice, and
shelving
ter, and
o ropes
em as a
it, with
f shore-

>t way,

Kale'j's Shrine.

195

walking slowly, on Alan's account, and dragging
the raft easily behind them. It sank slightly in the
mud as they went, but not much ; and the men
pulled it as if well accustomed to that singular
conveyance.

After only a few hundred yards of mud, Alan
was perfectly astonished to find that they reached
the dyke and the reclaimed marshes. So near had
they been all the time to land in one direction, and
yet so dangerously far and remote from it.

"We couldn't come sooner," the chief speaker
explained kindly to Alan, noticing his surprise.
"Billy came "—pointing to their first friend, the
mud-angler — " and told us at once all about you.
But I knowed it was no use going on the search till
we could do something practical-like to save you ;
and there wasn't a minute to spare, I'll warrant
you. In half an hour, the flats '11 be covered : as
soon as they 're covered, the mud's soft, and there
ain't no possibility o' walking on it. We'd got to
hunt up two more men, and a couple o' vacant
pairs o' mud shoes : and as all the lot was out on
the flats, that wasn't none so easy neither. Then
we 'd got to take down them there two doors, and
nail 'em together, and put the ropes to 'em : and
it 's precious lucky we thought o' doing it. For if

196

Kalee*s Shrine.

tm\

It!

you 'd had nobody but Billy and them to help
you,"— here his voice sank to a confidential whis-
per,— "it's my belief, in the manner o' speaking,
you 'd both ha' been drovvnded just as you stood
there."

Alan saw at once in his own mind the wisdom of
his new friend's well-arranged plan. To have gone
out on the mere impulse, unprovided with the
necessary assistance of the raft, would have been
worse than useless : the men could only have
gazed at them helplessly from the edge of the ooze
as their stolid acquaintance Billy had begun by
doing. Still, it was awful to think that they had
had to stop there drowning by inches while the
men on shore were quietly taking down the cottage
doors and rudely knocking the extemporized raft
and planks together. They might at least have
sent somebody on beforehand to tell them help
would soon be coming ! Ana then, he reflected
once more on the utter loneliness of those wild
saltings, with their solitary huts scattered about at
long distances, and recognized immediately that
the men had acted for the very best,— had done
the only thing possible for them. Lucky indeed
that one man at least was found among the mud-
anglers with a strong hand and a cool head, for if

Kalee's S'rine.

197

to help
tial whis-
ipeaking,
3u stood

isdom of
ive gone
vith the
ve been
ly have
;he ooze
Dgun by
ley had
hile the

cottage
zed raft
st have
m help
eflected
se wild
ibout at
ily that
id done

indeed
e mud-
d, for if

they had been left entirely to the mercy of Billy
and his like-minded associates, they might, as their
new friend rightly said, still be drowning by inches
in the dark estuary I

The men kicked off their mud-shoes dexterously,
and piled them up in a low shed, thatched with
rushes, on the very edge of the drained saltings.
Then without a word, and as if by signal given,
they lifted up Alan and Harry between them, two

vJ two, and carried them across the steamin^r
fields to a small cottage. It was the home of the
man who had directed the others — Tom Wilkes,
the captain of the mud-anglers. Late as it was,
the women were sitting up to receive them : a
bright wood fire burned merrily on the kitchen
hearth ; and a steaming kettle hissed in the midst
of it. They laid them in chairs close to the
fireside j removed iheir wet clothes hastily, and
wrapped them round as they stood in dry blankets.
The fire and food soon revived Harry ; and the
men carried him upstairs to a bed, where he was
soon asleep and comfortably settled.

As for Alan, worn out as he was, his first idea was
to get back to Thorborough at all hazards. Olga
would be waiting anxiously to hear about him.
Could he borrow a horse and ride home alone ?

11'

v:l

^11' i

■ i

ilf i

198

Kalee's Shrine.

Tom Wilkes shook his head in a decided nega-
tive. There wasn't a horse for three miles about—
nothing but sheep and cattle on the saltii\^'s : and
as to Thorborough, it was t'other side river, and
river spread in fingers and fingers, with saltings be-
tween, so that there wasn't no bridge without you
went round right away by Winningham.

In those lonely peninsulas of Suffolk and Essex,
indeed, spots may be found more utterly isolated
from the outer world than any to be seen in Wales
or Scotland— saltings cut off by interminable back-
waters and interlacing estuaries from any inter-
course save in one long straight line, with surround-
ing districts. It was only six miles, as the crow
flies, from Tom Wilkes's cottage to the church at
Thorborough ; yet the road by land led ten miles
inland, and then fifteen miles more round to avoid
the rivers.

There was no hope for it. Anxious as he was
Alan was positively compelled to sleep at the cot-
tage, and early next morning, he mentally resolved,
he would walk with his host to the nearest ''hard"
or landing-place, and there hire a boat to take him
to Thorborough.

He went to bed, and with the aid of more
jr?inay, Dourcu. down hot. soon fell asleen. from

isleep.

Kalee's Shrine.

led nega-
3 about —
^•^'S : and
'iver, and
Itings be-
lout you

id Essex,
isolated
in Wales
)le back-
\y inter-
urround-
;he crow
hurch at
:en miles
to avoid

! he was
the cot-

esolved,
' ' hard "

:ake him

)f more
!p, from

199

sheer fatigue and weariness. For an hour or more
he slept very soundly — the deep sleep that suc-
ceeds exhaustion. Then about two o'clock, he
awoke with a sudden start. He had dreamed some-
thing. A cold perspiration seized upon his limbs.
He shuddered and listened. In his dream he fancied
he had heard some noise ! A stifled cry ! A sup-
pressed groan ! A faint utterance ! he knew not
what. It seem.ed to come, not from the room
where he slept, but, vaguely floating, from the air
above him. He sat up in bed and listened again.
It was only the beating and fluttering of his own
heart.

