“There is absolutely no harm in it.”
Olwen, the wife of Flordon Wentworth, stood silent and irresolute as Mrs. Lane-Osborn uttered the words. Flordon smiled cynically at his wife’s perplexity, unsympathetic but amused.
“Why do you hesitate?” he asked.
“It seems—wrong.”
“My dear Mrs. Wentworth! how do you manage to preserve such Puritanical simplicity of heart, living as you do in the hub of this wicked world? We shall find you gravely doubting the propriety of Shakespearian matinées next,” said Mrs. Lane-Osborn, encouraged by Flordon’s smile.
“Come, Olwen, use your common sense. You are judging a subject unheard, always a weak thing to do. You know nothing of what passes at a séance. Before you condemn the thing, go and see for yourself what it is like. Mrs. Lane-Osborn assures you that there is no harm in it. If you are introduced to a spook, you need not cultivate its acquaintance,” he concluded with a laugh.
“Spook, indeed,” protested the other lady with a pretty assumption of indignation.
“A capital name for a motor-car,” he exclaimed. “I shall give it to the next white one I turn out. Olwen, go and put your hat on, or you will keep your friend waiting.”
His wife instinctively obeyed his mandate, her scruples overcome.
“Do you name your cars?”
“Always; each car as it is finished in the works is registered under a name; but it is not considered necessary to tell the purchaser what it is, nor is he expected to adopt it.”
“Don’t let me keep you, Mr. Wentworth. You were just going out when I came in. I am glad that I caught you, for I am afraid that your wife would have refused to go to the séance if you had not added your persuasions to mine.”
His eyes rested approvingly on the pretty face and figure of the speaker, and he showed no inclination to avail himself of her permission.
Olwen did not take long to dress. Ten minutes later she was being carried swiftly away in Mrs. Lane-Osborn’s car. Her doubts were stilled; and the faint voice of conscience that had protested against dabbling with occultism was silenced. If she felt anything at all, it was curiosity mingled with scepticism.
Later in the afternoon Mrs. Wentworth knocked at the door of her own house. A damp, brown fog had enveloped London and had settled thickly upon the old-world square in which she lived. The carbon-laden moisture bedewed her furs. The smell of smoky chimneys filled her nostrils, and her eyes smarted with the strain of peering through the murky atmosphere. The door was opened by a man-servant. As she entered her maid came forward.
“You would like some tea, ma’am,” she said.
“No—yes—. What time is it?”
Olwen spoke absently, her thoughts far from her material needs.
“It is only just five, and the kettle boils. We felt sure that you would want some hot tea,” continued Bessie with the freedom of a confidential maid attached to her mistress. As she relieved her of the damp wraps she said: “Was the fog very thick where you have been? I was afraid if you were driving home that you would be caught by it. The traffic they say is stopped in the City.”
“Thanks, Bessie,” replied Mrs. Wentworth, as she took off her hat and handed it to her maid. “Fortunately I have not come from that direction, and my cab was able to move, although it was only at a foot-pace. Ah! this is very nice.”
A fire was blazing brightly in the drawing-room, casting a pleasant glow around. The curtains were drawn before the closely-fitting casements. No breath of the poisonous London fog could filter through into the flower-scented air. The warmth acted upon her nerves like the sun upon a dormant plant. For the space of two hours she had been under the spell of a dream, a strange waking dream that was difficult to shake off. The difficulty arose from her disinclination to detach herself from its visions. She called to the departing maid.
“Bessie, I should like some tea. Tell Tomkins to make some hot toast as well. I feel quite hungry after my early lunch.”
She sank into an armchair near the little tea-table, which was already laid with a cloth in anticipation of her requirements. Under the glow of the yellow flames she yielded to the luxury of her surroundings. The visions seemed to return, bringing a train of memories. She believed the past to be buried for ever. There was nothing to be ashamed of in that past; but there were reasons why it should not be recalled to be compared with the present. It was gone; and it was best for all concerned that it should remain a dim undissected memory.
“I was a fool to run the risk of stirring up bygones. Did the dead really come back? Was it his touch that I thought I felt? I did feel a hand; yes! it was his; I should know it anywhere! If it was not his, whose could it have been?”
Her thoughts went back to that mysterious séance from which she had just returned. She stirred uneasily in her chair as though she would physically as well as mentally shake off the vivid impressions that had closed round her mind and launched her into another world. With the memories of the past came introspection, and she sat in judgment on herself.
“I acted for the best; and if the events of my life were repeated, the present would find me where I am—here.”
She glanced round the room. It was as beautiful as money and art could make it. Her eyes rested on the flowers that filled a bowl close at hand; then wandered to the dainty treasures that adorned walls and side-tables; to the graceful lines of the chairs and cabinets with their inlaid work as perfect as when they left the cunning hand of the craftsman. On all sides she was confronted with the evidence of what money, and money alone, could do. It was the price she had received for the gift of herself. Up to the present moment no misgiving had intruded to raise a doubt that the bargain was not a good one; but to-day the curtain had been suddenly raised, and it was not easy to drop it again. Events long buried in oblivion stood out clearly and sharply defined.
She saw herself a girl, living contentedly with an invalid mother. Their means were small, and few luxuries were known in that simple household. Her lips curved with a faint smile as she recalled how often she had dined off buttered toast and weak tea, and counted herself lucky in having enough butter for the toast.
Her education had come to her in fragments. She learned to read and write, she scarcely knew how. Having acquired the art of reading, she devoured every book she could lay her hands upon. In moving about from one place to another, according to the fancy of the invalid in search of health, Olwen had had access to various collections of volumes old and new. Here and there, as opportunity offered, she took a few cheap lessons. They did not result in proficiency; and she could neither sing, nor play, nor draw. She taught herself French, so that she might be able to read the language, but she could not speak it. From her delicate fading mother she learned her duty towards God in its simplest form; and her duty towards her neighbour from the standpoint of a refined English lady. Of doctrine and controversial theology she knew nothing; and of the distinctions drawn by social exponents of the modern woman’s duty to her neighbour she was equally ignorant. Armed with a simple faith in God and man, she faced the world alone, at the age of eighteen, at the death-bed of her mother. Death came very gently to the invalid; and when he came mother and daughter were not unprepared for the separation.
As she lingered by the grave a man, the only other mourner, slipped a hand in her arm. Silently he led her away and put her in the single mourning carriage that had followed the hearse.
“Darling! I am going to take you home to my mother.”
She made no reply, but laid her aching head upon his shoulder. Mrs. Monkhouse, for love of her son, received her kindly. Before many weeks had passed she welcomed the orphan girl for her own sweet sake; and she was well satisfied when six months later Olwen gave herself into the keeping of Lewis Monkhouse.
That he had no other home to offer than the shelter of his mother’s roof did not seem to matter. He possessed neither a fortune nor a profession. Yet he was not an idler. He had tried various things—clerkships in different houses, secretaryships with busy men. For a short time he read for the medical profession, but soon found that he was utterly unfitted for the dissecting room. His youthful manner and boyish appearance were against him. To make a true man of him he needed experience of the bitter kind that scores the memory as the lash scores the skin, and burns its lesson in indelibly. The raw material was there; it wanted kneading and moulding into shape under a stronger hand than that of his mother. Finally, Flordon Wentworth, his cousin, a man who had carved out a way for himself, and was making a name and a fortune with his manufactory of motor-cars, offered him a subordinate position in the works, at a small salary. A promise was given that if he would learn to make himself useful he should be promoted to something better. On taking up the appointment, Lewis rushed into matrimony with a girl whose simplicity and youthfulness matched his own. She had not yet reached her nineteenth birthday, and though he was four years older than she was, he looked up to her as he looked up to his mother for moral strength.
Urged by these two loving women, Lewis did his best to serve his employer faithfully. It was uphill work. Office life was naturally distasteful to him. He sighed vaguely for “some kind of outdoor employment; superintendence of something in the open-air, where I am not shut up within four walls to pore over accounts and dull letters of business.” It was the castle-in-the-air that has dazzled and unsettled many a well-meaning schoolboy when he has left school—a dream that is never fulfilled.
Olwen had sense enough to see that the dream was impossible of realisation; but not so the fond mother. She encouraged her son in his discontent, and added fuel to the fire by condoling with him whenever he incurred the displeasure of his employer by his inattention. Flordon did not spare him. Masterful and quick of speech, the stronger man dealt out instruction, admonition, and sharp reproof when it was necessary. He jeered at Lewis’s simplicity, made fun of his boyishness, and raged against his open truthfulness.
“My good fellow! you would have tried the patience of Job himself, if Job had ever built motors. I tremble every time you open your mouth lest you should give away the show.”
“But what am I to say when people ask me point blank whether we are adopting this or that improvement?”
“Say it rains; say it blows like blazes; say anything but the truth.”
“I can’t deceive any man.”
“I don’t ask you to use any deception,” retorted Flordon contemptuously. “I only want discretion and reserve. Confound your scruples! They are as foolish as the scruples of a woman who won’t say ‘not at home’ to callers when she doesn’t wish to see her friends. Every one understands what the term means; not a soul is deceived by it. Every inquisitive ass will know what your replies are worth when you fence unwarrantable questions. I want to promote you to something better, for the sake of your wife. How can I do so when you make such a fool of yourself as you did to-day with those two prying Frenchmen smelling round? If I hadn’t happened to come in in the nick of time, you would have given away every mortal thing we have in the works. Don’t you know that I’ve got to be a good length ahead of those foreign chaps to spell success?”
Lewis smarted under the sting of the sharp tongue, but the impression did not last. On his return home he had his grumble into the sympathetic ears of his mother, and received her condolences. The event was forgotten as he changed into his white flannels for a game of tennis with Olwen. His faults were the faults of youth. Owing to his mother’s folly the youthfulness was prolonged. The manliness and independence that were latent in him were stifled, and his ambition still slept. The modest household, run with the assistance of a single servant, was sufficient for his needs; and as his wife did not complain, he took it for granted that she shared his content.
She inherited nothing from her mother, whose income was drawn from an annuity which died with her. If it had not been for Lewis Monkhouse she must have found some means of earning her living, or she would have starved. Comparing her lot as his wife with a life of hard work, it was not likely that she would feel discontent. The weeks and months ran smoothly, undisturbed by storms of passion and emotion. The boy and girl couple played their part in life’s drama without ever touching those heights and depths which try the hearts of men and women. The one thorn in the undeveloped rose of their lives was the occasional outburst, sometimes cool and satirical, sometimes fiery and scathing, on the part of the man to whom Lewis looked for his weekly wage.
One day he returned smarting more than usual from the lash of Flordon’s tongue. The warm greetings of wife and mother were not sufficient to heal the wounds and bring forgetfulness. What was uppermost in Lewis’s mind must needs come out.
“I cant stand Flordon much longer,” he exclaimed, as he sat down to the evening meal. “He called me an idiot to-day before the whole office, and told me straight out that I was of no use to him. He offered to pension me, not because he loved me, but because he was sorry for Olwen being married to a fool, I should be of more use to him pensioned, he said, because then I should be out of the way and could not make mischief; which speech left me to infer that I was in the way in the office. I saw the fellows laughing, and wished myself at the other end of the earth. I shall chuck the whole business if he rounds on me again in public like that, and see if I can’t get some post abroad.”
Three months passed, and there was another blighting storm. A visitor called at the office and asked for the “boss.” He was a ’cute Yankee, who should have been promptly and firmly put off with the conventional “Not in, sir; perhaps you will kindly write and make an appointment.”
Flordon happened to be in. He was deeply immersed in the intricacies of a secret invention. His office table was scattered with plans and calculations. For some years past he had had dreams of the possibility of harnessing a new force in comparison with which electricity would prove but a mere child, and of applying it to the motor. He had no sort of a doubt as to the existence of this power, nor did scientific men deny its existence. The difficulty was to lay hands upon it and bring it under subjection. The accomplishment of this feat would cause a revolution in all automobile vehicles. It would do away with the necessity for heavy machinery, and would be the hope of every aeroplane builder. Not only would it astound the whole world and lift its discoverer to a pinnacle of fame, but it would bring wealth untold to the patentee. From his boyhood Flordon had shown a genius for invention, and there had never been a time when he was not occupied with some new scheme or other. There were men who made fun of him and spoke lightly of his inventive predilections; but others knew him better. These declared that he was the inventor of the age, and that one day he would electrify the world. Beyond the bare fact that he was inquiring into the source of a new energy, his research was kept a profound secret. He jealously guarded his papers under lock and key; and it was an understood thing among the clerks that no person was to intrude upon his privacy when he was at work upon that particular subject.
Lewis, pressed by the visitor, and forgetful of his cousin’s occupation, ushered the American in.
The unwelcome intruder glanced sharply at the sheets spread out upon the table, and caught sight of certain sections of tubes and wires which Flordon at his unexpected appearance hastily thrust into a drawer.
“You need not be afraid of me. I’m not on that tack,” said the visitor, with a knowing wink that incensed Flordon almost to the point of murder.
It was true; he was not prosecuting any search himself, but his partner was making experiments which ran the English inquirer close, and the visit was paid expressly to discover how far matters had advanced. Flordon was well aware of the reason that brought him there. The satisfied smirk on the face of the stranger further informed the Englishman without words that the former had learned something, though not all. By a great effort Wentworth controlled himself as he dismissed the American with small ceremony. When the door was closed upon his heels, Flordon went straight to Lewis as he sat at his desk. There and then, before the other clerks of the office, he emptied the vials of his wrath without restraint, using such language as cut to the quick.
Lewis, unable to speak for surprise and vexation, threw down his pen. For a few seconds he stood irresolute, his eyes flashing, and his fists doubled; but he restrained himself. He took his hat from its peg and walked out of the building, shaking the dust from his feet. By the time he had reached home he had found his tongue. He told his tale in a voice that trembled and broke with emotion. Never again would he cross the threshold of the office; never again would he put foot under any roof that belonged to his cousin. He would sooner starve than serve such a brute. In vain his mother and Olwen between them essayed to soothe the wounded pride and heal the breach; he refused to listen. Flinging himself down by his wife’s side, he buried his face in the soft laces on her breast. It was thus he often sought consolation when tired or vexed with the pin-pricks of everyday life. She murmured gentle words in his ear, counselling forbearance, and forgiveness of his too hasty cousin. A shake of the boyish head was the only reply. He was like a child who had been too severely punished, and was sore at heart. He suffered acutely from a sense of injustice and wrong. She clasped his fingers with reassuring touch, and uttered little commonplaces of consolation. His mother, almost as agitated as her son, bent over him, a hand upon his shoulder, saying, “Poor lad! poor sonnie! how wicked it is to treat you so shamefully!” A course of action that was not calculated to rouse his manhood nor to help him out of his slough of despond.
The following day Olwen determined to beard the lion in his den. She presented herself at the office, and was admitted. Flordon had no fear of women. It was not his nature to fear anything. At the same time he had no love for the sex. Men like Lewis, who basked in domestic affection, only roused his contempt. Women were mere incidents in his life. The latest problem of the inventor’s sanctum had a greater attraction for him than the most beautiful woman in the world.
Olwen entered the private room invaded by the unwelcome visitor the day before. She was self-possessed and calm, although Flordon could not fail to notice that she was stirred by emotion. She neither wept nor burst into hysterical reproaches. In spite of the cynical view he took of human nature, his admiration was evoked by her power of self-control. Tall and dignified the girl-wife stood before him, refusing the seat he offered. Her dark eyes met his with a slight uplifting of the chin and never wavered as she requested him in a few simple direct sentences, uttered quietly and distinctly, to apologise to Lewis and ask him to return. The blood mounted hotly to the long thin face; and the prominent blue eyes showed a swift passing gleam of red light in their depths.
“Did Lewis tell you what a blundering ass he made of himself?” he asked.
“Yes; but the offence was not criminal.”
“I wonder that it did not make a criminal of me. I felt for the moment as if I could have killed him as well as that prying devil of an American.”
“As it was not a criminal offence you ought to forgive it.”
The expression she used, “you ought to forgive it,” was fatal. There was a pause during which Flordon mastered the rough words that rose to the tip of his tongue. He said quietly—
“There we differ; I have no intention of apologising to Lewis, nor of asking him to return.”
“Our income is small already. Without the pittance you give him, it will be smaller still.”
Again she inadvertently offended him. The word pittance had a sting in it; it seemed to accuse him of a want of liberality. He was not sure whether the sting was intentional. He looked at her with a shade of curiosity mingling with his annoyance. Possessing neither sister nor mother who might have been outspoken with him, he was unaccustomed to hear any criticism of his own behaviour. There was something novel in the attitude she assumed and in her manner of speech. None of his friends and acquaintances had ever faced him so determinedly. Inwardly he marvelled at her courage in showing her condemnation of his treatment of her husband. He had fully anticipated a sentimental appeal for pardon when he heard her name; and he had been prepared possibly to grant it; but she had turned the tables on him and was openly expecting the plea for pardon to come from him. Under his steady gaze the colour in her cheek deepened and her eyes sparkled with suppressed indignation. His anger was being fast tempered by admiration, of her personal beauty and courage. Once more the curious animal light shone in the depths of his eyes as he spoke; but all softness was dissipated by her uncompromising attitude. In harsh tones he declared his entire indifference to their private circumstances. What they had to live upon or starve upon was no affair of his. Suddenly he checked himself and allowed a silence to elapse. It was productive of no change in her demeanour. There was no object in prolonging the interview.
“Mrs. Monkhouse, I am sorry, truly sorry, I can do nothing further for Lewis. I cannot ask him to return. If he were back again in the office I could not work with an undisturbed mind. I should always be fearing lest there should be a repetition of yesterday’s unpleasant incident. My cousin is an ass. I am sorry for him. You are his wife, and I am still more sorry for you.”
He opened the door and she passed out without another word. The brown eyes did not falter; they held his to the last moment. Perhaps her silence was more eloquent than speech. As he closed the door he muttered to himself—
“That woman is too good for such an ass. A knave I can stand, but damn a fool.”
Just at this period England was wrestling with a foe, a truculent encroaching neighbour upon her colonial borders. There was a call for men; Lewis, failing to obtain employment, responded to the call on the impulse of the moment and joined a corps of volunteers. Long before the hour of departure arrived he partly repented of his hasty action. His mother was broken-hearted at the thought of parting with her son. Olwen was not so overcome by the catastrophe. She put on a brave face, hiding her tears in the hope that he had chosen a career more suited to his temperament than the business office. She lost no opportunity of encouraging him, picturing the future in glowing colours.
“Dearest, I shall be so proud of you when you come home with your medals and your honours,” she said bravely.
“If it were not for leaving you and mother, I should enjoy all this preparation. I am much more fitted for soldiering than for scribbling at a desk. The drill is interesting, and I am already a fair shot. As for riding, I seem born to it. The riding-master wouldn’t believe me when I told him that I had never crossed a horse before I came to the school.”
He was already shaking off his callowness. Olwen noted the change and glowed with a newborn pride as the manhood sprang into being. Her heart warmed towards him with the first breath of a greater love.
“I wish I could go with you,” she replied.
“Ah! if you could, then there would be nothing to regret,” he answered.
“Except leaving your mother.”
“Mothers can’t expect to keep their sons in their pockets all their lives. I sometimes think that it would have been better for me if the mater had kicked me out into the world long ago. Poor old mater! You must take care of her, Olwen.”
Months passed and England writhed under “reverses.” With every reverse fresh families went into mourning. Anxious eyes scanned the columns of the newspapers, and loving women often learned for the first time of the calamity that had overtaken them in the loss of brother, lover or husband from that source. Olwen and her mother-in-law pored over the telegrams eagerly, laying the paper down with a sight of relief when they had assured themselves that Lewis’s name was not there.
The blow fell suddenly. It was but a small disaster, involving the loss of four men together with the young volunteer sergeant who was in command. He had shown himself as a man of splendid courage, with but one fault, that of rashness. He had neglected to observe proper precautions and had exceeded his orders. There was an ambush, and the entire little company was shot down. It seemed probable, wrote the war correspondent, who dismissed the affair in a short paragraph, that Sergeant Monkhouse, in the excitement of pressing forward, had forgotten his orders. Regret at the loss of so promising a non-commissioned officer was softened, the writer observed, by the thought that had he lived he would have been obliged to face a court-martial. The mother took her trouble to heart, and fretted over the loss of her son. She would not admit that he had been in the wrong. It was his bad fortune. He was sacrificed to his own bravery, led on to his death by his magnificent courage.
“He was always so impulsive. He never stopped to think of himself,” she moaned.
Olwen mourned for her warm-hearted young husband; he had seemed part of her very life. A little later she stood by the grave of her mother-in-law. There was no companion this time to link his arm in hers and draw her away, offering her solace and shelter. The young widow was destitute, and dependent upon her own exertions for her livelihood. Fortunately she had good health. By diligent search she succeeded in finding a situation as companion to an ill-tempered blind woman, whom misfortune had soured, rendering her suspicious of all her more fortunate fellow creatures. Once and once only Flordon sought her out. He asked what plans she had made. If he anticipated an appeal to his charity, he was disappointed. Olwen told him briefly that she had found work which carried with it a sufficient salary. He listened in silence. Ten minutes later he was walking away feeling as if he had advanced nothing towards the end that he had in view.
A year passed, a long interminable year of twelve colourless months, without love, without sympathy. It had a deadening effect upon her temperament. The acuteness of her sorrow lessened, and a pall of apathy clouded her existence. She felt as if she were living in a cage without light and air, narrowing down her vision to the horizon of the crabbed woman who dominated every hour of her day.
The year of her widowhood had barely elapsed when Flordon called upon her. As she entered the room he was quick to note her listless attitude and pale face. Going to the point with incisive directness he told her that she was not happy. She did not deny it. Suddenly, and without warning, he asked her to be his wife. She was startled; the request came so abruptly, so unexpectedly. There was no declaration of love with the offer. The only indication of emotion was that gleam in his eye which she had seen when she had asked him to apologise to his cousin. It brought back the scene, with its atmosphere of severity and injustice towards one who had not sinned, but only blundered; and the humiliation of having herself pleaded for pardon with such a man.
As calmly and decidedly as he put the question she replied in the negative. He offered his hand in farewell, and left without further speech. The interview did not last five minutes.
Six months later the little episode was repeated. He again presented himself without warning, and asked her the same question in precisely the same words that he had used on the former occasion. The story of Beauty and the Beast suggested itself to her mind, and brought the shadow of a smile to her lips. He saw the smile and mistook its meaning. A sudden torrent of speech broke from him, in which he set forth—not his love, but the advantage it would be to both of them if she would consent.
“I am rich, and growing richer every day. I want some one at the head of my house, some tactful woman who can help me socially with my clients; some one who will spend my money for me in a suitable manner, and surround me with the things a man should have about him. I do not ask you for your love; I do not want any sentimental emotion; it is not my way. My love—if there is such a thing in my nature—is given to those pet schemes that I brood over in the office. I love them as a composer loves his masterpiece, as an artist loves his best works, as an author loves his successful books. I live for them. You have nothing to fill your life but the care of this stranger. It will be a kindness on your part if you will transfer your care from her to me.”
It was a strange way of wooing a girl of twenty-two but it carried persuasion with it where an ardent declaration of love would have been of no avail. She thought of her joyless life; of the stupid, vulgar old woman whose slave she was; of the small salary, which was barely sufficient to clothe her suitably; of the instability of her position, subject to her employer’s whims; of the hopelessness of the future. As Flordon’s wife her duties would be pleasanter, and the remuneration on a more liberal scale.
“If you are satisfied——” she began, her steady eyes resting inquiringly upon his.
“I am more than satisfied,” he replied. “Sit down and let us talk business.”
Half an hour later this strange wooer rose to depart. Olwen held out her hand; he took it, and drawing her close, he kissed her. In another minute she was alone, standing where he had left her, a tumult of emotion stirring within her. Lewis, with his boyish ways, had never treated her in that fashion. With constant protestations of love he had played the part of the boy lover, and she had responded in like fashion. Here was a man who had told her that he was not in love and yet—his kisses burned her lips.
A week later Flordon went to America on business. He wrote to tell her that he would be absent for four months. At the end of that time he would return, and he hoped that she would then be ready to marry him without further delay. Thus, at the age of twenty-two Olwen once again became a wife.
There are several things that develop character. Adversity is one important factor, wealth is another. Olwen’s nature responded to its influence as rich soil responds to sun and rain. Many spheres were opened which had formerly been closed. She took her fill of all that was beautiful. She travelled abroad as well as in her own country. Life was overflowing with luxury, and her pleasures came to her in warm sensuous ease and comfort. When she went to the opera or the play there was no weary waiting outside the pit door before a seat could be obtained; no tiresome rush for over-crowded third-class carriages and omnibuses. A motor, swift and noiseless, with a trusty chauffeur was at her service.
Under the influence of luxury her nature expanded. Capacity for enjoyment increased with indulgence. Her emotions deepened as the horizon of her life widened. It sometimes seemed to her as if she were awakening from a gentle dream to a throbbing reality. During the first moments of her awakening, she turned impulsively and eagerly to her husband as the author of her new joy. The absence of any response on his part chilled her, and struck her dumb, when she would have poured out her gratitude.
Flordon, indeed, had been a revelation to her during the first fortnight of their wedded life. Until she knew him intimately she was not aware that such men existed. The deed was done, and there was no retreat; she was his wife for better or for worse. He fulfilled his part of the bargain in giving her wealth, and she learned early in the day that this was nearly all she was to receive. Whilst they were in Paris he lavished hundreds of pounds in dress, jewellery and furs, choosing the articles himself with fastidious taste, as though nothing was quite good enough for her. She thought that these gifts were showered upon her for her own sake; but she soon discovered that they were merely the suitable trappings for the wife of a prosperous manufacturer, and were an indirect advertisement of his substance. At this time if Flordon had wooed her like a man, with a touch of real humanity, he might have gathered to himself one of those deep and lasting affections which are the very light of human life. There was a faint dawning of it when she poured out her thanks, and showed her pleasure in his gifts. His fitful passion deceived her into the belief that she had roused in him the love that he had disclaimed; but it did not take long to discern the difference between what he offered and what she craved for. When they settled down into the routine of their daily existence she realised that there was no place in his nature for the jewel which it was in her power to bestow. He did not look for the gift of such a treasure, and would not know what to do with it if he had it. As she valued her own peace of mind, there must be no casting of pearls where they would not be appreciated. Had marriage come to her for the first time it might have proved a failure. As it was she faced the situation with resignation, and accepted what her new world had to offer. Remembering her own share in the bargain she set herself to the conscientious performance of the duties which she had undertaken. She governed his house to his satisfaction; wore the beautiful clothes which were paid for with his cheques; played the hostess to his friends and acquaintances in a manner that met with his approval.
No sooner did he establish his wife as he desired to see her, than he plunged into the work of his office, and became absorbed again in his inventions. Wealth in his case had developed his inventive faculties. Everything had to give way to his studies. He sat up till the small hours of the morning; he required food at odd times, and left her to eat her meals alone; he was absent-minded and preoccupied when she would have talked; and he dissociated himself from her social engagements. Every human instinct was slowly atrophying under the pressure of the brain-work. If a dog disturbed his train of thought, he kicked it as he would have kicked a stone out of his path, and was deaf to its yelp of pain. If a clerk in his office, or a workman in his sheds, crossed his will or blundered, the offender was removed with the ruthlessness that marked his conduct towards the dog. One of Olwen’s self-imposed tasks was to soften the blow that fell so unexpectedly upon the dismayed and astonished workman. Her goodness of heart was known, and an appeal for help never failed to meet with a response. She did her best for the offender, seeing that his wife and children did not suffer while he searched for work.
“I am sorry to have kept you waiting, ma’am. The toast took a little time to make,” said the voice of the butler, as he placed the tea-tray by Olwen’s side.
He switched on more light, and made up the fire. There was a step in the hall, and Olwen sat up. Her dreams dispersed as her husband entered the room.
“Beastly weather, and I have to go out,” said Flordon, as he took his stand upon the hearthrug, his back to the fire, and his eyes upon his wife.
“Going to the works?” she asked idly, adding, as he did not reply immediately, “I suppose you will be back to dinner at eight.”
“I am not dining at home to-day.”
She glanced at him, but asked no more questions. He rarely troubled himself to tell her his plans. How he spent his evenings, when he did not return to dinner, she had no knowledge. On one occasion, when she had felt confident that he was working late at the office, she discovered quite by accident that he had been to a theatre with some friends, and to a festive supper-party afterwards. The names of his companions were not upon her visiting list. On another occasion, when she had been filled with the wildest and most extravagant suspicions, she learned that he had been up half the night at the works with a couple of trusty mechanics, superintending the manufacture of a new invention. She often felt that she occupied only a corner of his life, that she was excluded from the greater part of it. He might lead a dual or treble existence for all she could tell.
Flordon did not tolerate the same reticence on her part. If she showed any reserve, he took umbrage and inquired in an offensive tone if she were ashamed of the manner in which she passed her time. He did not desire to have the details of how every hour was spent; but he was not satisfied until he had learned whether she had been shopping or calling, or had remained at home during his absence. At first she resented his curiosity; it was not reciprocal. In yielding to it, she sometimes laid herself open to sharp criticism which stung for the moment; and she endeavoured to fence his rather searching questions. She soon found, however, that it was less trouble in the end to give him all the information that he wanted. She recognised his habit of disagreeable cross-examination as one of his peculiar ways, and reconciled herself to it with easy adaptability. With sweet contentment she had adapted herself to her mother’s poverty-stricken life, and afterwards to a placid existence under the roof of Mrs. Monkhouse and her son. Now she once again suited herself to her circumstances, finding that it was easier to satisfy his inquisitiveness than to oppose it. She usually related the story of her day, how she had spent the hours, whom she had seen, and what she had heard, as soon as he demanded to be told. Although he criticized, he rarely made any objection to the manner in which she employed her time. Once, and once only, he had asked her to make an alteration. Finding that he was intimate with a man who followed the same trade as himself, she called upon his wife. Flordon, instead of being pleased at her attention towards his friends, showed annoyance. Olwen reminded him that he had dined with these people only a few days before. He might like to return their courtesy by asking them to dinner. He could not do so unless she called. His reply had been curt, and almost brutal. It was to the effect that he did not wish to see his wife under the same roof with the woman who had entertained him at a bachelor party. For a brief space she had wondered why he had accepted an invitation from such people. Then she remembered the exigencies of the trade, and concluded that Flordon had only done what was politic. For all she knew, it might have been extremely distasteful to him to be compelled to seek their society.
“You are late with your afternoon tea,” he remarked presently.
“Yes; will you have a cup with me?”
“How did you get on with Mrs. Lane-Osborn at the séance?” he asked, without replying to her question. He had had tea an hour ago in his sitting-room.
“I was very much impressed with what went on.”
“You were?” he cried, incredulously. “You don’t mean to tell me that you actually saw any spooks?”
She paused before replying.
“I really can’t say what I saw. There seemed to be some strange manifestations. Whether they were supernatural or not I could not decide.”
“Surely you don’t believe that the assembly of silly fools gathered together at Madame Boyovitch’s were put into communication with spooks? A woman of your sense ought to be above such folly.”
His tone was not pleasant, but his wife was too familiar with it to be irritated.
“Is it only folly?” she asked dreamily, her eyes lifted to his with an expression in them that he did not understand.
“Pure unadulterated idiocy, if it is what they call a spiritual séance. You were not weak enough to allow yourself to be hypnotised, were you?” he inquired sharply.
“Not that I know of,” she replied.
“You would know well enough if any attempt had been made to mesmerize you. Some silly ass would have given you a disc to stare at, and there would be passes before your eyes until you lost consciousness. You didn’t go to sleep, did you?”
She laughed softly as she answered his impatient question.
“There was no silly ass as you describe making passes, and I did not fall asleep. It seemed to me that my perceptions were increased, and that I was very much awake all the time.”
He was evidently relieved.
“That’s all right. You won’t come to any harm as long as there is no attempt at hypnotism. You take my advice, Olwen, and keep out of dark corners. Be a spectator as much as you like, but not a participator.”
“You urged me to go,” remarked Olwen quietly.
“Oh, that’s all right! I had a reason for wishing you to be civil to Mrs. Lane-Osborn. I’ve just built a car for her sister. I should like to have an order for one from herself. Tell me what you saw in this particular dark corner into which you have been peering.”
