Dana awakened with a start. Involuntarily she sat up in bed, staring drowsily about the room. It was buried in dusk. The moonlight, floating through the casement, crusted the floor with a band of pearl. As full consciousness wiped the threads of sleep from her brain, she wondered what had caused her sudden awakening. No noise, for silence shut down like a lid, made more intense by the sighing of trees beyond the stone terrace. The sounds of a clock on the dressing-table seemed to stitch the hush.
For a moment she sat there, vaguely uneasy; then swung her feet over the side and slipped them into bedroom sandals. Moving quietly to the dressing-table, she looked at the clock. After one.... Her sandals lisped on the floor as she crept to the window.
Delhi lay asleep in the breathless night. Temple, tower, dome and minaret swam in the moonlight, and in the jungle stretch by the river jackals were laughing hysterically. With a little shiver she returned to the bed.
Strange to awaken like this, she thought. The new surroundings probably. She sighed and settled deeper in the bed.
... She was almost asleep when a shadow flitted across her vision. At first it seemed a part of the slumber that had nearly overcome her, and she lay there contemplating the window-casement where it had passed until it was borne to her, suddenly, and not without a shock, that she was fully awake and the shadow was not a shadow, but a very substantial human form that had stolen by on the stone terrace. The realization drew her muscles rigid, and she lay motionless, listening to the hammering of her heart.
A faint scraping noise came from Alan's room. What was it, a footfall? An oblong reservoir of darkness outlined the doorway. She could see nothing.... She must move, must call her brother. But her body was locked in a temporary paralysis, her tongue dry.
Again the sound. Unmistakable. Some one was walking stealthily. The crackle of paper.
Her fright increased, swelled, became so acute that she could no longer endure it.
"Alan!"
It was not a scream; a whisper. She found that she could move, and she sat up.
From the next room came a series of thuds; bare feet on the floor.
"Damn you—"
She leaped out of bed.
A ripping sound. A groan. Another thud, heavier this time.
Dana reached the communicating door in a few steps. A quick intake of breath. Her hands closed upon the door-frame, tightened convulsively. Dimness swam visibly before her. Through the dark mist she saw a figure dart out upon the stone terrace and disappear.
Beside the bed, stretched full length upon the floor, was a white form.
She screamed. The dimness dissolved and she rushed to the body.
"Alan! Alan!"
She grasped his shoulders, dizzy, cold with horror. Involuntarily she drew one hand away and saw a dark stain upon her fingers. It seemed to glare out and strike her eyes. She fought against a gathering weakness; forced herself to feel his heart. Beating. But that white face! And how could she lift him to the bed, how—
Footsteps rang from the hall. Came a knock at the door; a voice penetrated the panels.
Dana rose, found the light-switch and turned it. The flood of yellow gave warmth and strength to her—showed her a blue coil in the middle of the room. Dimly she realized it was a turban cloth—probably torn from the intruder's head. She did not touch it, but unlocked the door.
The Eurasian proprietor stood outside, in a dressing-gown. Behind him was a dark-skinned porter. A door opened further along the hall.
"My brother!" she gasped, motioning toward the white form.
The Eurasian spoke to the porter. They entered and placed the unconscious man upon the bed. Oblivious of the fact that she was clad only in a nightdress, Dana stood by, trying to collect her scattered faculties.
"If you will call a doctor," she said, "I'll attend to him now."
"Yes, madam. I'll have the boy fetch some water and smelling-salts from my wife's room. How did this happen?"
"I—I can't think—now," she returned dazedly. "Later...."
The Eurasian said something, but she did not remember what it was; remembered only that he and the porter went out. A moment after the door closed she heard voices in the hall.
"O Alan!" she pleaded, bending over her brother. "Can't you hear me?"
Several minutes passed before he showed any symptoms of reviving; then he mumbled a few unintelligible words, and the lids drew back from his eyes.
"Dana!"—weakly. "He—took it—"
"What, Alan, dear?"
"The scarf—confounded imitation." He closed his eyes; opened them an instant later. "I'll be all right,"—with a smile. "Nothing serious. Don't mention the scarf, or anything about it. Just say—thief...." The lids sank over his eyes. "Imitation," he muttered. And fainted again.
... The Eurasian returned shortly, with the porter at his heels. The latter carried a basin of water and several bottles.
"If you'll allow me to attend to him," offered the proprietor, "it will spare you much unpleasantness."
Dana nodded and sank into a chair, shivering.
Nearly an hour passed before the doctor arrived. Alan had regained consciousness, but fainted during the examination. Dana, standing beside the bed in her negligee, waited nervously to hear the decision.
"I don't think you have any cause to be uneasy," said the doctor, after what seemed an interminable time. "The wound isn't serious—only the muscles and tissues punctured—nothing internal. But I'm going to suggest, rather, insist, that he go to a hospital."
"By all means," agreed Dana, very close to tears. "I want everything possible done for him."
The doctor smiled sympathetically. "Be sure we'll do all we can," he assured her. "Now, if you'll have some one fetch a basin of water, boiled, I'll get at this dressing."
Close to dawn, after the doctor had departed and Alan was conscious, Dana went to her room to dress. At the doorway she paused—for the blue turban-cloth lay coiled upon the threshold where she had tossed it. Incidents of greater importance had crowded the remembrance of it from her brain. Now she stooped and picked it up, rather gingerly. Queer. For imitation pearls!
She lowered her eyes, suddenly, involuntarily—as though in obedience to a subconscious command.
On the spot where the turban-cloth had lain was a small scrap of paper.
Thus, having jested with a puppet at Indore and given a thread into the hands of Dana Charteris, Destiny, capricious as the winds, turned toward the officer of the empire upon whom a chalk-mark had previously been placed.
Sunset was spreading a fan of flamingo plumes above Meera, a native village to the northward of Gaya, when Arnold Trent (unaware that Destiny had been hovering over him since Dana Charteris found the scrap of paper, in Delhi, three days before) clattered out of the jungle and along the nearly deserted main street. At the council-tree, where the headman of the village sat and chewed betel-leaf, he drew rein, listening to a low, eerie wailing that came from one of the whitewashed houses.
"It is Chatterjee," volunteered the headman. "His Ratanamma is dead, Dakktar Sahib."
Trent swung down from his saddle. "When did it happen, Ranjeet Singh?"
"Not an hour past, Dakktar Sahib."
Trent's eyes roved up and down the street. "Where's everybody? Meera looks as if a plague had struck it."
Ranjeet Singh, who was a Jain, spat contemptuously.
"Some vermin-ridden priests from Tibet are at the Sacred Bo-tree," he explained, "and the worshippers of Gaudama have swarmed thither, like flies to a dung-feast!"
Trent smiled slightly and moved toward one of the whitewashed houses, swinging along with the leisurely, easy stride of one poised on well-controlled muscles. At the door he paused. It was dark within, and a breath of offal and man-reek greeted him. After a moment he saw, against the darkness, the pale silhouette of a white-clad figure. From this figure came the eerie wails.
"Chatterjee!" Trent called.
The silhouette ceased wailing long enough to quaver: "Dakktar Sahib!"
The Englishman, his eyes now accustomed to the gloom, strode over to a thong-strung bed and peered down at the form stretched upon it. Unable to see clearly, he struck a match. The tiny flare flickered upon bare brown skin.... Trent swore.