"I hope to goodness nothing's the matter with
Olga," he said to himself wearily. "I felt as if
something — something terrible, were happening
over yonder to Olga! Poor child! she'll be half
dead with i:ight at our stopping away. How absurd
of me to wake and feel like this ! I 'm almost
superstitious myself to-night ! No wonder, either,
after such an adventure on death's brink as that
one !

In five minutes more, the shudder had passed
away entirely : he turned round, fell asleep again,
and slept soundly till eight in the morning.

[If

■ .

n "^'

,y^-\^ :

Hif

'1^.

it '■ f

2CX>

Kalee's Shrine.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE BUBBLE PRICKED.

At eight o'clock, Alan rose and dressed himself,
in a shirt and jersey and pair of sailor trousers,
coarse, indeed, but dry and warm, lent him by their
kindly host and rescuer of last evening. Sleep i ad
done him a world of good. Accustomed to expos-
ure in his student days, he rallied fast with food and
warmth; and when he went down at last to the
simple breakfast in the cottage living-room, he was
ready to do full justice to the smoking rasher, home-
made bread, and hot coffee, that Tom Wilkes's wife
set temptingly before him.

Harry, however, had suffered far more. Exhaus-
tion and chill had told severely upon him. He was
hot and feverish. It would be impossible to move
him from the cottage for the present. He must
clearly stop there till he got well again. There was
no danger, but need for nursiug. Meanwhile, Alan
felt, for his own part, he must go back at once to
Thorborough to report to Olga. Poor Olga, she

himself,
trousers,
by their
leep i ad
o expos-
ood and
t to the
he was
r, home-
^s's wife

Exhaus-
He was
o move
[e must
ere was
le, Alan
once to

Kalee*s Shrine.

201

would be wondering sadly what fate on earth could
possibly have befallen them !

After breakfast, he said a temporary good-bye
to Harry — not without many regrets — and walked
briskly with his host by the salting footpath as far
as Hurdham. There, at the little wooden pier, they
found a boat, and sailed with a lucky wind against
the rising tide to the well-known landing-place at
Thorborough Haven. In ten minutes from their
arrival, Alan was up at the hotel, had written out a
cheque for the promised reward (not that Tom
Wilkes himself cared so much for that), and had set-
tled once more with infinite comfort into his proper
garments. Then, without waiting for anything else
he hurried along the Shell Path with eager foot-
steps till he reached Mrs. Hilary Tristram's door.
His heart bounded as he rang the bell ! One mo-
ment more, and he would be with Olga !

The servant opened the door to him with a
scared face.

**You can't see Miss Trevelyan," she answered
at once, in reply to his tv/ice repeated question.
" She 's upstairs. . . . I don't think anybody at
all can see her. She 's with Mrs. Tristram. I
b'lieve Sir Donald has sent out for the policeman."

' ' For the policeman i " Alan cried, aghast at the

202

Kalee's Shrine.

|l t ! >'

III

words, still more at the manner in which they were
spoken. " Sent for the policeman ! For Miss Tre-
velyan ! Oh no, oh no ! There must be some mis-
take. What in heaven's name do you mean to say
girl ? "

The girl drew back, half offended, at his words,
and held the door ajar cautiously.

'' I mean what I say," she answered with a slow
anddistinct intonation. " Miss Norah 's murdered !
She s lying dead on the bed upstairs. There 's a great
black -ing round her poor neck. And they say it
was Miss Trevelyan herself as did it. As true as
life, Miss Trevelyan 's choked her."

While she yet spoke, Olgas face appeared, pale
as death, with sunken eyes and haggard cheeks, at
the top of the staircase. She had heard Alan's voice
as he stood at the door, and even in that hour of
anguish and despair, she rushed down wildly to
fling herself and li griefs upon his strong bosom.

"Alan! Alan!" she cried, as she clasped him
with mad energy in her arms. "You're safe!
You 're safe !_Yes, I did it ! I did it ! It was Kalee
— Kalee ! Kalee bid ine ! I am Kalee's, Kalee's :
I belong to Kalee ! That 's why I always sleep with
my eyes open ! My ayah told me so when I was a
baby ! "

Kalee's Shrine.

203

ley were
Jiss Tre-
)nie mis-
1 to say,

> words,

I a slow
irdered !
5 a great
y say it
true as

■d, pale
seks, at
's voice
lour of
Idly to
3som.
^d him
safe !

> Kalee
alee's :
?p with

was a

Alan looked down at her in a sudden agony of
pity and terror. Ilis practised eye needed no long
detail of her present symptoms to read the true
secret of the ghastly story. She was half in a trance
even now — even now — still comatose and frantic
from the last effects of that hateful mesmerism.

" Olga, Olga, my darling," he cried, holding her
off at arm's length and gazing at her for a mo-
ment. "I know it all ! I see it all ! What have
they been doing to you ? Did the creature mes-
merize you ? "

Mrs. Tristram approached them gently from be-
hind.

"Olga," she said, in a calm low voice, with her
red eyes looking only tenderiicss at the frantic girl,
"come with me, love. Mr. Tennant, you will find
Sir Donald and Mr. Keen over yonder in the break-
fast-room. They will tell you all about our terrible
trouble. Norah is dead. Where is Harry.' ''

She said it simply, with the infinite calmness of
pure despair. Her heart was broken. Those two
had been more to her than son and daughter. Yet
she took Olga's hand gently in her own. She owed
her no grudge for that unconscious act. Her grief
was far too ])rofound and sacrei ^or petty thoughts
iiess or recrimination.

.U4

Ill

•

; I-

204

Kalee's Shrine.

"Harry is safe ! " Alan answered eagerly. " He
will soon be back. We were delayed all night. I
left him going on well in a cottage on the saltings.
. . . This cannot be true, Mrs. Tristram. It
cannot be true. She is not dead. There is some
error somewhere. "

Mrs. Tristram led the passive Olga upstairs once
more, shook her head sadly, and pointed with her
hand in solemn silence to the door of the breakfast-
room. She could not explain. It was too, too
painful. !

i i f

■

; i.