“Very little actually happened to me, though Mrs. Lane-Osborn seemed to have had a satisfactory interview with some one who died five or six years ago.”
He laughed contemptuously as he said—
“Wisdom was not in the way when she was born. What kind of a den did she take you to?”
“We were ushered into a beautiful room—not like this,” she explained as Flordon glanced round with gratification at what his wealth had effected. “It was full of pillars and pier-glasses which reflected the shaded electric lights. It was furnished with the softest and easiest chairs it has ever been my lot to sit in. In spite of the number of lamps there was only a dim light in the place, so dim that we could not see each other distinctly. I distinguished that the chairs were occupied. The room must have had double windows for there was absolute silence; not a sound of the traffic outside was to be heard. Soft music was played. It rose and died away in ghostly fashion, but there was no sign of any instrument or performer.”
“It was hidden behind the pillars, of course.”
“When we had been seated a few minutes, Madame Boyovitch glided into the room bringing a delicious scent of flowers with her. She went into a recess that, as far as I could see, contained nothing but a chair of much the same pattern as the one upon which I sat. There was a quaint old jewelled lamp hanging from the ceiling of the recess just above the chair. It lighted up that part of the room so that the immediate surroundings of the medium could be seen distinctly. She was in evening dress of some soft black material. Her neck and arms were bare. They were beautiful and of an ivory whiteness. She seated herself in the chair like some one who was only half awake; and leaning back she fell asleep in less than a minute. As soon as she was asleep the light above her went out and the recess was in darkness except for the dim reflection from the light of the room. It was sufficient to enable me to see those wonderful arms and hands lying motionless upon her lap.”
“Well! did anything happen?”
“I believe some of the audience had curious experiences. Now and then there were voices as though they spoke to invisible persons. Once I thought I saw a figure come from the recess and go across the room to someone who was sitting near the door. The person—he was a man—got up and left the room. The shadowy-little figure accompanied him.”
“It was Madame Boyovitch without a doubt.”
“It could not have been the medium. She was lying there just as she had sunk back in her seat. Besides, Madame Boyovitch was tall and dressed in black. This was a short, girlish figure, with flowing draperies of pale grey.”
“Did you feel any mysterious touches?” he asked, his curiosity almost mastering the contemptuous incredulity with which he had put his other questions.
Olwen paused before she answered. She finished her tea without haste, and put the cup on the tray as she considered whether she would tell him more.
“I am inclined to think that I felt a touch upon my shoulder.”
She looked at him to watch the effect of her words, fully prepared for the scoff and the sneer which came instantly.
“On the strength of that touch you believe that your old mother dragged herself from her grave and stood at your elbow! Really, Olwen, I thought you had more sense.”
“Who touched me?” she asked in her quiet unruffled voice.
“The medium or her accomplice.”
“The medium did not stir from her chair.”
“Then it was one of her assistants. There might have been a dozen people hidden behind the tapestry hangings. A feather broom and a soft cushion would have produced the effects of light touches. You were strung up to a pitch of expectation with your imagination roused by the effective scenery; and you were ripe for hallucination. It is not like you to be imposed upon so easily. However, I suppose you women are all cast more or less in the same mould, and fall ready dupes to clever knaves.”
During this tirade Olwen relaxed into deep and perplexed consideration. She scarcely followed the meaning of his words, and when she spoke it was more to herself than to him.
“I wonder if—if——”
“If what? If your mother was really there?”
“No; I know that she was not. I wonder if it is wrong to go to a séance.”
He burst into laughter that was derisive and unmirthful. He had learned all that he wanted to know and was tired of the subject.
“You may satisfy your mind on that score. There is no more harm in going to a séance than in going to a theatre. You pay your money for both. If the séance amuses you as much as the theatre, by all means go. It would not amuse me in the least; I should be bored beyond endurance. I wonder if the fog has cleared. I shall have to allow extra time for my journey.”
He went towards the door but stopped midway.
“By-the-bye, I see that you have bought two more of Western’s pictures. I told you that his style didn’t suit me. It is too grey and murky.”
“Poor fellow! He finds it such a struggle to get on; and really, Flordon, his works are most highly thought of. Success is coming, but it is slow, and meanwhile he must live. These two sketches of the Thames are perfect gems. Some day they will be worth a great deal more than I gave for them.”
“If they are a spec, on your part, I hope you may not be disappointed. Meanwhile, send them up to the box-room to be stored. Don’t spoil the look of the walls with them.”
“I can hardly do that; it would be rude and ungracious. He and his wife call occasionally, and they will want to know where I have hung them.”
“If you keep them down here I shall tell him they are daubs, and that will be worse.”
Olwen did not reply. She knew that her husband was quite capable of putting his threat into execution, and that he would not scruple to leave the unfortunate artist under the impression that she had bought the pictures out of pure charity. She must find some means of preventing this. The less said about it the more readily would she be able to find a way out of the dilemma.
“There is an invitation from the Miss Brownes for us to dine there this day week. What reply shall I send?”
“Say ‘no’; I can’t waste my time dining with old women. I shall be hard at work every evening until past midnight over this new discovery. I have called it ‘the spook.’ I’m on the right track this time, and a few more weeks of experiment will see me master of the new force. Keep mum about it, Olwen. I am not quite ready to give it to the world yet.”
He chuckled as he left the room. Apparently he did not consider it waste of time to dine with young women or go to the theatre. He would not see his wife again until breakfast on the following morning. Nevertheless he departed without troubling to bid her goodnight. The omission did not disturb Olwen. She was accustomed to his manner, or rather his want of manner, by this time, and was not sorry to be left to her own devices.
The tea was cleared away. It was too late to expect callers, even if it had been a fine evening. The thick, murky fog was not inviting, and all those who had no necessity for going out preferred their firesides. There were still two hours to dinner. The latest volumes of travel, fiction, and history lay ready to hand upon the table, and Olwen’s work-basket was within reach; but she was disinclined to read or to work. She heard the front door close upon her husband, and the hoot of his motor as the car felt its way round the quiet corners into the crowded traffic of the main street. No sound disturbed the house. She threw herself back in her chair and allowed herself to drift to the borderland of her dream.
What a dream it was! a living world of fancy! it could not be more than fancy!
Once more she was in Madame Boyovitch’s luxurious room with its voluptuous atmosphere, its sensuous music and strange, mysterious presences. She had gone to the séance with a reluctance amounting almost to aversion, persuaded by an eager friend and self-seeking husband against her will. She remembered how she had marvelled at that friend’s enthusiasm, and had wondered what the attraction could be. She knew nothing of spiritism, and had no leaning towards the supernatural. She was therefore unprepared for her strange and unaccountable experience.
No sooner had she entered the room and taken her seat than the atmosphere of the séance pervaded her senses. A natural susceptibility to emotional pleasure brought the instant perception of a languor that was distinctly pleasant. The stillness, the subdued light, the soft strains of hidden music created an alluring delight of a mingled physical and mental nature that was entirely novel. The tension of her nerves relaxed; the energy of her will slumbered. Her reluctance to tread upon the borders of the occult world vanished. It required no effort to carry out the directions enjoined upon her by Mrs. Lane-Osborn; who asserted that nothing obstructed the action of a medium more than scepticism. Above all things, the attitude of her mind must be passive and receptive, and absolutely free from doubt and curiosity. In that darkened chamber it was easy to obey. She nestled among her cushions, and her mind was lulled into a rosy dream of ease.
How long she rested thus she could not say, for she lost count of time in her reverie. A voice—was it her friend’s, or did it come from the medium?—asked if she would like to speak with someone “from the other side.” She replied in the affirmative without a moment’s consideration. Whom would she call? She did not answer, but waited in expectation.
There was but one person in the dim, dead past whom she wished to meet. It was not the ailing, invalid mother, nor the weak, affectionate, mother-in-law. Her thoughts went straight to that young life which had been joined to hers for so short a time, when neither of them could understand the possibilities of such a union. If he had been spared to come to his full strength, what a fine character his would have been. He was high-spirited, impetuous, and inexperienced. With his judgment matured by a few sharp lessons of life, and his senses developed, as hers had been, by a wider and more generous view of the world, he could not have failed to become a man to worship, to love, to cling to with all the power of her womanhood. His very mistakes would have perfected his character, and have endowed him with the sympathy that was so flagrantly missing in the character of his more successful cousin.
In the midst of her reverie, she was startled by the sensation of a touch upon her arm. It was followed by a gentle pressure upon her shoulder.
Her boy-husband had a favourite trick of placing his head upon her shoulder. When he came home from the office he hastened to her side, wherever she might be sitting, and nestled his head upon her breast with a little sigh of content. As he rested thus, his hand stole up and touched the little curls of soft hair about her ears. The touch, however light, was electric. How well she remembered it! It came back upon her with strange vividness.
The pressure upon her shoulder was repeated. Her heart gave a sudden throb as she thought she felt shadowy fingers passing through the curls. It was scarcely more than what a breath of air would have caused, but somehow she was convinced that it was no zephyr that had produced the sensation. Involuntarily she leaned her cheek downwards that it might touch the brown hair as of old. Alas! there was nothing! She lifted her hand to lay it over the fingers, and carry them to her lips. For one brief second she could have sworn that she held them. When she seemed to feel them within her clasp they melted away into nothingness. Was it a light kiss that was left upon her lips, or was it merely fancy? In another moment the presence was gone. The bliss of the moment was also gone, and she became conscious of a sense of loneliness and desertion.
She sat still and silent to the end of the séance, hearing nothing of the gentle murmurs around her. Each one present was absorbed in personal matters. Voices were subdued; and questions, when put to the medium, were spoken scarcely above a whisper.
At length Madame Boyovitch awoke from her trance. She raised herself slowly, like one in a dream, placing her white hands upon the arms of her chair. Her husband, a dark, foreign-looking man of middle age, came forward from among the audience; where he had been seated during the séance. He passed his arm round his wife’s waist, and led her gently from the room, as though apprehensive lest she should receive a shock from some sudden and unexpected noise. Not until she was gone were the lights raised. An attendant drew the curtain before the entrance; the double doors were flung open; and the little company, silent and preoccupied, moved away, the noise of footfall being deadened by the the thick pile of the carpet. The swish of silk-lined skirts was the only sound to be heard. Down the staircase they went, through swing-doors, which opened automatically into an entrance-porch, and let them out into the noise and chilliness of the fog-besmirched street. Olwen felt as if she had passed in one stride from the mysterious quiet and peace of a spirit-world to the earthly plane of noisy bustle and strenuous labour; from a realm of bliss to a sordid, cruel, unlovely world that had no room in it for love.
It was not until she was in the motor-cab with Mrs. Lane-Osborn that the silence was broken between them. The latter asked, as they crept along through the misty streets, to the constant clang of the cab’s bell—
“Did you feel the presence of one who has passed over?”
Olwen replied with hesitation, unwilling to acknowledge that she had experienced something mysterious, something more than she could account for; yet she was reluctant to convey an impression that was false.
“It is difficult to explain what I felt.”
“Was it a dear friend?”
“I would rather not discuss it.”
“It is your first introduction to the spirit-world, and you are filled with the awe that overtakes each one at the first spirit-communion. By-and-bye the awe will give place to joy. You will learn to love this communion with the dear ones who have passed over.”
“Do you really believe that the dead come back?”
“Don’t call them dead. They are not dead. They have only passed over to another plane. Of course they come back. Is there anything in the Bible to deny the possibility of their return? To me it is inexpressibly sweet to feel their touch, and to hear their words of affection. Did you not find it sweet? Ah! you are silent. I know that the consciousness of your mother’s presence was a pleasure to you. No doubt it was shadowy and intangible on this first occasion. Next time the awe that you feel will have less power over you. Your mother will find it easier to materialise. You must help her all you can by desiring her presence intensely. If you show any doubt or fear, or if you shrink from her touch, you make it so difficult for her to return to the earthly plane.”
“It seems wrong to call anyone back.”
“There you make a great mistake,” replied Mrs. Lane-Osborn, earnestly. “We have every reason to believe that the happiness is as great to them as to us when we place ourselves in touch.”
“If that is so, why don’t the spirits come back and manifest themselves?”
“How can they when we close the door against them by our disbelief? Means of communication are impossible without co-operation and support on our side. Also the assistance of the medium is absolutely necessary as well as placing the mind in a receptive condition. You will learn this in time, and it will come as naturally as composing yourself to sleep. I must lend you some books on the subject which will explain all these things better than I can. You must attend Madame Boyovitch’s séances until your faith is established. I will call for you this day week.”
“Oh no, no! I can’t go again. I would rather not attend any more séances,” protested Olwen, with vehemence.
“Yes, you will,” replied her friend quietly and with conviction. “All novices say that at first, and mean it from the bottom of their hearts; but they never keep to their determination. They feel the call of their dear ones, and they are obliged to respond. They go again and again.”
How still and quiet the house was, almost as still as that spirit-chamber! The traffic in the square outside, usual on fine days, had ceased altogether. Olwen rose from her chair and switched off the electric light. The room was illuminated only by the fire, upon which a large log burned. Now and then it snapped, and gave out little tongues of yellow flame as it slowly consumed in the grate. At right-angles to the fire was a wide, deep couch with a nest of soft pillows in its capacious arms. She threw herself upon it, turning away from the fire, so that her eyes might be in shadow.
Flordon had said that it was all a trick of the imagination. If that were so, there ought to be no difficulty in making the imagination repeat the trick. It should be only necessary to induce the day-dream and give the rein to fancy. She deliberately set herself to the task of conjuring back the vision of the afternoon. She waited for the pressure upon her shoulder. Her head inclined sideways on the pillow that her cheek might rest upon the soft hair. Her hand was raised so that it might catch the light fingers at the first sign of their presence. But she waited in vain. The vision refused to come. Memory was vivid, but between memory and actual material vision she felt there was a great gap. However realistic and vivid memory might be, it would not merge into a semblance of reality at her bidding. The conviction gradually stole over her that she could not accomplish her desire without the assistance of the medium.
She closed her eyes and courted sleep, hoping that the waking dream, for which she craved, would be vouchsafed in unconscious slumber, but sleep failed her, and refused its boon. She felt as though she were standing outside a locked door without its key. Behind the door was one who longed for her presence with an intensity that equalled her own. A vague sense of disappointment bordering on discontent swept over her.
The gong sounded, and she sprang from her couch. Was it possible that more than an hour and a half had elapsed since she turned down the electric light? As she touched the button and the room was once more illuminated, she laughed.
“Fancy played me a strange trick. How Flordon would jibe and jeer at me if he knew! but he shall never know. This is a matter that does not concern him in the least.”
The house was of modern style in its fittings, although it was built upon Georgian lines. It stood at the corner of a large, old-world square. The rooms faced south, and were warm and sunny. Other men with incomes such as Flordon Wentworth possessed would have lived further away from town; but the inventor, whose heart was in his work, preferred to be within easy reach of his workshops. A run of four or five miles along the Uxbridge High Road placed him in the midst of his men. The office of his agency was close at hand. One of his own swift, silent cars carried him from one place to the other without loss of time. Occasionally he drove himself; at other times he made use of a chauffeur, a taciturn man of slow speech, whose discretion could be relied upon.
Flordon usually left home immediately after breakfast. It was his only regular habit. He might return at any minute, before or after lunch. On the other hand, he might not be home until the small hours of the morning. A spare bed was placed in his dressing-room, so that if he was late he need not disturb his wife. During the last six months he had been sitting up until two and three in the morning, poring over diagrams and models. These last were made under his personal supervision by highly-skilled mechanics at the workshops. Needless to say that his wife felt herself to be very little more than his housekeeper, and nothing of a companion.
The pursuit of his pet project had not borne fruit up to the present in any practical result. He was satisfied as far as theory was concerned. It was all mapped out on paper; but the demonstration of it in practical working still continued to elude his grasp.
He was only able to devote occasional hours to the Spook, as he now called his invention. There were other matters that demanded his attention—improvements to be thought out and patented; cars to be built for exhibition at the annual show; orders to be fulfilled for all parts of the world. Whenever there was a lull in the business, and he had time to spare, he flew to his secret project as an ardent lover flies to his mistress. The effect of concentrating his mind by fits and starts upon a search that was of an elusive character had a marked effect upon him. It caused a nervous strain, and increased his natural irritability, so that his temper more frequently broke bounds. It was felt in the office and in the workshop. Every now and then there were dismissals, sudden and unexpected, which followed outbreaks that were worse than that which had driven Lewis away. The men were thrown out of work without warning, conscious that they had committed no fault; they had merely failed to satisfy a hard taskmaster. The consequence of this want of self-control on his part was a growing dislike among his employees.
Olwen felt the change in him also, and he frequently tried her patience. It became increasingly difficult to maintain discreet and diplomatic silence when he directed his biting satire against all who served him, against friend and acquaintance, even against the dead. Hitherto she had been successful, and his storms of anger beat harmlessly upon her calm impassiveness. Hate, fortunately, had not entered her heart, although contempt had long ago found a place there.
By the following day the fog had cleared and given place to a cold rain. Olwen was detained in the house with her work and her books. There was ample time for rumination; and thoughts crowded quickly into her brain. The memory of the impression received at the séance returned, and she could not shake it off, although she resisted the inclination to fall into a day-dream. The result was the concentration of her mind upon Lewis. She recalled his words and actions, his love, his tender consideration for herself. It was inevitable that the unveiling of the past should lead to a comparison with the present. She caught herself weighing the two men in the balance, the one with the other, and it was not to Flordon’s advantage.
A vague sense of danger warned her that she was unwise, and she checked her wandering thoughts, driving them into safer channels. She reminded herself that Flordon had saved her from a life of dull, colourless poverty, withering in its effect upon her warm emotional nature; that he had never pretended to give her love; that she had accepted his conditions and been satisfied with the bargain hitherto. It was folly to foster discontent and to encourage longings that could not be satisfied. It was deliberately courting unhappiness.
She made an effort to free herself from the entanglement of the memories that clung so closely, and threw herself into the occupation of the moment. The temptation to day-dream was rigorously combatted. Under this self-discipline the vision grew less distinct as the days passed. At the end of a fortnight it had lost its vitality, and had sunk to the nature of an ordinary dream of sleep.
At the end of the week, when the time arrived for the second visit, Olwen grew restless and preoccupied, in spite of all her efforts to maintain her normal self-possession. Half-a-dozen times in the afternoon she fancied she heard a motor stop before the door, and she prepared herself to give a firm and decided refusal. She made no engagement for that day, as she wished to see Mrs. Lane-Osborn if she called, and refuse in person once and for all time. She must make her understand that she could not accompany her on any future visits.
When four o’clock struck she was conscious of a strange feeling of disappointment that Mrs. Lane-Osborn had not called. She wondered whether she had forgotten her promise, and had gone to Madame Boyovitch’s alone. Then followed speculations which she could not resist. Had there been any mysterious demonstrations? Could it be possible that the spirit of Lewis was there, and that he had waited in vain for the coming of his beloved?
Faithful to her promise, Mrs. Lane-Osborn had sent her several books on spiritism. Olwen read them carefully and with a disbelief that was founded upon no theory, but had its origin in ignorance. As she studied the various propositions put forth by the propounders of spiritism, the disbelief weakened and doubts intruded. It was impossible to deny the existence of certain facts which could not be rationally accounted for. The writers professed to explain them, and their explanation sounded plausible in the absence of any other. She had ventured to discuss the matter with one or two of her friends, taking care not to commit herself to any theory. One of them was eloquent on the action of the subconscious mind. It was sufficient, she declared, to account for every psychic phenomenon, for clairvoyance, clairaudience, and spiritism. The subjective mind was a dangerous thing to trifle with. If it gained an ascendency over the conscious or objective mind, it brought on insanity. She begged Olwen earnestly to give up inquiring into such things. Another advised her to face it with searching inquiry, and assured her that there was nothing to alarm anyone in it. If the séances interested her she ought to continue attending them, until she was satisfied that the manifestations were of an occult nature or the result of trickery. She reminded her that men like Wallace and Myers and other scientists had not shrunk from inquiry. If there had been anything wrong in the inquiry it was not likely that these men would have occupied themselves with it.
Olwen did not allude to the matter again in Flordon’s presence; and she decided that it would be wise on her part if she did not place herself under the influence of the medium again.
A fortnight later the dark-blue motor belonging to Mrs. Lane-Osborn drove up to the house. Following close behind came Flordon himself. He alighted as the lady was stepping down from the tonneau.
“What a beautiful car, Mr. Wentworth!” was her exclamation, as she cast her eye over the motor that had brought him to the door.
“It is one of our latest productions,” he replied with pardonable pride.
“Is it for your wife?”
“That is not the kind of motor she requires. It is built to carry Royalty over the Spanish roads next spring, and I have been giving it a trial. I was asked for something that could climb a mountain track and ford a river. I wonder the order did not include jumping hedges and ditches.”
“And can the car climb a mountain and ford a river?”
“Like a bird! She’s a beauty.”
“Have you named it the ‘Spook’?”
“No; I have appropriated that name for the new machine I am inventing. I think I shall call this the ‘Gloriosa.’”
Mrs. Lane-Osborn looked enviously at the car.
“I have a great mind to buy her myself. My husband and I are thinking of taking a run through Spain next spring.”
“I can’t let you have that identical car, but I can give you a replica, if that will satisfy you. I warn you that the price is rather stiff.”
“That’s of no consequence,” answered the lady, to whom it offered more temptation than if he had recommended the car for its cheapness. “Let me have a perfect ditto, and I will go touring in Spain in the exact counterpart of one that carries royalty. I must find out the route, and keep just ahead of them. What fun it will be!”
She entered the door held open by the butler in answer to the ring of the bell on her arrival. Wentworth followed. A millionaire’s wife who could order cars without troubling about the price was a person to be respected. He accompanied her to the drawing-room.
Olwen was seated at her writing-table, busy with invitations for a social function. It was too early for visitors, and at the sound of their voices she looked round in surprise. Mrs. Lane-Osborn continued talking to Flordon up to the time of taking Olwen’s hand.
“I am telling your husband that he must build me a car just like the one he drove up in, Mrs. Wentworth.”
“Am I really to take it as an order?” he asked.
“To be sure. I’ll tell my husband to run down to-morrow and see the car. He will let you know if there are any alterations required. Mind, it is to be the twin of that one to all appearances outside, whatever you may do with the interior.” She turned to Olwen. “I was so sorry not to be able to call for you last week, and I had no time to write. I went over on a flying visit to Paris, and had a splendid time. Saw the incomparable Sarah, and heard the angelic Melba. You got the books all right?”
Olwen thanked her, and began to question her about Paris.
“I’ll tell you all about it in the car. I have come to take you to Madame Boyovitch’s. You have not forgotten that it is her day?”
“It is very kind of you to call, but you must excuse me. I have decided not to go again,” replied Olwen.
“Oh, nonsense! you must come, you really must. I won’t take any denial. I want a companion. Now, do be a kind, good soul and spare me a couple of hours. You need only sit quietly through the séance as a spectator and listen to the music—what there is of it; it is too vague and shadowy to suit me, but other people say they like it and find it a great help.”
Flordon guessed from the expression on his wife’s face that she was about to refuse again. It was not desirable, in view of the order which had just been given, that the lady should be offended. Before Olwen could speak, he said—
“Of course, my wife will gladly go with you if you really wish it.”
Mrs. Lane-Osborn bestowed a grateful glance upon him, and noting that Olwen showed signs of hesitation, she said—
“I shall be very grateful if you will come. Get ready as quickly as you can. I don’t want to be late. The doors are closed as soon as all the chairs are filled, and nothing will induce Monsieur Boyovitch to allow more than that number to be present.”
Flordon added his word to Mrs. Lane-Osborn’s entreaties in a tone that she knew ill-brooked refusal. Against her will and her better judgment, she acquiesced; and whilst she made her preparations her friend returned to the front door to further examine the royal car. Flordon was still exhibiting all the latest improvements that had been introduced into it when Olwen joined them, ready for the drive. She was very silent as they threaded their way along the crowded streets, and only half heard the animated history given by her companion of all her gay doings in Paris.
As she mounted the staircase of Madame Boyovitch s house she was suddenly assailed with misgivings as to the wisdom of the step she was taking. It had been hard enough to lay the ghost raised on the last occasion. Was it not pure folly on her part to run the risk of raising it again? She stopped short half-way up in indecision. Mrs. Lane-Osborn was ready at once with reassurances.
“Collect your thoughts, Mrs. Wentworth, and calm your mind. Make a supreme effort to throw off doubts which I can see are filling you with distrust. You are entangled and well-nigh overwhelmed with the thoughts that crowd this earthly plane. They choke you and hold you back from the astral plane. Nor the sake of the medium, you must exert yourself.”
“Perhaps I had better wait outside. I will go and sit in the car,” said Olwen, grasping at a straw to escape.
“The car is gone. I told Willis to take it away, as we should return as we did last time.”
She linked her arm in Olwen’s, hoping to inspire her with more confidence, and they moved slowly on towards the door.
“Compose your mind as if you were just going into a lovely sleep. As soon as you sink down into one of those comfortable arm-chairs your disturbance will vanish, and the blinding, hampering thoughts will depart like a flock of bats. Hush! here we are.”
She pushed aside the heavy curtain, and entered the chamber. There was a faint scent of tuberose lilies in the warm air. The room was lighted sufficiently to enable them to find their way without stumbling against the furniture. As before, most of the seats were occupied by well-dressed men and women, not one of whom so much as glanced up to note who had entered. This time there was no curiosity on Olwen’s part. She knew what the programme would be. The music was anticipated, and when it came it carried with it the same tranquilising power.
Madame Boyovitch glided to the recess. She was again clothed in soft black material, against which her arms and hands gleamed with a spiritual whiteness. Olwen watched her closely as she sank back in her chair, under the hanging lamp. The trance was not long in coming. It was announced as before by the extinction of the light. Remembering Mrs. Lane-Osborn’s injunctions, she made an effort to subdue any mental uneasiness that might linger, and concentrated her attention upon the music, which was Russian in its character and unfamiliar. Now and then a low-spoken sentence gave an indication that someone or another of the little party was in communication with a mysterious entity. The memory of her experience at the séance a fortnight ago returned. She endeavoured to set it aside, but it was too strong for the will, which was already weakened by the sensuous atmosphere that enveloped her.
Suddenly she was conscious of a pressure upon her shoulder, and a soft touch upon her neck. Her heart throbbed fast, but this time it was not with awe nor fear. A wild, irresistible desire for a certain presence, amounting almost to demand, arose within her. In answer to it the pressure became convincing. The beloved head was there nestling as of old upon her breast. The shadowy fingers played with the curls. A thrill ran through her whole system as she recognised their touch.
Her last feeble effort at resistance died away, and a wave of intense happiness submerged her in ecstatic bliss. She abandoned herself to the dream, oblivious of everything but the fact of his presence. It seemed to her that she had never in the whole course of her life drunk so deeply of the cup. The capacity for enjoyment had increased. She could love with the strong love of fully-developed womanhood. She longed for the equivalent in return for her gift. He would have given it to her had he lived.
But he did live! Was it not his arm that she felt pressing upon her waist? Were they not his lips that caressed the cheek and neck? In passionate contentment she closed her eyes, and gave herself up to the moment in all its fulness. The soft strains of the music, the warm scented air, the subdued light that was almost darkness, cradled her and her shadowy love in a dream of delight.
How long it lasted she could not tell. No word was spoken as she lay in that spirit embrace. The vision faded suddenly just as before, melting away into nothingness, and leaving a sensation of blank discontent. It was as though she were deserted and forsaken. She could have cried aloud to him to stay a little longer.
At this moment Monsieur Boyovitch approached his wife. Instead of arousing her from her trance, he placed a small table in front of her. Lifting her gently into a sitting position, he put a pencil in her hand and laid a piece of paper on the table. He returned to the audience, and inquired if anyone wished to ask a question. A lady intimated that she would like to communicate with her brother, who had passed over seven years ago. The replies to her questions were inscribed automatically by the medium; the sheet of paper was folded and handed to her by Monsieur Boyovitch without comment. He did not even glance at what his wife had written. Then a gentleman desired to know something. Again the hand of the medium moved rapidly over a fresh sheet, and when she ceased to write it was given to the inquirer. As Monsieur Boyovitch passed Olwen to deliver the message, he leaned over her and said in a low tone—
“You are wishing to ask some question of one who has been in touch with you to-day.”
It was not put interrogatively, but was a definite assertion, that did not admit of doubt in the speaker’s mind. She was startled. The wish had actually taken form. She longed to inquire if the presence she had felt was only a trick of the fancy or whether he was really within touch. Was he happy? Did her action give him pleasure as it gave her, or did it cause him unnecessary pain? To ask a question of any kind would be an evidence of her belief in the vision. It had appeared and disappeared so mysteriously that even now she could not persuade herself to cast out all doubt of its reality.
She replied, after a pause, that she had no question to put to the medium. Monsieur Boyovitch was not satisfied with her answer. He lingered a moment before her. She had drawn off one of her gloves, and was holding it in her hand. He took it from her unresisting fingers and went to his wife, who was sitting motionless at the table. He put the usual sheet of paper under the point of the pencil. Folding the glove, he placed it upon Madame Boyovitch’s forehead. Every action was scrupulously gentle and free from any abrupt movement. As soon as she felt the pressure of the glove upon her brow, she laid her left hand over it. Almost immediately the pencil began to trace some words in large sprawling writing. It ceased, and Monsieur Boyovitch waited as long as the glove was held close to the forehead. The hand dropped without warning, and he caught the glove. Folding it in the paper, he came quickly to Olwen, and put the little packet in her lap without a word.
A minute later the medium arose as if just awaking to consciousness after deep sleep, and left the room supported by her husband.
As Olwen descended the stairs, Mrs. Lane-Osborn said—
“Well! There was nothing to alarm you in the séance, was there? You must come again, and next time. I prophesy that you will rather enjoy it. I have an appointment elsewhere, so must say good-bye; thank you so much for being so good-natured. I shall call for you this day week.”
Olwen listened in dreamy silence, making no objection to the arrangement. She entered the motor cab. As soon as it had started, and she was alone and safe from interruption, she opened the packet which she had held clasped in her hand. This is what she deciphered—
“Darling! it is a joy to be with you again!”
That evening Flordon dined at home. The dinner hour was eight. At half-past seven he was dressed and restlessly pacing the drawing-room. Olwen had returned, and had refreshed herself with tea. After tea she made an honest endeavour to concentrate her attention upon a novel that she was reading. She found, however, that her mind was out of hand. Her eyes followed the words, but her brain failed to take in their meaning. In thought she was back in that luxurious room yielding herself up to those strange sensations. The book dropped upon her lap as memory asserted its full sway.
In the middle of her dreams Flordon entered and commenced his restless perambulations. It was a common habit with him when his nerves were strained by work. She knew it too well.
“I say; isn’t it time you chucked that rotten novel and dressed?”
“The gong has not yet sounded.”
“That fool of a girl is late with it. I daresay their clocks are all wrong in the kitchen. Women are the worst timekeepers in the world. I want my dinner; I can’t settle to work until I have had my dinner.”
Olwen rose from her cushions without haste; put a mark in the book, and replaced it on the little table near at hand. Her dream still overshadowed her.
“Oh! hurry up, Olwen. You have the same exasperating ways that idiot Lewis had. He always moved about as if nothing mattered, and time was of no consequence.”
The words jarred horribly and raised a sudden wrath within her that was new.
“Hadn’t you better leave the memory of the dead alone, Flordon? It would scarcely be wise for me to draw comparisons; yet that is the temptation of the moment.”
He stopped in his walk to look at her in surprise. For the first time in her life she had broken her rule of receiving his sallies in silence.
“I’m not afraid of comparisons,” he replied combatively.
“But I am,” she rejoined quickly, as she rose and left him.
A brief interview with her obliging maids, who loved her as much as they hated their master, pushed the dinner forward to a quarter to eight. As the bell rang she came down from her room and joined Flordon in the dining-room. He glanced at her as she took her seat. All trace of annoyance was gone, and she was her normal self. She replied to his questions cheerfully when they admitted of a reply. His remarks that did not admit of a sympathetic response were received in silence as usual. It was not without an effort that she recovered her evenness of temper. A new spirit of criticism seemed to have taken possession of her. Every word he uttered, every hasty, unconsidered action was weighed in a balance and measured by the standard of a man who was dead.