"Stop that damned nonsense!" he commanded. "Chatterjee, you've had some infernalhakimhere again—against my orders!"
"My little Ratanamma, dove of my bosom, is dead!" wailed the man.
"Did you give her the medicine I left?"
"Yes, Dakktar Sahib! It was your medicine that killed her. Thehakimsaid so."
Trent swore again. "I've a notion to report you to the Karnal Sahib and have you taken up! You old murderer! Didn't you know better than to let some filthy, stinkinghakimburn her stomach with a hot iron?"
The native was wailing again.
"Listen to me, Chatterjee," said Trent sternly, gripping the man's shoulder. "Who did this?"
"Your medicine, Dakktar Sahib!"
Trent shook him roughly. "Will you answer me—or...."
"Your medicine, Dakktar Sahib!" insisted the man.
Trent released him, realizing the futility of pressing the question.
"Very well. I'll report you to the Karnal Sahib and he'll have you strung up by your toes!"
He left the house abruptly—followed by feverish, glowing eyes.
Out of Meera he rode, past the temple on the river bank and along the jungle-lined road toward Gaya.
Trent was angry. But his face gave no indication of it. Twenty-three years under a tropical sun (add the ten years at school in Britain and you'll have his age) had baked his skin to a leather brown, and a third of that time spent in the army had taught him that impassivity is man's chief advantage—a citadel against the aggressive. He had, in the vernacular of the times, a "poker face"—the mask of those who share their secrets with few. In either mufti or khaki he was not particularly handsome, and this evening, after a day of work in viscid heat, he was almost ugly. Dust was ingrained into his skin, like an ocher pigment; his throat and brows were moist with perspiration. Yet there was about him something arresting and vital—a challenging strength that pronounced him a man's man. And he was. He talked with men; ate with men; lived with men; understood men. Scales that dip into earth-dust and swing again to regions of exquisite idealism—the eternal weight and counter-weight of Self. That was how he defined them. And his definitions were usually metaphors. An idiosyncrasy. Give him a chair in a dim room with one of Beethoven's sonatas swelling in throat-gripping chords, or a pipe and congenial darkness somewhere close to the stars, and he was in his prime element.
As for women.... That there had been one—one or more—at some time in his life, nobody who knew him doubted; but it was the general opinion at Gaya and thereabouts that he was as little concerned with women as with anything else that habited the planet. Envious subordinates hinted that at one time or other he had run afoul some feminine reef. When these remarks drifted to Trent (and such remarks always do) he only smiled, for he had a generous supply of humor packed away under his impassivity. It was never known that he deliberately avoided women; it appeared that he simply accepted them as a matter of form, inevitable as waves on a sea, and sometimes as disastrous.
Only Richard Manlove, also an army doctor, who shared his bungalow, had penetrated beyond the outer-rampart of his seeming seclusiveness—"Dicky" Manlove whom Trent first saw out in dead Mesopotamia. Their friendship was a popular topic of discussion on warm afternoons when feminine Gaya gathered to perspire under one common punkah. So different, you know.... Young "Dicky"—a delicious boy ... and the major—oh, rather a decent chap, a human manual of Hindustani and all those other perfectly impossible languages, but ... well, it's so disconcerting not to know what a man is thinking, isn't it?
Thus feminine Gaya catalogued him, and thus he appeared—immobile—this late afternoon as he rode out of Meera.
His anger died as he trotted on, and by the time he came within view of his bungalow, built on the flank of one of Gaya's hills, he was watching, in a whimsical, almost detached manner, the fireflies dance and reel in the dusk. When he drew nearer, he saw a figure in a white dress leave his compound, a figure that paused at the diverging roads not far from the bungalow, and, after a slight hesitation, chose the branch in his direction. Instantly he indexed her as a stranger; no female resident would think of using the isolated Meera road after dusk.
She wore a pith helmet with a veil. The veil was lifted, but as he approached, she lowered it—curiously enough, he thought. He was certain she had come from his compound; therefore, when she was within a few yards, he drew rein.
"Your pardon...." as he lifted his helmet. "Do you wish to see me? I'm Major Trent."
She halted, resting one hand upon a tree-trunk. He caught the glint of a bracelet on her white arm, and, being a man to notice details, observed a design worked in heavy relief upon it—a design that, in the half-tone of the early night, was almost indistinguishable.
"No," came the answer from under the veil, in a voice with a soft, thrilling timbre. "No."
He was still studying the bracelet out of the corner of his eye, and he perceived that the intricate workmanship represented a king-cobra; its hood was lifted in bizarre relief.... A barbaric ornament for a white woman to wear, he thought.
"But, really," he persisted, "it isn't quite safe for you to go along this road. Beasts, you know."
A pause. He saw the dark pools of her eyes upon him.
"Thank you," she murmured. "I thought I was going to the dâk bungalow."
With that she turned and moved away in the direction of the metalled main highway.
"Now, that's queer," he observed to himself, staring after her. "Anybody with even bad sight could see that this road...." Certainly she was at the compound gate. Why had she falsified?
He removed his helmet and furrowed his hair—a characteristic gesture; then, still watching the woman, he jerked the reins and trotted toward the bungalow.
A native servant in a white cottonchuddahand turban switched on the light in the living-room as Trent entered.
"Has Manlove Sahib come in, Ganeesh?" asked the Englishman.
"No, Dakktar Sahib."
Trent placed his helmet upon the table and sank into a chair.
"I sha'n't want anything to eat, so you may as well go. If Manlove Sahib hasn't eaten, he can go to the barracks."
As the native quitted the room, Trent, at a sudden thought, called after him.
"Ganeesh," he said, as his servant reappeared, "has anyone been here this afternoon?"
"No, Dakktar Sahib."
"Didn't a lady call a few minutes ago?"
The man answered in the negative.
"Hmm. Very well. That's all."
Still puzzling over the strange woman, he removed a pipe and a sack of tobacco from his shirt pocket, and when he had filled the bowl he lighted it. For several minutes he drew upon the amber stem, looking abstractedly into the whorls of smoke; then he picked up a brown volume from the table and opened it at a leaf that was turned under.
Here was another trait that Gaya had not discovered. Frequently when he was tired he turned to poetry—sometimes to books on the art-treasures and ancient lore of India, Indo-China and China—for relaxation.
His eyes followed these lines:
Star of the South that now through orient mist,At nightfall off Tampico or Belize,Greetest the sailor, rising from those seasWhere first in me, a fond romanticist,The tropic sunset's bloom on cloudy pilesCast out industrious cares with dreams of fabulous isles.
Star of the South that now through orient mist,At nightfall off Tampico or Belize,Greetest the sailor, rising from those seasWhere first in me, a fond romanticist,The tropic sunset's bloom on cloudy pilesCast out industrious cares with dreams of fabulous isles.
He rather fancied that passage. Fabulous isles. His brain toyed with the thought. For, although he walked down among mortals, sheathing himself in indifference and impassivity, he kept, in secret, a ladder to the stars—a concession to return at will to a guarded kingdom of his youth, the dominion of Romance and Adventure. He would have dwelt in this kingdom, secluded from earth, but for a thorn that was fastened deep within him. This thorn had pricked him since that period of adolescence when first visions and aspirations stirred in his boyish brain and set him to dreaming of the future. It had goaded him relentlessly into achievement, against the will of his adventurous spirit.
Strive as he might, he could not draw it out.