■

' •

■

^^H

i '

^^^B:

■1

Alan entered the breakfast-room with a sinking
heart. Sir Donald and Mr. Keen were conversing
low by themselves at the bow-window.

They turned at once as Alan entered.

"This is a bad business, Mr. Tennant," Sir Donald
said solemnly as the young man looked at him with
accusing eyes. - 1 feared as much. I told you so
before. The curse has worked itself out. There 's
mischief come of it."

"Sir Donald Mackinnon," Alan said in a stern
voice, not offering the gray old man his hand, but
standing bolt upright like a denouncing spirit before
him, " answer me one thing first of all ! Is it true you
have dared to send for the police for Miss Tre velyan ? "

Kalee's Shrine.

205

''He

ight. I
altings.
am. It
s some

's once
ith her
;akfast-
>o, too

jinking
versing

)onald
n with
'"ou so
here 's

stern
d, but
before
leyou

ran ? "

Sir Donald stared at him in blank surprise.

"Not yet, not yet," he answered evasively as
soon as he could find his voice again : — " though I
feel as a magistrate I ought to have sent for them
much earlier. There 's been murder done, and we
should hand the culprit over impartially to justice.
She may have known it, or she may not have known
it : but that's for a jury of her countrymen to try.
We mustn't go and settle it for them beforehand. I
meant. . . I meant to send Mr. Keen shortly to
get the police here."

The young man eyed him with a calm disdain.
Sir Donald quailed a little tremulously before him.
He looked so stern, and cold, and judicial.

"Sir Donald Mackinnon," he said again, in a
hard dry tone, " answer me one more question, will
you ? Were you a party in my absence last night
to mesmerizing (as they call it) Miss Trevelyan ? "

Sir Donald shuffled somewhat in his shoes.

♦' Mr. Keen," he said, with an attempt at hauteur,
"will tell you all about it."

The mesmerist smiled feebly out of the wrinkled
corners of his cold glazed eyes— those expression-
less gray-blue eyes of his — and murmured with an
apologetic and exculpatory wave of his long thin
fingers,

206

Kalee's Shrine.

lIM;

"I don't understand Hindustani myself. There
was Hindustani spoken at the experiment. I thinic
Sir Donald, who knows it, had better tell you."

Neither of them, on second thoughts, felt partic-
ularly proud of his own sliare in the transaction,
it was evident. However, Alan somewhat saved
them the trouble by catching instinctively at the
fatal tell-tale word Hindustani.

** Hindustani ! " he cried. "Then there was
Hindustani spoken ! Before you venture, sir, to
send for the police to this house, have the goodness
to tell me, pray, who spoke Plindustani? "

' ' I did, " Sir Donald replied nervously. He twirled
his watch-chain, and cast down his eyes, ill at ease
nc doubt with his own conscience.

" Tell Pie all you know about the circumstances,"
Alan said, in a low tone of quiet authority.

The old civilian bridled up for a moment. Who
was this young doctor that he should order and
cross-examine an officer of the Crown .? Then, see-
ing the stern look still glaring in the young man's
eyes, he changed his mind, began his tale, and ran
rapidly through the whole pitiful story, as it figured
itself as of course to his superstitious Highland
imagination.

Alan faced him in silence, flushed and angry.

Kalee's Shrine.

207

There
I think

I."
partic-

iaction,

saved

at the

e was
sir, to
odness

twirled
it ease

inces,"

Who
3r and
1, see-
man's
id ran
igured
:hhand

mgry.

The mesmerist stood behind, with a furtive glance,
folding his long thin hands a little nervously one
over the other. Sir Donald hummed and hawed
occasionally, but told his terrible story on the whole
without demur, in plain and straightforward soldier-
like language.

Alan drank in every word as he uttered it with
eager attention, noting it all down, point after point,
as the superstitious Highlander unconsciously un-
folded the rise and outgrowth of that deadly tragedy
in his own excited and preoccupied brain.

At last, when the old man had fully finished
speaking, Alan drew back a pace or two in wrath,
and said in a low, distinct voice,

"Sir Donald Mackinnon and Mr. Keen: you do
well to stand there covered with confusion. This is
a very bad business indeed for you. There has
been a conspiracy — perhaps an unconscious one,
but still a conspiracy — between you two to work
this mischief. If murder has been done, it is you
who are the murderers ! . . . You, you, not
that innocent young girl ! . . . You, sir, and
you ; YOU who are the murderers ! "

Sir Donald fell back a step, astonished and dis-
mayed.

208

Kalee's Shrine.

\<\

Itii;

r '

I'!

"Me!" he repeated, vacantly and half-angrily.
"Me the murderer! Me, did you say, Mr. Ten-
nant? Why, what in heaven's name do you mean
by that, sir?"

Alan ans.vered slowly and distinctly, crossing
his arms, and gazing at him with relentless ac-
cusation.

"Miss Trevelyan is a very nervous and excitable
person. Her temperament is too highly overstrung.
She suffers from a peculiar affection of the eyes—due
no doubt, as you say, to an operation performed on
her in infancy by some Thug priest over in India,
which renders her particularly liable to occasional
fits of hysterical somnambulism. I myself have seen
her walk in her sleep since I came to Thorborough.
You too, I now for the first time learn, also saw her
on that same occasion. Those two facts put to-
gether suggested to your mind a hideous delusion.
For weeks you have talked to her about India and
her childhood. You have filled her head with wild
and horrible ideas about Thuggee. Having a very
timid and delicate nervous organization to work
upon, you have worked upon it mercilessly— uncon-
sciously, I know, but none the less mercilessly— by
endless details about the practice of assassination and
the worship of Kalee. You have recalled to the poor

III

Kalee's Shrine.