“So you went to another séance with that silly little woman?” he said presently.
“It was all your doing, Flordon. I did not intend to go to any more.”
“You were satisfied that the last was all trickery and humbug. You are about right there. The whole show is nothing more than an exhibition of clever imposture.”
“You believe that it is humbug?”
“I know it.”
“Then why did you make me go?”
“Because I was anxious that Mrs. Lane-Osborn should be pleased instead of offended. I knew it could do you no harm. It might bore you, but that wouldn’t matter. If she had asked my wife to go to a matinée or a lecture on prehistoric man, or to a social gamble, I should have done the same. Be as civil as you can to that class of woman. They are first-rate customers.”
“I find people are very divided in opinion as to whether it is right or wrong to go to these séances,” said Olwen.
“How can there be anything wrong in them, unless they are made a means of robbery?” he asked contemptuously. “If the medium tried to hypnotise you, and deprive you of your jewellery whilst you were under her influence, it would be quite another matter.”
Olwen assured him that there was no thought of dishonesty in the minds of either the medium or her husband. Their profit consisted of the entrance fees, which were high.
“It puzzles me to understand what the attraction can be after the curiosity is satisfied,” remarked Flordon indifferently.
“The attraction lies in the belief that the people present communicate with the spirit-world.”
“If they did communicate with the spirit-world, there would be no harm in talking with spooks. But the whole thing is folly—one of the biggest bits of folly in the present age. Their visions are conjured up by their ill-regulated imaginations.”
“It can’t be good for them,” she said, looking up with more than usual eagerness to hear his reply.
“Dreams when they partake of the nature of nightmare are unpleasant, but you can’t say that they are injurious to you in any way. The dreams conjured up at a séance are probably pleasant. How can there be any possible harm in them, pleasant or unpleasant?”
Olwen did not reply to his query. His words were not without their effect. She knew that his views on many subjects were sound and practical. She observed—
“Mrs. Lane-Osborn wants me to go again next week.”
“Then go by all means. As long as you please her, I shall continue to build motor-cars for her. She is one of those women who must be in the front rank with everything of the newest and latest design about her. She and her kind are the very pillars of trade.”
Faithful to her promise, Mrs. Lane-Osborn appeared at the appointed time and carried off Olwen to the séance. There was no objection on this occasion to the visit. Olwen was ready when the car drove up, and she required no urging from her husband to step into it. The spirit of opposition in which she went to the first séance had vanished. Her scruples were laid aside, and in place of resistance there was an eagerness for the hour to arrive. She was conscious of a joyous anticipation of the pleasure in store as she stepped into the motor.
Just before they arrived at the door an uncomfortable sensation of guilty folly took possession of her for a fleeting moment. Prudence insisted on making its voice heard. It suggested that she was in danger of undermining a level, unemotional happiness that made life tolerable. Might she not be fostering discontent which would destroy the tranquility of her existence and overthrow her equability of temper? It was her present strong shield of defence against the sharp angles of her husband’s rugged character. Already there was a growing contempt for him in the bottom of her heart, and a tendency to criticise his every word and action.
After Flordon’s assertion that the impressions produced at the séance were the result of trickery, aided by imagination, a horrible thought entered her mind. Perhaps some human being in the flesh had personated the beloved one. If for no other purpose than to discover whether this were true or not, she was anxious to experience another manifestation.
There being no delay in starting this time, they were early in arriving, and but few of the chairs were occupied when they entered. This gave Olwen the opportunity of choosing her seat. She picked out a chair that was apart from the rest, and slightly isolated in its position. The light was sufficient to show her the form of any accomplice who might approach. She was certain that there was no imposition. No one in the flesh came near her. Monsieur Boyovitch was the only attendant on his wife. Though the light was dim, it was never wholly extinguished. His tall, dark form was always visible among the audience. Had he knelt by her side and personated the spirit, she must have recognised him.
The vision came bringing its intense pleasure. It was welcomed with unfeigned delight; and when it had enfolded her in its rosy dream of bliss, she cared not whether it was the result of her imagination or whether a spirit was really called from the astral plane to hold communion with her. What did it matter how the effect was produced? Real or unreal, the presence was there, and the desire of her heart was fulfilled.
“Did you see anyone by my side?” she inquired of Mrs. Lane-Osborn after they left.
“No; does anyone come to you?” she asked eagerly.
“I fancied I felt a presence.”
“It was no fancy. You did feel a presence, the presence of one who was trying to communicate with you. You ought to rejoice. It is not given to everybody to hold communion.”
“I suppose Monsieur Boyovitch does not mesmerise his audience, and bring them under the influence of hallucinations?”
“How could he do anything of the kind? Mesmerism has nothing to do with spiritism. All the experts will tell you so. No; someone came to you, and will come again if you persevere and give her assistance. No doubt it was your mother. Next time you must think exclusively of her. It will help her to materialise.”
With this visit the last shadow of Olwen’s objection to attending the séances vanished. All through the winter months of November and December she paid her weekly visit, sometimes in Mrs. Lane-Osborn’s company, sometimes by herself. That lady’s interest in the subject was already on the wane. Her curiosity was satisfied, and she discovered that the living had more interest for her than the dead. Not only was she the contented wife of a good-natured husband, but she was the mother of two handsome children. Motherhood had been denied to Olwen, and she knew nothing of that safe anchorage for her sex, a happy nursery. It was a loss in her life, the importance of which she could not realise, since she accepted her childlessness with the same resignation that she had accepted her husband.
Remembering Mrs. Lane-Osborn’s advice, she made an effort at the very next séance to call her mother. The effort was unsuccessful. No sooner had she concentrated her thoughts than she felt the other presence. The memory of her mother was banished in a moment, together with the desire to see her, and she succumbed to that other more welcome influence at once. There was no real longing for her mother. To summon her to the earthly plane would be like disturbing a human being in the flesh from a refreshing sleep. It was best, she told herself, to let her rest in peace. This world had held nothing but pain and sickness for the poor invalid. It would be cruelty to recall her to the scene of her sufferings. Olwen made no further effort to communicate with any other spirit. She was contented with the one that had sought her from the beginning.
The constant attendance at the séances was not without its effect. The desire to meet the beloved one grew with indulgence; and with its growth arose an ever present fear lest her secret should be discovered. She lived for that one sweet hour from one week’s end to another, hungering for the happiness with an unsatisfied longing. If conscience pricked, it was silenced with the arguments used by her husband. She called it a dream, and told herself repeatedly that it was nothing but the play of a vivid imagination. There was no more harm in dreaming by day than there was in dreaming by night.
Before long there came a time when the hour passed at Madame Boyovitch’s did not bring with it content. The impression, instead of intensifying in its reality, became more shadowy. A sudden fear seized her that she was on the point of being forsaken. The thought was intolerable. After a sitting that had been more than usually unsatisfying, she asked in a low, passionate whisper—
“Cannot you come to me at my own house?”
The reply given in writing by the medium was—
“We must meet here.”
“If you cannot come to me, can I come to you?”
“Not without assistance.”
“Who can help me?”
“Monsieur Boyovitch.”
As he handed her the slip of paper, he waited whilst she deciphered the answer to her questions by the aid of a shaded lamp.
“Monsieur Boyovitch,”she said softly, “I am in a little difficulty. Perhaps you can help me. The spirit who visits me from the other side is sometimes so dim that I cannot realise its presence.”
“Your thoughts are too earthly in their character. They cloud the atmosphere, and form as it were a barrier between yourself and the person with whom you would communicate.”
She was silent, conscious that there was a material element in her desires. He continued—
“You must bring a purely spiritual mind to the séance, otherwise the medium cannot help you.”
“It is not easy to regulate one’s mind at a given moment. If I could find the spirit at will, at my own time and place——” she broke off and asked: Is it possible to do without the help of the medium?”
“I cannot say for certain. It depends upon the strength of your mental power of concentration. You can but make a trial. I will not promise you success.”
He left her, and presently returned with a small glass prism.
“Fix your eyes upon this when you are quite alone, and sure of not being disturbed. A semblance of sleep will overtake you. In your sleep you will leave the earthly plane and find—him whom you seek.”
The last four words were spoken in a whisper. She was startled. She had been careful to give no indication of the character of her friend in speaking to him. She looked at him in fear.
“Perhaps it will be wise not to make the attempt. I must be content with what I have here.”
He read what was in her mind, and answered it.
“There is nothing to fear. Take the prism, and if it proves useless throw it away. It is nothing but a piece of glass. The power to go to the astral plane where the spirits wait lies with yourself, and not in that piece of glass. It is not granted to everyone.”
She persisted in her refusal, and he moved away without saying more. She believed that he had acquiesced in her decision. As she went out, a maid at the door placed a parcel in her hand. She opened it in the cab. It was a small jeweller’s case, and upon the satin lining lay the prism, which shone in the light of the electric lamp with reflections that held her fascinated gaze.
Busy as he was, Flordon noted the alteration that had taken place in his wife. He was not pleased. Her placid temperament had forsaken her, and her temper was uncertain. The charm of her dignified calm, which was never without a soothing influence upon him, was gone. Irritation on his own part he considered was excusable. A brain that is always working reacts upon the nerves. There was no excuse for his wife. Her duties ran in an even groove, and made no demand upon the nervous system. They were free from anxiety. So also were her pleasures. For his sake she ought to preserve her tranquillity and even temper, since both these qualities reacted beneficially upon himself.
Christmas passed with its usual gaieties, its shopping, and its flight of Christmas cards. Olwen entertained her guests at various social gatherings, dinners, and card parties. Some came from the suburbs, protesting that she lived far out of their reach, and ever questioning her reason for planting herself in the very centre of the metropolis, as they termed it. Others were connected with business that concerned Flordon. They were ready to go fifty miles without a murmur when there was an attraction, but could not cross the road to dine with an acquaintance who would neither interest nor benefit them.
The gaiety she assumed at the parties was forced, and there were moments when her thoughts were far away from the assembled company. She was absent-minded, and scarcely heard what was said around her. Flordon inquired casually if her exchequer was low, at the same time expressing a hope that she would not spare expense over her entertainments. She replied that she had a good balance at her banker’s, and that the household expenditure would be no greater this year than last.
“Have you seen Mrs. Lane-Osborn lately?” he asked one day at the end of January.
“Not for a fortnight or three weeks.”
“Has she given up taking you to the séances?”
“Quite; I believe that she is tired of them. She complains that there is nothing new to see or to learn. I think Cardinal Vane, with his startling sermons against the sins of society, absorbs all her attention.”
“And you?”
“Cardinal Vane has no attraction for me. I neither gamble nor drink, nor overspend my income.”
“Nor break the seventh commandment, eh?” added Flordon, with a disagreeable laugh.
A hot flush spread over her pale, handsome face. There was something offensive in his tone as well as in the words. She flashed out at him in hasty speech, which she regretted as soon as it was uttered.
“How dare you say such a thing?”
He glanced at her sharply, and not without curiosity. He did not suspect her virtue; yet the nature of the man was such that he was unable to resist the temptation of annoying her. If she had followed her old plan, and maintained silence, he would not have pursued the subject. As it was, he retorted quickly—
“Then you need not look guilty, nor lose your temper.”
By an effort she controlled herself. The sudden flush gave place to pallor, and he noted that she was haggard and worn. As she made no further comment, he asked—
“Do you still attend Madame Boyovitch’s séances?”
“Madame Boyovitch is ill, and there have been no séances for the last three weeks.”
“So much the better. It will be as well for you to drop the subject: I am inclined to think that dabbling in spiritism has weakened your nerve. I gave you credit for possessing a stronger mind than you have, Olwen. What fools you women are!”
She made no reply. His blunt allusion to the breaking of one of the commandments penetrated like a sword thrust, and his remark upon the weakening of her nerve left her dismayed and aghast. It was not her nerve that was weakened, but her moral sense. It was true that she had not sinned against him in deed, but she had come near to it in thought. Apart from the question of sin, her attendance at Madame Boyovitch’s house had involved a course of subterfuge and deceit that was unworthy of her. When Mrs. Lane-Osborn was tired of spiritism and sought for fresh excitement elsewhere, Olwen knew that it would have been wise to relinquish the pursuit of the phantom presence; but she had been unable to tear herself from its alluring fascination. Brought face to face with the ugly reality of her action by the chance expression that fell from her husband’s lips, a sudden compunction seized her. Conscience at last made its voice to be heard, and a wave of tardy repentance swept over her. She formed a resolution then and there that she would have nothing more to do with spiritism. If Madame Boyovitch resumed the séances she would keep away. It ought not to be difficult to carry out her resolution now that Mrs. Lane-Osborn had ceased to demand her companionship.
She made a courageous effort to rouse herself from the state of dreamy discontent and irritability into which she had fallen, and to conquer the intense longing that bid fail occasionally to overwhelm her. Fancy played strange tricks. Sometimes she seemed to hear Lewis’s voice pleading for one more interview, just one short half-hour that he might take farewell of her and learn the reason for her desertion. A sense of justice seemed to tell her that this was only due to him for his fidelity. She stifled the insidious suggestion, and was thankful for the moment that Madame Boyovitch was not available.
February arrived with its cold winds and bright sunshine. The snowdrops and crocuses in the square, as well as in the country, put forth their blossoms, and the birds began to tune their voices for their burst of song in the approaching spring.
Flordon was elated and full of good spirits. His project was completed, and the Spook was ready to work. The tubes and wires by which he dealt with the mysterious force were hidden from view in a wooden case painted a dead white. There were levers and wheels, and a small engine driven by electricity to set in motion the force-compeller.
At the request of her husband, Olwen arranged a dinner-party, to which several scientific men were invited. Although they were ready to admit the existence of an unknown force latent in matter itself, they had expressed disbelief in the practicability of controlling that force and of turning it to a commercial use. Flordon intended to carry off the sceptics after dinner, and to give them an exhibition of the new machine and its marvellous capabilities. The dinner hour was fixed earlier than usual, to allow of a long evening.
Taking advantage of a sunny morning, Olwen went out in her car to do a little shopping. At the Army and Navy Stores she met Mrs. Lane-Osborn, who greeted her warmly, and began to pout into her ear her latest enthusiasm. The craze for the Cardinal was dying out, and the Spanish tour filled her mind. She had discovered the route which royalty proposed to take, and had mapped out her own route accordingly.
“Your husband is a dear!” she cried. “He built me a perfect twin car to the one he sent over to Spain. I’ve already had two offers for it, both from Americans. They were just wild to possess it after they had heard its history and what I intended to do.”
Owen listened sympathetically. Presently she asked in a careless tone—
“By-the-by, have you been to Madame Boyovitch’s lately?”
Mrs. Lane-Osborn became unusually serious.
“Hav’n’t you heard? The poor creature is in a lunatic asylum. She went raving mad, and her husband could do nothing with her. “
“Mad!” repeated Olwen, shocked at the news.
“Mediums usually go mad if they continue practising too long. The nervous system gives way, and I’ve been told that their insanity takes rather a dreadful form. I am sorry for Monsieur Boyovitch!”
“He is to be blamed, not pitied,” said Olwen indignantly. “He made her do it.”
“She need not have done it unless she chose. If she found that it was doing her harm, she ought to have left off. I shall not go to any more séances. Cardinal Vane says they are wrong, and partake of the nature of black magic. You ought to hear him on the subject. He declares that people attend séances for sordid motives that are purely selfish. They want to communicate with those who have been removed from our midst by the will of a High Power; or they wish to discover certain things that will benefit them materially. I know some women who never make an investment without consulting the spirits through a medium.”
“Do they receive any information that benefits them?”
Mrs. Lane-Osborn laughed heartily at Olwen’s serious question.
“Don’t you know that there are lying spirits as well as good spirits? The inquirers are more likely to be deceived than to gain any useful information if they attempt to put the science to a commercial use. I believe the cardinal is quite right. Occultism lowers the moral tone and weakens the brain, unless it is handled by an expert. If I go in for anything of that sort again, I shall try hypnotism pure and simple, not as the subject, but as the operator. Just fancy how lovely it would be to have the power of compelling tiresome callers to get up and go before the tea comes in; or of keeping certain men much hunted by designing chaperones by one’s side. Do give me your opinion on another matter. What do you think the Spanish royalties will wear on their tour, fur or leather?”
“Is there no danger in hypnotism?” asked Olwen.
“None whatever, if you are the operator. The scientists know all about hypnotism, but they don’t understand the phenomena of spiritism. They can’t deny that there is something beyond their ken in spiritism, and they think that it isn’t hypnotism. With these dreamy, dark eyes of yours, you look as if you had the power of hypnotising others. When I come back from Spain you and I will take lessons in the art. Oh! I wish I knew whether it should be fur or feather.”
“Buy both, and then you will be prepared,” said Olwen, a suggestion which sent the perplexed motorist hot foot to the fur department.
The brightness of the day departed early, and by the time Olwen reached home a gentle rain was falling. Flordon did not turn up for lunch, and she took her meal without waiting for him. Knowing how busy he was making his preparations for the display in the evening she did not expect to see him until it was time to dress for dinner.
There was a fire in her boudoir, a little snuggery off the drawing-room opening into a conservatory full of flowers. Olwen sank listlessly into a chair and took up a book. It was the life of a great scientist, a man who, in conjunction with others, had been instrumental in bringing electricity under control so that it could be adapted to commercial use. There would probably be some talk of pioneer movements and subsequent progress at the dinner table that evening. The book she was reading might make the conversation more intelligible, and enable her to take part in it.
“If you please, ma’m, I found this small packet in your glove-drawer,” said her maid at her elbow.
Olwen looked at the little parcel handed to her by Bessie, and recognised it at once. It was the prism which Monsieur Boyovitch had pressed her to take, and which had been thrust upon her by the door attendant. Bessie left the room, and as she closed the door Olwen opened the case. The prism was of the finest glass, beautifully cut. It shone and sparkled in the electric light, which had been turned up to illuminate the dimness of the wet afternoon. The memory of Monsieur Boyovitch’s directions returned, and a sudden temptation arose and took her unawares. She touched the bell to recall the maid.
“Bessie, I have a headache, and should like to sleep. If anyone calls I am not at home. Do not bring tea until I ring.”
Flordon returned to the house at about six. He was full of suppressed excitement, and his nerves were strung to a high pitch. He was also full of confidence. His discovery would startle not only the men who were to be his guests that night, but the whole world of science. The name of Wentworth would surely eclipse that of Edison. How the Americans would rage when they found that he had occupied the heights before them. “If you please, sir, I am afraid that my mistress is not well,” said Bessie, approaching with a troubled expression upon her pretty face.
Flordon put down his hat, and, without stopping to take off his coat and gloves, followed the maid into the boudoir. The lights were turned off, and the fire had burned low. Olwen was lying at full length on the sofa in a dead sleep. A smile of supreme happiness was upon her lips, such as her husband had never seen there since she had been his wife.
“How long has she been asleep?”
“I don’t know, sir. After lunch she told me that she wished to rest, and would not see any visitors. She said she would ring when she was ready for tea. I have tried to wake her, as it is time to dress for dinner, but she seems in a dead faint.”
He touched her hand, which, from the lowered circulation, was cold and lifeless. As he lifted it, the prism rolled into her lap. He caught it up, and looked closely at it. Then, turning to the.maid, he said—
“All right, Bessie, there is nothing much the matter. She is only in a deep sleep. I will wake her presently. You need not wait.”
The girl hurried away, as she was in the midst of arranging the flowers for the dinner table. In her haste she left the door ajar. Flordon rose, and closed it carefully. He switched on the electric light, and came swiftly to the sofa. The leather gloves of thick dogskin, which he had removed on entering the room, were still held in his hand. He lifted them, and brought them down up Olwen’s cheek and neck with a shower of sharp stinging blows.
At the turning up of the brilliant light she had stirred and sighed. Consciousness was returning by the aid of the sudden illumination. The slight shock that it caused to the nervous system was sufficient to restore her completely in a few minutes; but the man was beside himself with rage. It was fortunate that he was armed at the moment with no more dangerous weapon than the gloves. He did not stop to think, but continued to rain down blows upon her tender skin with as little consideration as a sodden brute of the slums showers blows with his stick upon his wife.
A cry of dismay escaped her lips, and she sat up, placing both her hands before her face to protect herself.
“Oh! you d——d fool!” he said between his teeth. “It is what you want; something that will make you smart, and remember the smart.”
The shock of the rough, abrupt awakening, with the unnecessary violence, was too much for Olwen. She broke into hysterical sobs. She was not given to tears, and her husband had never witnessed such an outburst. He looked on with grim satisfaction, and swore at her again, beating the gloves viciously upon the palm of his hand, as though it was with the utmost difficulty that he refrained himself from another onslaught.
“Stop that crying! Get up and go to your dressing-room, and ask the maid to give you a cup of strong coffee.
“Come now,” he continued, roughly and without mercy. “Stop it, I tell you! You have to receive your guests in less than an hour, and you won’t be fit to be seen if you go on crying like that.”
He helped her to her feet. Her swimming eyes sought his with all the courage of her nature. There was a spark of anger in their depths which grew as she strove to find her voice.
“You—you——!” she began.
“That will do, Olwen,” he said. “You need not accuse me or excuse yourself. I know what you have been about. You dropped this.” He showed her the prism. Picking up the satin-lined case, he replaced it, and put the case in his pocket. “You had this from that hound of a Russian, I suppose, and he taught you how to use it? I will teach you how not to use it. By Heaven, if I find you practising auto-hypnotism again I will do something worse. Do you hear? I mean it. You need not look at me in that defiant way. You once were a woman of nerve and good sense. Now you are a silly fool, who must be kept from committing folly by brute force, and I am the man to do it! Go! go to your room, and be back in the drawing-room in time to receive your guests.”
It was like a dash of icy water in her face. His brutal speech had the effect of curing the hysteria that threatened to take possession of her. She was thoroughly awake now, and her tears ceased to flow. As he held the door open for her to pass out, she stopped and turned upon him, unflinchingly meeting the gaze of those pale, prominent eyes which glowed with the red light of anger. Passionate words poured from her lips without restraint. It seemed as though some strange spirit spoke within her, using her tongue for utterances that were not her own. It was not her tranquil, reserved self that pronounced the scathing denunciations; that reproached him bitterly for his treatment of Lewis, his loveless purchase of herself as a figurehead for his house.
“You are an inhuman machine, without one drop of the milk of human kindness in your nature to make you even tolerable. Your workpeople hate you, your servants detest you, and I—I loathe you, and wish with all my heart and soul that you were dead! I pray God for the speedy hour of my deliverance.”
During the outburst Flordon quietly closed the door again. He had no wish to make the quarrel public. He became calm and suave in a moment. The frown disappeared, and his eyes lost their fiery light. Her exhibition of temper seemed to amuse him, and he was like a great block of grey concrete against which the storm-waves of human passion might beat in vain.
“Aren’t you talking just a little wildly, Olwen?” he asked, with an irritating smile that might have justified his murder on the spot.
She did not reply, but made a movement as though she would leave the room at once. He opened the door deliberately, saying in a tone of cold criticism—
“You seem awake now. It is not easy to recover from the demoralising effects of a hypnotic trance. You will tell your maid to bring you the coffee. Dinner is at seven, remember; and our guests will be punctual.”
His utterances, modulated as they were, fell like the unerring blows of a steam-hammer—a deadly machine that can crack a nut or pulverise a stone.
“Oh!” she moaned, when she reached the solitude of her own room. “I feel as if I had been torn from heaven by a devil, and plunged into hell! Oh, merciful God, release me from my bonds!”
The cup of coffee did much to restore Olwen, but the memory of the stinging blows of the leather gloves remained. With their memory her anger still smouldered. When her toilet was completed, she did not go downstairs immediately, but stood in the middle of the room in hesitation. She was strongly tempted to remain upstairs and go to bed instead of performing her social duties. In the midst of her indecision Flordon entered. He had foreseen the probability of some such action on her part, and intended to circumvent it by carrying her off if necessary against her will.
All sign of annoyance and displeasure had disappeared from his face, which now wore a smile. It was not a pleasant one, nor did it hide his merciless will and iron-bound determination to have his way.
“I am glad to see that you are ready. The guests will be arriving in five minutes. This evening is to be the triumph of my life. The project nearest to my heart is completed, and I stand conqueror,” he said smoothly.
She made no reply; she felt that she could not open her lips to him but to curse. He took her arm and led her unresistingly down the broad stairs to the drawing-room. There was no time for further conversation, for which Olwen was thankful. The guests arrived early, so that the dinner might actually commence at the hour named.
It passed off successfully. Flordon, excited and full of the thought of his triumph, talked brilliantly. His wife was more silent than usual. She listened courteously to the remarks of her neighbours, who became eloquent under the belief that they had her full attention. Coffee and cigarettes came with the dessert, and no time was lost. At half-past eight, four motorcars stood at the door ready, to take the party to the works.
“Are you not coming to see the invention of the age, Mrs. Wentworth?” asked a white-haired man whose name was known to fame.
She excused herself on the plea of headache, which in this case was not conventional, but an uncomfortable reality. Flordon heard the invitation, and for a moment seemed as though he would endorse it. Then, changing his mind, he whispered in his wife’s ear—
“Mind! No more tricks!”
The smile that accompanied the words maddened her. It was full of the confidence of strength, and the remark was unnecessary. He had placed the prism under lock and key in his dressing-room.
“We shall see you in a couple of hours time, Mrs Wentworth, and we will tell you what we think of his mysterious spook,” said another guest as he departed.
A sigh of relief escaped her as the last motor glided away from the house and she was left alone. Now she would have time and opportunity to recover that placidity of mind which of late had forsaken her. Ever since her rough awakening she had been in a whirl, swayed by a tumult of emotions. The dream—was it a dream? she wondered—broke up and faded under the violence of her husband. A deep indignation burned within her as she recalled the blows given her with the gloves. It is true that they left no lasting mark such as the blows of a cane might have inflicted; but their memory stung. She was humiliated and outraged by the needless violence he had used. His action was nothing more nor less than brutal. He had lifted his hand against a woman, and that woman was his wife. It was monstrous—intolerable!
Where was she when he had so cruelly intruded? Fragments of her dream flitted through her brain. The vision was unlike anything that she had experienced at Madame Boyovitch’s except in one particular. There was that same vital reality about it which never came to an ordinary day-dream. She was with someone she loved. Of course it was Lewis. Who else could it be? Together they floated in an ecstasy of bliss through vague realms of light, oblivious of the physical world. Mere existence there was a delight, an unspeakable joy.
It was that wonderful astral plane of which she had read, the plane on which those in the flesh by means of their astral bodies are said to be able to hold communion with those who have passed over, and who no longer possess physical bodies. She would willingly have left the earthly plane for ever at that moment, if she might float through the eons of time in those tranquil regions with him to whom she had given the love of her life. Love! What was her love in the old days compared with the passion that had been awakened under the influence of the séances? The love she had given her boy-husband when he was with her in the flesh was the puny affection of a half-grown girl, a tender, undeveloped plant that was only stalk and green leaves. The love that filled her now was like a blossom, requiring nothing but the warm rays of the sun to burst into full beauty. That life-giving warmth she would never receive from Flordon. He scorned the higher emotions, and held himself outside the circle of the divine love which comes to those who are happily wedded. There was no room in this shallow heart for it—no room in his life for companionship or for sweet intimacy with another human being—wife or friend. His mind was devoted to his secret researches, and his ambition was centred on the completion of his scheme, which was to bring him additional wealth and world-wide fame. As Olwen turned her mental eyes with steady, scrutinising gaze upon the man whom she called husband, she thought of his own steam-hammer again, and the likeness became stronger. The impious prayer that she had uttered in the privacy of her room rose to her lips, and was repeated with passionate abandonment.
“Oh, God!” she cried. “Kill him and let me go free!”
How long she had been sitting thus a prey to the torment of her fierce, unbridled desires she did not know; nor how often she prayed for his death. Six months ago the thought of such a wish would have filled her with horror; but now, with her weakened moral sense, it seemed to bring a kind of dreary, unholy comfort to pray for his death. Her evil reverie was broken by the sound of a motor-horn.
Startled by a sudden sense of guilt, she looked at the clock. It was barely an hour since the party had left, and they had anticipated being absent at least two hours. The exhibition was over more quickly than they had calculated. She wondered without a spark of sympathy whether it had proved a failure after all. What a fall it would be to Flordon’s pride: but such an event would make him more intolerable than ever.
There was a curious absence of all voices. Perhaps it was Flordon himself, who had returned to fetch the plans which were locked up in a drawer of his writing-table. In the midst of her surmisings the door opened, and the gentleman who had taken her in to dinner entered. The expression on his face caused her to spring to her feet and advance towards him.
“Dear Mrs. Wentworth,” he said, in a voice which be controlled with difficulty, “I am the bearer of bad news. There has been an accident at the works.”
“My husband! He is dead!” she gasped, her heart giving a great leap.
The scientist looked into her face curiously, thinking how strangely alike in their effects were sudden shocks of sorrow and joy. He did not reply immediately. During those few moments of silence the better part of Olwen’s nature asserted itself, and rose in revolt against the tyranny of evil passion that had held her in its grasp. The words of the wicked prayer that had so lately been on her lips came back, and she cried in a tone of anguish that rang in the ears of her bearer long afterwards—
“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t say that he is dead!”
The answer was solemn and impressive.
“He lives; but whether he will recover or die no one can say. He is in God’s hands.”
She interlaced her fingers tightly over her breast, whilst he watched with some anxiety for any sign of nervous collapse. He need not have feared. Olwen was not likely to faint. In the sudden mental revulsion caused by the news, conscience had at last freed itself from the spell that had paralysed it, and was making itself heard.
“What has happened?” she asked.
“Wentworth has been badly hurt by his new machine.”
“Tell me how.”
The gaze of her tearless eyes was difficult to bear. He had expected tears and possibly lamentations. This strained attitude with its hard, dry questioning distressed him.
“The new machine was put into motion, and at first it seemed to be working all right. Wentworth explained how it was driven and what it was doing, and we were all marvelling at the strangeness and ingenuity of the invention. Suddenly there was a terrific explosion. Your husband, who was the only person near it, had his left hand resting upon one of the levers. He was thrown to the ground with great violence and was stunned. His fingers also suffered, and I fear that the wrist is broken. Most fortunately he did not happen to be leaning over it at that moment, or he must have been killed. He was turning away to answer a remark made by one of the party.”
“What caused the explosion? Was there any trickery?”
“Trickery?” he repeated, in some surprise. “Surely you do not think that any of his workmen would wish to compass his death. That would be murder.”
“I—I——” She stopped in embarrassment, choked in her reply.
“As far as I could gather,” continued the scientist, “you husband has been inventing a machine that is designed to tap this unknown force and store it for future use. Such a thing is impossible. We have no vehicle on this earth strong enough to contain it. If it is to be utilised at all, it will not be by any means of storage. All along it has been my opinion that it is too powerful an entity for humanity to handle.”
She did not follow his argument; her mind was occupied by one thought only, the catastrophe that had occurred.
“Where is Flordon?” she asked.
“I left him in the doctor’s hands at the works. The most serious symptoms are the haemorrhage and the shock to the nervous system. As soon as the bleeding has stopped and the wound is bound up he will be brought here. I believe a nurse has been summoned. I was sent on ahead to break the news to you and ask you to make the necessary preparations for receiving him.”
“Will he die?” she asked in an awed voice that was scarcely above a whisper.
“The doctor was unable to say. He wished me to prepare you for the worst. Tetanus may set in at any moment. May God support you in your hour of trouble,” said the man of science reverently.
His researches into the dark corners of nature had gone deep, but they had not undermined his simple faith in a Creator and a Preserver. He left the drawing-room unnoticed by the conscience-stricken woman; and after a few words to the maids he departed quietly. Olwen stood motionless as if petrified. Not ten minutes ago she had madly prayed that Flordon might be killed. The answer to her prayer had come close upon its utterance with awful celerity. And what did that answer make her? What was she who had breathed that impious entreaty? Nothing more or less than the murderess of her husband. Surely it was not a God of goodness and of love who had granted her request. It was the work of some devil. She had read that there were wicked spirits in that occult world which she had so rashly explored. Every faith from Christianity down to the most benighted heathenism acknowledged their existence. Was it possible that those spirits, aided by the evil desires of her heart, had been granted permission to compass his death? A great fear mastered her, and her hands trembled so that she could not fasten the cloak that her maid threw round her shoulders as she left the warm room.