It was Ambition.
Because of it he had buried a dream that at odd moments returned and haunted him, like the poignantly sweet odor of lavender rising from packed-away treasures. Reckless, this dream, dangerous. To forsake the dull earth; drink freedom from the winds. A passion for the open spaces—to explore the fabulous isles. But the lure of uncharted seas and archipelagoes beyond the sunset, sheer and calling as they were, could not entice him to trample tradition. Ambition had won. And he beheld himself now, at thirty-three, a romantic soul armored in realism; at heart a boy who had never broken away from the age when flapping canvas and groaning timbers cause a queer clutching in the throat. His reckless impulses and desires were bitted and diverted into accomplishment. He was a success. But there were times, often in the dead of the night, with the jungle solitude challenging speech, when he realized that, in his own eyes, he was a failure.
He sighed unconsciously, almost inaudibly, and his sea-green eyes softened to gray as he fashioned, extravagantly, a blue dragon in the tobacco smoke that coiled sinuously toward the ceiling; sighed, as he often did in the quiet of his own quarters where only the walls might hear.
His thoughts switched involuntarily to the present (and his eyes lost some of their grayness, for their color seemed to change with his moods) and focused upon the communication he had received that morning. Under the precise military wording he sensed another element. Mystery. After all these prosaic years was he to be drawn out of his cocoon of medicines and gauze bandages and have his adventure? In all probability the affair would prove drab enough. Adventure? Well, hardly. Things of the sort set forth in the dispatch were usually rather unpleasant. Yet it intrigued him. Blindfolded. And was not that it?
"... temporarily attached to ... Euan Kerth ... a woman called the Swaying Cobra...."
Fragments of the communication filtered through his brain. Strange. From pills and antiseptics to that! Itwasleaving a cocoon! What a joke to tell Manlove. Dear old Manlove—this with warmth.
The sounds of walking in the compound announced the object of his thoughts. The footsteps drew nearer, crossed the veranda, and Manlove, uniformed and helmeted, entered.
"Rum day," he said. "Hot as Tophet; everything wrong."
Trent made no comment; only nodded.
"There's a big shindy up at the Sacred Bo-tree," the other added. "Some Tibetan lamas are there. I stopped by with Herrick."
He took off his helmet, the removal revealing to the light a tanned, boyish face and a healthy thatch of hair; mopped his forehead and flung his headgear carelessly across the room. That was his way, to appear careless. But at heart he was not; he liked small boundaries (while Trent craved larger ranges), homely things. He looked forward to the time when he would come into possession of "Gray Towers," ancestral abiding-place of the Manloves. Of course, he didn't want his grandfather, more familiarly known as the Old Fellow, to die or anything like that; he was simply prepared for the inevitable: The Right Honorable Richard Auckland Manlove, sitting in the House of Lords and presenting Colonial improvement measures, for India in particular; no longer "Dicky" Manlove, irresponsible adventurer, but carrying the ponderous dignity of the name.... It was all very impressive....
"Mrs. Dalhousie is giving a lawn party to-night," he announced, taking a chair. "Impromptu. She told me to drag you along, if you'd come."
"Sorry," returned Trent. "I'm leaving for Benares early in the morning. I'll be occupied to-night. Orders from Delhi."
Manlove withdrew a cigarette case from under his tunic, opened it, took out a smoke and placed it between his lips before he spoke.
"Deuce you say! Not transferred?"
"Temporarily detached; special service. You and Conningsby will have to take charge while I'm away." He smiled. "Been reading the papers lately?"
Manlove lighted his cigarette, glancing furtively at Trent. The latter was staring into the blue haze of smoke, half humorously, as though he found something amusing in the vaporous clouds.
"Certainly"—thus Manlove.
"Anything new about the jewels?"
Manlove smiled to himself. He hadn't lived in the same house with Arnold Trent for fourteen months without learningsomethingabout him. The old sphinx, he thought good-humoredly.
"Nothing important"—briefly. "However, I understand, from Granville, that the Department believes an international thief—Chavigny's his name—mixed up in it."
"Wonder where Granville got that?"
"Oh, rumors are plentiful, especially at stations like this where everybody's chief occupation is talk."
"That all?"
Manlove nodded and said nothing, for he knew Trent.
"Have you approximated the value of the stolen gems?" queried the latter, then went on: "Millions of pounds! And have you wondered how the devil they're going to hide the loot, or get it out of India? Such well known jewels can't be sold—"
"Unless they're re-cut," put in Manlove. He smiled wisely. "By Kali and all the other deities, you don't mean that you, expert in cholera and dysentery, are about to—" He chuckled. "Well, I'm damned!"
Trent moved to a desk in a corner of the room, unlocked it and took out a long, official-looking document. This he handed to Manlove, then resumed his seat. The latter unfolded it and let his eyes travel down the sheet.
"Has the heat gone to their heads at Delhi?" he demanded when he had finished. "Almighty God, why detach a perfectly good doctor, when they have a whole list of Secret Service men?"
Trent only smiled. The younger man waved his hand toward the paper.
"Surely this isn't all?"
"You know as much as I do. I leave in the morning for Benares. At the hotel I'm to meet a fellow called Kerth—"
"Euan Kerth," Manlove interrupted, his eyes upon the document. "You've heard of him, haven't you? He's the best of his sort in India. He's been in Tibet; was one of Younghusband's interpreters in nineteen-four. Speaks Hindustani, Burmese, mandarin Chinese, Tibetan, and God knows what else! You and he ought to hit it off fairly well together. But go on."
"I'm to meet him at the hotel," Trent resumed. "Just what part he plays, I don't know yet. There I'm also to find a message from this Swaying Cobra woman, and meet her at a place named in the message. And—well, that's all." He smiled. "Enlightening, isn't it?"
As he finished, Manlove strode to the door and tossed away his cigarette. There he paused, peering out.
"Where's Ganeesh?" he asked, looking over his shoulder.
"I let him go for the evening. Why?"
"Just saw some one leave the compound; must have been he." Manlove returned to his chair. "Trent, I envy you—even if they are balmy at Delhi. This doctoring heathens isn't all it's colored up to be. It's getting on my nerves. I even dream about fever and stinkingfakirs."
Trent consulted his wrist-watch. "I have to ride up to Colonel Urqhart's and make a report. Remember the chap at Meera, Chatterjee? Somehakimburned his child's stomach with an iron. Of course she died. I'm going to make an example of him." He rose. "I have to wash up a bit. I suppose you're going to the lawn party?"
"Think not," decided Manlove. "I'll be here when you return."
"Care to ride up with me?"
"No. I'm rather tired."
Trent went to his bedroom and Manlove lighted another cigarette. He'd miss the old sphinx, he told himself. Good old Trent! Why hadn't he married? Frequently he asked himself that question; never Trent. There must be a reason, he mused, flicking the ashes from his cigarette. Maybe there had been a woman—a typhoon. The typhoon sort could raise the deuce with a chap like Trent. Perhaps.... He stifled a yawn. Damn India; damn its climate. He hadn't taken his leave this season; it was about due now. A jolly trip home; see the Old Fellow; see "Gray Towers."
He heard Trent moving about in the rear. He couldn't picture him sleuthing it. Queer world anyhow. And Benares. What was afoot?
Another yawn. He flung his half-smoked cigarette through the doorway, and it fell upon the veranda in a mild shower of sparks, and lay there, its red tip glowing like a malevolent little eye.