209

cirl's terrified mind all that she ever heard or guessed
or picked up accidentally from servants in India in
her childish days about the ghastly Thugs and their
detestable goddess. You have roused her to such a
pitch of abnormal excitement that snatches of Hin-
dustani, long since forgotten, came back to h of
themselves in her disturbed sleep, and horrible
images dogged her and terrified her in her waking
moments. All this you have done under my very
eyes : I knew it all and saw it all : but because you
were an old man, and I was a young one, I fool-
ishly forbore to warn you and expostulate with
you. I wish to heaven, now, I had had the cour-
age to do so earlier."

He paused a moment, to gain more breath ; and
as he spoke, a faint gleam of nascent comprehen-
sion seemed to rise slowly in the dull, glazed,
boiled-fishy eyes of the professional mesmerist.

" So much you had done, and so far you had
gone, Sir Donald Mackinnon," Alan went on bit-
terly, holding up his finger to enforce silence, "up
to last evening. Had I been here, you should have
gone no further. I warned Miss Bickersteth not to
allow your guest over yonder to mesmerize my
future wife on any account. I meant myself to
hftve seen that the prohibition was carried into

f j

i J

■

[III

210

Kalcc's Shrine.

cffoct had I been here. I knew that in her cxistinj^
nervous state— shattered as her health has been by
so many recent occurrences— to trifle with her con-
stitution would be little short of deliberate crimi-
nality. lUit, driven on by your puerile superstition
—a superstition of the lowest Indian fanatics,— you
thou^dit nothinj,^ of that— you thou^dit nothing of
her— you thought nothing of me— you thought
nothing of anything but your own wild fancies.
You only wished to bring about evil, in order that
you might have the feminine delight of wagging
your head sapiently, when all was over, and say-
ing, as you now say, 'Ah, well, I told you so.'
Tlur foolish delight you have actually exhibited to
me here this mo-ning. And I stand in front of you
as your accuser this moment, telling you plainly, if
murder has been done, as I fear it has been done,
that I charge you with the murder. You, you, you
are the murderer ! "

Sir Donald grasped the back of a chair with
trembling lingers. His head swam. The young
man's words were very bitter, but the provocation
was indeed terrible. It began to dawn upon his
dull, superstitious, heavy mind that he had richly
deserved them.

"Me," he mrf.'^red once more, with feeble re-

«l

in i

in f

Kalee's Shrine,

211

existing-
been by
licr con-
e crimi-
crstition
s, — you
liing of
thought
fancies,
ler that
sagging
ul say-
ou so. '
)ited to
of you
linly, if
I done,
)u, you

ir with

young

Dcatioii

>on his

richly

'ble re-

iteration. " l\Ic the murderer ! Mo the murderer !
Oh, Mr. 'Pennant, don't, don't \ccuse me ! "

"Yes," Ahm went on, with increasing sternness,
unable to spare the quivering old man one single
drop from the full cup of his overflowing niiserv.
"I was detained last night by a terrible accident,
which kept young Bickersteth and myself lingering
for hours between life and death in the rising tide
in unspeakable suspense and long-drawn agony.
I come back, this morning, trembling with fear for
the effect of our absence on Miss Trevclyan, to find
that you two, with your infernal tricks, and your
mesmeric devilry, have driven my future wife, in
her unnatural sleep, into committing a horrible but
unconscious crime. You two have done it, and
you two only. You, sir," turning fiercely upon Mr.
Keen, " put her first into a mesmeric trance, with-
out one moment's inquiry into her character or con-
stitution or previous state of health. To do so was
nothing short of wickedness. You are a practised
mesmerist. You know that your whole art really
consists in playing with edge-tools. Yet you play
with them unconcernedly, on an innocent young
girl, for a moment's applause at an evening party.
You, Sir Donald Mackinnon, then proceed to sug-
gest by your vague words and obscure hints to Miss

\ ,

212

Kalce's Shrine.

Trcvelyan's excited fancy the commission of a hor-
rible and tragic crime; and you su-gest it at the
very moment and in the very condition when as
you well know and had just seen in another case,
the wildest and most impossible of all conceivable
suggestions is immediately acted out with unques-
tioning faith by the involuntary agent. You knew
her will was in temporary abeyance. You knew
her conscience was in your safe-keeping. You
knew she must do whatever you suggested to her.
Yet you dimly suggested the commission of an
atrocious murder, borrowed from the rites of a half-
civilized race, with every circumstance of horror
and stealth and blood-thirstiness, on the person of
a friend whom she loved devotedly. You saw her
carry out your half-hints to the very letter, and
only refrain from the last fatal act and step of all
because you roused her just in time from her mes-
meric trance to prevent its taking place in your
own presence. You saw her wake, horror-stricken
and agonized, at the faint recollection of the un-
natural crime you had deliberately forced upon her.
I know it, because I hear you say it. You have
told me all this in your own words and with your
own prepossessions. Out of your own mouth, I
condemn you as a murderer."

llll

Kalee's Shrine.

213

of a hor-
it at the
when, as
:her case,
nceivable
I unques-
ou knew
ou knew
^. You
1 to her.
n of an
)f a half-
f horror
erson of
saw her
:er, and
?p of all
er mes-
in your
stricken
the un-
>on her.
u have
th your
3uth, I

He wiped the cold sweat tremulously from his
brow. Then he continued once more with his
merciless exposition.

"You were so full of your foolish supernatural ex-
planatioir " he said, " that you never once thought
of the natural and true explanation. Believing in
the real existence of Kalee, it seems, quite as gen-
uinely as the wretched Thugs themselves who wor-
ship her, you accepted Kalee's orders as the moving
power of what was really brought about in the
sleeping girl's mind by your own terrible and un-
earthly suggestion. Miss Trevelyan went to her
room only half aroused, under the influence of the
ghastly delusion your hints had created in her.
You never asked whether any precaution had been
taken or was to be taken to prevent the final cata-
strophe you had so nearly seen consummated. You
were satisfied to leave it all to Kalee — that is to
say. to the unconscious working out of your own
wild hints and hideous imaginings. By an unfor-
tunate error of judgment, — a thousand times less
serious and criminal than yours, but still a terrible
error, — the medical man, who ought to have known
better, administered a drug which kept up instead
of allaying the abnormal excitement. It rendered
the delusion more fixed and permanent. That de-

214

Kalee's Shrine.