Like one in the throes of a bad dream, she moved slowly to the hall to await the coming of the party that should bring her husband back. Upstairs the servants ran to and fro making the necessary preparations for the patient and his nurse. The parlour-maid asked a question or two, which Olwen answered mechanically. One unuttered word rang in her ears as though it had been shouted aloud throughout the house.
“Murderess! murderess! murderess!”
If he died the brand would be upon her for ever like the brand upon Cain. The world would never know it, but it would be there all the same. An overwhelming sense of inaction and despair seized her. What were they doing? Were they letting him die instead of saving him? Wore the evil influences at work to complete the fulfilment of her wicked desire? He must live! Oh, God! He must live to save her soul from everlasting perdition!
Out of the murky cloud of evil that was weighing her down to the very depths she struggled heavenwards. Her spirit rose in an agonised prayer to God that the life other husband might be spared. In bitter repentance she pleaded, and in the deepest humility she acknowledged her sin and prayed for forgiveness.
The half-hour that elapsed between the departure of the bearer of the bad tidings and the arrival of the doctor and his patient seemed an eternity of time. At the sound of the horn the maid flung open the door. A little group of silent men lifted a limp body from the car and bore it upstairs. They took no notice of her; they were too fully engaged with their unconscious burden. Was he alive or dead? She followed close behind and caught a glimpse of the still white face. There were bandages across his forehead as well as upon his arm and hand. In spite of all the care that had been taken to obliterate the signs of haemorrhage, there were tell-tale streaks of crimson here and there which made her shudder with apprehension. A little later she listened breathlessly as the doctor spoke.
“I cannot tell you yet how it will go with him. Two of his fingers were blown off, and he has lost a great deal of blood. In addition there is the shock. We will hope for the best, but——”
“You fear the worst,” she rejoined quickly, with a catch in her voice.
“It is as well to be prepared for the worst,” was his reply.
Was the blow about to fall which should lay her under that awful brand for the rest of her life?
And she was only just twenty-seven years of age.
A magnificent range of mountains runs down the western side of the Indian Peninsula. It is broken into groups, which bear different names. The best known among Europeans is that of the Nilgiris. The chain collectively is called the Western Ghats. Here and there spurs jut out at right angles towards the sea coast, through the expanse of the rice lands lying between the hills and the sea. There are gaps in the range called passes, where a bridle-path curves and twists among rocks through primeval forest and by mountain stream. Strings of hardy little transport bullocks find their way down to the sea coast, bearing loads of pepper, ginger, cardamoms, cinnamons and areca nuts.
Excepting the highest peaks the mountains are covered with dense jungle. In their hollows lie innumerable sheltered valleys, where the fertile soil produces a luxurious vegetation with marvellous rapidity. At the burst of each monsoon the rivers pour volumes of water down rocky beds, receiving at every bend tributary streams that tumble out of ferny bowers beneath the evergreen jungle. When the rains that accompany the monsoon are over, and the sun shines forth, a wealth of blossom responds to his warmth. Birds and butterflies, rivalling the flowers in their gorgeous colouring, hover among the foliage, and each retired spot seems a veritable garden of Eden.
It was one of these beautiful valleys that Jack Benacre, assistant superintendent of police, had pitched his camp. His white tents stood on a grassy mound situated in the centre of the valley. One side of the mound was washed by the waters of a river. On the other a little stream flowed through a carpet of marsh fern. At a short distance from the camp the road crossed the river by a fine bridge of many arches, The bridge was built not only to resist the floods, but also for the purpose of carrying the raised road over the swampy land that bordered the river on one side.
The rains of the north-east monsoon were over. The sun shone for the greater part of the day. Refreshing showers fell with tropical violence, but they were not sufficient to flood the river or swamp Benacre’s camp.
There was an unusual number of tents gleaming in the sunlight. The police officer had visitors, which made the expedition of this year a record one. They brought their own tents and camp furniture, as well as many luxuries that did not appear on ordinary occasions. In addition, Jack enjoyed the society of one of the most charming women it had ever been his lot to meet.
It was seven o’clock in the morning. The clouds of the night had dispersed, and the wisps of white vapour that hung about the peaks in the east were fast dissolving into blue air. Flordon Wentworth, his arm no longer in a sling, issued from one of the tents and drew in a deep breath of the mountain breeze. He looked at the grand outline of the hills, intensely blue against the pale morning sky; then turned his eyes to the office-tent of his old schoolfellow. Benacre had been up and about for the last hour and a-half. At this moment he was busy at his writing-table. Walking up to the open fly, Flordon hailed him with the customary morning greeting.
“I’m off for a walk up the hill, Jack. I shall be back to breakfast by ten.”
Benacre glanced up from the notes he was making, and said—-
“Going alone? Hadn’t you better have a man with you? Take the Paddybird; he will be able to shoot us some game for dinner.”
“No, thank you; I’d rather go alone.”
Benacre was not satisfied. He laid down his pen and came to the entrance of the tent, looking towards the little village that clustered below on the rocky side of the river.
“Perhaps the Munshi will join you, and you can improve the shining hour by talking Malayalam. By the by, how do you get on with the language?”
“Well enough for my liking. The fellow interests me in other ways besides his infernal lingo. I shall meet him this afternoon. I don’t want his company this morning.”
“Then you must not dip too deep into the jungle. It is so easy to lose yourself when once you get away from the valley. I’ve had one hunt for you already, when I thought that my hair would turn grey with anxiety. I don’t want another. Next time I may not be so lucky.”
Flordon turned away with the repeated assurance that he was all right, and would not lose himself. Benacre watched him out of sight, and went back into his tent, where he had three more hours of work. This done, the mid-day would be at his disposal and he had reasons of his own for desiring a little leisure at that particular time. As Wentworth strode towards the leafy shade of the jungle, Chandama, the wife of Varadia, the police constable, took her way to the forest to gather firewood for her husband’s noonday meal.
It was a little less than a year since the accident. Flordon’s left hand was minus the two fingers, which he had lost on that memorable evening. Excepting for the mutilation of the hand, his body was sound and perfect. His physical strength had, if anything, increased rather than diminished. Formerly he had been lean and bony; now, though far from stout, he had filled out with flesh and muscle. His wedge-shaped face had lost some of its angles; and if it had not been for the pale, prominent eyes and cruel mouth, he might have been deemed good looking.
For ten days he had hovered between life and death. Those ten days were purgatory to Olwen. As she had prayed to God that he might die, so she prayed that he might live, that his life might be spared, and that she might be vouchsafed an opportunity for the atonement of her sin. For sin she now regarded the indulgences of those winter months. Under the influence of the shock, the pendulum swung to the other extreme. In addition to calling herself a murderess in thought, she used another ugly epithet in self-condemnation. During those ten days of doubt she spent many hours upon her knees. When at last the doctor was able to assure her that with care he might live, she made a mental vow that her repentance should show itself in action. She would devote herself to her husband and to the duties which he demanded of her. Her sole thought should be for his welfare and comfort.
It was no easy task which she set herself to do.
Although Flordon had an iron constitution, and improved in his physical health, his nervous system was not restored to its normal condition. He had received a severe shock, the effect of which showed itself in various ways. He lost his self-control and the grip that he had of himself. There was less power of self-restraint both in speech and action. Each trivial fancy, each passing desire of the moment, reasonable or unreasonable, must be satisfied. His sharp tongue became sharper and less embed than before. At the best of times his temper had never been good; now it became intolerably violent, and caused him to be feared as well as hated by all who served him. Application to the simplest matter of business threw him off his balance, and for months it was necessary to keep everything connected with the office and the works from him. His medical adviser declared that he would not hold himself responsible for the consequences to the brain if he resumed work at present.
Fortunately Flordon’s shrewd judgment had enabled him to gather together the best work-people and the smartest and most reliable assistants in the office. He might not be able to enlist their affections, but he managed to retain their services. Meanness regarding wages and salaries was not one of his faults. He knew how to pay those who served him, as well as to get rid of those whom he considered incompetent. Under the existing staff, the works went on without let or hindrance, and orders were executed as promptly and efficiently as if he still stood at the helm. The only sign of stagnation was in the patent department. No new inventions were adopted and patented, or improvements initiated.
Regarding the author of the accident, the wonderful machine with which he fondly hoped to astonish the world, no mention was made of it during his convalescence. It had been irretrievably damaged by the explosion, and nothing was to be learned from the wreck by curious inquirers. More than one of the employees examined the remains, and speculated on its mechanism; but they were one and all unable to penetrate its mysteries. The plans and calculations were under lock and key in the master’s house, and without these it was impossible to understand what was intended. Some of the men openly said among themselves that it was a fake, got up with the intention of starting a big company and of making a fortune in that way.
“He was running it by electricity or compressed air, which he wanted to persuade people was ether; that’s what be was doing. All the talk about waves and vibrations, caught from the Lord knows where, was his way of catching the British public and gulling them,” said one of the boldest and most outspoken of the staff.
The chosen men who had assisted Flordon in the construction of the machine knew better. They were convinced that the energy was neither pneumatic nor electric, but they held their tongues. Their employer might yet recover. A discreet silence would be acknowledged and paid for; but babbling would meet with ruthless and merciless punishment.
“My wife, who goes in for occultism, says that the force has its origin among the spirits; and that any man who is fool enough to try and master it, will lose either his reason or his life,” said one of the junior clerks.
“Don’t you chatter to the women, or you will get the sack, Belton,” said Gordon, the manager. “The governor doesn’t do it himself, and I know what ho would say to men who did.”
“He’s never likely to be about again, is he?”
“No one knows. Anyway, you had better be on the right side, since you have a wife and child to keep.”
“I shouldn’t cry if he did snuff out, nasty cantankerous beggar! Works like these don’t come to an end when the principal dies. There’s too much vitality and money in them,” said another, who had no dependents and therefore felt that he was at liberty to speak out if he chose to take the risk.
There came a time when Flordon, with his arm in a sling, appeared once more at the works. He was received in silence, none of the men venturing to utter a word of welcome, not knowing how it might be taken. He gave them no opportunity of expressing what they felt. He did not condescend even to the ordinary greeting such as a master might accord to men who habitually worked under him. The manager came forward to accompany his chief in his tour through the sheds. He explained the different orders that were in course of execution. During their progress they arrived at the spot where the wreck of the Spook stood.
“What is that you have got over there covered up so carefully?” asked the master.
Gordon hesitated and then replied, “It is the machine that did the damage, sir. It remains just as it was left that evening.”
Flordon strode up to it, and snatched feverishly at the cover. Having the use of only one hand, he was unable to remove it without assistance. This was rendered rather unwillingly by the manager, who ventured to remonstrate.
“Won’t you examine it another day, sir? I will have it cleaned and moved into a better light.”
His chief turned angrily upon him, saying that no one was to lay a finger upon the machine under penalty of instant dismissal. Gordon listened in silence, and having unfastened the lashings which secured the cover, exposed the ruin of twisted pipes and tubes and wires. Flordon, trembling in every limb, bent over the wreck.
“Now, let me see—get out of the light, Gordon—yes, the accumulated force burst through here and carried away everything. What a fool I was to think that the—er—the ether—it’s not ether, Gordon, but that’s what we will call it—could be stored. How many vibrations were there to the second? Where are the plans? Fetch them from the office. Here’s the key of the drawer.”
“The plans are at your house, sir. You took them there a long time ago, if you remember, because you were disturbed here.”
“Yes; that fool, Monkhouse! Don’t let him enter the premises again.” He put his hand to his head, and looked round in a helpless, bewildered way. “How many vibrations did I say there were to the second? Get the plans, Gordon; I’ve got it all down on paper. Don’t stand there looking at me like an infernal ass. Good Heavens, my head! Where am I?”
His brain failed him, and his mind was chaotic. Gordon guessed what had happened, and said with more authority in his tone than he was accustomed to use towards his employer—
“The car is ready to take you home, sir. By the time you return from lunch I will have the plans ready on the office table.”
Flordon permitted himself to be conducted to the car, too puzzled and confused to resist. Gordon entered it with him, and they drove back to the house. The manager had an interview with Mrs. Wentworth, with the result that the doctor called soon afterwards. He was very decided. His patient must have perfect rest, and no attempt must be made to return to business. The best way to keep him out of mischief would be to take him abroad. Open air was what he required; life in the open air with such amusement as the journey offered in passing through foreign countries.
“Get him right away, Mrs. Wentworth. A long sea voyage, to India, Japan, or Australia, will be the best thing possible, so that he cannot run home all in a hurry. The change will do you good, too. The close attention all these months upon your husband has told upon you. He is fortunate in having such a faithful and devoted wife as you are.”
The doctor was fully aware of what the young wife had to put up with, and how patiently she bore with a man who at times was well-nigh intolerable. He spoke sincerely. Olwen, humble and self-conscious, did not reply. She knew better than he did what her devotion and fidelity were worth. In spite of strenuous endeavours to forget the past, and live dutifully in the present, there occurred moments when she was caught off her guard. Her rebellious subjective self escaped the watchfulness of her conscious reasoning self, and fell into a sensuous memory of her strange experiences at Madame Boyovitch’s. The sweet scent of the tuberose lily, the soft notes of a cathedral organ, above all the twilight of a silent room, into which was wafted the distant sound of music, caused her to forget the present and tread upon dangerous ground. Fortunately, the demands of an ill-tempered, exacting invalid gave her few opportunities of succumbing to temptation. If she dropped unawares into day-dreaming, she was recalled by Flordon’s voice uttering feeble complaints that she was not attending to him. At night she slept the sound, dreamless sleep of tired, healthy youth, her bedroom windows opened wide, and the fresh air circling through the room. The prospect of the voyage and a winter abroad were acceptable; and Flordon, recognising his weakness, made no objection.
A leisurely journey brought them to Bombay. Somewhere down in the south Flordon had an old school friend, who was in the police service. A letter was sent asking how and where they could meet. A warm reply of welcome was received from Jack Benacre, who placed his house at their service. When the rains were over, and the time came for the police officer to go out into camp, he proposed that they should accompany him, a proposal eagerly accepted by Wentworth without consulting his wife. Money was no object. Tents and camp furniture were bought, together with such luxurious appliances as the frugal assistant superintendent of police had never before travelled with. A little later the party started on their tour through one of the most beautiful districts of South India.
The servants employed in the camp belonged to Benacre, with the exception of the ayah and the dressing-boy engaged for personal service to Mr. and Mrs. Wentworth. As these had been introduced by the factotum who ruled over the household of the police officer, and were related to him, their independence was nominal.
Benacre, being a bachelor on a moderate salary, did not keep a butler. When he first joined the Service he began with a head boy, a Madrassi, whose mother tongue was Tamil. On transference to the Malabar district the Madrassi was replaced by a Goanese, who rejoiced in the name of Lorenzo de Souza. The noble blood of Portugal, indicated by the high-sounding patronymic, was not the inheritance of de Souza. He was a pure native, of swarthy complexion, whose forebears had served the de Souzas in the palmy days of Portuguese-India. As a mark of their fidelity, they were allowed to adopt the names of their masters. Lorenzo’s black hair was cut short. His dress at headquarters consisted of the tightest fitting coat and trousers of spotless white. A small head-covering of the smoking-cap pattern took the place of the Hindu turban, and was jauntily poised upon his glossy curls. In figure he was thin, and tall, and his long legs moved in great strides. His manner of stalking, combined with his spareness, had endowed him with a nickname. He was known to his master and to his fellow-servants as the Paddybird. He accepted his nickname with resignation; but from those who were beneath him in station, he exacted the honorific equivalent in the vernacular of the punctilious “Sar!” that he used to his master.
By profession, as well as by birth, the Paddybird was a cook. His father had been chef to one of the Portuguese officials at Goa, a gentleman who combined the practice of medicine with his official duties. He dispensed his own physic, which was compounded in the kitchen with the aid of his cook. Lorenzo, being instructed in the way he should go, became his father’s assistant, and learned the culinary art side by side with the art of concocting pills, potions, and healing ointments. He was apt in acquiring knowledge, and at the age of seventeen he broke away from parental control. His eyes had often followed the blue outline of the distant ghats. The hills stood beyond the narrow confines of Indo-Portuguese territory. They marked a country where officials served a richer and more powerful Government; where salaries were princely compared with the emoluments provided by the Portuguese Government for their servants. At other moments he turned to the sea, and gazed across the blue waters of the Indian Ocean. Upon the horizon a trail of smoke indicated the track of a southward-bound steamer. Ceylon lay to the south, and Colombo was the port to which the steamer was bound. There, too, report said that the officials were numerous and their pay magnificent. The people who served them received wages in proportion. Thus it was that the Paddybird forsook the home of his father to explore the world.
A few years were spent in Ceylon, where he earned wages that compared favourably with salaries drawn by subordinate clerks in the Portuguese Government offices. He was an excellent cook, even among South-Indian cooks, whose fame has spread through the East. Young as he was, he might have obtained a lucrative appointment in one of the large hotels of Colombo; but he hated towns, and soon tired of foreign lands. He turned his steps homewards, and was received into the bosom of his family with rejoicing. His father determined to put an end to his wanderings by marrying him to a plump young person of fourteen, who owned an equally high-sounding name and dark complexion. The wedding was magnificent with flowers and fireworks, much feasting and many candles, and a fine procession of native padres of the old Goanese mission.
During his service in Ceylon he had been with a planter up-country, whose every spare moment was devoted to shikar. The Paddybird was more often out camping than spending his time in the smoky kitchen of the bungalow. His long legs made little of the distances. With the aid of a couple of coolie porters he tramped at the heels of his enthusiastic master, carrying a gun for small game. In his early youth he had killed snipe and wildfowl in the low country of the west coast of India. A little judicious training from the planter converted him into an excellent shot, and enabled him to procure game for the table, whilst the Englishman followed larger quarry that were of no use for culinary purposes. Occasionally he was permitted to accompany his master on expeditions after big game, when he was entrusted with a second rifle, which was intended solely for the planter’s use. One day he came perilously near disgrace and dismissal. His master wounded a bear, and held out his hand for his second gun. Instead of passing it on, the Paddybird levelled it at the escaping animal, and rolled it over with a neat shot.
“How dare you do such a thing?” cried his incensed employer, beside himself with rage and vexation.
“What can do?” replied the Paddybird. “Master firing and that bear only walking away. No time to give master the gun, so I fire dam quick and kill.”
After this episode he was kept more closely to his legitimate department. As he strained the soup and fried the cutlets, he longed more intensely to be in the jungle. Whether he would have remained much longer in his situation with his privileges curtailed is doubtful. The engagement was terminated by the sudden departure of the planter for England. To compensate his servant for the loss of his situation, he presented him with the gun that had been used for small game. It was an old but admirable weapon, and the possession of it filled the heart of the Paddybird with delight. It had the reputation of being lucky. Not only did it kill, but the eyes of the bearer of it were opened and able to distinguish the game.
There was no opportunity of using the gun in Marmagoa, where his father found him a situation. It stood unused in a corner of the kitchen in which he prepared the food of his new master. The sight of it daily was not without its effect. The influence of the young wife was undermined. One day, unknown to his father, he gave his master warning, pleading with tearful eye the death of a beloved and influential grandmother. He departed, and after due inquiry entered Benacre’s service as cook and head-boy. The situation suited him exactly. More than half the year was spent in travelling up and down the district. When he was at headquarters his wife joined him. As soon as he started off with his master, she returned to her father-in-law’s house. Benacre was too busy to give much time to sport; he was quite content to allow his factotum to shoot the pigeons and jungle-fowl of the sholahs, and the snipe and wild-fowl with which the swamps teemed.
To enable him to leave his duties in the kitchen without detriment to the cooking, the Paddybird had introduced a youth of eighteen into the establishment as cook’s mate. He was a relative, and bore a strong likeness to his patron. His thin, long limbs and agility of movement were suggestive of a grasshopper. In consequence he was known by the name of the Poochee, a generic term in the South of India for all sorts of insects. His mother, a widow, was kitchen-woman.
Breakfast was at ten. It was always a substantial meal, lunch being a very uncertain event in the police officer’s house, on account of his varied duties. The Poochee was occupied with pots and pans outside the tent that served as kitchen. A little row of extemporized fire-places formed of stones and turf served for a cooking-range. The kitchen-woman fanned the burning wood and charcoal, and kept watch over the various saucepans. The Poochee, seated before a clean grass mat under the eye of his chief, was breaking eggs and separating the yolks from the white. This he did after the manner of Indian cooks, by using his fingers as a strainer.
“I have written down three eggs on the slate for the house account, but two will be sufficient, little father,” said the young man, looking inquiringly towards his superior, who, with a watchful eye upon the culinary operations, was engaged in conversation with a police-constable.
“Not so, son of a grasshopper!” cried the Paddybird. “The lady, who for the time rules the master’s household, must have everything of the best; and as she pays for it liberally we will see that she has the best. Use five eggs, and write on the slate eight.”
The Poochee continued to separate the yolks, letting them slide off his fingers into the basin in which they were to be beaten. The Paddybird improved the occasion, and imparted back-verandah wisdom in between his conversation with the constable.
“A proper charge can be made if the food is rich and good; but if it is poor, even the exact money is paid unwillingly. The lady will give no trouble over the number of eggs if the dish pleases the masters. Yea, more; she will say that it was the great number of eggs that made the food acceptable. But for a dish that is neither rich nor savoury she will grumble at having to pay for only two.”
He turned to the constable, and resumed the thread of their conversation.
“Who heard the beast cry?”
“I heard it with my own ears, as I came from Sivaghat. After crossing the steam-carriage road, I took the short cut over the hill. The path passes below the Kurumba’s cave. I was not far from the village when the cry sounded behind me. There were three separate calls.”
“’Twas the devil, and none other,” said the Poochee with excitement, his attention diverted for the moment from his occupation.
“Beat the eggs, and talk not. Shooh! That is not the way to beat eggs! Give me the basin. Eggs should be beaten like schoolboys, till one’s arm aches, and the breath is gone. If they are good, the beating will improve their flavour; but if they are bad, no amount of beating will benefit them.”
The Paddybird took the basin, and when he had satisfied himself that the eggs were sufficiently beaten, he began to arrange the ingredients that were to form a savoury fish pie in the pie-dish. He put them together with the delicate touch and fastidiousness of an artist. The Poochee, watchful and attentive, handed him each thing as it was required. It was not until the browned bread-crumbs and chips of butter had been critically arranged upon the top that the Paddybird reverted to the mysterious animal.
“The cry was the cry of a hyaena, a large and solitary beast that is after the kids and the dogs of the village,” he pronounced, with the decision of an experienced sportsman. “At what time did you hear the cry?”
“The sun was just sinking.”
“You saw nothing?”
“Not a sign. A little further on I met the Wentworth master, and with him walked the Munshi. I ventured to stop and ask if they had seen the beast. Instead of replying, the master looked at the Munshi, who laughed and said, ‘Did not the Kurumba tell the truth? He said that it should call thrice. Now we will go home, I to the rest-house, and you, sir, to your tent.’ The manner of the Munshi was strange and masterful.”
“What said the Englishman?”
“Not a word; he obeyed, even as the Poochee obeys your orders. It is not good when the white man is governed by one who is of a different colour. It betokens magic and evil spells,” said the constable.
“Shooh! The Munshi is not of the Kurumba caste. He comes from the other side of the ghats, and knows nothing of our Malabar magic,” replied the Paddybird, contemptuously.
“He spends much time with the Kurumba of the cave, and who can say how much he has learned of him? He loves power, that man! It pleased him to command the Englishman.”
Varadia was a native of Malabar, and had been reared in the very home of Indian magic. He was well acquainted with the Kurumbas, who were accounted wizards by birth, as well as by profession. The cook was not to be convinced, however.
“It is the money that the Munshi thinks of. The Wentworth master is rich. He gives the Munshi fifty rupees a month to teach him the language; but they talk of many things besides those that have to do with learning how to speak to the people of the district. My master has plenty of business with the police duty, and he cannot give his time to the Wentworth master; so he engaged the Munshi to answer all his questions and show him all he would see.”
The Paddybird, having put the finishing touches to the pie, turned his attention to the preparation of a dish of devilled fowl. Varadia waved his hand with a negative gesture of disapproval of his views.
“There are three things which should be avoided, a bad man, an angry woman, and a mad elephant. The Munshi is a bad man.”
“You say that because he tried to take your divining rod away from you, eh, brother?” said the cook, with a laugh.
The constable’s eye flashed with the fire of the half civilised savage.
“It was not so; he knew not where it was hidden; but he asked me many questions concerning it, and if I made use of it. Then, as I would not answer, he bade me tell him how it was obtained.”
“Your father took it from the spirit himself, did he not?”
“He went into the jungle, leading an old monkey by a string, to a spot where it was known that a devil lived. He tied the monkey to a tree, and the beast whimpered. It was hungry and thirsty. Just as the sun sank behind the hills the monkey sat up as if it saw something strange. It showed no sign of fear; it just watched; and as it watched, its eyes moved as my eyes move in following the Poochee.”
Varadia rolled his eyes about in such a manner as to rivet the attention of all who listened.
“It is thus that a dog or a horse gazes often at what is hidden from the sight of man,” remarked the Paddybird.
“My father placed his hands upon the monkey’s eyes and then put them upon his own. As the tears of the monkey touched his eyes they were opened. He saw a small grey devil walking to and fro. In its hand was a rod not more than a foot long. The devil, not knowing that my father could see, passed close by, and as it passed, my father snatched the rod from its hand. The devil cried aloud and made a horrible noise. Its face became terrible in its anger. Tears of red blood fell down its cheeks and flames burst from its mouth as it prayed for the rod. But my father hid it in his waist cloth and kept it. From that time the devil was obliged to serve him. When my father died, I, being his eldest son, took the rod.”
“Have you ever used it?” asked the Paddybird.
“I have had no need to do so. There are difficulties. My father gave me no instruction. He warned all his sons that a wrong handling of the rod would turn the strength of the devil against the holder, and bring disaster and death.”
“Then it is of no use to you?”
“It serves me in another way. Through the power of it I walk safely through the jungle, and fear neither tiger nor hyaena.”
The constable rose as if to go to the office-tent.
“Stay, brother I must know more about this hyaena. My gun is for shot only; but a charge of duck-shot behind the shoulder at close quarters is a surer way to kill than the bullet of a rifle at a greater distance,” said the Paddybird, as he opened a tin of sausages.
“The beast is not of the kind to die from the usual charge of a gun; no, not even if you placed the muzzle of the gun within its mouth and fired. It is protected, and the Munshi knows it; therefore he laughed.”
The cook was aware of his superstitions, but professed to think light of them. He said—
“All the same, I will try. To-day, at sunset, I will wait about in the jungle, upon a path that leads to the river, and as it passes down to drink I may get a shot. I have but one doubt in my mind. I am not satisfied with the gun. Of late it has missed in its aim, no matter how steadily I have held it. Moreover, when I have been looking for game, the birds have not been visible, though I could hear them calling to each other.”
“Ah, ah!” cried Varadia, with sudden inspiration. “It is a devil, a small devil that has taken up its abode in the gun; a blood-loving devil; and when you would shoot, it creeps forth eager for the blood and sits upon the end of the barrel so that you cannot see.”
“Ah bah!” echoed every soul that heard him. “Without doubt Varadia is right.”
Fearful glances were turned towards the weapon that leaned against the inner wall of the tent.
“The birds and beasts know of its presence. They can see it, though you cannot. There are ways by which you might have your eyes opened; but it would be wiser to go to the Kurumba.”
“How could it be seen?”
“Even as my father saw the spirit of the rod. The Kurumba can work spells upon knives and guns, however, and it is easy to seek his aid,” said Varadia. “Take five rupees with you and lay them in front of him as he sits at the entrance of the cave.”
“He will be sure to restore the gun to its former excellence?”
“You may trust him,” replied the constable, with confidence. “Are not his teeth perfect? By that alone you may know that he has power. Never has he been known to fail when his aid has been sought. Many years ago, before he came, there was a man of his caste living in the cave. He was of an evil disposition. He took the villagers’ gifts, and yet their cows brought forth dead calves, their goats were eaten by leopards, and the small-pox came. The headman chose out six of the strongest men; my father was one of them. They went to the cave and knocked out the Kurumba’s front teeth. After that he had no more power to work spells for good or evil. He himself took the small-pox and died. For a long time the cave was empty. Then this man came, and he has never failed. Only those who anger him suffer, and doubtless they deserve their reward.”
A whistle sounded from the office tent, and the constable hurried off in that direction. It was part of his business to carry the letters in to the nearest post town and bring back the day’s delivery, the site of the camp being out of the beat of the regular post-peon. A cooly accompanied him to fetch the supplies required for the table. Varadia, who was also the village constable, occupied a small mud hut within the confines of the village. His young wife Chandama cooked his meals and kept his dwelling scrupulously neat and clean.
It was the part of the two dressing-boys or chokras to wait at table. They were assisted by a matey, who washed up and tended the lamps. A little before the breakfast hour they came to the cooking tent to receive the dishes that were prepared.
“My master has not yet returned. His bath is ready, but there will not be time for him to take it before breakfast,” remarked Wentworth’s chokra, not without anxiety.
“It will be best to keep the water hot,” advised Benacre’s boy.
“I have no room here for your water-pots,” said the Paddybird. “If the master is late for his bath he must take it after breakfast.”
The chokra’s anxiety increased, and he poured forth his complaint.
“He is quick to get angry and has no reason. Sometimes I think that there is a devil in him. He does not drink too much whiskey. If he did it would be easy to understand the sudden blazing of his wrath. Even the mistress herself is not safe. How much more likely is he, then, to beat me? If it were not for the high wages he pays, I would say that my mother was sick and would depart at once for Beypore.”
“Cannot the mistress control him?”
“Perhaps she may soothe him a little; but when he is really angry she might as well try to soothe a hyaena. Only yesterday he was in the sleeping tent looking at some large sheets of paper that were spread over his cot. The mistress came in, and when she saw the papers she said, ‘Why have you unfolded the plans? The doctor ordered that you were not to study them. It will do you harm.’ He answered crossly, and his lips continued to move as if he were counting, whilst lines came upon his forehead. Again she begged him to put them away, and there was trouble in her face as she spoke. He used bad words and continued counting. She stayed quiet a short time, and finding that he still studied the strange lines, she went to his side and tried to draw away the paper. Suddenly he lifted his hand and struck her on the arm. The ring upon his finger cut the skin so that the blood flowed. She covered it quickly with her handkerchief and left the tent; but as I was brushing the master’s clothes just outside I saw it plainly.”
“He is mad,” said the Paddybird, without much interest.
“It is wickedness. He has an evil mind, and if it were not for my pay I would not serve him.”
“Shooh! Grumbling is jackal’s talk. All Englishmen are mad, but they do not have devils like us. Take this dish to the tent and keep your mouth shut about the mistress,” said the ruler of the kitchen tent, authoritatively.
It was not quite ten o’clock when Benacre entered the large tent that was used as dining- and sitting-room. Olwen was already there. She rose from her chair and advanced to meet him with the glad smile of a woman who was certain of her welcome. The days were warm though the nights were cold at that altitude, and she wore a white frock. Her arm just below the elbow-joint was bound with a handkerchief.
“How are you, Mrs. Wentworth, and how is the arm? You must be careful not to fall against the furniture again, Was Flordon in the tent at the time of your accident?”
“He was not far off; but he was absorbed in the study of the forbidden plans. I tried very hard to leave them behind, but I was not successful in getting my way.”
She resumed her seat in the wicker chair placed under the shade of the fly. Jack’s eyes rested upon the figure with a lingering gaze.
“I am afraid you were not firm enough with him.”
“He is difficult to manage; more difficult since the accident than before. Either the shock or the blow on his head affected his nerves. He seems to have lost control of himself.”
Jack glanced at the wounded arm and then looked away, as he said—
“He was not what you might call a good-tempered boy at school; but he found his level among the other fellows and learned to keep within bounds.”