It was after nine o'clock when Trent rode out of Sahib's Gaya and around the shoulder of a hill toward his bungalow. A golden moon floated in nebulous haze—an electric disc that transfused its heat into the night. The earth steamed and sweltered, and the perfumes of tropical blossoms stole out of the jungle and exhaled a heavy languor.
Trent, pipe clamped between his teeth, sweat running into his eyes from his helmet-band, jogged along, thinking leisurely (as men do in warmer climates) of the woman of the cobra-bracelet, and thinking more of the bracelet than the woman. It was one of his peculiarities to collect rare ornaments; among his curios he had a bangle of a Nepalese princess, a Burmese bell from a pagoda in the Pyinmana district, and a silver-chased, turquoise-inset teapot from Tibet. The bracelet the woman wore was finely wrought, and its design not of the ordinary; this he recognized, even though he had but a glimpse of it. A king-cobra with a lifted hood. And the wearer.... Why had she lowered her veil—why had she denied that she came from his compound? Mystery.... But, he reflected, mysteries were not rare; mysteries, to such as he, in the jungle; in the ruins and tumbled grandeur of ancient temples; in the dim, dark bazaars, spice-reeking, where filth mocks British law, and Love and Death are one....
A white figure, ahead in the scented gloom, broke into his thoughts, a figure that at first was distinguishable only as a stain of pallor on the roadway. Trent experienced a quickening of interest. She of the cobra-bracelet? No. He could see now. Not a woman; a native. The man was moving at a swift gait, almost running; but as he drew nearer, he halted, looking about irresolutely, nervously. And at that moment (he was not more than ten yards away) Trent recognized him and reined in his mare.
"Chatterjee!" he called. "D'ye want to see me?"
The native did not answer, only fixed upon him a mute, terrified stare, and crashed through the high, dense undergrowth at the side of the road. The sounds of his flight grew fainter as he plunged deeper into the jungle.
Trent stared at the spot where he disappeared. His first impulse was to follow—an impulse that he cast aside. Now that was odd, he thought. What in flaming hades was the matter with him? For a moment he sat in mystified silence, then he kicked his mount lightly in the flanks.
A day of incidents. First, the dispatch from Delhi, then the veiled woman, now this encounter. From where had the native come? The bungalow? Perhaps he was merely on his way from Meera, for the road passed his quarters. But he knew natives never walked when it was possible to ride. Anyhow, that didn't explain his actions. Confound it, he'd have trouble with that fellow yet! This as he branched off from the main highway and clattered along the driveway to his compound.
Not until he reached the gate did he observe that the house was dark, squatting in gloomy secrecy among the surrounding trees. At first it puzzled him; then he decided that Manlove had probably gone to bed.
When his mare was stabled, he made his way into the living-room. In the dark he struck his knee on a sharp projection and swore. He fumbled for the light-switch; blinked in the sudden glare. A yawn and an indolent stretch. He'd get a good sleep and—
"Hello!" he exclaimed, as his eyes trailed across the room to an over-turned chair. "What the devil!"
A piece of bronze, some Hindu god, lay on the floor, gleaming sinisterly, and a picture—its regular place was on the desk—had fallen to the floor. An insidious thought took root in his brain. With quick strides he reached Manlove's room. It was empty, the bed unused. Its desertion hurt him—a queer sensation, that. He whirled about, returned to the living-room and halted, irresolute.
"Manlove!"
Silly to call, he thought. Perhaps Manlove had gone to the lawn party. But the over-turned chair and the idol did not look well. Thieves? Or.... Suddenly the meeting with Chatterjee shaped into significance. He knew the workings of the native brain, and a frightful possibility suggested itself.
An electric torch lay on the table. He reached for it; stood with his hands poised in the air, thought temporarily suspended from action. For his eyes, lowered involuntarily, fastened upon a small, dark spot on the matting.
Regaining the power to move, he stooped. A sudden sickness seized him. Unmistakable. But why did blood affect him? Blood. The discovery added a spark to his suspicions. His imagination painted a swift, vivid picture. The look of terror on Chatterjee's face.... Manlove, the innocent.... But no! It couldn't be!
In possession of the torchlight, he strode out upon the veranda. There he discovered a trail of spots identical with that on the matting, a trail that led down the steps. He made a quick search of the compound. A sense of helplessness smote him. Manlove, perhaps somewhere within calling distance, yet unable to summon him....
He halted at the gate. On the left was jungle, dark and hushed; on the right, a few lights in the nearest bungalow. Across the road was the mouth of a narrow path which he knew led to the ruins of an old temple hidden behind the rank foliage. At thought of the ruins an impulse made him forsake the compound and follow the path.
Less than two hundred yards from the road the growths thinned. Looming before him, spectral in the yellow mystery of the moonlight, was the temple. The outer court was throttled with weeds. Luxurious vines trailed from ruined pillar to ruined wall and wove a sanctuary for vipers. At the end of an avenue of crumbled columns gaped the black entrance of the inner court. An impalpable vapor steamed up from the moist plants and bathed the ruins in a dream-like haze, as the blurred waters of the ocean engulf and make fantastic the myriad rock-palaces of the sea-bottoms.
The dark inner court challenged Trent, and he snapped off the light and moved between the stone sentinels. A power, terrifying in its vagueness, pressed upon him, locking his muscles in a tension. A bat, startled out of hiding by the ring of his footsteps, flapped up from the parapet and wheeled across the moon's face. But for that, and an occasional rasp of an insect, the temple was swathed in a hush.
In the doorway of the inner court he paused. He groped for the shattered frame; clutched something tangible; fought against a terrible paralysis.
Yellow moonshine poured through a rent in the ceiling, drenched the walls and formed a honey-hued pool on the flagging.
In the wan light lay a human form.
A deadly inertia coiled about Trent's brain and body. For a moment he was unable to think, to do other than struggle against the constricting coils of horror. But at length he broke the rigor. A few steps brought him to the pool of moonlight. He knelt; switched on the torch; saw the face. Dull agony spread from his throat to his limbs. In that instant he seemed to slip back through a millennium and endure the concentrated pains of a hundred bodies—a flame of cosmic anguish burning down through the dim jungles of time.
Automatically his hand went to the heart, but before his trained fingers touched the breast he knew that to feel was useless. Dark moisture stained the tunic-front. He unbuttoned the garments. Knife wound! Manlove had been dead at least a half hour.
The infinitesimal fraction of a minute that he knelt there might have been an hour for the multitude of irrelevances that sped through his brain. Orders. Benares.... And he had cursed when he struck his knee! Had Manlove ridden with him to Colonel Urqhart's this would not have happened. Urqhart; what an absurd name.... Murder. In a vague manner he wondered who had done it; in a vague manner he felt angry. Dead. Impossible. This must be a dream, a horrid nightmare. Damn these nightmares! It was the heat ... heat.... His comrade.... Kasvin.... Kut-el-Amara. And this was the end! The futility of things swept him, a chill and shuddersome tide that served to wash some of the tangles from his thoughts.
He rose. He felt giddy, and the inner court, with its shadows, its pool of moonshine, swam in a throat-gripping vertigo. But it passed swiftly. Out of the mental chaos emerged a coherency: perhaps the one who had done this was still in or about the temple. The remembrance of Chatterjee immediately appeared to deny it. A solution of the affair unreeled quickly. Chatterjee, the avenger ... a fatal mistake. That explained the native's look of terror when he met Trent on the road, explained his flight.