1 I

■1

lusion still survives. I saw it at once in Miss Tre-
velyan's eyes the moment I entered. We must try
to overcome it. But for it and for everything you
you are to blame. I say it once more, soberly
and seriously, Sir Donald Mackinnon, you are the

MURDERER ! "

Sir Donald sank back faintly into a chair. The
young doctor's words smote him to the heart. In
a vague, nascent, half-doubting way, he began to
feel nov/ that he had done it all. There was no
Kalee ! There had never been a Kalee ! There
could be no Kalee ! Superstitious as he was, the
old man shrank from admitting even to himself
when brought thus face to face with that ultimate
question,, the existence and power of the strange
gods.

''I didn't mean it ! " he muttered feebly in an un-
dertone. -I never meant to suggest anything. I
only said she was noosing a roomal. I thought the
girl was a votary of Kalee ! "

''You admit the charge," Alan cried bitterly.
"You confess ! You admit it ! That is well, so
far. But what will a common-sense English jury
say to it ? Will they listen to reason ? Will they
ever acquit her ? Do you know what ordeal you
have brought upon my Olga ? "

iii

Kalee's Shrine.

215

He could contain himself no longer. All his force
and wrath was spent and gone. The terrible pos-
sibility of a trial for murder for the woman he loved
best in the world overcame him at last. He real-
ized the thing vividly in its full awfulness. Bowing
his head, broken hearted, upon the table, he wept .
bitterly.

,-ii

216

Kalee's Shrine.

CHAPTER XVII.

iiff'

HOPE.

The mesmerist paced the room alone. "If a
murder has been done," he said slowly, " we two
are the murderers. I admit it. I see it. I know
my art. The young man is right. Mackinnon led
her into it. But has a murder been done at all ?
Eh ? Who knows ? 1 don't feel sure of it. That 's
just the question."

Alan raised his head in an agony of suspense.
*'Who has seen Miss Bickersteth .? " he asked
hurriedly. "Does Dr. Hazleby give up all hope?
In cases of suffocation, it 's so easy at times to
confound death with temporary asphyxia. Has
everythmg been tried-every possible restorative >
What has been done for her ? tell me ! tell
me ! "

"Nothing, nothing!" Sir Donald Mackinnon
exclaimed with a glimpse of hope. *• Hazleby's
out—gone over to Hurdham. Nobody s seen her
but Keen and myself and Mrs. Tristram, We

Kalee's Shrine.

217

thought she was dead ! She looked it, certainly.
She' s almost cold, and her pulse isn 't beating."

Alan leaped excitedly at once to his feet.

" Do you mean to tell me," he cried in surprise
and horror, " that you 've given her up before any
medical man has even seen her ? A case of stran-
gulation ! Fools ! Idiots ! I must go this mo-
ment ! Where is she ? Where is she ? "

They hurried upstairs with him to Norah's room,
where Olga and Mrs. Tristram sat hand-in-hand,
tearless, by the bedside, absorbed in that most de-
vouring and grinding of griefs, the grief that cannot
find relief in weeping.

Olga shrank with horror from her lover's gaze as
he entered the room.

"Oh, Alan, Alan," she cried, gasping, "don't
come near me ! Don 't touch me I Don 't touch
me ! I know I did it ! I think I did it ; I killed
Norah, and I belong to Kalee ! "

Alan motioned her gently aside with his hand.
He knew it was no time now to soothe her. A
servant led her, obedient and unnerved, into the
next room. She followed the girl, silent but tear-
less.

The young doctor felt the pulse and heart a mo-
ment. Then a great joy flushed bright in his eyes.

«i

218

Kalee's Shrine.

■■» i

ii.

[Hi

■

j^H

■

^H'

"There is hope! There is hope!" he cried.
"Artificial respiration ! Aflutter! Aflutter! The
heart may yet be made to beat. Quick, quick.
Brandy! Lay her down on the floor here! Lift
her arms ! So, so ! Now again ! Do as I tell you.
There is hope ! There is hope ! She is 710/ yet
dead, though just next door to it ! We may revive
her still ! Heaven grant us success in it."

They waited anxiously for twenty minutes, try-
ing every restorative that Alans skill and knowl-
edge could possibly suggest ; and at the end of
that time, Norah slowly drew one long faint
breath . . . and then another . . . and another
. . . and another . . . and another.

Great heavens I what an eternity of suspense it
seemed, the second's pause between each of those
almost imperceptible, inhalations !

Alan poured some brandy hastily down her
throat. It seemed to rouse her. Her heart beat
now with regular pulsations. She was coming to !
She was coming to again !

They watched and waited, watched and waited,
watched and waited till one o'clock. Then Norah
opened her eyes faintly.

"Is she here? Is she here?" she cried, staring

Kalee's Shrine.

219

wildly around her. "The black wonian ! The
black woman ! the terrible black woman ! "

"Hush! Hush!" Alan whispered. "There is
no black woman. We are all here. We are taking
care of you. See, this is your aunt ! — Hold her
hand, Mrs. Tristram. Let her see your face
now. . . . Norah ! Norah ! "

But Norah gazed still wildly in front of her.

" Kalee ! Kalee ! " she cried in terrified accents.
"The snakes! The snakes! The handkerchief!
The black woman ! Her great eyes ! Her cruel
black mouth ! Her pearly white teeth, that smiled
so horribly ! "

Alan turned with a stern look to Sir Donald
Mac'rinnon.