“Up to the time of the accident he was complete master of himself, although he spoke out his mind and was decisive in his actions. Now he is swayed by sudden impulses which carry him away for the moment. During those moments I feel sure that he is not responsible for his actions.”
Benacre rose from his chair suddenly, and strode out into the open air as though the atmosphere of the tent suffocated him. Yet the cool morning breeze entered and circulated freely. Olwen joined him outside, picking up a white umbrella.
“Let me open it for you,” he said, taking it from her hand.
He held it over her, standing a little in the rear. The light wind ruffled the muslin frills of her bodice so that they swept across the back of his hand as he grasped the umbrella.
“I don’t see Flordon in the distance, do you?” she asked. “I hope he hasn’t lost himself again.”
“We have the whole day to look for him if he has. Last time it was sunset, and I began to be a little nervous lest he should be benighted in the jungle.”
“Are tigers ever seen about here?”
“Not near the camp or the village; but they are to be found occasionally on the mountains.”
He pointed to the blue peaks in the distance, rising against the eastern sky in a noble outline above the immense forests that lay on their slopes.
“I should not fear tigers so much as fever for Flordon if he spent a night in the open. I am afraid we mustn’t wait, Mrs. Wentworth. I have an appointment with Hillary, one of my inspectors, at some distance from the camp.”
The servants placed the dishes upon the table punctual to the minute, knowing that their master must eat whatever his visitors might do. Olwen and Jack possessed the healthy appetites and good spirits of youth. They did full justice to the fare provided by the Paddybird, and the conversation did not flag while they ate.
These two had become excellent friends during the camping tour, and Jack had already arrived at that point in his friendship when the presence of a third caused him to feel impatient. Flordon had certain irritating ways. He contradicted his wife unceremoniously and gave expression to opinions that were not complimentary to her sex. He was frequently ungracious, and he accompanied his remarks with a laugh that was more offensive in Jack’s ears than his actual words. Every sally was received by Olwen in a silence that betrayed no annoyance; her husband’s poisoned arrows of speech fell harmlessly. In less than a week after their arrival at his bungalow at Sivaghat, Benacre had lost all respect and liking for the friend of his schooldays. Had it not been for Olwen he would have shaken himself free of him. She roused his warmest admiration, and for her sake he tolerated him. His own generous, unselfish nature was deeply touched by the sight of her patience and forbearance. There were moments when he could with difficulty restrain himself from laying violent hands on him. At such times Olwen’s steady eyes held him in check. They mutely pleaded for the same forbearance which she exercised herself. He caught himself imagining how he would act, if he were the recipient of the innumerable little attentions which she lavished upon her ungrateful husband.
“Which way did Flordon take this morning?” he asked presently.
“He said he should go up towards Doorga’s peak.”
“I should have been more satisfied if he had had the Paddybird or the Munshi with him. However, I dare say he will be safe. I shall be away all day. If he does not return by lunch, send someone to look for him.”
“I am not anxious,” Olwen assured him. “The doctor advised him to be out in the open air as much as possible. He is enjoying this life, and I think that it is doing him good. If he sits in the tent he turns to his work.”
“I am glad that I engaged the Munshi to look after him. It relieves me of much anxiety. I gave the man a scolding the other day for allowing his charge to get lost.”
Olwen glanced up at her companion, as though she would have spoken; but on second thoughts remained silent. Benacre smiled as he remarked—
“You are like an open book. I can read what is in your mind as plainly as if you spoke. You don’t like the Munshi?”
“He does not inspire me with confidence, and he is getting a strange influence over Flordon. As soon as the man appears he throws down his book and hurries out to join him, forgetful of everything else. He comes back preoccupied and irritable.”
“Exposure to the midday sun might have something to do with his irritability. He does not feel the heat because of these glorious mountain breezes; but the sun is tropical and acts as an irritant upon the nerves.”
All the same Benacre knew that his guest was, in his own words, “a cantankerous devil”, and that the sun had little to do with his ill-temper.
“Where does the Munshi come from?” asked Olwen.
“From Mysore. He is very well educated, and was at one time a clerk in the service of the Mysore Government. He lost his appointment through some irregularity, letting out State secrets, perhaps, and he finds his present employment more to his mind.”
“What does he do when there is no Englishman to teach and ‘personally conduct’?”
“He is a kind of jack-of-all-trades, a letter-writer in the bazaar, money-lender, and an astrologer. He casts out devils, seeks for hidden treasure, and pretends to have supernatural powers of healing. I don’t believe in his claims,” concluded Benacre, whose practical mind rejected everything that savoured of occultism.
“There are many things in the psychological world that cannot be satisfactorily accounted for; perhaps you have not heard of them out here. Flordon calls them dark corners,” observed Olwen, recognising infidelity in his tone.
“You mean the dual personality together with psychometry, clairvoyance, clairaudience and the unknown dynamic force that operates under so-called spiritism. Oh yes! I’ve heard of them at home and out here.”
“You don’t believe in them?”
She pushed him closely. It was entirely against his natural instinct to admit belief; yet with the knowledge he had of certain incidents that had happened in his district, he found it difficult to deny the fact that he was puzzled sometimes to account for those incidents naturally. He evaded replying to her question by speaking of some one else.
“Hillary tells me that he has seen some wonderful things done by men of the Kurumba caste. He thinks that half of it is trickery. The other half he can’t account for.”
“There are many things that happen in England also which can’t be accounted for. Tell me, who is Hillary?”
“Lawrence Hillary is one of my inspectors. He is devoted heart and soul to his work and never wants to get away to the more civilised districts; a thorough good fellow! I fancy that he has seen rough times. If he goes on steadily he will rise to be Assistant Superintendent, like me, some day. Perhaps he may work his way to the head of the service. Merit tells in the long run better than interest.”
The breakfast ended tête-à-tête as it began. Benacre would willingly have sat longer over his coffee and cigarette if he could have spared the time. The view outside the tent was magnificent, the air was delicious, and his companion all that he desired. He allowed himself a few minutes during which his eyes did not seek the beauties of the landscape. He rose at last with an effort.
“I must be off, or I shall keep Hillary waiting.” He called to his servant. “Boy! Tell Mr. Wentworth’s chokra to go to the village and see if his master is coming.”
The chokra left the tent and turned towards the kitchen where he sat down out of sight of the dining tent to smoke and chat. He knew his master well enough by this time not to play spy upon his movements.
“By-the-by, Mrs. Wentworth, I shall ask Hillary to come back and dine with me. You won’t mind, will you?”
“On the contrary, I shall be delighted. We don’t often have a visitor, and it will be a pleasant change.”
Benacre glanced at her with a sudden misgiving.
“You are not feeling dull or—or—getting tired——” he was going to say “of me,” but checked himself.
She smiled at him with reassuring friendliness, as she replied—
“I am very happy here; happier than I have been for a long time. I have in you some one to share the responsibility with me of nursing a troublesome invalid. Tired and dull, indeed! The days are passing all too quickly for me.”
A sudden light sprang into his eyes as he listened, but she did not see it. Perhaps it was as well. With thoughts centred on her husband she was innocent of the dangers that lurked in the life she was leading. In addition to the pleasure of the open air existence, Benacre’s companionship had had a marked effect upon her temperament. It had restored some of the joyousness of youth and had brushed away many cobwebs. In his society she had thrown off the last shred of the unwholesome mists which her attendance at the séances had created. By the aid of his cheerfulness she had also combated successfully the depressing effects which Flordon’s ill-temper would have produced, had she been obliged to bear them alone. She spoke nothing but the truth when she told him that he shared part of her responsibilities. Benacre wished with all his heart that he could relieve her of them altogether.
The forest was cool and shady. The morning breeze ruffled the heads of the tall trees, but scarcely touched the undergrowth of flowering shrubs and creepers. Rills of clear water tumbled over the rocks with a busy murmuring sound and crept through beds of delicate fern.
Sometimes the streams were inspired with a boisterous spirit, and disdaining their sinuous tracks hurled their flood down into dark pools in sheets of sparkling foam.
It was summer time with nature. The vitality of every tree had been awakened and stimulated by the showers of the north-east monsoon. Buds burst forth lifting eager heads to the sun. Butterflies, with wings newly unfolded, flew boldly up into the sunlight, seeking the earliest blossoms on bush and tree. Birds, on nesting intent, uttered their strange courting songs on all sides.
High above, where the forest merged into long grass and scrub, where the air was sharper and the sun’s rays were interrupted by branching tree, stood Chandama under Doorga’s peak. Upon the open palm of her hand lay a new sovereign. She turned it from side to side in the sunlight to catch the reflection and laughed with glee. Bare to the waist, after the manner of the West Coast women, her necklaces of coloured beads were the only covering of neck and breast. The sovereign—it was of the coveted Australian gold—would make a fine addition to one of the necklaces. Varadia was a poor man with debts hanging about him; he had not been able to bestow gifts upon his wife. According to the custom of her people she might have more husbands than one; but she had hitherto been content with the village constable. He was a peaceable man, easy to live with. She was young, barely twenty. There was but one cloud on her horizon. Up to the present there had been no child born of the union. The polyandry, allowable among the people of the West Coast, makes the position on women very different from that occupied by Hindu women of other parts. Considering their privileges the Malabar women are by no means depraved. It is but natural, however, among the lower castes, that their duties and their responsibilities should sit more lightly upon their shoulders than upon their sisters of better birth and breeding.
Chandama gazed at her treasure and laughed again. It was the happy laugh of a creature of the woods and streams and of the forest arcades. Having fondled her new toy to her heart’s content, she tied it in a corner of the waist cloth that served as a short skirt, took up her knife and plunged back into the jungle to cut the firewood for which she had come.
Flordon returned some time after Benacre’s departure. He made a hearty breakfast; and, after the refreshing tub, he threw himself into a long-armed chair with the forbidden plans spread out around him. He studied them at intervals and made notes in a pocket-book, replying at random to Olwen’s occasional remarks. She dared not interfere a second time, but summoned up sufficient courage to remonstrate. A sudden gleam in his eye and a knitting of the brows warned her not to say too much. Now and then his mouth twitched and the head was tossed impatiently as he endeavoured to concentrate his mind upon the problem. Much as she disliked the Munshi, it was a relief when she heard his voice outside the tent. Flordon threw aside the sheets of paper, and called—
“Munshi; is that you?”
“Yes, sir; I have come to ask if your honour will take a walk this afternoon.”
He caught sight of Olwen and salaamed obsequiously. He was an elderly man with a clean-shaven face. There were deep lines about the mouth and forehead. The nose was aquiline and the eyes deep set. His thin lips closed firmly over a perfect set of teeth. Flordon sprang up.
“I am quite ready for a walk. I shall be glad to get away from this stuffy tent. Let’s go up to the higher ground where the air is cooler.”
The Munshi glanced at the papers scattered on the table and on the tent carpet.
“Has your honour been studying Malayalam?” he asked, with some curiosity.
“Not I,” replied Flordon, carelessly. “I have other things of more interest to think about than your rotten language.”
He closed the note-book and placed it in his pocket.
“You will have some lunch before you go, won’t you?” said Olwen.
“No, I don’t want any lunch; I had breakfast so late. If I am thirsty the Munshi will give me some green cocoa-nut milk; won’t you, Munshi?”
“I sent some cocoa-nuts up to the cave this morning in readiness for your honour.”
The man smiled with self-satisfaction. His manner was propitiatory, but he did not cringe with the instinctive humility of the pariah. On the contrary his tone indicated confidence bordering on masterfulness.
“If your honour remembers, we arranged to pay another visit to the old Kurumba.”
“So we did! Look here, Munshi; you must make him show me some of his best tricks to-day. Last time there was no trick in what happened. It was nothing but an accident. I want to see a really clever trick. I am not going to be persuaded that it is anything else but conjuring. You can’t deceive me, Munshi!”
The Munshi deprecated the possibility of such an impertinence on the part of himself or any one else. How was it possible to deceive so clever a gentleman? Knowledge lay in the palm of his honours hand like a gilded lime. He had it in his grasp. The Kurumba could show some strange sights to those who had the courage to look without fear. Fear blinded the eyes and deadened the perceptions.
“Fear, you idiot! Don’t accuse me of being a coward. Was I frightened when the rock fell?”
Without waiting for a reply Flordon put on his sun-hat and strode out of the tent. There was a flash of anger in the eye of the man who followed closely at his heels along the narrow footpath. He understood the term idiot to be contemptuous, and he resented the application of it to himself with a bitterness that was not suspected by the speaker.
“I know your honour is not a coward. Still, there are many things in the practice of magic that may make a brave man tremble, even though fear does not enter his heart.”
High above the village, towering to the sky, rose Doorga’s peak, its feet clothed in a mantle of luxuriant vegetation; its grey face was bare on the western side where the rock fell away in steep precipices. On the eastern side there was a vast extent of forest that ended in the rolling downs of the plateau. In the primrose light of the morning the peak was silhouetted against the sky in pale shades of blue; the jungle on its skirts was massed together in deep ultramarine. In the evening the western sun touched the noble crags with gold and changed the ultramarine of the forest into a deep green. The jungle was broken up by the light into innumerable rifts and valleys. The round heads of the evergreen trees stood out in the sunlight like the heads of a closely packed crowd. After each monsoon they put on a mantle of crimson shoots that turned the deep blue of the morning shadow into a glowing purple, and the glittering green of the afternoon into the prismatic orange of the rainbow.
At the foot of the precipice on the western face of the mountain the rich soil lay in ridges cleft frequently by torrents. The destructive hand of man had left its mark upon the wood near the village; but, higher up, the forest was in its primeval state. The giant trunks reared their crowns of foliage untouched by axe or fire. Here and there were open glades where the sun shone down in the full strength of its tropical rays. Long wreaths and festoons of creepers linked the great trees together, enmeshing the undergrowth of shrubs, and embracing the huge boulders of the ravines. These jungle lianes serve the natives as ropes. Knotted when they are green and pliant with sap, they harden into bonds that resist the strength of the elephant itself.
Upon one of the upper ridges at the foot of the wall of rock was a glade, where the sun penetrated and warmed the terrestrial orchid into rich bloom. The rock had been split in some convulsion of nature and a cavern had been formed. At the back of the cave a spring oozed and dripped, flowing in a tiny rill to the stream outside. The entrance was more than half hidden by a mass of luxuriant creeper that had found foothold in the rock. Trails of glossy green foliage hung down in long strands, caught here and there in loops. The breeze, penetrating through the opening in the trees, touched the tendrils and swayed them gently to and fro like a curtain. Above, where the creepers grew thicker over the rock, the owls hid themselves. Higher still, where the rock rose into the clear sunlight, the eagles made their nests. Each tree had its colony of birds, and by the side of the torrent the thrush poured forth its song.
The Kurumba, who had taken up his residence in the cave, had also constituted himself the guardian of a devil-stone near the cave. It was half buried in the soft leafy mould of the forest and was said to be the abode of an evil spirit. Hither came those who would be delivered from witchcraft, or who would weave spells upon their enemies. The Kurumba acted as pujari and magician, presenting their offering, and weaving their charms for them.
The sun had mounted the peak and broken up the broad shadows that lay on the western side of the mountain. Its golden rays pierced the foliage of the forest and warmed the carpet of vegetation that was spread beneath the undergrowth. Pink balsams, spotted orchids, and silky convolvulus responded to the touch and opened their delicate petals.
The Kurumba sat at the entrance of his hermitage. His long matted hair hung about his face like a lion’s mane. His brown body, bare of clothing, had a greyish tinge that matched the weather-beaten rock against which he leaned. Hour by hour he remained motionless. Bird and beast heeded him not. The shy barbet hopped boldly round the stem of the tree in its pursuit of insects and showed its russet-green plumage. The wandering jackal trotted past without swerving an inch from the game track that served for human feet as well. The birds twittered and quarrelled, courted and sang, as though the Kurumba were one of themselves. A python issued from a crevice in the rock, and drew its burnished coils into a broad patch of sunlight, neither angered nor frightened by the presence of man.
The level ground in front of the cavern was nothing but a shelf. The edge was hidden by a thick undergrowth and from it the mountain-side sloped steeply downwards, but not so steeply as to repeat the bareness of Doorga’s peak itself. In rifts and clefts and upon similar shelves of lesser width vegetation clung, the interlacing branches linked together with lianes and rattans. In the ravines far below the monkeys chattered. At the sound of their voices the Kurumba’s eyes moved and he awoke from his abstraction. The jungle folk could not keep their secrets from him. He rose and entered the cave, disappearing into its dark shadows behind a shoulder of rock that formed a natural recess.
The track from the village traced many zigzags before it reached the cave; but the long legs of the Paddybird made nothing of them. Where there was a short cut he took it, although the hillside was almost as steep as the side of a house. He carried his gun ready for a jungle fowl or a pigeon.
De Souza was a Roman Catholic. His religious training taught him to eschew all heathen superstitions. True to his education, he professed his scorn of the evil spirits held in awe by the country people. Nature had bestowed upon him a black skin, however, and under that skin beat the blood of by-gone generations of devil-worshippers. Whilst professing disbelief, his inherited instincts prompted him to cross himself, and commend his soul to his patron saint as he stopped before the devil-stone near the cave. He cast a swift glance into the interior of the hermit’s dwelling. A patch of fresh ashes upon the floor indicated the recent presence of the magician. He stepped back to a spot where a bed of soft moss offered a tempting resting-place and sat down. At the end of ten or fifteen minutes he was suddenly aware of the presence of the Kurumba, whose rat-like eyes were fixed upon him with inquiry. He rose at once and made a low obeisance.
“Swami, it is said in the village that you have the power of putting spells upon knives and guns. I have brought this.”
He showed the legacy of the planter.
“It is yours,” said the hermit, after holding it in his hands for a few seconds.
“It belongs to a friend,” faltered the Paddybird, in some trepidation.
The Kurumba laid the gun down on the grass at his feet as though his interest in it had ceased. Its owner thought better of his feeble attempt to deceive one who was manifestly wiser than himself. He continued—
“The friend has given the gun to me. Lately its virtue has departed.”
The Kurumba took up the gun again whilst the Paddybird’s hand went to his pocket. He drew forth some coins that chinked in his palm, and dropped three of them near the spot where the magician had seated himself. Some minutes elapsed and the Kurumba appeared to be absorbed in contemplation. A fourth rupee fell upon the little pile. High up in a tree close by a pigeon cooed. The sportsman peered up into the branches but could distinguish nothing; his eyes were blind to the game still. A fifth rupee, the last that he had brought with him, was added. The Kurumba uttered a little grunt and came out of his abstraction.
“In what manner does the gun show that its virtue has departed?” he asked.
“It has become blind, swami,” replied the Paddybird, eagerly. “And it causes its bearer to be blind also. When it is carried in the jungle or in the swamp, there is no game to be seen. When it has been left behind in a corner of the kitchen, the birds are everywhere. If by chance a bird is seen, and aim is taken, it misses, though the arm be as steady as a rock.”
The Kurumba listened attentively, and wagged his head, as if he fully understood the fault of the weapon, and the reason for its defects. He counted the rupees, and tied them in a corner of his waist cloth.
“Go and sit over there!” he commanded, and the Paddybird obeyed with alacrity, seating himself under a bush where he was partially hidden from sight by fern fronds and the tall, graceful spikes of a terrestrial orchid. Although full of curiosity he was thankful that he was not required to take part in the ceremony. There was no harm looking on; but to participate in a mysterious rite performed by a heathen might anger the saints and bring trouble upon his family and upon himself.
The Kurumba proceeded with his incantation without further delay. He built a fire inside the cave and circled it round with some white powder. He examined the gun carefully, peering down its barrels, smelling the lock, holding it to his ear as though he heard something moving within. Each movement was accompanied by a wise wag of the head, which spoke volumes for the astuteness of the wizard in the estimation of the Paddybird. Had they not all agreed in the camp that it was work of a devil? Not a word had he breathed to the Kurumba of its presence, yet he had discovered it at once.
The magician stepped inside the circle he had drawn, and placed the gun near the fire. He sprinkled powder on the glowing embers, and tongues of blue flame shot upwards. In a strange monotonous chant that harmonized with the murmuring of the falling water, the wind in the trees, and the songs of the birds he began his incantations. Occasionally the chanting died away, and the silence was unbroken, except for the many voices of the jungle. Then it began again, rising and falling like the wind in the tree-tops.
Presently a change came over the magician. His voice grew harsher, his eyes rolled from side to side, and his body swayed with a circular movement that tossed his mane around. The Paddybird shifted uneasily as he squatted on his heels, and he pressed further back into the leafy shelter he had chosen. Suddenly the Kurumba seized the gun, and passed his hands over the stock. With eyes nearly dropping out of his head the Paddybird gazed at his strange antics. Yes; he was sure of it! the magician was endeavouring to catch the evil spirit in his fingers; but it was a very difficult task. As he followed the motion of his hands he felt sure that he could see the devil struggling to elude capture. It was useless to contend with a superior power. Now the Kurumba had him in his grip! Now he scorched him over the blue flames! Now he lifted him high above his head, and flung him out of the circle towards the heights of Doorga’s peak! Higher and higher soared the discomforted devil like a wreath of pale smoke. He touched the curtain of creeper, and the leaves trembled as he passed. He mounted still higher to where the eagles perched out in the broad sunlight. Hark! a scream! Though he imitated the eagles in his cry, the Paddybird was not to be deceived. It was the shriek of a banished spirit that, in obedience to the command of the Kurumba, had gone over the peak to the vast forest on the other side, never to return.
How hard a struggle it had been, the Paddybird could judge by the exhausted state of the operator. His head had fallen forward, his eyes, just now so full of fire and life, were dulled and nearly closed. The Paddybird waited some minutes and approached the cave with diffidence. The fire had burned out, and the gun lay outside the circle. With slow dreamy speech the magician spoke.
“The spell has worked; the spirit has departed and will not return. Take the gun!”
“It will kill now, O swami?”
“All creatures that are of flesh and blood. Go!”
The Paddybird hastily picked up his precious gun and walked away without another word. Magicians require no thanks after the offering has been made. There were drops of liquid upon the stock. He passed his hand over the burnished metal and looked at it. His fingers were stained with crimson. It was the blood disgorged by the devil in his chagrin and wrath as he fought with his captor. This alone was sufficient evidence to show that the rupees had been well earned and that the devil was gone, even if he had not seen him depart with his own eyes.
As he turned off into the forest to fill his game bag, the chattering of the monkeys in the distance warned the Kurumba of the advent of other visitors, who were making their way up the hill towards his hermitage.
When Flordon and his companion reached the cave nearly an hour had elapsed since the time of starting. It was a stiff climb up the skirts of the peak to its foot. The scenery was superb; but the Englishman, with his practical mind, was not consciously susceptible to the beauties of Nature. The tall, straight trees that stood from sapling to hoary old age till they decayed and fell without the aid of the woodman’s axe, did not appeal to him. The undergrowth of blossoming shrub and wreathing creeper, the carpet, waist deep, of ferns and orchids, begonias and balsam, wild ginger and cardamon, made no impression. Gay birds, with plumage that rivalled in tint the colours of the flowers and butterflies, passed unnoticed. Yet, when he at length reached his destination, the influence of the forest and the pure mountain air were not without their effect. He dropped upon a soft bed of dry moss and fern close to the cave, and his blood tingled with a vague sense of gratification. He stretched out his long limbs, and leaned back upon his couch, gazing idly up at the massive wall of living rock that rose nearly a thousand feet above him. Nature in India builds upon magnificent lines. The mere vastness of her work inspires solemnity and commands the admiration of man.
The forest voices were attuned to the surroundings. The notes of the strange tropical birds were softened by the height at which they perched and sang. An unceasing chant came from the stream, that did not altogether drown the hum of insect life. There was a sweet scent of growing vegetation and freshly opened blossom acceptable to the nostrils.
This was not Flordon’s first visit to the Kurumba. He had been the afternoon before, when an incident happened which startled him. On their arrival at the cave on that occasion they found the Kurumba in a trance. His eyes were turned upwards, his limbs were rigid, and the muscles were prominent and hardened as though in the act of exerting great physical strength. Yet there was no sign that he was exercising force as he sat. His clenched hands were empty, and his arms were folded across his breast. Suddenly there was a sound above the hillside, a distant rumbling that increased in volume.
The Munshi and Flordon were standing at a little distance from the mouth of the cave. The Munshi caught his companion by the hand, and drew him inside. Quick as the movement was, it only just saved the Englishman. A moment later a huge boulder fell with a terrific crash down the face of the rock, knocking the vegetation to pieces, and bounding over the very spot where Flordon had stood. It rolled in its mad impetus across the width of the narrow ledge, a space that sloped gently downwards for about twenty yards, and then plunged into the jungle below. Flordon heard it thunder through the undergrowth like a cannon-ball, striking rocks here and there, and smashing branch and stem. The eagles above screamed, and the terrified birds changed their whistling into a shriek of fear. A python fell at Flordon’s feet with a heavy thud, and lay for a few seconds as though stunned. It quivered throughout the whole of its barred scaly length, showing the burnished blue and green tints that shone like bloom upon its rich brown scales. Lifting its head it gave an ugly hiss, and dragged its half benumbed body away.
“Confound it all! That was a near shave, Munshi! The rock fell on the very spot where I was standing.”
The Munshi was manifestly ill at ease. He said something to the Kurumba, whose body had relaxed into a pose of rest after fatigue. Flordon had learned a little of the language during the two months that he had been the guest of the police officer; but it was not sufficient to comprehend all that was said. He thought that the Munshi was reproaching the Kurumba for a rash act, but he could not be quite sure, as his speech was so rapid.
“What are you saying?” asked Flordon, with irritation. “You don’t suppose that the fall of the rock was caused by that old image and his ridiculous hanky-panky?”
He laughed derisively. Flordon’s laugh was never pleasant. Some of his acquaintances in England had compared it with the laugh of a hyaena. It was not to the liking of the Munshi either, who glanced apprehensively at the magician. His peace of mind was still further disturbed, when he found that consciousness had returned, and the Kurumba’s eye was fixed in no friendly fashion upon the Englishman. The wizard knew only one language of the tongue, which was that of his caste and of the province of his birth; but he was deeply versed in the language of the emotion, whether uttered by bird, beast, reptile, or by a human being. He recognised scorn and contempt in the laugh. The native of India, whether Hindu or Muhammadan, can endure the anger of his fellow-men and their reproaches, merited or unmerited. He cannot endure being laughed to scorn.
“Undoubtedly, sir, the Kurumba called the rock down from Doorga’s head,” replied the Munshi.
“You superstitious old humbug! Get me a drink of water from the stream. That little accident was a nasty jar.”
Flordon’s nerves were still weak. The Munshi took a cup formed of cocoanut shell from the cave and dipped it in the little rill that ran out of the living rock. Flordon put a dash of whisky in it from his flask and drank. He turned to the Kurumba and spoke, using as much of the language as he could command, plentifully interlarding it with English where Malaylam failed him.
“Now, look here, you idiot! if that was your doing, don’t you do it again! But it couldn’t have been your doing. You’re an old humbug. It was pure accident. If you have any conjuring tricks to show, let’s see them; not the mango trick and the business with the basket; not pretending to swallow stones and knives. We had enough of those in Bombay. Show me something new.”
It was doubtful if the Kurumba understood all that was said. Certainly the Munshi was not rash enough to translate it. The latter made an obeisance to the Kurumba, and proceeded to assure him that the English gentleman had been much pleased with the display of his power over the rocks, and that, like all Englishmen, he showed his pleasure by laughing. Now the gentleman would be grateful if he would exercise his power over something else. The Kurumba permitted himself to be mollified. The dark eyes lost their angry glitter, and he rose and entered the cave. The Munshi took the opportunity of admonishing Flordon. His tone was an odd mixture of dictation and entreaty.
“Sir, please don’t anger the Kurumba. These men have power which we have not. One knows not where that power begins and where it ends. The rock was sent down into the valley as a warning to someone who has displeased him.”
Again Flordon laughed contemptuously, but refrained from further remark. The Kurumba came out of the cave. A broad ray of sunlight filtered through the foliage, and made a golden patch upon the grey wall of rock. He took up a position so that the light fell directly upon him. Flordon noted the tangled locks that hung round his shoulders and over his forehead, touching his eyebrows; the hoary covering of hair upon his naked breast; the long, lean limbs attenuated with fasting. He wore a necklace of strange, uncouth beads, interspersed with bits of ivory that might have been the teeth of wild animals. The sun caught a glittering object that was one of the ornaments of his necklace, and the ray was reflected in a dazzling point of light. Flordon unconsciously fixed his eyes upon this spark, watching it as it rose and fell under the deep breathing of the wearer.
Suddenly the man pointed to the jungle. Flordon turned his head in that direction, and an exclamation escaped his lips. He was positive for the moment that he saw the head of an elephant protruding through the foliage. A moment later he was laughing at his own folly. No elephant could possibly have stood upon the spot where he imagined he saw it. It was at the very edge of the ridge. Even a man would have found it difficult to obtain a foothold.
“What was it, Munshi?” he asked.
“I saw nothing, sir.”
“What was the old image pointing at in the jungle?”
“Perhaps it was a monkey. The monkeys come up as high as this sometimes in the afternoon when the rocks have been warmed by the sun.”
Flordon looked at the Kurumba again. The point of light was gone, and he had partially turned away. His hands were stretched upwards, and his fingers opened and closed convulsively, as though he were attempting to grasp something that eluded him. They fastened their grip upon an indefinite substance that was drawn in wisps downwards from the sky. It spread out like cotton wool, and Flordon was enveloped in a thick mist. Everything was hidden from his view, and he was isolated completely. The twittering of the birds and the song of the thrush by the stream became silent. The murmuring of the falling water ceased; and he had a curious sensation of being separated from the world of Nature. As he had said, he was no coward. All the same, he did not like his uncanny experience, and he called to the Munshi asking if he was there.
“Yes, sir; I am here,” replied the voice of the Munshi close at hand.
A breath of cold air touched his face. In a moment, as swiftly as it had come, the mist dispersed, and the sun shone brightly down, forming a lacework of golden light upon the green carpet at his feet. The Kurumba had disappeared. Flordon threw himself back upon his mossy couch, and the Munshi seated himself just inside the cave, neither of them speaking.
The air grew warm again, and the peacefulness of the forest, which had been broken by the fall of the rock and by the chilly mantle of cloud, was restored. Insensibly it spread its influence over the Englishman, and the turmoil of his brain was stilled. The confusion of thought, which seemed to have become his normal condition whenever he concentrated his mind upon any subject, disappeared. A strange exaltation took possession of him. His spirit climbed out of the murky atmosphere into which it was plunged by his accident, and soared into light and space. Vague ideas flashed across his brain like broad bands of colour, formless at first and fleeting, but gradually becoming more stable and definite. Something was struggling with him to make itself clear. Let it struggle. He felt that it had strength to prevail, to disentangle itself without effort on his part. The more quiescent he remained the more force did it gather. What was it? Ah! he had it! It was knowledge coming step by step out of the mists that had for so long clogged his brain. As be recognised his divine visitant, his heart leaped in exultation. He drew out his notebook, and, with the pencil on the white page, prepared to jot down the facts that stood out so clearly to his mental vision.
With the pencil-point resting on the open book he paused. A deadly cloud descended upon him. The vision vanished; where there had been glowing comprehension, there was a blank. It was worse than sterility of thought; it was mental blindness. The ears and eyes of his mind were as completely closed as his ears and eyes had been when veiled by the cloud. The isolation appalled him; he sat up on his couch with a vague sense of resentment and disappointment. The Munshi was gazing at him curiously as though watching for his next movement.
“How long have I been lying here?” he asked.
“Nearly an hour, your honour. See how the sun has gone down towards the sea. It is time to be walking home.”
“Where’s that old image? What a fraud he is! I thought he was going to show us some tricks, but he has done nothing,” said Flordon, irritably.
“The rock fell.”
“It was an accident, manifestly an accident.”
“He brought down the cloud from the sky.”
“You mean that the wind blew it down from the peak. It is the forerunner of the shower we shall have tonight.”
“And your honour has had pleasant thoughts.”
“What? Am I to consider that I am indebted to that old humbug for even my thoughts? What next will you ask me to believe, Munshi?”
He laughed. Far off among the rocks on Doorga’s head the laugh was echoed in a harsh, discordant cry.
“What was that?” asked Flordon.