Nevertheless, Trent made a search of the ruins and returned to the body. The face, outlined boyishly in the pallid moonlight, commanded his gaze with hypnotic insistence. Now that the first acute horror had dwindled, he was conscious of an abysmal loneliness, an ache that habited every nerve and fiber of his being.
He must notify Colonel Urqhart. But the body, what of that? He couldn't leave it lying in this den of vipers. The very suggestion horrified him, although he knew the body was but a husk of flesh. He had some authority; he'd act on his own responsibility.
An involuntary dread ran through him as he slipped his hands under the inert form and lifted it. His sight blurred, but he moved with a steady stride across the courtyard and through the gate. Upon reaching the bungalow, he laid the body upon the bed in Manlove's room. When he switched on the light, the boyish features again compelled his gaze. Manlove had told him of the dream of "Gray Towers," of the House of Lords; and the memory of it, returning through the stupefaction that still surrounded him, sent a poignant charge into his throat. To have his dream perish like this! Whatever a man's philosophy of immortality, death remains a shock.
He was about to leave the room when his attention was arrested by the gleam of a bright object in the lifeless hand. He was forced to pry open the fingers. The gleaming thing proved to be a piece of reddish stone. Coral. It was oval-shaped and some six inches in circumference. An intricate design was overlaid in silver upon the smooth salmon-hued surface—a human figure. The oval was edged with silver, and at the top was a tiny clasp. The clasp was broken. He studied the silver design. It was evidently some sort of deity, but different from any he had ever seen—an ugly little god with three eyes.
What was it? he wondered—part of a necklace, an ornament? The broken clasp testified that it had been wrenched from its fastening. Perhaps in a struggle—thestruggle....
Temporarily dismissing it from his thoughts, he left it lying upon the table and went to the telephone.
Meanwhile, at the dâk bungalow, which looks out upon the main street of Sahib's Gaya, thekhansammah, a ghostly figure in his white garments, sat on the covered portico and watched a gharry approach in a whirl of dust.
The carriage was jerked to a halt at the compound, and from its dim interior appeared a form.
It was the strange Memsahib, thekhansammahobserved to himself.
Strange, indeed, he reflected; Memsahibs rarely wore veils, and those they affected were gossamer, cobweb-like affairs that hid not a feature. But this Memsahib wore an almost opaque veil, a veil which she lifted only to eat and when in her room. She had a beautiful face, and well that she covered it from befouling eyes. For thekhansammahwas a Mohammedan.
She was very generous, this Memsahib, oh, very generous, indeed! True, she asked many questions—about Major Trent Sahib and his friend, the other Dakktar Sahib—but she paid for the information. She had been at the dâk bungalow only since morning, and he hoped she would remain longer. Business was none too good.
Thus ran his thoughts as the woman alighted from the gharry and crossed the compound.
When she reached the steps he rose and rendered a salaam. As usual, her veil was lowered. He sensed a repressed excitement in the manner that her white hand closed upon the post of the veranda; a bracelet shone softly on her arm.
"Khansammah," she began, in a low, vibrant voice that made him think of the golden tongue of a certain singing-nautch he had once heard, "When does the next train leave for Mughal Sarai? Do you know?"
"Hah, Memsahib!"—with regret. "Must you leave? Has not my hospitaliteebeen all the Memsahib could—"
"Of course," she broke in, impatiently. "But the train?"
"At midnight, Memsahib. But it is unlikeleethe Memsahib can get accommodations, for there is vereemuch travel at this time of the year—oh, vereemuch!"
"At midnight," she repeated, as though she had heard only that.
Then she entered—and thekhansammahthought he saw her pause, falter, as with a sudden stroke of weakness.
And again meanwhile—
The moon paled, sank. Its senescent glamour lingered upon the towering plinth and fluted pillars of the temple of the Sacred Bo-tree, seven miles south of Gaya-town. A warm wind fretted the tapering leaves of the holy tree; the sunken courtyard was a cistern of gloom where tiny yellow lights swam like foam-flecks on a dark sea. These flecks of light, forming a semi-circle about the Sacred Bo-tree, were many little butter-lamps. Their glow revealed a man seated on the Diamond Throne (just as Gaudama sat on the same spot in a buried century and contemplated his Dewa Laka); revealed his yellow features, his tonsured skull and magenta robes; revealed the stone image of Buddha that looked down from the shrine with an expression of serene omniscience; revealed the row of crimson-togaed monks that knelt within the semi-circle of butter-lamps and murmured prayers.
The man on the Diamond Throne sat motionless. Only his lips moved, and his eyes. A hint of guile showed in his face. He repeated amantraautomatically, for his thoughts were elsewhere.
This was no other than his Holiness the Grand Lama of Tsagan-dhuka, who had pilgrimaged from his Tibetan abby to the Sacred Bo-tree—the first journey of the sort to be made by a lama of high rank since the visit of that venerable pontiff, the Tashi Lama.... Behold him, then, in the magenta robes of his office, squatting upon the Diamond Throne, reciting a Buddhist prayer.
The patter of bare feet on stone caused him to shift his gaze to the gloom beyond the courtyard. His black eyes squinted, and he traced the outline of a palanquin. The primitive conveyance came to a halt. A figure in loose robes took shape between the parted curtains; the light of the butter-lamps fell upon a man in scarlet, a man who descended into the sunken courtyard and approached the Diamond Throne. No mere priest, this newcomer, for he wore a mitre-shaped hat; a very obese, very pompous personage as he waddled up to his Holiness of Tsagan-dhuka.
The crimson cardinal spoke; and had anyone who understood Tibetan been standing close by, he would have heard:
"His Excellency the Governor of Shingtse-lunpo has arrived."
The Grand Lama ceased hismantra.
"Tell him I shall be with him when I have finished my reflections."
The cardinal bowed and took his leave. The curtains of the palanquin blotted out his corpulent person. Again the patter of naked feet sounded above the surreptitious whispering of the Bo-tree.
A cryptic smile slid across the Grand Lama's eyes; the lids dropped to hide it. He resumed the prayer.
"Om mani Padme hum...."
Thus he sat—just as Gaudama sat on the same spot in a buried century. However, the Abbot of Tsagan-dhuka was not contemplating his Dewa Laka.
Above him the plinth of the temple strove skyward, secure in the knowledge of the riddle of Life and Death.
A half hour after Trent took the receiver from the telephone, Colonel Urqhart and Merriton, Head of the Police, rattled into his compound in a dog-cart. Accompanying them were several officers to whom Trent spoke by name.
"... And you found him in the ruined temple!" exclaimed the colonel, in the living-room, when the customary formalities had been observed. "Good God, major, what a pity! The poor, poor boy! His father and I were friends, y' know."
"I'm positive Chatterjee did it," declared Trent. "You see...." And he told of the encounter on the road and the subsequent events.
"What were you saying, major?" asked the Head of the Police, coming out of the bedroom just as he finished. "But first—what's this?"
He held out the oval of silver-overlaid coral, and Trent explained how he had found it.
"Some sort of native charm, I dare say," observed Merriton. "Tell me about this Chatterjee."
When Trent had retold his story, the Head of the Police enquired:
"Where's the telephone? Ah! I see it!"