' ee, see," he said, "with your own very eyes,
the harm you have done here ! You have put it
into both their minds at once — the tool and the
victim. It 's a fixed idea, and we can 't get rid of
it. They 've acted their parts, each as you sug-
gested to them — one the Thug, the other the sacri-
fice. They 're both of them still half in the mes-
meric state, and the haschish has had the effect of
prolonging the delusion. If she keeps this infatua-
tion, in her present weak state, for another hour,
she '11 die of terror ! she '11 die of terror ! We shall

220

Kalee's Shrine.

m , :

lii

save her from one death only to hand her over
powerless to another ! "

Mr. Keen, who had been helping to promote the
artificial breathing, stood forth once more with a
fixed look of contrition. He was deeply moved, in
spite of his livid eyes : he knew and felt to the
very bottom of his soul the harm he had been in-
strumental in doing.

"Let me try," he said, holding out his long thin
hands persuasively. "They were both very hard
to wake last night. I expended, perhaps, too much
energy in mesmerizing them. They were only very
partially awakened. She 's still more or less coma-
tose, I can see at a glance. I' 11 try a few passes.
Perhaps they'll rouse her."

He waved his hand slowly and gently above the
prostrate form of the pale young girl, and fixed his
eyes quietly on hers. For a moment, Norah's face
grew still more painfully excited : then the muscles
gradually and gently relaxed, beginning to assume
a more peaceful expression. As he continued his
passes, the eyes ceased to stare wildly. The eye-
lids closed by slow degrees above them. Her
head fell back into a natural restful attitude on the
pillow.

"You haven 't waked her," Alan said with a long-

lljii

Kalee's Shrine.

221

drawn sigh of profound relief: "but you've done
better ; you 've put her into a sound and normal
sleep. Leave her alone now till she wakes of her-
self. Nothing on earth could possibly be better
for her."

222

J .H

f '

■ 1

■

Kalee's Shrine.

CHAPTER XVIII.

FULFILMENT.

Where 's Olga ? " Alan asked, at last, turning with
a sigh to Mrs. Hilary Tristram.

"In the next room, I suppose," the poor woman
answered low, holding Norah s white hand gently
in her own. "Oh, Mr. Tennant, Mr. Tennant,
how can we ever sufficiently thank you ! Twice,
twice, you've given us back our darling ! "

Alan held her other hand a moment with friendly
pressure.

"We have all been saved," he said, "from a ter-
rible calamity. I myself from the most terrible and
unspeakable of all. I dare not think of it. I dare
not speak of it. What man could even contemplate
it without a shudder of horror ? "

For that haunting mental picture of Olga, his
own beautiful, tender-hearted, delicate Olga, stand-
ing up deadly pale, in a common felon's dock, and
arraigned alone, before a stern judge and twelve
stolid jurymen, for the most hideous crime known

ng with

woman

gently

jnnant,

Twice,

riendly

1 a ter-

)le and

I dare

mplate

fa, his
stand-
k, and
twelve
ino wn

Kalee's Shrine.

223

to vile humanity, had floated all those hours wildly
before his excited brain, and had almost unmannc?d
him for the task of saving her. He had thought it
out, as in times of anguish one ivill think out one's
coming misery, down to the pettiest details, the
most sordid and horrible and sickening possibilities.
In those few short hours he had died of grief and
shame a thousand times over. Last night's sus-
pense, as he stood waiting for the slowly crawling
and creeping tide, was as nothing to the agony and
horror of soul he had known since he returned to
find Olga — in fact if not in intention, at law if not
in equity — a murderer ! A murderer ! If he had
spoken harshly and angrily to Sir Donald Mackinnon,
he had ample grounds for it. The crime that the
old Highlander by his superstition and folly had
forced upon Alan's own beautiful innocent Olga was
enough to make any man stern and revengeful.

For Alan Tennant knew — knew beyond the shadow
or possibility of a doubt — that Olga herself in her
waking moments was utterly incapable of hurting
in any way the feeblest or tiniest of living creatures.
He knew that she loved Norah devotedly. He knew
that in that condition of will to which the mesmerist
by his mere bodily power can reduce some of the
most delicate and highly-strung of human organiza-

!24

Kalee's Shrine

ill

tions, no livin^^ being, however pure or good or true
or holy, can resist the most hideous or ghastly or
wicked of suggestions distinctly presented to it.
He knew that under such circumstances the agent
becomes but a puppet in the hands of the operator,
working out unconsciously as in a vivid dream,
without sense of right or wrong, without effort or
deliberation, without will or motive, the wildest
fancy or maddest impulse of the more active in-
telligence. He knew all that— knew it to the point
of 'bsolute certainty : but what hope or chance or
prospect was there that he could ever make twelve
hard-headed British jurymen, with a hard-hearted
English judge to direct them, see the matter in the
light that he saw it?

Woe betide the innocent man or woman whose
actions, however righteous or however unconscious,
sin against the hard-and-fast technical puerilities of
English lawyers. Though their souls be as fair and
white and pure as Olga Trevelyan's, though all that
is wise or good in the life of England stand aghast
at the hideous threatened injustice, those implacable
pedants, with their clogging precedents and their
hair-splitting distinctions, will nevertheless tie a
noose so tight round the culprit's neck that the
common conscience and common justice of the

^i!

Kak'c's Shrine.

225

whole startled English nation will never, never serve
to unfasten it.

Alan walked slowly into the next room.

"Where is Miss Trevelyan ? " he asked cf the
servant.

'• Here I " the girl said, with her finger on her lip,
pointing vaguely to the bed. * ' Asleep. Don't wake
her. She fell asleep the minute that gentleman
with the long lingers began to walk up and down
the passage, muttering."

"Let her sleep," Alan said, sitting down on the
couch. "Better let her sleep the whole effect off.
This mesmeric trance has been very terrible in its
intensity and duration. "

Olga slept soundly, as usual, with her eyes star-
ing wide open. For awhile, she lay motionless and
quiet on the bed, but presently, the servant beckoned
uneasily to Alan, who rose at once, and gazed with
anxious eyes down upon her. Her face was begin-
ning to be horribly distorted, and a terrible fixed
look of fear and agony seemed to grow with each
moment in her glaring eyeballs. It was clear that
another paroxysm waj coming on. Alan stood and
watched it closely from hard by in breathless excite-
ment.
J5

Ill I

111

til

226

Kalee's Shrine.