“The call of the hyaena. It is near sunset, and perhaps the beast is on its way to one of the pools of the river.”
At that moment the Kurumba came from the dark interior of his dwelling. He gazed upwards in the direction from which the cry came, and again the sound was borne upon the wind.
“It cries to you,” observed the Kurumba.
“What does he mean? Why should the hyaena call to me?”
The Munshi did not reply to his question, but begged him to reward the old man. Flordon threw a half-sovereign towards him.
“There was no need to give so much. Two rupees would have been enough,” remarked the Munshi, with the disapproval of an avaricious spirit.
The Kurumba’s eyes glistened at the sight of the gold. It was much more than he had expected. He looked at the Englishman with an increased interest and said something. The Munshi translated as much as he thought necessary.
“The Kurumba asks if your honour would like to come to-morrow. There shall be rest and pleasant thoughts if that is the desire of the heart. Your honour may laugh. The Kurumba says that he tells a true word only. As a sign that he can do as he promises your honour is to listen to the voice of the hyaena on the way home. It shall call three times.”
At which Flordon laughed aloud. When Varadia encountered them on the journey back to the camp they had just heard the triple cry of the beast upon the mountain-side.
“Munshi, where’s the magic man? Are we to have no tricks to-day? I want to see something while I rest.”
Flordon threw himself down upon the couch that had been prepared for him. It was between two and three o’clock, and the walk had made him hot.
“If your honour shows him gold, one small piece of gold, he will give that which is next the heart and foremost in the thoughts.”
“And what is that?”
“How can I tell? I am but a poor teacher of languages and letter-writer in the bazaar. Your honour alone has the knowledge of what is most desirable to yourself.”
Flordon took out a couple of sovereigns and jingled them in his hand. The sound brought out the Kurumba at once. He came quickly to his side and held out his palm.
“One is sufficient, sir,” said the Munshi, with a covetous glance at the gold.
Although he spoke in English, the Kurumba seemed to guess the meaning of the little sentence. He cast an angry look at the teacher of languages. Flordon paid no heed to the hint, and flung down the two coins: The Munshi watched the man as he picked them up and hid them in his waist-cloth.
“Where’s that cocoa-nut milk you promised me?” asked Flordon.
The Munshi went into the cave, and returned with a brimming cup of the cool, luscious drink. The Kurumba came out into the same spot of sunlight where he had stood the previous day, and examined the shining yellow coins. The bright rays caught the surface, and reflected back a golden gleam. Flordon watched him from his couch, thinking idly what a knave the man was. His greed of money marked him as nothing but a sordid rogue, no better than the rest of the fortune-telling crew all the world over.
The sound of a buzzing insect close to his ear drew his attention from the Kurumba. He raised his hand and beat at it. The action did not escape the notice of the magician, who withdrew into the cave and sat down against the wall just inside. His head fell forward, and he sank into a trance. The Munshi also seated himself, and remained as motionless as the Kurumba.
Flordon stretched himself at full length upon the soft moss with a sense of enjoyment. The warm odour of the forest filled his nostrils, and the spell of its tranquility crept over him, bringing with it a quickened sense of luxury. The cooing of the pigeons, the falling of the water, the song of the birds, the sweet warm air lulled the physical body and gave wings to the mental senses. That delightful sensation of exaltation was returning. His brain was clearing and strengthening. He waited, controlling his impatience lest he should by any effort on his part disperse the lucidity. He allowed himself to drift, to float in the clear mental atmosphere that surrounded him. To his amazement, he found that the less effort he made, the greater was his power of concentration. He ventured to take out his note-book and to study the figures and diagrams he had made. A restful sense of security from interruption aided him in the consideration of his problem.
Presently the note-book was dropped. He no longer required the props and support of diagrams. His memory retained them accurately, and spread them out before his mental vision with a clearness that he had never before experienced. Knowledge was coming! it had come! His mistakes, the imperfections in his machine, his erroneous deductions, stood out plainly. The way to success was indicated. How easy it looked! how simple! Closely working it out in minutest detail, he approached the completion of a perfect machine. It was strange that he had been so blind as not to foresee the accident that had happened. It was obvious that the method he had adopted must end in disaster.
He took up his note-book again and jotted down a few sentences, although he felt that with the subject so clearly developed in his mind it was unnecessary. The effort of putting his knowledge into words was irksome. There was a marked difference in following out the issues as they had appeared to him and in putting them on paper. As soon as the attempt was made to crystallise them into words with definite statements they became nebulous and illusive; they slipped like precious grains of gold between his fingers, grip as tightly as he might, and were lost. The more he struggled to retain the vision the more it clouded.
With a quick, impatient movement he rose from his reclining position and sat up. He gazed round him as in a waking dream. The Kurumba stood at the entrance of the cave with his rat-like eyes fixed upon the Englishman. The Munshi was still seated just inside, near the spot where the magic circle had recently been made on behalf of the Paddybird’s gun. The sight of the two men irritated Flordon unaccountably, and he cried out angrily—
“What is it, you ass? Do you want more money? You won’t get it. Why did you disturb me?”
Neither of them spoke. Flordon did not seem to expect any answer. He rose to his feet and brushed away the scraps of moss that adhered to his coat and trousers.
“It’s cold, and the sun is clouded. I’m going home,” he remarked.
The sun was still shining in the west, low down on the horizon, but the generous warmth of the day was gone. Cool shadows were creeping over the valley, but Doorga still wore her golden crown. Flordon strode down the path leading to the village. The Munshi looked after him as though he were inclined to follow. Then he glanced up at the Kurumba and changed his mind. The Englishman had dropped two sovereigns, and he intended to do his best to secure one of them for himself. It was not an easy task that he had set himself to do. It would be rash to anger the Kurumba; he possessed greater powers than himself. Perhaps he might be cajoled by a promise that the Englishman should come again. In any case, he could threaten to keep Flordon away.
Meanwhile, the Munshi’s charge, left to himself, followed the path that should take him home. His mind was in a turmoil. The quickening of the mental perceptions had vanished as mysteriously as it had come. The difficulties that had been magically unravelled returned, and where there had been lucidity nothing but dire confusion remained. Somehow he connected the lifting of the cloud from his intellect with the Kurumba. He stopped in his downward stride. He would go back to the man and ask him if this were so; and yet there had been no hanky-panky, no trifling with unknown influences. All the same, he would like to hear what the Kurumba had to say. Here was a short cut up the steep mountain-side which would probably strike the path to the cave on one of the upper zigzags.
In his chaotic state, he did not stop to consider the hour and the approach of night. He plunged forward along a narrow game track that in places was scarcely discernible. At a short distance it took a more level lead. It was easier going, and anyone whose head was not full of other matters would have perceived that it was not likely to lead to the village or to the cave above. His confusion of mind was mingled with a wrathful impatience. In addition, he was getting tired with the heavy walking over the uneven ground. He was not a man to bear discomfort patiently, and the more fatigued he became the more his anger increased.
He might have wandered all night in the forest and have been irrevocably lost in the morning had he not been suddenly brought to his senses by the sound of a gun. So near was the sportsman that the shot rattled through the undergrowth close at hand. He quickened his steps, and in another minute came face to face with the Paddybird.
At his sudden appearance the cook uttered a cry of dismay and fear. The gun which was held at his shoulder for a second shot was lowered with a trembling hand. There was something not unlike terror in his eyes as Flordon shouted angrily at him to take care.
“Confound it, you fool! Do you know that you nearly shot me?”
The Paddybird could only stammer an abject apology, which was incoherent in his agitation.
“What were you shooting at?” demanded Flordon, who recognised the cook of Benacre’s establishment.
“I fired at a hyaena, sir.”
“There’s no hyaena down here. The beast, if there is one, is on the peak high above the jungle.”
The Paddybird dropped his voice almost to a whisper, and replied with an uneasy glance to right and left—
“I saw it, sir. It came from this direction. It must have been only a few yards in front of you. I have been shooting pigeons and jungle fowl, and was returning back to camp when I met it. May I ask where your honour was going?”
“Home, you fool, if I can find my way there.”
“This path leads into the middle of the forest. It goes for miles and miles. It is the path by which the deer come down to the river to drink.”
“Show me the way home,” commanded Flordon.
The Paddybird, with a watchful eye upon the darkening jungle, stepped out quickly.
“A lucky thing for me that I met the man. I wonder what they would have done if I had been lost again,” said Flordon to himself, with a laugh, as he pictured the anxiety into which the camp would have been thrown at his continued absence.
The Paddybird looked round nervously, and turned his ear to the hillside as though he expected an echo of the laugh. There was no sound, however. The jungle had sunk into the silence of night, although the sky still flamed with the colours of the sunset. His long legs covered the ground more quickly than before, and Flordon had enough to do to keep up with him. Only once did the cook speak. It was to ask a question which burned upon his lips in his intense curiosity until he could keep silence no longer.
“Has your honour seen the man of the cave to-day?”
“I’ve been sitting up there all the afternoon. By-the-by, I wonder where the Munshi is. He ought to have come with me, and then I should not have lost myself. By jove! how dark it is getting.”
The Paddybird made no further remark. It was with real relief that he emerged from the forest near the cultivated terraces that lay behind the village.
Upon the edge of one of these fields stood a small mud hut thatched with palm leaf. It was surrounded by a mud wall which enclosed a little yard. A fire was burning brightly inside the yard, sending up its pale blue smoke into the evening air. With the setting of the sun the wind had dropped, and the clouds had gathered thickly round Doorga’s peak. The villagers had ended their daily toil in the fields and were preparing to eat their suppers. The path passed the little mud hut as Flordon came abreast of the house, a woman, who had been cooking at a fire in the open yard, advanced towards him with a smile. He stopped, and his guide passed on without him. There was no longer any fear that the Englishman would lose himself. The lights of the camp on the opposite side of the river were visible. The path turned into the road near the bridge. The police thana stood near the bridge and close to the road. As the Paddybird passed the police-station Varadia greeted him.
“Has the hyaena fallen to your gun, Oh! slayer of pigeons and jungle fowl?”
The cook only replied with a grunt and hurried onward. Varadia smiled as he followed the retreating figure with his eyes. The Paddybird hurried across the bridge at a steady trot.
“He has neglected his duties, so he hastens, that the game which he has shot may be cooked. These English are like our gods. They may be appeased with blood offerings and savoury meat.”
Then he strolled with leisurely steps towards his own domicile.
When Flordon left the camp Olwen remained in the tent until the servants brought the afternoon tea. They placed it under the shade of a tree. The time did not hang heavy on her hands. The open-air life was an intense enjoyment to her. Although she had nothing but books and work to amuse her, she was never dull.
As soon as she had finished tea she put on her hat for the usual afternoon walk. The valley lay smiling before her, with Doorga’s peak dominating the chain of mountains. The perpendicular crags stood out sharply in all the greys and browns with which the weather had clothed them. The chalky patches that marked the ledges where the eagles built their nests, and had reared their young from time immemorial, took a golden tinge, and the jungle at the foot of the peak glowed with vivid green and orange. On the eastern side behind the peak the mist was beginning to gather in the hidden valleys that had lost the sunlight. The afternoon breeze had been warmed by the sun. It blew softly, and was laden with odours exhaled by abundant blossom. It was like the sweet breath of one of her own hothouses in England.
The clear blue sky, the gleaming river, the forest with its hidden mysteries and secret places, known only to the beasts that roamed through it, fascinated her. Far away on the jungle-covered hillside the wild elephant might at that very moment be standing, murmuring its content with swinging trunk and flapping ears. Lower down where the falling water lost itself in a leech-haunted swamp, the shy snake and clumsy crocodile revelled in the moist vegetation and still pools. On the sunny branch of a fruit-bearing tree the hornbill preened its gaudy feathers; and the sun-birds flitted over the honey-laden flowers of the strobelanthes.
She sauntered down the little hillock upon which the camp was pitched, and turned on to the bridge to look over the parapet at the silent river. Eddies of limpid brown water swirled under the arches, whispering in silver bubbles over sunken rocks and against the stone piers. The many voices that had thundered down the hillside in great leaps and hissed over boulders were silenced in the broad bed, which was only half filled.
Olwen glanced towards the police-station, a small building between the bridge and the village. A constable stood in the verandah half asleep and wholly idle, sunning himself in the afternoon sun. There were but two ways for her to pursue, unless she chose to take one of the footpaths into the jungle. When she was alone the road was more to her taste than the rough tracks made by the natives. It was from the direction of the village that her husband would come. She had no notion when he would return. Of one thing she was tolerably sure. He would not show any pleasure at meeting her. She had no compunction, therefore, in following the dictates of inclination, which was in the other direction. It was down this road that Benacre and his subordinate would come.
She turned her back upon the village and the bridge which carried the road over the low-lying terraces of cultivation by the river bank. Beyond the terraces the country was open. The hand of man had felled the forest in large patches, and the trees were replaced by a growth of bushes, brambles, and long coarse grass. Where there was a ravine the forest still stood, and the road passed through it above the noisy little mountain torrent by a single arched bridge. The deep laugh of the pheasant crow echoed in the distance; the barbets answered from every tree. Babblers hopped and chirped in the vegetation by the roadside, and the wading birds cried from the terraces by the river. Although the road dipped into an occasional ravine, its trend was to mount the ghats and reach the plateau on the other side. It turned to right and left to find an easy gradient, and throughout its length it was metalled. At each bend Olwen experienced fresh delight in the scenery. There were no stiff hedges to mark the boundary of the highway or to obstruct the view. Where it ran through the forest it seemed a part of the forest and where the bare shoulder of a hill was crossed it was part of the hill. Each time she emerged from woodland or turned a corner it was to discover a wider and more extensive view. As she mounted higher she could look over the knoll upon which the tents stood and see the country that stretched away in innumerable undulations beyond. There was not an inch of desert land throughout the vast region. Where the hand of man had not been busy with spice and palm growing, with sugar-cane and grain culture, Nature had planted trees and grasses which served as forage for the deer and wild pig.
She was not the only person upon the road. A string of country carts, drawn by bullocks, came slowly down towards the valley. The wooden brakes upon the wheels shrieked, and the axles groaned with the weight of the load. Half-a-dozen pedestrians, carrying bundles upon their heads, walked by with the steady swing of the long-distance traveller, their bare feet falling noiselessly upon the ground.
At a point where the road entered more deeply into the forest she stopped and seated herself upon a boulder. She had not long to wait. Down the hill, at an easy pace, Benacre’s country-bred pony ambled Indian fashion, surefooted and enduring. The assistant superintendent had had a long and busy day, and he was returning unaccompanied by his inspector. He caught sight of the white draperies by the wayside, and his heart gave a leap. She had come to meet him! No, said common sense, she may be waiting for that thick-headed husband. The sudden flush of pleasure that had mounted to his brow faded. When he came up with her she rose, smiling, and said, without a shade of embarrassment—
“This is very pleasant. I came to meet you, and was just beginning to have qualms of fear lest you should have been detained. Then I should have been obliged to walk back to camp alone. I must be a couple of miles from home. Where is Mr. Hillary?”
Jack jumped off his pony and tried hard not to look too pleased. The syce, who was not far behind, came up and relieved him of the animal, leading it on ahead, as he knew that his master would not require it again.
“Hillary was not to be persuaded or cajoled into leaving his post. He put me off with the truly native excuse, ‘To-morrow, to-morrow,’ which means any time but the present. I am sorry you are disappointed.”
“I am not disappointed now that you have come. I should like to have seen Mr. Hillary, if it had been convenient. In the absence of all other Europeans he interests me. Is there any mystery about him?”
“About good old Hillary? None whatever. Naturally there must be portions of his past about which I am ignorant; but I think I know or can guess most of it. Before I give you my inspector’s history, however, I want you to look over there in the west and tell me if you can see anything.”
They had not yet started on their homeward journey. It was as well to give the syce time to get on ahead with the pony, whose hoofs raised the dust. Benacre pointed to the low country over which the sun was strewing crimson and gold on its way towards the horizon.
“Yes, I can see a silvery line lying on the haze below the sun.”
“That is the sea. It is some forty miles away. When the natives come over from the other side of the mountains they look for that line of silver and make a small offering, a little rice scattered broadcast over the coarse grass, a little oil or arrack poured upon the road. I suppose it is a kind of thank-offering for having been protected by the gods as they passed through the jungle. After the road leaves the plateau it runs through miles and miles of forest, where there are real dangers from tigers and leopards and wild elephants, in addition to imaginary evils from supernatural causes. They firmly believe in evil spirits of wood, rock, and water, that delight in casting down trees and boulders, and raising floods to overwhelm travellers. I notice that my syce keeps close to my heels when we are in the heart of the jungle. This is the spot where the first sight of the Indian Ocean is obtained, the destination of nearly all who pass this way.”
They gazed at the silvery streak until it was lost in the rising mists. Then they started at a leisurely pace homewards. After years of lonely camp life it was pleasant to Benacre to be welcomed back, at the end of a fatiguing day, by an Englishwoman of his own class.
They had plenty of time to do the distance, and there was no need to hurry.
“Where is Flordon?” he asked.
“He went out early in the afternoon with the Munshi.”
“Has he been puzzling over the plans?”
“Yes; he had them out after breakfast and was making calculations for some time.”
“I am glad the Munshi went with him,” observed Benacre. “The man will see that he does not lose his way in the jungle. Which way did they go?”
“To the cave where the hermit lives. I think he hoped to see some conjuring tricks.”
“The Kurumba is not a conjurer. He is one of those strange people who seem to be more in touch with inanimate nature and animals than with human beings. Some of them claim to possess a mysterious force which they can exert under the influence of a trance. Some pretend to control wild beasts and to understand their language. They also act as mediums and put people into communication with what we call spirits.”
“Have you ever been put into communication with a spirit?” asked Olwen, with some eagerness.
He smiled as he replied—
“I am afraid I am a sceptic. Those who don’t believe in spirits are not likely to see them. I get all my information from Hillary.”
“Is he a believer?”
“Not exactly; but he studies the natives and has a certain respect for their creeds.”
“I suppose the Indian mediums are much the same as those in England and America, and profess to produce the same results?”
“There is a family likeness among the whole fraternity in the taking of fees for their exhibitions; but here is a great difference in another respect. All spirits conjured up in India are said to be evil.”
“Are they the spirits of the dead?”
“In some cases they are supposed to be the departed spirits of men who have lived evil lives and who have died violent deaths. Or possibly they may be of men who have fallen victims to cholera away from their homes and been deprived of their funeral rites. Hillary has lately been dealing with an evil spirit in a practical manner. It was supposed to have been a police peon who was murdered. The murderer was never discovered, so the peon’s ghost came back to the thana to wait for justice, and took up its abode in a tree close by. The police-station required enlarging. For this purpose, it was necessary to cut down the tree. When I announced this fact there was general consternation among the peons and in the village in which the thana stands. I was informed by the head constable, as well as by the headman of the village, that I should bring dire calamity upon everybody connected with the place if the tree was removed. I was rather in despair over it; for it is out of these little matters that serious riots and disturbances occur. I talked it over with Hillary, and he asked me not to take any action until he had tried his persuasive powers upon the villagers.”
“What did he do?”
“He called together the headmen of the caste and told them that the order of Government must be obeyed. He had a proposal to make which he thought perhaps might meet with their approval, and he asked them to give him a hearing.”
“Were they ready to listen?”
“There is nothing the natives like better than a deliberate unhurried palaver. To show them that he was prepared to spend the whole afternoon in discussing the matter, he sent for a chair and asked them to seat themselves. They squatted in a semi-circle round him under the big village tree which serves in every village as a kind of gossip corner, whilst he took the chair, so to speak. Then he put the case gravely before them in this way. He said that in dealing with the swami they must behave like gentlemen themselves and treat the swami with all deference and respect. The headmen wagged their heads in token of cordial assent. He went on to explain that in treating with a tenant of high caste who was required to transfer his residence elsewhere, they would go through the formality of giving adequate notice, with an explanation of the reason for putting him to the inconvenience of changing his abode. He proposed, therefore, that they should write out a notice and fasten it to the tree, setting forth the reason why the tree was wanted and asking the swami demon to oblige them by taking up his residence in another tree close by. More wagging of the heads showed the general assent to this course of action.”
“They were satisfied?”
“Delighted; more especially so when he went on to suggest that a similar tree within a short distance should be prepared as the new abode by the erection of a proper sacrificial stone underneath it. He further advised them to make a sacrifice of cocks and goats and hold a kind of purification ceremony, sweeping a clear space around it, and dedicating it to the service and use of the swami. A religious feast is dear to the heart of the natives at any time, and his proposition was received with more head wagging and many exclamations of admiration at his astuteness. He assured them that when the swami saw the trouble they were taking, he would fall in with their wishes and change from one tree to the other without any exhibition of ill-will or malice.”
“How did it end?”
“Most satisfactorily. The legal notice was affixed to the tree; due preparation was made for the demon’s reception, and the transfer was effected to everybody’s contentment, including myself. You see, Mrs. Wentworth, a little wise discretion is capable of accomplishing much when dealing with religious prejudices,” said Benacre.
“Apparently your inspector has the necessary patience and humour to deal with the natives successfully.”
“He thoroughly understands the queer workings of their minds, and has a still more intimate knowledge of their strange credulities. They are full of fancies.”
“Do they believe in ghosts?” asked Olwen.
“Only the ghosts of evil people or of men who have died accidentally. These turn into devils, like the spirit of the police peon. The Malabarians have a curious superstition that every human being has his affinity, his double, in the animal world. The passions and emotions indulged in by the human being help to materialise and form the affinity. The animal, they say, communicates some of its characteristics to its human double.”
“It is rather uncanny,” remarked Olwen. “When one comes to think of it. some people do bear a strong likeness to certain animals or birds. I remember as a child knowing an old lady who kept a parrot. The parrot imitated her, and she, for amusement, imitated the parrot until the likeness grew so strong that I believed she was covered with feathers under her frock.”
“Have you any particular antipathy towards certain animals, Mrs. Wentworth?” asked Benacre.
“I dislike cats.”
“The natives would tell you that the cat is an enemy to your affinity. It must be the little bulbul that charms you with its song just outside your tent every morning and evening.”
“What a pretty compliment! I am sure that the bird must be singing at this very moment, pouring out my appreciation and gratitude,” replied Olwen, with the joyous laugh of youth.
They stopped to watch the sun as it sank below the purple horizon. Benacre drew her attention to the magic afterglow with its illuminating rosy light that touched the jungle and hilltops.
“With the fading of the glow the natives believe that the devils awake and become active. The dark hours have many terrors for them. You must meet Hillary. He could tell you so much more than I can.”
“Is he a young man?”
“He is not old, though his hair is beginning to turn grey. He is thin in figure, and wears a pointed beard. He may be anything between thirty and forty. He is a great hand at reading the native mind and getting at their motives. Fathoming the motives of a crime is like finding the points of the compass in the jungle when you are lost.”
“He is evidently more devoted to his work than to the charms of society.”
“It is jungle shyness. Englishmen who live away from European stations and do not meet their own kind from one year’s end to another have a feeling of restraint when they find themselves in the society of strangers. They lose the powers of conversation, and are over-conscious of their awkwardness. However, sooner or later, Hillary will have to meet my guests, although he is only an inspector.”
“Has he no curiosity about your guests?”
“Will your vanity suffer if I tell you that he showed no interest whatever in Mrs. Wentworth and very little in her husband? He was absorbed in the fresh evidence he has accumulated about the robberies that have taken place over on this side, and he has a queer murder case on that side. He certainly asked a question or two about Flordon, who he was, and what he was doing out here. I told him that he was the great motor-car builder of the day, but he did not seem impressed.”
“Did he know his name?”
“I think he had heard of it, but he was entirely ignorant of his private history, of his marriage, and the accident. We shall see him in a couple of days’ time. I want to move camp and go to Doorgapet, on the other side of the peak, where he has his headquarters. Do you think you can pack up and be ready to go by that time?”
“I shall be sorry to leave this pretty place!”
“You say that of every camp, Mrs. Wentworth,” said Benacre, with a smile. “I can promise you something quite as pretty on the other side. Look over there, where the moon is floating above the shadowy purple of the sunset. It is in its first quarter.”
They stood still to enjoy the scene. Behind them some of the hills had put on their nightcaps of clouds. In front the low country still lay under the warm haze of heat produced by the afternoon sun. Although the darkness of night was approaching, Benacre did not quicken his steps. Dinner would not be ready for another hour. There was no necessity for shortening the tête-à-tête which must end when they reached the camp.
When the Paddybird arrived at the bridge he took to his heels and ran, nor did he stop till he arrived at the camp. The Poochee relieved him of the gun, which he deposited safely inside the tent, and of the game bag. As he felt its weight he exclaimed with pleasure, remarking on the sportsman’s good luck.
“The gun has brought down plenty of birds to-day, little father.”
“Through the magic wrought by the man of the cave.”
The water-woman and two of the tent lascars who were present uttered grunts of curiosity.
“What did he do?” asked the Poochee.
“Get on with the dinner. I place my honour in the hands of a chattering boy, and he asks questions instead of minding his works.”
The youth busied himself with the saucepans, flourished off their lids and shook up their contents, grumbling at his mother for not fanning up the flame. It was an admirable imitation of the Paddybird’s best professional style, and the latter felt the delicate flattery implied by his astute understudy. Divesting himself of his shooting-coat, and gradually recovering his breath, the lord of the kitchen inspected the preparations. He took up a plate of cold fish and looked at it critically.
“There is not sufficient fish here to make a dish. Was there no more left from lunch?”
“Only that which is set aside for a moolay for your supper.”
The Paddybird loved fish moolay, but, with the liberal lines of Mrs. Wentworth’s housekeeping, it was out of the question that there should be any shortcomings in the dinner; it was against the artistic instinct of the chef. He was debating within himself whether he should forgo the moolay or allow a meagre dish to be presented at table, when the Poochee produced some hard-boiled eggs.
“With these and some anchovy sauce there is plenty to make a good dish,” he said, with pardonable pride in his own forethought.
The eye of the Paddybird brightened as he commended his assistant.
“Oh! wise little brother! Now there will be no shortcoming, and I can eat the moolay in peace. Above all things, never be found out when your ways are not the ways of those who pay your wages. By that means only can you be honest. Pick over the fish carefully to see that no bones are left; thus I can tell the mistress, if any question is asked, that only the best parts were used. But she will ask no question, for she is a good mistress, and it is a joy to serve her well. Slice up the eggs and bring me cream. I will make a sauce that shall be as smooth and soft as spun silk. There must be bread-crumbs well browned and a hot oven.”
Having superintended the preparation of the fish, he asked for the soup. A saucepan was brought, and he pronounced the contents excellent.
“A little wine and a tiny drop of tabasca sauce will make it perfection.”
“Shall I get the wine from the dining tent?” asked the Poochee.
“Wait; when the mistress is ready for dinner, I myself will carry the saucepan to the tent, and she will see the wine put in. That is the only way to convince English mistresses that one is honest. The sherry wine is poor stuff. I am not a drinking man, and the whisky at night is all I need.”
“Does the master never miss the whisky?”
“How can he miss what is lost between the bottle and the decanter, the decanter and the flask? Little brother, there is shame in being found out. Be careful, and you will always be honest. It is stupidity that spoils one’s name.”
After examining the joint that was roasting, the Paddybird turned his attention to the entrée. His assistant glanced at him with eager eyes. He longed to hear what had happened at the cave, but he dared not ask. There was some wonderful tale to be unfolded, he was sure. It would need a larger audience for the story than the three or four persons who had gathered round the kitchen fires.
“These cutlets have not sufficient bread-crumbs. They will blacken in the cooking. They must be brown, or the master will ask if they are made of crows. That will raise a laugh, and a laugh puts a ball of fire in my belly.”
The Poochee assumed a chidden expression as he hastened to break an egg and roll bread-crumbs in a cloth.
“I tried to crumb them without an egg, though I have entered one in the account.”
“And thereby comes shame, for it would be plain to all at the table that no egg had been used. In this dish the gain is on the meat and not on the egg. Above all things, be not stupid.”
The Paddybird applied himself to the making of the sauce for the cutlets; the ingredients were placed ready to hand by the active Poochee. The two lascars who sat near watched the operation, complimenting the chef now and then on his skill.
“It is strange that the master should prefer that brown water with his meat instead of the warm yellow oil that we take with our curry,” remarked one of them.
“They cannot grow oil-nuts in England, so they have learnt to use sauce instead,” explained the Paddybird as he stirred his pannikin over a charcoal fire. “Many cooks are foolish enough to make the same sauce with all meats. It is well known that there is nothing which tires the taste of the white man more than the same sauce. There was a Portuguese master in my father’s time who accused his cook of robbing and cheating him, and he would have cut off his head if the cook had not run away. The other servants said that the man made the same charges as the other cooks, but the master was angered because he gave him one sauce only. Now, see; to-day I flavour with lime juice; to-morrow I flavour with crushed cardamoms; the next day it is green ginger. There are onions, mint, yellow pepper, black pepper, tomatoes, and bottle sauces as well.”
The Paddybird addressed his remarks to the Poochee, who listened attentively. The youth had no other ambition but to follow in the footsteps of his teacher.
“Did you put the cutlet meat in a papaw leaf?” asked the Paddybird.
His assistant answered in the affirmative.
“With a papaw leaf and a good sauce the flesh of the village goat will pass as gram-fed mutton in all side-dishes. It may be charged as first sorts meat, and there is no fear of discovery. Give what is liked, and make it tempting; the mistress will pay the house account without trouble. But if the food is not nice she will say that the cook is dishonest, and she will not pay the book without grumbling.”
Then came the creation of the savoury and of the pudding, prepared with the utmost care and not a little skill. Dinner was at eight this evening. Twenty minutes before the hour the two dressing boys and the table-servant made their appearance. By this time the greater part of the cooking was done; there only remained the dishing-up. From long practice it was within the power of the Poochee to do this. The Paddybird was able to relax his attention and tell the story of his adventures. The syce had fed and groomed the pony. He, too, had joined the little group assembled to windward of the row of kitchen fires. The kitchen-woman was the only person, besides the Poochee, who was occupied, but her ears were open to catch what was said. As the saucepans containing the master’s dinner were withdrawn, she brought out the curry-pots and began to cook the evening meal for the servants. The Poochee made the moolay his special care. It was already seething and sending forth an appetising smell of cocoa-nut milk and garlic.
“Was the magic man in his cave?” asked Benacre’s dressing-boy, by way of a hint.
“He was awaiting my coming.”
“Did you send word that you were bringing the gun?” asked the other dressing-boy.
“Shooh! what a foolish question He is a great magician, renowned throughout the district. Is not everything known to him? He stood at the entrance of the cave ready to receive me, and drove back a grey demon that peeped out of the devil tree close by.”
“And the gun?”
“I explained its faults, and was about to tell him that I feared a devil had taken up its abode in it when he spoke, saying that he could smell the spirit inside the stock. Though he is but a heathen, that man is full of wisdom.”
The Paddybird shook his head wisely as one who could read mankind.
“Did he make magic and drive out the devil?” asked one of the lascars.
“It was wonderful to see his magic. He bade me stand in front of the cave, first drawing a circle within which I might remain with safety. Then he built a fire and commanded it to send forth a red flame. It leaped into the air the colour of blood, and I saw the gun shake with the great trembling of the evil one. He lifted his hand, and the fire shot up twice the height of a man in a blue flame. This time the devil groaned. He knew that he would be driven forth, and his groaning was terrible to hear.”
“Was he long in going?” asked one of his hearers, in an awed voice.
“He struggled hard against the muntrums, but they were too strong for him. Step by step he was driven up to the muzzle of the gun. Just as he was about to leap out the Kurumba caught him with his hands as the Poochee catches a fowl, and he held him in the fire that still burned blue until he was scorched to the bone. He screamed, and my ears were filled with deafness. It was louder than the scream of the fire-carriage. The smell of him as he burned was like the smell of a dead elephant that has lain six weeks in the sun.”
There was a chorus of appreciative exclamations from his audience, and the Paddybird was a proud man. He would willingly have prolonged the sensation with further embroideries to his tale had there been time; but it was nearly eight o’clock, and he had yet to obtain the sherry from the mistress for the soup. He rose to his feet.