It was nearly midnight when Colonel Urqhart and Merriton prepared to leave.
"Major," said Trent's commanding officer, "you'd better get some sleep. Eckard and Gerrish will remain to—"
"Sleep?" echoed Trent.
"You'll need it if you're going in the morning—and youaregoing? Orders, y' know. There's nothing you can do here. I'll personally attend to everything."
"Of course I'll go." This from Trent as he passed his hand wearily over his forehead. "However, I shall sit up to-night. Eckard and Gerrish can remain—but I'd rather be alone."
The colonel cast a glance toward Manlove's room.
"Poor chap!" he sighed. He extended his hand. "Well, good luck, major. I probably won't see you again before you leave."
They shook hands, and the colonel and Merriton departed. Not until the sounds of the dog-cart had dwindled did Trent discover that the Head of Police had left the piece of coral on the table. His first impulse was to call after him, but he decided to give it to him later, and dropped it into his pocket.
Through the seemingly endless night Trent kept vigil beside the curtained bed where Manlove lay. He sat huddled in a chair, his face expressionless; frequently he rose to pace the floor; on several occasions one of the men in the next room heard him murmuring to himself. Shortly after midnight (about the time the veiled Memsahib's train roared out of Gaya toward Mughal Sarai) it began to rain. That was the prelude to a storm that crashed and tore in a fury about the bungalow. In the dead silence following, when the damp heat shut in and stars sparkled in the rain-swept sky, jackals chattered mournfully in the jungle.
The last stars passed and the earth awoke in a bath of gold. Ganeesh, with a frightened, awed expression, crept in hesitatingly with tea, and behind him came one of the officers.
"I'll have to get ready to leave now, Eckard," Trent said laconically to the officer, when he had gulped down the hot liquid.
Twenty minutes later, washed and shaved, he came out of his bedroom and found Colonel Urqhart waiting for him.
"Just came by to tell you Merriton hasn't found Chatterjee yet," announced the colonel. "Cleared out, it seems. But they'll get him."
"Uncommonly nice of you, Colonel," returned Trent. His face was drawn, his eyes veined with red, and a pallor underlay his tanned skin.
The colonel waved his hand toward the door. "My cart's outside. I'll drive you to the station. 'Bout time, isn't it?"
Trent nodded. He strode to the door of Manlove's room and halted on the threshold, looking with dry eyes into the hushed apartment. A diamond-winged dragonfly lay dreaming on the window-sill ... the white face shone through the mosquito-curtain.... Thus Trent stood for a moment, then he turned and joined the colonel.
He talked very little during the ride to the station, and Colonel Urqhart did not press conversation. In the midst of chattering native passengers and a few whites, with an engine puffing heat into the already suffocating air, he parted with the colonel,—a handshake and a few perfunctory words—and settled down in his carriage.
Not until the train jerked out of the station did the strain snap. He relaxed wearily upon the leather-lined seat, a steady hammer of pain at the back of his neck. He felt suddenly alone, intensely alone—a sensation that carried him back to his boyhood, to a night when he awoke in a strange, black-dark room. He shuddered involuntarily. His eyelids burned. Sleep—sleep. The engine seemed to purr that one word, and the swaying and rocking of the carriage lulled him into drowsiness.
He fell asleep, suddenly, with a picture of the hushed room—the diamond-winged dragonfly—painted upon his vision.
Trent was brought out of slumber by the sound of his name. He opened his eyes and perceived that the train was at a standstill. Heat pressed close about him, stifling him. Thrusting his head out of the window, he read the name of the station. He was but a short distance from Gaya. A telegraph messenger was walking along the platform shrilling:
"Major-rr Tr-rent Sahib!"
Trent called him, and as the train pulled out he tore open the envelope.
"Chatterjee found in river this morning," the message ran. "Stabbed. Let you hear particulars at Benares. Urqhart."
For some time after Trent read it he stared out of the carriage-window. Chatterjee—stabbed. He let the words filter and re-filter through his brain, let them settle and sink in. They gave a new significance to the encounter with the native on the previous night. Chatterjee—stabbed. Murdered? Or had he taken his own life—in remorse? But the river.... No. Murdered. That word stood out like wet type. Chatterjee—stabbed. Why? Obvious enough. The native's look of fright explained that. Perhaps he knew who slew Manlove. Chatterjee, whose lips were sealed. Blind alley. He faced a wall behind which was hidden the identity of Manlove's slayer. Manlove, who, to his knowledge, hadn't an enemy—
He stiffened at a sudden recollection; brought his fist down upon his thigh. Idiot! Colossal idiot! Why had not this occurred to him before? It was fantastic, yet....
He procured from his pocket a pencil and an envelope, and scribbled on the back of the latter—scribbled a description of the woman he had met on the Meera road; of the cobra-bracelet, of the encounter and his suspicions. This he would send to Colonel Urqhart at the next station.
When he had finished, he read it, struck out a few words; folded the envelope; returned it to his pocket, and settled back in the seat to reflect upon the tragic immutability of circumstance.
Trent, rested only by short naps on the way, stepped from the railway carriage in the Cantonment Station, in Benares, and, after a ride past dusty red brick barracks, reached the hotel—a series of small houses, with one main building. To his disappointment he found no message from Colonel Urqhart. Nor was Euan Kerth there. Mr. Kerth had arrived, he was told, but was not in at present. Trent left word to be notified directly Kerth returned, and went to his room, in one of the out-buildings.
Several hours later, refreshed by a sleep, washed and shaved, he seated himself on the portico to wait for Euan Kerth. On one end, peddlers were besieging a group of tourists; on the other, a girl with bronze-colored hair sat reading, a native in a flowered chintz coat drowsing at her feet. There was something slumberous and torpid in the scene. India, like the world, relapsed into a lethargy after the tumult of war.
When he slipped his hand into his tunic pocket for his cheroots, he found, instead of smokes, a hard, cold object. Withdrawing it, he recognized, not without some surprise, the oval of coral he had found in Manlove's hand. He remembered that Merriton had left it on the table in his bungalow, and he had put it in his pocket with the intention of returning it to the Head of Police before leaving Gaya. He would have to send it back, now that a new complication had arisen—namely, the death of Chatterjee; it might prove a valuable clue.
He studied it. Time had mellowed the design and smoothed the once-sharp edges of the silver that rimmed the oval. Coral, he knew, was rarely used for purposes of ornamentation in India. Too, the three-eyed deity, a hideous figure, puzzled him, though he was by no means unversed in the symbolism of the many religions of the land. Coral and silver. The combination haunted him, was linked with an illusive fragment in his memory. It came to him suddenly. Tibet. Coral and silver from Tibet. While he was stationed at Darjeeling he frequently saw men from Phari and Gyangste with coral and silver ornaments.
He continued to stare at the oval. The ugly face of the three-eyed little god seemed to mock him; challenged him to fathom the power that impelled these waves of mystery that lapped up and touched him, and receded with their secrets. It brought a vision, too, of the hushed room at Gaya.
That was a hurt which only the ointment of time could heal. The tissues of human relationship mend slowly. His friendship for Manlove had taken seed deeply, in a measure unconsciously, nurtured by months of intimate companionship; and now his sensitive nature tingled and throbbed at the violence with which it had been wrenched from its roots.