At last, moved as if by some strength not her own,
she started to her feet, quivering like an aspen leaf,
and stood on the hearthrug, wildly facing him.
With clasped hands, and bent head, she paused
there for a moment in deathly silence, her great eyes
fixed in awful earnestness on some ghastly object
which seemed to float invisible in the air before her.
A deep voice appeared to ring unheard in her ears.
She leant forward in awe as if to catch its accents.

"Kalee, Kalee," she murmured low, in a faint
tone : "I hear you. I hear you."

Then she drew herself up suddenly into an im-
posing attitude, sublime, tragic, as if another soul
inspired her, and cried aloud in implacable ac-
cents : —

"Choose; choose; between me— or Death. You have
scorned me ! You have betrayed me ! This choice alone, this
choice alone remains ! Obey ! Ob'-y me ! "

Alan started back with a thrill of horrible recog-
nition. Sir Donald's pale face, looking in from the
passage at the half-open door, answered it back
mutely. Both at once read aright her mysterious
action. Carrying on the impulse of the mesmeric
state, she was dramatizing the ideas that floated
through her mind : acting in her sleep both her own
part and the part of Kalee.

Kalee's Shrine.

227

She dropped her head submissively once more.
A cold chill ran visibly across her shapely shoulders.
Through a mist of horror that seemed to obscure her
vision she groped with her hands feebly for some one.

"Alan," she cried, "help me! help me!"

Alan restrained himself with a terrible effort.
To wake her now would be no less than homicidal.

She drew herself up again proudly to her full
height. Her voice a second time rang cold and
majestic. She spoke still as the mouthpiece of the
pitiless Kalee : —

" While your i;yes remain open forever in sleep, you shall have
no other help but mine— but Kalee's. You shall see me floating
like a black Terror for ever before you. You shall worship me
and serve me all your life long. Mystical, awful, bloodthirsty,
implacable, I shall stand beside you and watch over you always."

Then she pealed out a few sonorous w^ords of
rolling Hindustani. Sir Donald alone knew what
they meant : —

*' I am Kalee, KaLe, the swarthy fury, of a hideous counte-
nance, dripping with gore, crowned with snakes, and hung round
with a garland of skulls at my girdle. I am she, the horrible, of
mis-shapen eyes ; menacing, trident-topped, riding on a tiger :
the Black One, the fierce, the terrible, the bloody-toothed. My
fangs are red with the flesh of my victims. Choose, choose, this
day, which you will take : choose, between me and Death, my

votary."

228

Kalee's Shrine.

if)

It was part of the long-forgotten litany of Kalee,
sung over her cradle, years, years before, by her
ayah in India.

Olga hung her head submissively once more.
There was a short struggle— an internal struggle.
Then she lifted her eyes proudly in a moment's
defiance.

"Let me choose death," she said. "Let me
choose death, Alan, if death means innocence."

Ni.

The paroxysm was over. She sank back orce
more exhausted on the bed. The invisible Presence
seemed to fade away, vanquished from before her.
Kalee had fled— fled discomfited, But her eyes stood
open, open wide as usual.

"Run quick," Alan whispered to one of the ser-
vants. "Borrow a case of instruments for me and
a bottle of chloroform from Dr. Hazleby's. "

The servant ran, and returned immediately, bring-
ing the case as ordered, and a small phial. Alan
chose a lancet carefully from the box, and poured a
few drops of the chloroform on a corner of his hand-
kerchief. Then he held the wet spot close to Olga's
mouth. It took immediate effect. She breathed
more heavily. The chloroform had stilled her.

Kalee's Shrine.

229

He grasped the lancet firmly in his right hand
and made a slight incision, with dexterous gentle-
ness, first on the right, then on the left temple, a
little below the two wee scars left by the flint knife
of the Indian fanatic. Each cut severed a tiny
branch nerve, inhibitory to the action of the small
muscle which closes the eyelid. A little round drop
of blood oozed slowly forth from the capillary vessels
on either side, opened by the lancet. Alan brushed
them away lightly with his own handkerchief. Next,
he loosed with the sharp blade the silken string that
tied the silver image of Kalee round her throat. The
wretched bauble should no longer remain to vex her
with its memories and recall its hideous half-for-
gotten associations. He took out his pocket-knife,
and with deliberate fingers hacked the soft metal in-
to a thousand small pieces. It was pure unalloyed
silver, like most Indian jewelers' handicraft, and it
cut easily without much resistance. He flung the
shapeless fragments angrily out of the open window.
They fell unseen among the grass on the lawn.
Kalee was annihilated— dead and gone, for Olga
Trevelyan, for ever and ever.

He returned to the bed. The action of the oper-
ation had been instantaneous. Olga's eyelids lay
closed in sleep, with her head resting gently on

230

Kalee's Shrine.

I '

SI :

the smooth white pillow. Her rich silken hair,
thrown back in soft tang^led masses from her brow,
almost shrouded her temples from sight ; but a tran-
quil smile played gently about her lips, and she
looked like some Italian picture of a beautiful saint,
painted in the days when saintliness was still no
rare attribute among us. Pier long dark lashes
closed over her eyes, that were never more to be
open for Kalee.

"Let her sleep, "Alan said, "till she wakes of
herself. Mr. Keen, come here ! Undo your passes ! "

The mesmerist, waving his long thin hands, went
through the releasing movements once more, exactly
as he had done before v/ith Norah. The peaceful
look deepened on her face as he waved them, and
the gentle eyelids closed tighter and tighter.

Olga Trevelyan had ceased for ever to be a votary
of Kalee.