“After scorching him, the magician let the devil fly away, and I saw him go towards Doorga’s peak. He screamed many times in his flight, and drops of blood fell from him upon the gun. The man of the cave handed me the gun, saying, ‘Take it; henceforth it shall kill everything at which its bearer shall aim, every thing that is of flesh and blood.’”
“Did the Kurumba speak a true word?”
“See the game that I brought in,” he replied, pointing to a row of birds laid out close at hand “Never have I made so many shots in so short a time. It was as he said. All the birds fell at which I took aim. My eyes, too, were as eyes from which a veil had fallen. The trees seemed full of birds. Now I must go to the tent with the soup.”
“Your tale is truly wonderful,” the matey ventured to say as he wiped the heated soup plates.
“I have something yet more wonderful to tell. It made my liver turn to water and my legs shake under me.”
With this tantalising speech he pulled out a clean coat and departed, saucepan in hand, on his errand. On his return he said, as he poured the soup into a tureen—
“After filling my bag with enough game for the master’s breakfast and dinner to-morrow, I took one of the game tracks leading to the river. Just before I shot my last bird I heard, high up on Doorga’s side, the cry of the hyaena. Thinking that it might possibly be coming down to drink, I carried my gun ready to take aim. I looked to right and to left. At any moment the animal might appear by one of the mountain tracks leading into the path I was following, and run ahead in its haste to get to the water.”
“Ah! bah! I should not like to meet a hyaena when I go down to the river to fill the water-pot,” cried the kitchen-woman.
“Be sure to go before sundown, and you need have no fear of hyaena or devil,” said the Paddybird. “I was walking silently and watchful. Suddenly there appeared in my path a great grey-striped hyaena. It was as large as a tiger, and it opened its mouth, showing all its teeth. Its eyes shone red, as if with anger. I raised my gun and fired full in its face. In a moment it was gone. There was a sound of feet upon the path. I lifted my gun again to use the second barrel, when I saw coming towards me——” He dropped his voice and his audience strained their ears to catch his words.
“I saw the husband of our mistress. His teeth shone white, and his eyes gleamed like the eyes of the hyaena. With a cry I dropped the gun. How nearly I had shot him he did not know.”
“The Wentworth master!” cried two or three of the company.
“He walked high at the shoulder, like the beast before him, and my legs shook under me as he spoke out his anger. The shot had passed close to him.”
“What of the hyena?” inquired the syce, with rounded eye.
“Aye, what of the hyaena?” repeated the Paddybird, as though he were keeping his thoughts to himself.
“Had the master seen anything of it?”
“I asked him, and he laughed as if I were a fool-man to put such a question. ‘There was no hyaena,’ he said, but I knew better. I saw it with my own eyes, and fired at it when it was but ten yards away.”
“It had drunk, and was returning to its care on Doorga’s peak,” suggested Benacre’s boy.
“Between the time of hearing its cry high up on the mountain as it was coming down, and meeting it as it was going back, there was not sufficient time for it to have travelled to the river and to have slaked its thirst.”
“Perhaps it had been turned in its downward path by the presence of the Englishman,” hazarded the matey.
“Shooh! much you know of the ways of wild animals,” said the Paddybird, with a fine superiority. “When the jungle beasts seek water nothing sends them back. They may step aside and steal through thick jungle, or hide under a rock until the disturber is gone, but until they have drunk they never retrace their steps to their lairs.”
“Then it was a second hyaena coming from the other side of the valley to the call of the first,” pronounced the matey, who was slightly nettled by the cook’s expression of contempt for his knowledge of wild animals’ ways.
The Paddybird kept his lips resolutely closed as if he knew more than he chose to say. The handbell on the dinner-table tinkled, and the matey ran off with fresh warm plates whilst the chokra carried away the dish of fish.
“If it was not a second beast seeking for a mate, what was it?” asked one of the lascars.
“Did I not say that I fired full in its face? The words of the magician, when he gave me back the gun after casting out the devil, were that it should kill everything that was flesh and blood. He did not promise that it should prevail against that which was not born of jungle parents. Have any of you inquired of the villagers how long the cry of the hyaena has been heard?”
He glanced round at the lascars and syce, who were now his chief audience, the other servants returning at intervals as they were able to escape from their duties at the dinner-table.
“Three years ago one was shot by the river. Since then——”
“There has been none until my master came bringing his guests with him,” concluded the Paddybird, as the speaker hesitated.
He spoke with significance, and they heard him with grunts of comprehension. One of them asked what Varadia thought of the matter.
“He only repeats the words of the village folk. It is well known what they believe concerning all men, natives and foreigners; but whether their belief is true, who can tell? Wherever a man is, there will a bird or beast be found that is like him. Maybe the beast will serve the man. Or maybe the man, if he is weak and foolish, may serve the beast. The Wentworth master is strong and big. It would be unwise to anger him. One does not want to be slain in the jungle by a hyaena. Therefore my legs trembled under me when I saw that his eye shone with the same fire of wrath that lighted the eye of the hyaena.”
During the speech the chokra had returned. He listened with his mouth agape and his eyes starting from his head.
“To-morrow the post will bring me a letter to say that my mother is sick, and I shall ask for leave,” he announced, with a quaver in his voice.
The Paddybird turned upon him angrily.
“Be off to the tent with these cutlets and talk not of leave, son of a timid hen! Is it worse for you who brushes his clothes than for me who prepares his food? I, who had the boldness to fire my gun at him? If there is any talk of leaving the camp there will be sickness here. A man cannot travel with fever and pains; and I, the cook, will see that fever and pains come to him who tries to run away. Each one will stay and do his duty,” commanded the Paddybird.
He had no intention of being left shorthanded in the department over which he ruled. In justice to the rest of the party, it must be said that none intended to forsake the Paddybird, even though they quaked in their secret hearts at the terrible thought he had suggested. The solution of the mysterious appearance of the animal was accepted without the shadow of a doubt. From thenceforth the camp, wherever it might be pitched, would be haunted by the beast, and no ordinary weapon would prevail against it. They might move camp every day; but as long as the Wentworth master was with them the cry of the hyaena would resound on the mountains close by.
“Did you lose yourself this morning?” asked Benacre of Wentworth as they sat down to dinner.
“No; I climbed the hill above the village to a clear open space where I could find a little sunlight.”
“Was it near the Kurumba’s cave?”
“To the left and not so high. It’s where the village people go to cut wood. I went to see the Kurumba this afternoon.”
“You are able to find you way about, then?”
“This morning I got a villager to show me the way. She was cutting wood, and she put me on the right track. In the afternoon I had the Munshi with me.”
“Did you see anything that was out of the way or extraordinary?”
“Nothing at all. I assure, you; the man is a fraud. This open-air life is doing me no end of good. My brain is clearing, and I find that I can concentrate my thoughts without that infernal sensation of confusion. I’ve been working more or less all day long at that pet project of mine which I call the Spook.”
“Don’t overdo it,” cautioned Benacre.
“You need not worry yourself about me. What I want is to be left alone. I won’t stand any interference.”
His eyes rested on his wife as he uttered this disagreeable speech. There was an awkward pause in the conversation, during which Benacre appeared to be absorbed in the eating of his soup. Olwen, as usual, preserved a discreet silence until she found means of changing the topic.
“You will be pleased to hear that Mr. Benacre is thinking of moving on again in a day or two, Flordon,” she said presently—
Benacre took up the thread with relief, saying—
“We will go higher up to a pretty little valley on the other side of Doorga’s peak. It is near the plateau. You will be charmed with the rolling downs, Mrs. Wentworth. You must make use of my pony. He’ll carry you beautifully on the downs.”
“Why do you want to move from here?” asked Flordon, who was in one of his ferocious moods, and inclined to snarl.
“I have business with Hillary, and I have been here quite long enough. Duty takes me all over the district. My chief would have something to say if I remained stationary.”
“Well, you may do as you like; I shall stay here. I am not going to move for you or for anyone else. I’ve got my own tent and servant, so I am independent of you. You and Olwen may be off to-morrow for all I care.”
It was on the tip of Benacre’s tongue to say, “Stay and be hanged!” but he restrained himself. Olwen’s voice broke in serene and unmoved.
“You will like the change, Flordon, when it is made. The air will be more bracing higher up. I could not possibly leave you here alone.”
“You’re like most of your sex; you never know when you’re wanted. Ever since my accident I’ve had petticoats hanging about me. First you and the nurses; then you and the maids; now you and the ayah. I shall be jolly glad to be quit of you all for a spell. The Munshi can stay as interpreter and guide; he’s all I want.”
No reply was possible to this ungracious speech. Flordon accepted the silence as a sign of consent to his plans, and his irritability lessened. The excellent dinner sent in by the Paddybird had something to do with the amelioration of his temper.
“Have you discovered the thief who robbed the chetty on his way from the station?” asked Olwen, of Benacre.
“No, not yet. We have found out that there was only one man in it, and he wore a mask—that is to say, a bit of dark blue stuff tied over the mouth and nose. Hillary thinks that the cartman must have been bribed, as he made no effort to help the chetty. The man pretends that he was beaten; but the chetty declares that he was untouched, and that he actually stood by, a quiet spectator of the whole proceeding. The robbery was effected by throwing a sheet over the chetty, and knotting the ends tightly round his waist. He was almost as helpless as if he had been tied up in a sack.”
“Didn’t he struggle and fight for his liberty?” asked Olwen, relieved at the turn given to the conversation, and entering eagerly into it.
“He was too fat to be very active, and he was easily disabled, as much by terror as by the confining sheet. His money was taken, and some jewellery with it. He declares that he lost a thousand rupees. It is quite possible that he may have done so. These men travel about with their property in a foolish manner, and take the risk of dacoity.”
“Have there been many robberies on the road lately?”
“There have been two or three in this neighbourhood since I have been in camp, which is one of the reasons why we have made such a long stay here. You would have thought that the presence of the police officer would have put a stop to them; but the fact of my being on the spot has not had that effect.”
“Police work is very interesting, not to say exciting,” remarked Olwen.
“Naturally,” replied Benacre, “because, of all men in the service, the police officer is the one whose steps are haunted by tragedy. Now and then there is comedy, but it is of a pathetic nature. We have had a case in hand here for some months past, which will make you smile, although it is no laughing matter for the poor victims.”
“What is it; a kidnapping case?”
“No; it’s a robbery on the confidence-trick lines. Six months ago a traveller arrived one afternoon at the house of the Zemindar of this village. He presented himself at the door, asking to see some woman of the family. He wore a black beard, and said that he came from Hyderabad. One of the elder women went to the verandah and asked what he wanted. He explained that he was going to Cochin. The Rajah of that state had entrusted him with some gems for breeding purposes.”
“Breeding purposes! What could he have meant?” asked Olwen.
“He told them that he possessed the power of making stones multiply themselves. He enclosed them in velvet that matched their colour and wore the packets next to his skin. A magical emanation from his body caused them not only to grow and increase in size, but to increase in number as well.”
“Surely the woman could not have been so foolish as to believe such a tale!”
“She took it all in, and swallowed the tale in its entirety. She called the rest of the household to see the marvel. The rogue showed them emeralds, sapphires, and rubies that he declared had been entrusted to him by the Rajah of Cochin. He described what poor, insignificant gems they wore when they first came into his possession, and drew attention to their present size and lustre.”
“Then he asked the women to give him their jewels, I suppose?” said Olwen.
“That is just what he was careful to avoid doing. He was much too cunning. He mentioned casually that he had called solely for the purpose of showing them what might be done. He felt sure that the ladies of the Zemindar’s household would be interested in the wonderful process. Now that they had examined his treasures he would with their permission take his leave. It is easy to guess what followed. The Zemindar was away at the time, and there was no one to warn them against imposition. They all clamoured to know the secret. He told them that it was a delicate process, and unless the operator was an expert the stones would dwindle, and perhaps disappear, instead of increasing and multiplying. Then they prayed him to take their jewels and place them with those of the Rajah. He refused at first; but at last, yielding to their entreaties, he consented. They stripped themselves of everything but their thalis, and assisted to pack the loot for the thief in the velvet bags which he produced for the purpose. He hung them round his neck and promised that they should be nursed and nourished into fertility. Then he departed, and from that day to this he has never been seen again.”
“Poor, silly souls!” said Olwen, laughing, in spite of the pity she felt.
“Dashed fools! I should say,” broke in Flordon, contemptuously. “They deserve to suffer for their idiocy.”
“My sympathy is with the sufferers,” said Benacre, decisively. “No one knows how the master of the house may have made his displeasure felt when he learned what had happened. The privacy of the zenana covers that. One may be quite sure that he did not take the calamity like a lamb. Two of them came to me in abject misery, and prayed me to recover their property as if their lives depended on it. I promised to do my best, and I told them to let me know if the Zemindar ill-treated them.”
“What did they say?”
“They covered their mouths with their hands, and said, ‘Ah! bah! what is master saying! Does he not know that those who speak of what happens in the zenana do not live long? The Sirkar may rule the country; or if the headman be a fool, the village; but the master of the house alone rules the zenana.’”
“Do you think that you will be able to discover anything?”
“I have very little hope after so many months have elapsed, but Hillary hasn’t forgotten it. Whilst he is pursuing evidence for some other case he may come upon something to give him a clue to the confidence-trick thief.”
After dinner they seated themselves in camp chairs placed in the opening of the tent. Flordon and Benacre lighted their cigarettes. Olwen wrapped herself in a soft white shawl, for the night air was chilly. The conversation was carried on chiefly by Olwen and Benacre, and flowed smoothly. She encouraged him to continue the relation of his many and varied experiences in the police service, and he was well pleased to comply. It was pleasant to have such a good listener as Olwen proved. Flordon listened, too, but his attention wandered. Presently a jackal yapped by the river: He rose, and went outside, saying he must have some fresh air, and that he would stroll down to the bridge. Benacre rose to accompany him.
“You stay with Olwen. I would rather go alone,” said Flordon. Then, as Benacre hesitated, he added, “I mean what I say; I don’t want company.”
“You had better not go far. It is very dark, and I think rain is not far off,” said Jack, who had no wish to force his company on one who did not wish for it.
“All right; you need not worry yourself about me,” he returned over his shoulder, as he disappeared in the gloom of the night.
Again the jackal called.
“That’s a jackal, isn’t it?” asked Olwen.
“Yes; horrid, sly little animals; I don’t like them. They are very useful, however, and do no harm to speak of.”
“I wonder what human affinities they have?” mused Olwen.
“The pariahs, I should say; but, Mrs. Wentworth, you mustn’t take the beliefs of the country too seriously. Let me draw your chair into the shade. You have the lamp-light full in your eyes.”
Compliant with his wish she rose, and he altered the position of her seat, placing it out of the light, and at the same time nearer to his own. Their voices dropped slightly, but conversation did not flag. At ten o’clock she said—
“Now I must go to bed. Flordon hasn’t come back yet.”
“Shall I go and look for him?”
“No, please, don’t; he might think that he was being watched. He can’t come to any harm, and the fresh air quiets his nerves.”
Benacre took up a lantern to light her to the sleeping tent. It was but a few yards. As they picked their way over the grass a cry came from the other side of the valley. It was answered by a jackal.
“There’s the hyaena calling,” said Benacre. “The natives would tell you that he wants something, and that the jackal is replying, ‘Here! here! your excellency; here!’ Good-night, Mrs. Wentworth.”
Benacre did not obey Olwen’s mandate on his return to the big tent. Putting on his cap, he took up the lantern again and sallied forth to look for Flordon. He went slowly down the little hill and turned out of the path into the road.
“I wonder where the fellow goes,” he mused. “This is the second or third time he has been out by himself at night since we have been here. I am afraid that accident knocked a screw loose, and he isn’t altogether accountable for what he says and does.”
He went towards the bridge and discovered his friend leaning against the parapet. Apparently he was enjoying the gentle sound of the bubbling water, which it was too dark to see.
“Hallo, Flordon,” exclaimed Benacre, relieved to find him so near home. “I came to give you a light up the hill. Mrs. Wentworth has gone to bed. You’ve had enough fresh air by this time to make you sleep, haven’t you?”
“I never have enough,” was the reply. “I wish I could sleep out here.”
“You would have a terrible go of fever if you ventured to do such a thing. Come along back to camp. It’s time our lights were out and the servants tucked up in their blankets.”
No objection was made, and the two men walked back in silence, each occupied with his own thoughts.
The Paddybird, having eaten his moolay, smoked one of his master’s cigars and drank a small modicum of whisky derived from the same source, two privileges reserved jealously to himself. He prided himself on his honesty in allowing no pilfering in the establishment. He sat on a mat inside the kitchen tent. The Poochee was close at hand; also Benacre’s boy and the other chokra. There was a pause in the hum of voices, and during that pause the cry on the hillside reached their ears. Flordon’s boy shivered, but not with cold.
He rose and went to the servants’ tent, where he slept. Presently the Poochee followed, creeping softly to the little canvas shelter. He peeped in without being seen. The chokra was busy collecting his small properties and making them into a bundle. The Poochee had seen enough. He stole back to the kitchen, and, squatting close behind the cook, whispered in his ear.
“To-night the Wentworth chokra is tying up a bundle. To-morrow after he has had his bread and coffee he will run away.”
“Hoh!” was the comment. “Bring me his coffee early, as soon as you have heated it. I will cure him with belly-pains of wanting to run away. A sick dressing-boy is better than no dressing-boy at all.” He smoked his cigar down to the very end. As he threw away the stump he remarked to his under-study, “It is unwise to pay too much attention to what these village people say, even though they speak true words. The chief business of a servant is to please his master and to keep a good name. Above all things, little brother, be honest and never be found out.”
The next day, immediately after breakfast, Flordon pulled out the plans. Settling himself at a camp-table be began to study them with the intention of working out the problem on paper. He had the rough notes that he had made the day before, and by their help he hoped to grapple successfully with the difficulties that beset him. Yesterday it had all seemed so clear. The errors stood out distinctly. The correct line to follow lay plain before his mental vision; so plain had the path appeared that he considered it unnecessary to write down anything but a few bare items. He relied on his memory to help him as soon as he had the plans before his eyes.
He relied on a broken reed; for his memory failed him utterly. Try as he would he was unable to marshal his thoughts and gather the many threads that had to be grasped. As soon as one was mastered another had slipped away. They were there, hidden somewhere in the recesses of his brain; but when he endeavoured to bring them into the light they proved to be hopelessly entangled. The brain refused to make the effort.
After struggling vainly for an hour, he flung the papers aside in sheer desperation and rage. At that moment Olwen passed outside the tent. She had a glass in her hand. He called out angrily—
“What are you doing in the sun, Olwen? I wish you would sit quiet and read or sew instead of fidgeting about like that; it disturbs me.”
At the sound of his voice she stopped. Her eyes fell on the scattered papers, and she guessed what had happened.
“I am carrying some brandy to your dressing-boy. The cook tells me that he has been taken ill this morning with a kind of bilious fever, probably brought on by eating unripe fruit. He is in great pain, and I thought that the brandy might relieve him.”
“Serve him right,” growled Flordon. “You need not trouble yourself about a beastly native. Upon my word; when a man is ill, you women buzz about him like vultures about a dead body. I’ve had more than enough of it during the last eight months. Sometimes I feel inclined to make a bolt for it, and get slick away. I wonder what you would do if you woke some fine morning and found me gone?”
“I should go back to England, of course, and wait until you joined me,” she replied quietly.
It was evident that he was suffering from nervous irritation brought on by his attempt to work. Her only thought was how to allay the irritation.
“Perhaps you would like to be off home before long,” she said with sudden inspiration. “It would be better for you to superintend the works again instead of poring over those plans.”
He seemed struck with the wisdom of her suggestion and he said more quietly than he had hitherto spoken—
“You are right. It’s the hum of the works that I want; but, first and foremost, I should dearly like a week here by myself. I should be more pleased than a little if you would go on to the next camp with Benacre and leave me here.”
Olwen’s colour heightened slightly as she answered him—
“You know such a thing would be impossible.”
“You need not be afraid of Mrs. Grundy. There’s no Mrs. Grundy in the jungle, thank Heaven!”
“It’s not on that account exactly——” began Olwen, still embarrassed and uncomfortable.
“You are not going to tell me that you are falling in love with Benacre, are you? I shouldn’t believe you if you did. If you ever loved any one better than yourself, it was that ass, Lewis. As for Benacre, it is easy to see that he is head over ears in love with you, which is not to be wondered at, considering that you are the only Englishwoman he has seen lately. But he doesn’t count. I’m not jealous, and I shall be grateful to him if he will carry you off for a week or ten days.”
“Enough, Flordon. I think you must be mad to talk like that. It is a poor return for all his kindness,” cried Olwen, whose blood tingled at his words.
“Hang it all! I’ve paid my way, and he has benefited by the transaction. We’ve spared no expense in making ourselves comfortable, and we have given him his share of our comforts.”
She did not reply, not daring to trust herself to answer him. His suggestion was an outrage upon herself and upon the man who had so kindly befriended them. It was as ungrateful as it was unjust.
She went on her way with the brandy to minister to the unfortunate dressing-boy, whose fear of serving an uncanny master was forgotten in the spasms that racked him.
Flordon seated himself once more at the table, and made a second effort to grasp his subject. It was ineffectual; and when the tiffin bell rang he rose cursing his fate. Why should it have come to him so easily as he sat in the jungle, and refuse to come now? He had it! It was the peace and quiet of the forest, the certainty of being free from interruption, the sight of those two contemplative idiots, the Munshi and the Kurumba, sitting there.
He went in to lunch, but had no appetite. The forest seemed to be calling him, and he chafed at the leisurely progress of the meal. Motioning the servants away, as they handed him the dishes, he gave expression to his impatience. Benacre looked up, as he helped himself to a stuffed pigeon, and said—
“Don’t wait for me, Flordon, if you want to be off. I am not going to hurry. I have been hard at work ever since breakfast, and this is a good excuse for taking an hour’s rest. As soon as I leave the table I shall feel it my duty to start away on my pony down the valley, and I shan’t be back until dinner. Be off to those blessed old plans of yours, by all means, if you like.”
Flordon rose, saying that he thought of going out for a walk. Benacre observed that it was full early to wander about in the sun; but the other man took no notice of his remark. A few minutes later Olwen and Jack saw him pass down the path towards the village.
“He has been worrying himself over his invention,” remarked Benacre.
“I am afraid so, but I can’t stop it,” replied Olwen, with a troubled expression.
“Don’t attempt to do so,” he said. “A man of Flordon’s temperament must go his own way. People who run foul of him are likely to suffer.”
“That is so,” she replied without meeting his eye.
“We will try what change of scene will do.”
“It would be very nice to continue camping; but Flordon is beginning to pine for home. This open air life has restored him to such an extent that he is becoming restless and anxious to get back to work. I am not sure that we ought to prolong his idleness, if it is growing irksome.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, startled and surprised.
“That Flordon is sufficiently recovered to attend to his business at the works, and that it would be better for him to be occupied with his workpeople than to be struggling with this will-o’-the-wisp, the Spook. How I wish that he would lay it aside altogether!”
“He won’t do that,” replied Benacre, shortly.
“Then the next best thing to be done is to go back to England, where he will have less time to devote to the Spook. I have already begun a letter to Bombay about our passages.”
He gazed at her blankly and said—“I thought it was arranged that you were to stay with me until the tour was finished, and to get away just before the hot weather. The climate of these hills is delightful for the next two or three months. You couldn’t improve on it even if you went to Coonoor.”
“I know; and, as far as I am concerned, there is nothing I should like better. The life is idyllic. But we came for Flordon’s sake, not mine; and if he shows signs of unrest and discontent, we must change our plans.”
Her eyes rested on his as she spoke. She was totally unaware of the patience and self-sacrifice that shone in their depths. If he had responded at that moment, he must have betrayed himself. The hidden fire that burned continually against Flordon, the pity closely akin to something else that he felt for her, the warm admiration of her constant forbearance would have culminated in a passionate outburst, if he had not bridled his tongue. The knowledge that such a lapse would only hasten on the separation which he dreaded helped him to maintain his silence. This happy existence had been idyllic indeed, and up to the present moment he had not given a thought to the future. Now it was forcibly presented to him without warning. She would depart to England, in the ordinary course of events, never to return to India. His lines were cast in the tropical country which he had adopted, and unless he sought her out in the furlough that came only now and then in his long service, their paths in life would never cross again. He pushed his plate aside, his appetite suddenly failing, and rose from the table.
“I must be off. You will excuse me, I know,” he said abruptly, and without lingering to smoke the customary cigarette that followed each meal.
Ten minutes later she saw him riding away.
The large tent in which she sat was pitched near the edge of the wood that partially covered the knoll. The tents faced south-east, and overlooked the valley. The situation was admirably chosen. It was sunny in the morning, when the air was cool and a little warmth was acceptable. In the afternoon, when the breeze blew less crisply, the shadow thrown by the trees modified the heat and enabled Olwen to leave the shelter of the canvas for the shade.
Immediately after lunch the servants placed chairs under the trees, ready for her use. If not occupied before, they were needed when the tea was spread at four o’clock.
After Benacre’s abrupt departure she remained seated at the lunch-table until the servants came to clear away the plates. She was disturbed. Not a word had been uttered by her host in deprecation of the change of plan; but the tone in which he had alluded to the previous arrangement expressed more than words. The insinuation dropped by her husband spread. It destroyed her peace of mind, and filled her with self-reproach. At the same time her pulse quickened. Can any woman who has the true feminine instinct regard a man’s devotion unmoved? Olwen with her emotional nature could not. She made an effort to believe that it was nothing but a stretch of Flordon’s imagination. A hundred little memories sprang up to contradict the theory and convince her of its truth. She must face the situation, taking action that would save Benacre from unnecessary misery. She was not indifferent herself. He had been considerate and thoughtful for her comfort throughout their tour. It had been very sweet to have his companionship and unspoken sympathy when she had been tried to her utmost endurance by Flordon’s ill-temper. Gladly would she have prolonged the happy camping life as it had begun; but Flordon’s remark had struck a blow at the possibility of it. Even if they continued their tour, it could no longer be under the old conditions. Constraint must inevitably spring up between Benacre and herself. His actions, even his looks, would take a new meaning. She would become an evil influence in his life, and the sooner the links were broken the less likelihood would there be of disaster for him. She resolved that she would begin to withdraw herself from his companionship as far as was compatible with common politeness towards a host.
She moved out of the tent towards the chairs. Benacre’s boy, setting down his burden of glasses, followed her.
“Plenty too much sun for missus,” he said.
“Then move the chair more into the shade,” she replied.
He lifted the deck chair and placed it near to the trunk of a giant tree some twenty yards from the open.
“Not that way; turn it so that I look into the forest.”
She sat down with her face towards the beautiful foliage, which was so much more acceptable to the eye at that time of day than the dazzling blue sky with its occasional fugitive cloud of sunlit vapour. She had brought a book with her, but it lay unheeded on her lap. Her eyes rested on leaf and flower; on the shy birds that presently ventured to show themselves in their busy search for insects under the bark or in the long grass and fern beneath the trees.
How long she had thus sat she did not know. All at once she became aware of the presence of a strange human being. He was brown of skin and wore as little covering as was possible within the bounds of decency. His hair hung about his shoulders; his figure was lean and bony; his feet were curiously flat, with the toes spread out as if they were used like the monkey’s toes to grasp the steep incline of a rocky mountain, or the rough bark of a tree. The odd part of the vision was the fact that he was seated upon his heels, native fashion, when her eye first caught sight of him. She had not detected his approach; he had come like the birds that appeared and disappeared she knew not how; and she could not tell how long he had been watching her before she discovered his presence. He remained perfectly still; not a muscle moved. His vitality seemed centred in his eyes, which were black and shone like those of a rat.
Olwen had seen enough of Hindu and Muhammadan life not to be alarmed. She liked the natives and never suffered from the instinctive repulsion that some Europeans declare that they feel towards the Asiatic.
As she met his gaze she smiled. The Kurumba was encouraged to advance a step or two. This he did without rising from his squatting position. He resembled a rusty black raven as he moved, and she would not have been astonished if he had uttered a loud croak. Step by step he advanced as she made no motion to stop him, just as she had seen the garden coolie progress when he was weeding the flower borders round Benacre’s house at headquarters.
When he reached her side he held out his hand palm uppermost, a language understood all over the world. She took two rupees from her purse and dropped them into his palm. The beady eyes twinkled with a momentary gleam of pleasure as he secreted the coins quickly in his loin-cloth. He spoke, but Olwen knew nothing of the language. She shook her bead and endeavoured to make him understand that it was of no use talking to her. He was manifestly disappointed. The Indian magician has his code of honour, though he may be the veriest scoundrel. He is not a beggar to receive alms for nothing. He has no definite charge for his services, but he expects to be paid, and is careful to give what he considers an equivalent for the gift presented beforehand. Had she known it, the Kurumba was forecasting the future. It was just as well that his words were incomprehensible. The story he was unfolding would have startled her.
Finding that fortune-telling was of no use, he became silent. His watchful eyes detected her curious gaze directed towards the strange objects that formed his necklaces. He detached an ornament made of rose crystal, enclosed in a cage of filigree silver, and put it in her hands. Its facets caught the reflection of a narrow ray of sunlight that pierced through the branches overhead. She turned the crystal and watched its beautiful points of light.
The warm air brushed the curls upon her forehead, and the scent of the wild blossom of the jungle was wafted to her nostrils. How beautiful the forest had grown! The soft sensuousness of it appealed to the emotional side of her nature. She seemed to expand like a flower under the influence of the sun, to open her arms to Nature, and to be filled with vague longing. What was it that she craved for? Could it be love, responsive, joyous, adequate, satisfying; such love as a man like Benacre might give her, such love as was dawning in Lewis when he left her, such love as Flordon could never bestow? The pigeons cooed in the depth of the jungle, and the song of the happy birds at their nest-building resounded from the aisles of the forest.
She closed her eyes with a little catch of the breath. Taken unawares, she yielded to the influence and floated down on a tide of memory on forbidden waters. She was back in the past, living in those shadowy regions that had been first opened to her in Madame Boyovitch’s salon.
The Kurumba’s head was bent forward, his eyes were half-closed and he seemed asleep as he sat motionless by her side. The shadows lengthened as the afternoon hours sped away. There was a rattle of teacups in the direction of the servant’s quarters. The Kurumba rose and picked up the crystal that lay upon Olwen’s lap, where it had fallen from her fingers. As silently as he approached he departed, disappearing into the jungle. A few seconds later the sharp, discordant cry of a jay close at hand roused Olwen from her dreams. Had she been asleep? She did not think that she had lost consciousness. She felt the same kind of grey chilliness and depression that used to come over her after leaving the medium’s house in London. The sight of the servant setting the tea on the table near the tent was pleasant. She called to him to fetch her chair and carry it to the table. The warm tea sent the blood circulating through her veins again. She took tea alone, neither of the men turning up to join her. The effect of her day-dreaming passed off, and when she had finished she was quite ready for her afternoon walk. In one respect it had had a curious influence upon her. The mental disturbance created by Flordon’s remark about Benacre’s feeling towards her had quite disappeared. She no longer felt embarrassed at the thought of it. Conscience was silenced and her mind dwelt upon him with a warm friendliness that she did not stop to analyze.
She put on her hat and started out for her stroll. When she reached the road there was no hesitation as to which direction she should go. She chose the way which she knew he had taken.
When Flordon left the tent after lunch, he walked rapidly through the village and turned off into the path that led past Varadia’s hut towards the cave. He came upon the Munshi standing at the entrance of the yard. Chandama was sitting just outside the door of her house. Her face was full of gloom, and at the sight of Flordon she sprang up, asking him to stop and listen to her grievance. The Munshi was in the act of speaking to her, and the more he urged his tale, the more vehemently did she shake her head negatively. Flordon turned on the man angrily, and said—
“Why are you scolding the girl?”
“It is not a scolding; it is a warning that if her husband discovers that she laughs and talks with your honour he will be angry.”
“And then?” Flordon asked indifferently.
“He will beat her. These Malabar people are quick-tempered. Men have beaten their wives to death for less reason than the constable has for punishing her.”
His tone was not pleasant; there was a strain of impertinence in it that did not tend to lessen the anger of the Englishman.
“You are the last person to complain of her conduct, since it was you who brought me here. If the constable has anything to say on the matter, I shall take care to let him know the part you have played in it. I deny that he has anything to find fault with.”