With the murder looming in his thoughts, his mission shrank. Adventure! Fabulous isles!... Queer how last night's stars lose their fever and passion when they become a memory. But perhaps the work would distract him. At least it was different, and in his present mental condition the very thought of medicines and human ills was intolerable.
Shadows lengthened between the buildings; the peddlers and tourists disappeared; the bronze-haired girl had closed her book and lay back in the chair, staring into space. Upon her he unconsciously focussed his attention, and as he contemplated her, impersonally and as he would an inanimate object, she shifted her eyes to him, stared coolly, turned away, rose and entered her room.
And Trent forgot her.
A few minutes later, as he was at the point of making another inquiry about Euan Kerth, he saw a man leave the central building and move toward the portico where he sat—a man who approached and spoke his name.
"Major Trent?"
They shook hands. Kerth was an immaculately dressed fellow, with smooth, olive-tinted features. A rather Mephistophelian face. A small black mustache, carefully waxed, helped the suggestion. His hair was shiny-black, as were his eyes, and his dark complexion was only emphasized by white twills and a white felt hat. His fingers were long and slim, almost too well-shaped to be masculine. Something very fine and sleek, Gallic rather than Anglo-Saxon—that was Euan Kerth.
"Sorry to have kept you waiting," he apologized in a too-long-in-the-tropics drawl. "I've been with the Commissioner. You arrived this afternoon?"
Trent nodded. He saw behind the assumed languorous air a keen, searching glance; Kerth was measuring him as he was measuring Kerth. He came to the tentative decision that he wasn't quite sure he liked him.
"Sit down, won't you?"—perfunctorily.
Kerth dropped with lazy grace into a chair and sat with his legs sprawled wide apart. He proffered some of the blackest cheroots Trent had ever seen.
"My Tamils," he explained, with an indolent smile. When the smokes were lighted, he asked: "Just how much do you know of this little party we're about to start, major?"
"As little as possible, I think."
Kerth puffed on his cheroot. "Ever heard of this woman who styles herself the Swaying Cobra?"
"Never."
"Neither have I." A pause. "Of course you've heard of Chavigny?"
Trent's answer was a smile.
"We almost got him the other day, in Delhi. We traced him to a native serai—Queen's Serai; but he eluded us. Left only a few blood-stains on the floor of his room. Blood-stains sometimes tell a lot, but they didn't in this instance. But Chavigny's bottled up in Delhi. Yet"—Kerth smiled—"yet I wouldn't be at all surprised if he pulled the wool over the Department's eyes. Of course you think he's involved in this affair?"
Trent's eyes followed the spiral of smoke from his cheroot.
"He might be," was the slow reply, "and, again, he might not. What does Sir Francis think?"
A wry smile. "He rarely confides in the Department. At any rate, I don't fancy we'll encounter this Chavigny. You know he's been running at large under the name of Leroux—Gilbert Leroux. Remember that; might be useful some time. If you want my opinion—But I'm sure you don't. Now, as for this Swaying Cobra—"
But he was interrupted as a porter appeared and salaamed.
"Major Trent Sahib?" he enquired.
Trent nodded and received an envelope with his name written upon it.
"Pardon me"—this to Kerth as he tore off the end.
The missive was written in English, in feminine handwriting, and carried a faint, illusive odor—that of sandalwood.
GREETINGS!I, the Swaying Cobra, welcome you to the Sacred City and beg the honor of a visit from you to-night. If you will be at the shop of Abdul Kerim, in the Sadar Bazaar, at eight-thirty o'clock, my trusted servant, Chandra Lal, will meet you and conduct you to my humble dwelling.Your faithful servant,THE SWAYING COBRA
GREETINGS!
I, the Swaying Cobra, welcome you to the Sacred City and beg the honor of a visit from you to-night. If you will be at the shop of Abdul Kerim, in the Sadar Bazaar, at eight-thirty o'clock, my trusted servant, Chandra Lal, will meet you and conduct you to my humble dwelling.
Your faithful servant,
THE SWAYING COBRA
When he had read it, he handed it to Kerth, who let his eyes run down the page and smiled.
"Suppose we move to the dining-hall?" the latter suggested. "I'll finish what I have to say there."
Trent assented, and they rose and left the veranda.
As the purple-tongued shadows lapped them up, the last of the row of doors opened, and the girl with the bronze hair came out and moved after them toward the dining-hall.
"In other words," said Kerth, as a soft-shod "boy" arrayed the meal before them, "you are to deliver yourself blindfolded into the hands of this Swaying Cobra, and if she says go to the moon, then, according to the Old Man, you're to go there, without questioning."
Trent listened, apparently abstractedly, for he was studying the amazingly clear profile of the girl at the next table. Punkahs, worked by electricity, disturbed straying tendrils of reddish-gold hair.
"The woman mystifies me as much as the affair itself," Kerth went on. "Who is she? It's evident the Old Man trusts her—to a degree. From her name, 'Swaying Cobra,' I'd judge she's a nautch, yet, on the other hand, I'm inclined to think she's above that. Fact is, the Old Man was too infernally secretive about her; seemed afraid he'd tell me something. However, he isn't absolutely sure of her. If he was, I wouldn't be here."
A tourist, was Trent's conclusion. (For he was still studying the girl.) She choked over the greasy, peppery curry concoction. A moment later her soft voice floated to him as she spoke to her "boy."
"Confound him! Is he listening to me?" Kerth wondered. Then aloud, "My part is this: I'm to rig myself up as a native—a Rajput—and accompany you as your servant. My name will be Rawul Din."
Trent's eyes turned sharply from the girl to Kerth. He noticed, incidentally, that the latter's hair would need no lamp-black to make it like a native's.
"Suppose she objects?"
Kerth smiled—an expression that was almost sinister because of his dark, satanic features.
"That's the point: shemust notobject!" After a pause he resumed: "The Old Man wanted that firmly impressed. In some way or other she must be forced to agree to that condition. You're the diplomat of this expedition; that means it's up to you. So said the Old Man. I'm to be the connecting link between you and the Department."
"Is that keeping faith with her?"
"According to the letter of the contract, yes; morally, no. As I understand it, she demanded your word of honor you wouldn't 'communicate' any information. Therefore, you must not; what I don't hear and learn for myself is the Department's loss. Neat way of beating the devil around the bush, isn't it?"
It was not visible upon Trent's face whether or not he agreed with Kerth. However, his next question hinted negatively.
"If she discovers you're not Rawul Din, the Rajput, what then?"
Kerth shrugged. "Adrushtam!" he said, which means, "It is Fate!" Then he lighted a cheroot and leaned upon his elbows, a queer smile lurking in the corners of his mouth. "It means this, major," he continued. "If she's loyal, as the Old Man believes, she will either be very angry and throw over the whole business, or overlook it and simply demand that espionage be discontinued. But"—his face, veiled by smoke, looked more satanic than ever—"if she isn't loyal, then—well, we'll both probably...." He finished with a lift of his eyebrows.
Trent watched the bronze-haired girl as she left the dining-hall—as did others, for she was a type to draw eyes.
"To-night's the test," Kerth observed aloud. "If you succeed in forcing your point, good. Otherwise, I return to Delhi." He looked at his watch. "It's close to seven now, and my metamorphosis will require some time. Shall we adjourn?"
They did.
Before Trent left his room he placed the oval of coral in his handbag; then he went out on the portico to smoke and watch the stars gather about the cleaving silhouette of a church steeple across from the hotel grounds.