Alan watched her, speechless, by her side, for
hours together. She slept so long, he almost feared
at last it wac as she herself had said in her agony.
Had Kalee claimed her ? Was Death coming to put
his seal at length upon her perfect innocence ?

From time to timCj thev step^^ed in noiselesslv

Kalee's Shrine.

231

and brought him tidings of Norah Bickersteth. But
Alan himself refused to move from Olga's side. He
must watch still over her safety.

At six, she woke. She woke quite naturally, as if
from ordinary sleep. Alan and the servants bent
over her, inquiring.

** Alan, Alan ! " she cried, lifting up her hands to
him joyfully. "Then it s all right ! You 're back,
you 're back again ! "

''Yes, yes, darling, "Alan cried, stooping down
and kissing her for the first time, unabashed by the
presence of others in so terrible a moment. "And
Norah's alive — alive and recovering. She's just
taken some nourishment this minute."

Olga gazed at him blankly with a strange look
of doubt and hesitation on her beautiful counte-
nance.

"Norah?" she said in an inquiring voice.
"Norah? Recovering? From what is she re-
covering ? . . . I seem to remember. . . .
I fancy I dreamed. . . No, no. ... I don't
know anything about it. Has Norah been ill?
Have I been ill ? Have we slept long ? What 's
that bottle for ? Why am I on the bed here ? I
can't recollect it ! "

Alan drew back a step in surprise.

232

Kalee's Shrine.

: ii

" Thank God ! thank God ! " he cried. " She was
still mesmerized ! She 's forgotten every word,
every word about it ! "

As he spoke, Mrs. Tristram glided gently into the
room.

"Mr. Tennant," she said in a low vc "never

mention anything of all this to Norah ! She 's wide
awake now, and she doesn 't remember a moment
in any way since she first fell asleep in the drawing-
room last evening."

Happily, those two young lives were spared till
long afterward all knowledge of the awful drama
in which they had uncons. ously played the part of
chief actors. They only knew, for the present at
least, that that horrid mesmerizing had given them
both a serious illness.

Olga's eyes closed automatically for a second.
They opened again next instant with a burst of
astonishment.

"Why, what's this?" she asked, in uncontrol-
lable surprise. "My eyelids seem to move like a
hinge of themselves, somehow."

Alan took her hand tenderly in his.

"I have cut a little nerve that held them back,"
he said. "Henceforth, Olga, they will close in
sleep like everybodv else's,"

Kalee's Shrine.

233

"And I shall never have those horrible, horrible
dreams again ? "

" Never, Olga darling- ; never ! never 1 "

She let her head fall gently back against his
breast. They were left alone now for a single
minute.

"Alan," she whispered, low in his car, "my
darling, my darling, I am quite, quite happy."

When Olga Trevelyan and Alan Tennant were
married at St. George's, some six months later,
everybody said the bride was looking prettier and
stronger than she 'd ever looked in her life before,
with that odd expression quite gone altogether
from her face and eyes, and such a healthy natural
girlish glow on her cheeks instead of it. And every-
body considered Norah Bickerstcth far the sweetest
and daintiest of the four bridesmaids. So much so,
indeed, that Captain Leigh-Tennant (Alan's rich
brother, who inherited their uncle Leigh's money)
— that dashing young officer in the 8th Hussars —
arrived at a very satisfactory understanding with
her in the dance that finished up the day 's festiv-
ities. And if Plarry Bickersteth went away that
evening with a sore heart, muttering to himself that
even Alan Tennant, good fellow as he undoubtedly

II 11

234

!')

i i t

Kalee^s Shrine.

was, wasn't half good enough for Olga Trcvelyan,
it is probable that in the end he will illustrate the
truth of his own vaticination, and console himself
in a few years' time with some other girl more
nearly his coeval.

As to Sir Donald Mackinnon, when he recovered,
somewhat from his first fright, and came to think
the matter over seriously, he would shake his
sapient head at times and mutter in a wise voice to
his friend Keen, —

"My dear sir, that young doctor-fellow explained
the thing on strict scientific principles very glibly
and eloquently, no doubt : but for my part, I must
say, between you and me, when I come to put two
and two together, I somehow fancy that in spite of
everything, there must be a little kernel of truth
after all in the Kalee business."

To which Mr. Keen would answer with a solemn
shake of his head, —

"Nonsense, Mackinnon; that's all your pure
Highland superstitiousness and nonsense. Do you
want me at my time of life to begin believing in a
whole pack of heathen gods and goddesses ? The
less said about Kalee, I think, the better. Be-
tween you and me, if it comes to that, it's a pre-
cious good thing for us two that that young doctor-

Kalee's Shrine.

235

fellow happened to conic home in the nick of time
to help us out ofsuch a very awkward predicament.
We may thank our stars the thing was all hushed
up as cleverly as it was, between him and Mrs.
Tristram. It 'd have been a precious fishy business
for you and me, I can tell you, my friend, if the
girl had gone and died after all, and we 'd been
mixed up in the hocus-pocus. Kalee wouldn't have
gone far, I fancy, to help us out of it with a cor-
oner's jury."

"But how about her brother? " Sir Donald once
objected, with a grim smile of conclusive logicality.
''What do you make of the murder of her brother-
found in his cradle strangled, you know, as I told
you that day, with a blue line right round his
throat? Who on earth but that girl could possibly
have murdered him ? "

The mesmerist shrugged his shoulders impa-
tiently.

"My dear Mackinnon," he said with some
asperity, "how should I know how everything has
always happened everywhere? Am I an Indian
detective, for example ? Surely the fanatic, who-
ever it was, who dedicated the girl herself in the
first place to Kalee (as her eyes bore witness),
would have been quite capable of throttling her

236

Kalee*s Shrine.

brother into the bargain as a sacrifice to his deities?
You're quite at liberty to believe in Kalee yourself,
if it gives you any personal consolation to do so :
but I for my part utterly refuse to have anything to
say to these strange gods."

u-n

ities ?
irself,
o so :
ng to

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IJli