At one end of the veranda two shadowy forms were conversing; a woman's voice drifted to him, a soft voice that slurred and caressed the words it spoke. It was vaguely familiar, and in a detached manner he identified it with the girl of the dining-hall.
The phosphorescent hands of his wrist-watch crept to five minutes to eight before Euan Kerth put in his appearance. A heavy footstep announced a turbaned man. He halted in the light cast from a window; executed a salaam. He wore white breeches, an alpaca coat and a white shawl. A huge turban shadowed a brown face and a carefully waxed mustache. Had it not been for that and the slim hands, Trent would not have recognized him.
"Salaam, Huzoor!" was his greeting. "Is theHuzoorready?"—this in the manner of a native trying to affect an Oxford accent.
Trent nodded and rose, and Kerth fell in behind.
"There's no need to take a gharry," said Kerth. "The Sadar Bazaar isn't far."
Their walk led them past the dusty red brick barracks that Trent had seen that afternoon, and within a short while they reached the Sadar Bazaar, where, after many inquiries, they were directed to the shop of Abdul Kerim—a dingy little hole in a narrow lane. A native was lounging in the doorway, but at their approach he straightened up and salaamed.
"Major Trent Sahib?" he queried respectfully, with a grin that displayed betel-stained teeth. "I am Chandra Lal." Then he looked inquisitively at Kerth. "Who is this, Sahib?"
"My servant."
Chandra Lal shook his head. "I was instructed to bring only Major Trent Sahib."
"But it is my wish that my bearer accompany me."
The native shifted uncomfortably. "The sahib's wish is law; yet if I do other than I have been bidden I will be a disobedient servant." Another glimpse of scarlet teeth; a rather nervous smile. "So what shall I do, Sahib?"
"My man shall go—maloom hai!"—sternly. "I will be responsible to your mistress."
Chandra Lal saluted. "Achcha, Sahib! I have a carriage in the street!"
At the mouth of the lane a landau was waiting, and when Trent and Kerth were seated on cushioned springs, Chandra Lal flicked his whip.
Out of the Cantonment they were whirled, and eastward into the old city, where constricted streets refused passage to any vehicle. They drew up by an oval-shaped, tree-grown expanse, and the landau was left in charge of a man who was waiting for that particular purpose. Then began a journey on foot that was memorable to the two Englishmen because of the muddle of dim, narrow highways into which it took them. Chandra Lal leading, they percolated through streets and passages that stank of every unpleasantness known to Indian cities; mere clefts where the stars swam at distances immeasurable; stairs, tunneled lanes and alleys, and amidst ramshackle, tumbled buildings and temples and shrines.
Trent's sense of direction was completely baffled when they came at length to a quarter where the houses were more pretentious—a long street of several-storied dwellings, of projecting eaves, of white walls and of latticed windows that hinted at the lurking mystery of zenana and harem.
Into one of these houses the native guided them, up a short flight of stairs and into a dark room. The air was fresh and cool, fanned by invisible punkahs. A snap brought on electric lights, and Trent blinked about him; blinked and suppressed a smile, for he realized the entrance into the room while it was yet unlighted was done for purely dramatic effect.
His eyes, roving around the chamber, missed not a detail; a chamber wholly amazing and incredible to the Westerner, who rarely, if ever, sees into the houses of the wealthy, high caste Hindus. Trent, however, (to whom India was an open book, as much as it ever will be to any white man) was only mildly surprised. The chandeliers were crystal, tinted amber by the yellow lights. Brassware and gold brocade (the latter hung to hide all doors except the one by which they had entered) introduced an effect of rich browns and richer golds; and a spire of incense uncoiled from a brazen bowl to be dispelled by punkahs and leave the heavy fragrance of musk swimming in the air.
"My mistress will join you presently," announced Chandra Lal. "Be seated, Sahib, and you will be served with refreshments!"
Trent flung himself upon a divan pushed against the wall; silken cushions yielded to his weight and clung to him caressingly. Kerth dropped cross-legged at his feet.
Before Chandra Lal made his exit he drew the gold-hued draperies opposite where Trent reclined, drew bamboo blinds and disclosed a white arch that framed a portion of a garden. Stone steps sank into a courtyard where rustling shrubs wove shadows about a fountain; falling water played flute-notes on a tiled basin; stars scraped a white wall.
"She's no novice, this cobra," thought Trent. "Wonder if she's anything like her lair?"
"... wine," thought Kerth. "And we must drink it ... unless—yes, guile for guile."
Suddenly, from behind gold curtains, came the faint whispering of music. Trent smothered an insurgent desire to laugh. Incongruity, the essence of India! The music was made by a gramophone! Presently he recognized the tune—Tschaikowsky's "Serenade Melancholique"!
He glanced furtively at Kerth. The latter's face was expressionless, his slim hands toying with the tassel of a cushion. Trent sensed in his attitude the same wild desire to laugh that possessed him.
"Steady!" he mentally encouraged himself, fixing his gaze upon a piece of brassware close by—alotaoverlaid with copper and chased with mythological figures. "Hmm.... Half as old as India, I'll wager," ran his musings. "Siva—who the deuce is the other chap?"
Gold brocades parted and a turbaned servant glided out silently with a tray, which he placed on a pearl-inlaid table. Claret-hued wine glowed in twin beaten-brass goblets, rich as melted rubies. One he passed to Trent, the other to Kerth. Then he made a soundless departure.
Inwardly, Trent smiled. And drained his goblet. The gramophone ceased; only the music of the fountain stole to him, with a breath of fragrant shrubs that made the incense seem sensuous and heavy.
Again the brasslotaclaimed his gaze; held it until he heard a sigh from Kerth and looked down to see the latter's eyelids droop, to see his eyes close and his chin sink into his white shawl.
"Damn!" he swore, almost inaudibly, and his hand sprang to Kerth's shoulder and gripped it none too gently. "Rawul Din!"
As he pronounced the name, Kerth fell against the cushions of the divan, drugged in sleep. Some one laughed—a laugh that rippled low in the throat. Trent did not look toward the sound immediately, although that was his first impulse. He let his eyes turn naturally and rest, at first incredulously, upon the woman who had entered and who stood regarding him with a mocking smile. The blood flooded his temples; after a second it receded, leaving him cold, numb, with a tingling sense of unreality. He did not rise; merely stared; and presently forced a smile.
"Sarojini Nanjee," he said, trying to put down the emotions that declared insurrection against his will. And he repeated, "Sarojini Nanjee, the Swaying Cobra?" He smiled. "I confess, I never once suspected."
Outlined against the gold draperies she stood, dressed as nautches dress, only with more richness and without the customary head-scarf. Her garments were full and as shimmery as cobwebs in the sun, and confined at the waist with a goldcloth girdle that matched the tint of her marvelously smooth skin. Her eyes burned under heavy lids, burned and mocked him; and by their feverish brightness he understood that this meeting wrought in her an excitement equal to his, although she was prepared for it.
"I did not intend that you should suspect," she told him as she moved to the divan where he reclined. "I knew you would not come if you did."
Not until then did he rise. He smiled, and the smile lingered as she bent over Kerth and drew back the lids from his eyes.
"Why did you disobey me by bringing this man?" she demanded, and, assured that Kerth was drugged, dropped gracefully upon the cushions.
"Why did you drug him?" he countered.