Chandama listened as they talked, striving to comprehend what was said. In her own language she broke into the conversation, and endeavoured to give her version of the story. The Munshi had lent her husband a sum of money. Instead of waiting for the gradual repayment of it by instalments out of his monthly salary, he was pressing Varadia for the whole of it. It was not because he wanted the money. He coveted the magic rod which Varadia possessed; he had offered to take it in part payment of the loan. Her husband would never give it up. The Munshi had ordered her to find it and hand it over to him in Varadia’s absence, and had threatened to tell him of her meetings with the Englishman if she did not comply with his request. Her husband carried the rod always on his person. Night and day it hung round his neck by a cord, and never for a moment was it laid aside. How could she obtain possession of it? Here she melted into tears, and Flordon demanded to be told why she wept. He had only understood a small portion of her tale.
The Munshi gave his own interpretation. The woman wept, he said, because she was angry.
“Last evening, as I passed on my way back from the Kurumba’s cave, they were quarrelling and Varadia beat her. She says that if he beats her again she will kill him with the rope that she uses to bind her bundles of firewood.”
“Silly little thing! Tell her I will give her husband ten rupees, which will put him in a good humour again. What does she mean by ‘a little stick,’ which I gather you want?”
The Munshi was slightly taken aback. He explained, however, as much of the story as he thought advisable, omitting all mention of the threat that he had uttered.
“It is a little rod for making magic, of no use in their ignorant hands. I offered to buy it, or take it in part-payment of the loan; that is all.”
“A divining-rod?” asked Flordon with interest. “What is it like?”
“It is of white wood, the size of the pencil your honour uses to write with, and twice the length.”
“I must ask the constable to show it to me. What are its powers?”
“If held in a proper manner it renders the holder invisible. It moves in the hand when it passes over a spot where treasure is hidden. Snakes and savage beast will run away at the sight of it. Even the wild elephant will tremble and turn aside if he sees it.”
“What a treasure! If I were the constable I should stick to it,” said Flordon with a laugh. He turned to Chandama and continued in broken Malayalam. “You keep your little stick, and don’t let that old budmash have it.”
She giggled at the use of the term “budmash,” and the Munshi yellowed with rage. Flordon did not catch the evil expression on the man’s face. He was eager to reach the cave. With a friendly nod to the girl he resumed his walk up the steep path at a pace that tried the lungs of the Munshi, who followed close at his heels.
They arrived earlier than the day before. The Kurumba was nowhere to be seen. The bundle of dry fern and moss that served as Flordon’s couch was lying inside the cave. The Munshi entered and brought it out, and, at his companion’s directions, placed it exactly on the spot it had previously occupied.
“Where’s the old man?” asked Flordon, as he sat down and beat the moss into a more comfortable position.
“I don’t know, sir. Perhaps he has walked over to Doorgapet to cast out a devil. I was told that his services were needed there.”
“Go and see if he is inside the cave.”
The Munshi hesitated a moment and wished again that he had the magic wand with him. The cavern contained an inner recess in which there was little light. There were crevices in its sides of all shapes and sizes formed by the splitting of the rock as it cooled and contracted. Two or three were large enough to conceal a man; others were suitable for hiding valuables or for storing food and clothing. There was nothing to be seen of either, nor was there any human being to be found. A low wooden cot, upon which was stretched a piece of canvas, served the hermit as a bed at night and a seat by day when the rain drove him to take shelter.
The Munshi’s eyes travelled round the cavern inquisitively. He touched the charpoy, lifted the hard little pillow and slipped his hand beneath the rag of blanket rolled up at its foot. Then he examined some of the crevices in the wall of the cavern, but found nothing. A large bat, startled by the presence of a prying stranger, fluttered blindly from its roosting place in the rock. It beat the cabin roof with its leathern wings and suddenly dashed to the ground. The Munshi stepped aside only just in time to escape its clutch. Then, with blundering flight, it made for the opening and disappeared in the foliage of the creeper that hung down from the rock. Flordon watched it apprehensively, fearing lest it should fall upon him. He heard it clawing its way with a leathery rustling into the dark shelter of the heavy foliage. The Munshi came out of the cave more quickly than he had gone in. The incident had startled him as a trespasser might be startled by the sudden attack of a watch-dog.
“I cannot find the Kurumba anywhere, sir,” he said.
“All right; never mind the old fraud. Don’t stir up any more of his beastly bats. Come and sit quiet while I have a smoke, and a think.”
The Munshi, who thoroughly understood that fifty rupees a month were not to be earned without a little trouble, was quite ready to fall in with his employer’s wishes. He seated himself in a spot where the sunlight penetrated, and settled himself down to doze away the afternoon till his master was ready to go home.
Flordon lighted a cigarette, and composed himself for the mental effort which he confidently anticipated would bring illumination. The day was perfect. There had been a refreshing shower in the night, but the morning air had dried the vegetation. A gentle breeze sighed in the tree-tops. The barbets never ceased their calls to each other, and the Malabar thrush continued “its unfinished song” in response to the voice of the mountain torrent.
With set purpose he abandoned himself to the appreciation of the tranquility of Nature. He was not susceptible like Olwen to its influences; but he knew the value of solitude. The forest enveloped him in its seclusion as he stretched his limbs luxuriously upon the soft couch of moss. Cigarette after cigarette he smoked in silence, oblivious of the immovable figure of the Munshi. He waited with more patience and perseverance than was usual; but he waited in vain. The exaltation of the previous day failed to make its presence felt. There was restfulness and a sense of lethargy conducive to calm sleep; but the divine mental illumination did not supervene.
He took out his note-book containing the notes he had jotted down the day before under the marvellous influence and studied them, hoping that they might inspire him. Again they seemed vague and obscure, and he could not follow the suggestions that they were intended to convey. His disappointment manifested itself in physical restlessness and the growing irritation that always proved so fatal to the concentration of thought.
He sat up and beat the moss into fresh softness, changing his position. Then he laid himself down once again and made another effort. It had an unexpected effect. He fell into a deep sleep that lasted for more than an hour. He awoke with a start. The heat of the afternoon had passed and the sun was going down towards the west. The Munshi still sat a little apart, but he was awake and watchful.
“Your honour has had pleasant dreams,” he said, as Flordon rose to his feet.
“I haven’t been dreaming; I’ve been asleep,” he replied irately.
“The pleasant thoughts did not come to-day, and your honour could not calculate. It was because the Kurumba was not here,” said the Munshi, with the confidence of one who understood the psychical problem.
“What has he got to do with it?” asked Flordon roughly.
“Your honour has seen how he can make the rock fall, and the cloud come down into his hands, and the wild elephant show himself where no wild beast could stand. He commands also the minds of men and upon his strength do they work.”
Flordon laughed scornfully, and the laugh roused the ire of the Munshi. It touched his amour propre, and he said with some asperity—
“Your honour may laugh, but come again when he is here and I will prove that this is so. Yes, sir, you must come again, if it is only to clear my name. Your honour thinks that I have lied. I will show you that I have spoken true words only.”
“Very well, I agree. Fetch the old man at once.”
“He has disappeared for the day, and I cannot find him now. To-morrow he may be here, but of that I am not certain.”
He did not think it necessary to explain that his own greed was the cause of the Kurumba’s absence. It was the magician’s method of revenging the attempt made by the Munshi to obtain part of the money given by Flordon on the previous day.
“He will come without fail if you let him know that I will give him his price. What does he want for his show?”
The Munshi hesitated. He knew that Flordon was rich, that he would not be many more weeks in the country, and that consequently there was not much time for “milking the cow,” as he put it.
“It must be a larger sum than last time,” he said tentatively.
“All right; three sovereigns instead of two. Look here, Munshi, I shall pay by results. If he can’t give me what you call pleasant thoughts, he shall have nothing. I don’t want any more rocks tumbling about the place, or clouds, or hanky-panky with ghostly wild beasts. I must have a clear brain to think with.”
“I understand. Your honour is puzzling out something which must be put upon the sheets of paper. At present it remains asleep in the head, and will not come further. Thus do our yogis and holy men puzzle out their religious thoughts until the way is made plain. They do it without the help of a magician. Knowledge comes to them at their will through the strength of their prayers. For one like you, or like me, who makes no practice of holy rites, this clearness of brain which brings knowledge cannot be attained except by the assistance of one versed in magic. It comes by magic like the cloud, and it vanishes by magic as the cloud melts. When it comes, if your honour can write it down, it will remain. The Kurumba cannot take away that which is set down upon the white sheets of paper.”
During this speech, which was uttered slowly and with emphasis, Flordon remained silent. He was aware that the man spoke from conviction, and believed every word of his statement; but his practical mind revolted against the idea of supernatural control. Occultism was the phantasm of the weak and foolish. People who followed the cult in the intelligent world were, in his opinion, contemptible. The ignorant, half-civilised rogues who dealt with it in the East were beneath contempt. He was unconvinced, yet he could not but admit to himself that the day had been signally barren. The morning had resulted in nothing but confusion. The afternoon had brought undesired sleep.
Was it possible that the Kurumba had attempted to hypnotize him? He spurned the notion as absurd. How could he have hypnotized him unless he had willingly submitted to the process? Then he remembered that yesterday, shortly before the sensation overtook him, he had drunk some cocoanut milk. Had they administered some subtle Indian drug, he wondered, which had cleared the brain and stimulated it? If that were so, it might easily be repeated. He had no objection to placing his faith in that kind of thing, nor of using such a drug if it existed. He might purchase some of it, and take it away with him for future use. Instead of making any comment inimical or otherwise on the Munshi’s declaration, he said—
“Are there any green cocoanuts left? If so, I should like a little milk to drink.”
The Munshi answered in the affirmative and went into the cave. He returned with the same cocoanut shell cup that had been used the day before. Flordon tossed off the sweet liquor and once more, late as it was, threw himself back upon his couch. The result was disappointing. Beyond quenching a thirst that had not been excessive, no effect was produced. The Munshi resumed his seat, and Flordon lighted another cigarette. Ten minutes later he got up and threw the cigarette end away with an audible curse.
“Come along, it’s time we were off home,” he said angrily.
He strode away down the path, his companion following closely. When half-way to the camp he said—
“Tell that old fraud to be in his cave to-morrow, and I will pay him handsomely if he will clear my head. Do you, understand? I don’t care now he does it, as long as it is done.”
The servants had finished their evening meal. According to custom it was eaten in silence. No sooner were the dishes emptied than their tongues began to wag. They had taken their supper outside by one of the fires, the only fire that was kept going now that the cooking was finished. At the invitation of the Paddybird the party entered the tent for their evening smoke, whilst the old woman washed up the platters and basins that had been used, and put away the curry-pots. The party was somewhat crowded, but the wide opening of their canvas shelter admitted enough fresh air to disperse the fumes that arose from their coarse country-cured tobacco.
“What said the master when he called you to his office tent just before supper?” asked Benacre’s boy.
“That the plans are altered. We do not move camp at present.”
“Why has the change been made?”
Before the cook could reply the matey hastened to give his news.
“There was much talk at the dinner-table. It is the Wentworth master who is making trouble. When he heard that the carts were to start to-night and that he would have to leave to-morrow morning, he became very angry. ‘Do as you please for yourselves, but I stay here with the Munshi and my chokra,’ he said, in a loud voice. All through dinner he had been cross and difficult to please. ‘We cannot leave you alone,’ the mistress said. He was still more angry. ‘I care not for your presence; I wish to be alone.’ Our master would have spoken. I saw by his face that he, too, was angry; but the mistress looked at him and he kept silence. Afterwards, when dinner was ended, he gave the order.”
“Ah bah! the Wentworth master is not a yogi or a valluvan that he needs to be alone!” commented the Poochee, who did not wish to be omitted from the conversation.
“What will be done, then, if we do not move?” asked Benacre’s boy.
“We shall wait here a few days longer until the Wentworth master has sense. To-morrow morning early the village dhoby must be called, and I will give out the linen,” said the Paddybird, with the serenity that marks the Indian domestic under the most capricious of masters.
“There is a letter on the office table from Inspector Hillary, saying that he must talk with the master over many matters that cannot be set down on paper,” said Benacre’s boy.
“Our master will ride over to the inspector’s bungalow perhaps, and if it is a long business he will stay a night or two with the inspector. There is not much room in it, it is true; but the inspector is an Englishman, and he keeps a proper servant to cook his food. What is the talk likely to be about?”
The boy, having access to the office tent and charge of the writing table, was supposed to be the best authority on all official affairs. The Paddybird looked to him for information, and expected to be kept up to date in police matters.
“The constables say that it will be concerning the robbery on the road. It is not unlikely that there is also news of the man who took away the jewels from the Zemindar’s women.”
“Those jewels will never be seen any more. The black beard denoted a man from the North, who is not likely to be travelling this way again,” remarked one of the lascars.
“The syce brought news that a man of the shoemaker caste has been seized and locked up for the dacoity on the road. He had it from Hillary’s syce yesterday,” said Benacre’s boy, continuing his tale. “It is probable that the cartman will swear to him.”
“Is he the thief?” asked the Poochee.
“It isn’t likely; a low-caste man who has fever five days out of ten, and is as weak as a child! But something had to be done to satisfy the inspector. Also there is a reward offered. The constables agreed to arrest the chuckler and to beat him, to make him confess. The inspector is not like other men. He has powers such as the Kurumbas possess. When the chuckler was brought before him, his eyes fastened on him, and he saw through the loin-cloth and the jacket that he wore. ‘Take off those clothes,’ he said; and going up to the man he put his fingers upon the marks left by the stick. He said, ‘This man has been beaten.’ The head constable replied, ‘He is a thief by his own mouth. Tell the inspector that you are a thief.’ Though he spoke with a loud voice, the head constable trembled in his knees. The chuckler shook exceedingly. He fell upon his face at the feet of the inspector and cried for mercy. Then the inspector said, ‘Promotion comes not through arresting the wrong man. That way brings only shame and scorn. Take this chuckler to the dispensary for medicine; give him plenty of food. To-morrow the truth will sit upon his face like the light upon the full moon, and I shall read it. If he be truly the thief he shall be properly punished, not by the head constable, but by the Sirkar.’ The syce said that they left the inspector with fire burning within their bodies.”
“It is strange how by Government order punishment is only given after the witnesses have been called and the judge has listened,” remarked the matey. “How much easier would it be if part of the punishment came with the catching of the thief! Then confession would follow, and much trouble might be saved. The sentence could be spoken, and the rest of the punishment given.”
“That was the way in the old days, and it was a good way,” agreed the Paddybird. “Now there is long waiting, with too much time for making lies. The fat must be boiling to fry the cutlets, or they will be spoiled. If the punishment comes when the crime has grown cold and is well-nigh forgotten, it seems unjust, and there is much grumbling.”
“But what if the wrong man is taken, little father?” asked the Poochee.
“There are ways of escape where there is money. If he has no money, the poor man is a fool to be found in the shadow of a crime. He has his legs; he can run away. If he has no legs, he can prove what the constables call an alibi,” replied the Paddybird.
“The English are a strange people. My grandfather said that in his time they came to get riches. In the present day what do they come for? It is not wealth, it is not women, perhaps it is power,” said the matey.
“Yet what power has the assistant-superintendent?” asked Benacre’s boy, with indignation. “See, here; he ordered the camp to be moved according to our usual custom when we are camping alone, and at the word of the Wentworth master he changes all his plans.”
“And the Wentworth master is governed by the Munshi, who is governed by the Kurumba,” said a melancholy voice in the rear of the party.
It came from Flordon’s boy, who was still very sorry for himself. He had been allowed some mullagatawny for his supper with rice, and the Paddybird was preparing a comforting nightcap of the brandy given by Olwen. Sugar, ginger, and a drop of boiling water added, the whole stirred with the cook’s forefinger, made a healing draught that was coveted by all who saw its preparation.
“Will the pains return, little father?” he asked plaintively as he received the glass with gratitude.
“I think not. To-morrow morning you will go back to your work; and there must be no more talk of going to see a sick mother, or the pains will return. They were bad, little brother?”
“Very bad, honoured sir! I was killed many times to-day,” replied the poor young man piteously.
“It is convenient not to move camp,” remarked Benacre’s boy. “I shall have to go to Doorgapet, however, if my master stays there over the night.”
“If you go you will ask for news of all that is doing there. The inspector’s boy learns much, but he has told me that his master is cunning. He burns all his papers himself. Where there is no waste-paper basket in a house there is little news,” said the Paddybird.
“Where there is no news there is no trouble; and where there is no trouble there is plenty of time to eat and sleep,” remarked the matey.
“Where there is nothing in the oven there is no nice savoury smell,” said the Paddybird. He threw away the end of his cigar and added, “It is time to sleep now, since we have no packing to do. One of you must go to Varadia’s house and send him to tell the villagers, whose bullocks have been ordered for the carts, that they will not be wanted for to-night. He knows which men they are, for he gave the order.”
Benacre’s boy was chosen to carry the message, as it fell to his lot to sit up later than the other’servants, it being his duty to put the lights out in the dining tent after the master had gone to bed. While lighting the lantern, which every native prefers to carry whether the moon shines or not, he asked—
“Shall I find him at his hut or at the station by the bridge?”
“He will be in his hut and sleeping soundly. At three o’clock he wakes to go on his beat round the village. Shake him well, for he sleeps heavily from the opium that he smokes.”
The Paddybird dispersed the little company with patriarchal authority, despatching them to their various sleeping places, to the tiny servants’ tent, the ayah to her mistress’s, and the matey to the office where he would be joined by Benacre’s boy. He waited to see that all disappeared safely under canvas. Some kind of shelter in that climate was absolutely necessary. A single night spent in the open with the dews falling would be followed certainly by an attack of malarial fever. Having satisfied himself that his flock was safely herded, he turned into the kitchen tent. The Poochee’s mother, whom the Paddybird honoured on rare occasions by the name of aunt, had already rolled herself in a table-cloth that was waiting the coming of the dhoby. She had spread her mat and pillow behind a barricade of pots and saucepans that were her special charge.
The Poochee had arranged the Paddybird’s bed and was busy with his own under the kitchen table, when the whole camp was startled by cries that came from the direction of the village. A few minutes later Benacre’s boy returned from his errand. His face was yellow with fright, and his hands trembled so that he could scarcely hold the lantern. It was about half-past ten, and Benacre was seated alone at the entrance of the dinner tent, Olwen having retired to bed. Flordon was still absent, enjoying the fresh air as usual in a stroll. Benacre had not troubled to go and look for him this evening, but he intended to sit up until he returned. His servant came running to him, and his first thought was that something untoward had happened to Flordon. The boy was out of breath from his haste, and was labouring under some unusual excitement.
“What is it? Anything wrong with Mr. Wentworth?”
“No, sir. It’s Varadia, the police constable!”
“Well, what of him?” he asked with sudden relief.
“I went to his house to speak of the carts and bullocks which will not be required to-night. I thought he slept. He smokes opium after his supper; so I beat him hard with my fist. I could not wake him. Then I lifted my lantern to his face, and I saw that he was dead. His eyes were open and coming from their holes; his tongue hung out; blood dropped from his nose and ears. Round his neck was twisted a rope such as the women use to bind the firewood they cut in the jungle.”
Benacre rose without a word, took the lantern from his servant’s clammy fingers, and walked quickly away in the direction of the village. The terrified boy went to the kitchen, where he told his tale of horror. Every servant belonging to the camp, including the ayah, joined the group. The kitchen woman, emerging from behind her pot screen, blew up the embers of the fire round which they had sat to eat their meal. In the village below they could see lights moving as Benacre sent out his messengers to warn his inspectors. There was nothing to be done in camp, but from force of habit the kitchen woman filled the kettle and put it over the flames. English masters had a way of asking for hot water at all hours of the day and night. The little company gathered round the fire, each person being wrapped in the blanket that served for bed-covering. Squatting as near as possible, they discussed the story until it was threadbare.
“How was he lying when you entered the hut?” asked the Paddybird.
“Close to the door, as if he was asleep. He was rolled in his sheet, and his face was partly covered.”
“Was his wife there?”
“I did not see her. Across the hut hung a screen of bamboo matting. She may have been behind it.”
“Did she not cry out when you said that he was dead?”
“I heard no sound. The village was silent except for the howl of the jackals in the wet land by the river. Once I thought I heard the cry of the hyaena as well, but I did not stay to listen. The sight of the constable made my liver turn to water and the bones in my legs to become as butter. I cried aloud to the people in the houses near, but they were slow to awake. They all smoke a little opium after eating at night, to keep the fever away. It was difficult to make them understand what had happened. When I had done so I came running back to tell the master.”
“Who has killed him?” at last whispered one of the assembly.
The replies were varied. Everyone had an opinion to offer, and no two agreed. His wife, said one; the Munshi, said another; his next-door neighbour, with whom he had had a long dispute over a yard of garden ground, volunteered a third; a villager who had been convicted of stealing grain through evidence given by Varadia; the Kurumba, suggested a fourth and fifth.
The Paddybird met every proposition in turn with convincing argument against the probability of its being correct. How could a woman tie up a man single-handed by the neck and kill him? Besides, women became widows too soon by the hand of God. They were not likely to hurry on that estate by their own doing. As for the Munshi, why should he kill him? Had he not lent Varadia a considerable sum of money for his wedding? Is any man fool enough to kill the hen as long as it is laying eggs? The Munshi had plenty of sense, and would know that there was nothing to be got from a dead man who had neither money nor jewels. Varadia’s next-door neighbour was not the murderer. Why should he kill him now that the dispute was settled? It was well known that the assistant collector on his last visit had decided the claim and had ordered the boundary to be marked out, giving exactly one foot and a half to each claimant. The decision had satisfied both, and the dispute was at an end. As for the stealer of grain, the sentence was small. Varadia knew much more than he told, whereby the sentence might have been long instead of short; and since the man had come out of prison they had been good friends. The suggestion that the Kurumba had committed the crime was ridiculous. He was not likely to seek his victim as he slept in his house. If he had desired Varadia’s destruction, he would have caused a rock to fall upon him or a footbridge to give way under his feet during one of his many journeys. Moreover, the Kurumba had no ill-feeling against any of the village people. The Paddybird, having quashed every suggestion, remained silent. It was observed by Benacre’s boy that he alone of all the party had not propounded a theory.
“What does the master of our kitchen say?” he asked as he glanced round to command silence.
“Tell me yet once more how he lay and what you saw.”
Again the dreadful tale was related, the listeners gloating over every detail and correcting the historian if he deviated in the minutest item from the first version he had given them.
“Hoh!” ejaculated the Paddybird, when the servant had finished. “Varadia was well known here amongst us, and he had no secrets. Have any of you heard him complain of any person that bore him spite?”
No, none had heard of any enemy or evilly disposed person. All those who might possibly have borne malice had already been mentioned.
“Then we may be sure that his death was not occasioned through spite,” said the cook, decidedly. “Is it known to any of you if he had a store of money or jewels in his house?”
The answer was in the negative. Varadia was not only poor; he was in debt. The only money that he had came to him in the shape of a salary, out of which he paid a small sum to the Munshi every month on account of the debt.
“It is equally certain that he was not murdered for the sake of his possessions. There are some of you who will remember a talk Varadia had with me here only a few days ago, when he mentioned a certain magic rod that he had from his father.”
There was a chorus of “Ah bah!” as each mind was illuminated. They all knew what was coming, yet not a soul among them had had the sense to guess it before the Paddybird had led up to it.
“Varadia said that the rod controlled a powerful devil, so powerful that the constable himself had never dared to use it. It was well known that there was danger in keeping these rods. The evil spirits from whom they were taken never rested until they had got them back. There was a man at Sivaghat who had one. Was he not found strangled in just the same way? It was after he had discovered some treasure with the rod, and the devil was angry because none of the treasure was given to him, That man had the same appearance. His eyes were dropping from his head; his tongue hung out, and his nose and ears ran with blood.”
The Paddybird glanced round at his audience in triumph as his words were greeted by a chorus of admiration.
“How is it that you are so clever, little father?” cried the Poochee, glowing with pride in his chief.
“Like the Kurumba, I learn much in the jungle. Once I warned the constable that it was not safe to carry the rod about with him as he frequently did. He replied that it was a protection. He walked through the jungle fearless, and untroubled by thoughts of tigers and rogue elephants when he had the rod; and he was right. Never once was he molested by devil or wild beast, although he saw and heard them sometimes. Other constables have been attacked; some have been killed; but Varadia was safe.”
“How, then, has the spirit of the rod at last turned against him?”
The Paddybird hesitated to say what was in his mind lest it should be thought that he had leanings towards heathenism. He answered the question indirectly.
“We of the Holy Roman Church may believe in powers of evil spirits and devils; but we may not do pujah. The priests teach that pujah with prayers must be done to the saints, and they will protect us against all evil. The heathen have no saints to protect them, therefore they are wise, as long as they remain heathen, to keep to the ways of their forefathers and do pujah to devils. Perhaps if Varadia had done pujah he would not have died; and the demon to whom the rod belonged would have been content to serve him.”
Benacre returned half-an-hour later, and found Flordon sitting in the tent.
“What’s the matter in the village?” he asked. “I see lights as though something had disturbed their night for them.”
“Murder is the matter. The village constable has been strangled as he lay asleep in his hut.”
“Do you mean Varadia, the husband of that pretty girl I see cutting firewood in the jungle sometimes in the morning?”
“That very man; and I am not sure that his wife, the pretty girl, as you call her, has not had a hand in it,” replied Benacre, with some seriousness.
There was the shadow of a smile round Flordon’s lips as he moved towards his tent, as though something in the terrible tale had amused him. Benacre was too much occupied with his own thoughts to notice it.
There was a babble of tongues throughout the village the next day. Benacre was busy at an early hour investigating the murder. The crime had an element of mystery about it. He was unable to discover why the man had been murdered. Hillary had frequently declared that, in looking into matters where natives were concerned, it was groping in the dark until the motives that prompted a deed were fathomed. In this case there was no apparent motive. It was not robbery. Nothing was missed in the way of ornament or money, either from the house or from the person of the victim. It was not personal spite. As far as Benacre could ascertain the village constable had no enemies, although he had not lived without the usual squabbles with his neighbours. The disputes had been transient, and not of the nature of a deadly feud likely to be productive of crime.
The only person who had been heard to threaten him was his wife, Chandama. After much pressure the Munshi admitted that he had witnessed a quarrel between husband and wife, and that the girl had threatened her husband in his hearing. The rope tied about the neck of the constable was that with which she was accustomed to bind her bundles of firewood.
Benacre questioned her closely as to where she was when his servant arrived at the hut. She was stupid with much weeping and seemed unable to understand what he said. After much patience and cross-examination, he elicited the fact that she was asleep behind the mat screen. She had heard nothing until the servant awoke her with his cry of alarm. He departed immediately to call the villagers. She was frightened and remained hidden after they entered. Benacre asked if she had not heard her husband groan, or if there was no noise of a struggle. No; there was not a sound. She had cooked his evening meal and served it to him, as usual, after he had returned from his duties. Whilst he smoked his tobacco she had rubbed his feet and ankles. After that he rolled himself in his sheet and lay down on his mat. As soon as he fell asleep, which was within two or three minutes, she retired to her corner of the hut behind the screen, where she ate her supper. Having washed the platters and basins, she extinguished the oil lamp and lay down. She slept at once, for she was very tired, having been out in the jungle cutting firewood all the morning.
One of the villagers, who had been the first to go to the hut when the alarm was given, said that Varadia’s wife entered the house immediately after himself. On being asked if she had left the hut, she said that she had run out in pursuit of the servant who had discovered that Varadia was dead. She had no light and she was afraid to remain alone with the murdered man. Seeing the villager enter she returned.
Her tale was simply if rather stupidly told, and Benacre was unable to shake it or to find any discrepancies in it under his cross-examination. Early in the day he despatched a letter to Hillary, describing the murder, and asking him to meet him at a certain spot on the road at noon. The bearer of the letter brought back a reply to say that he would be there. At the same time the inspector took the opportunity of sending a message to the Paddybird, intimating that he would like to see him at the same spot an hour before noon.
The road leading from the village across the bridge penetrates into the heart of the hills, passing through vast forest regions after it leaves the point where the distant view of the Indian Ocean is obtained. The highway creeps upwards towards the district of Coimbatore. The hand of man, under the guidance of the Government engineer, wars against the exuberant growth of the jungle, which would soon swallow the road were the knife and axe laid aside.
In a sunny clearing, two hundred yards from the road. Hillary had found it convenient to have a palm-leaf hut built for his occasional accommodation. Two or three temporary erections of a similar nature were scattered over his district. They were not very serviceable in the rains; but when the burst of the monsoon was over it was possible to rest in them for twenty-four hours or more. For several reasons he preferred the hut to a tent. The latter necessitated lascars to pitch and strike it, a cart to move it, and a servant or two to pack and unpack the camp-furniture that was required. The hut needed nothing but a few fresh branches thrust into the gaps caused by the withering of the leaves of which it was built. He was capable of executing all necessary repairs himself. He carried his own food and lamp, slept in his waterproof, and relied on the unfailing dose of quinine to keep him free of the malarial fever that was the curse of the lower valleys.
He was a great walker. His long stride rivalled that of the sturdy Lumbadee, the carrier of the Western Ghats. He came and went without horse or syce or servant. The natives nicknamed him “The Rain.” Who can tell when a son will be born or when the rain will fall? they say. The inspector was like the rain. When they believed that he was on the other side of the hills he was in their midst, taking note of all that was being done and said. When they thought he was reading reports and writing to the assistant superintendent in his bungalow at Doorgapet, he was at the scene of the latest murder or robbery.
The Paddybird, having dished up the breakfast and given careful directions to his understudy for the preparation of lunch, shouldered his gun and game-bag, and started out ostensibly to shoot. This morning he did not enter the forest, as usual, above the village to work along the skirts of Doorga’s peak, but kept to the road. He followed it at a steady pace until he entered the big jungle. The deep shadows cast by the trees, with their dense foliage and festoons of creepers, threw a gloom over the way. He held his gun in readiness for a stray shot at a pigeon or spur-fowl; but he did not linger to look for game. Presently he turned off the highway by a faintly defined track that led him to the spot appointed by the inspector. He trod silently, but the occasional snapping of a twig caught the ear of the man who was waiting for him. As he reached the clearing where the hut stood, Hillary stepped out of his shelter and stood before the entrance.
He was dressed in a khaki uniform, his legs being encased in puttees that were leech-proof and thorn-proof; The sun-topee that covered his head and enveloped his features in deep shadow was of the same material as his tunic. A red puggaree folded round the crown indicated the particular department in which he served the Indian Government. He was tall of figure and muscular, with no flesh to spare. His short, pointed beard was black, but under his topee there were streaks of grey in his dark hair. The Paddybird salaamed with a respect that was genuine, and said in English—
“I have come as your honour desired.”
“That is well,” replied the inspector, his keen eye resting on the lanky form of the cook for a brief second. “The walk from the village is uphill. Sit for a while and rest.”
He pointed to a mat lying near the entrance of the hut. At the same time he opened a camp-stool and seated himself.
“It is not known in the camp that I have come here, except to the man who brought the message,” remarked the Paddybird.
“There is no need for secrecy. I have heard that you are a good sportsman from your master. I have sent for you to ask about the game that is to be found in these jungles.”
The eye of the Paddybird brightened, and the shadow of anxiety that had wrinkled his brow disappeared. A doubt had disturbed his mind ever since he had received the message of the inspector requesting him to come to the hut. He feared a cross-examination which would end in making him a witness in the murder case. It was no less a relief, as well as a compliment, to find that the inspector was desirous of consulting him about the shooting.
“I have a friend who wishes to know what sport there is to be found on this side of the hills. The police peons tell me that you go daily in the jungle and get game for your master’s table. It is not of pigeon or snipe that I want to hear. My friend would like to meet with a tiger. Have you ever seen the tracks of one in the jungle?”
“No sir; not on this side of Doorga’s peak. The villagers say that a young master Stripes gambolled for a week or two by the river and carried away one of their goats. That was last year. Since then there has been no trace of the sanguinary brute. It is supposed that he perambulated into Coimbatore and now lurks among the hills of that district.”
Hillary heard him without a smile. “Is there no big game on this side?”
“We have sambur and wild pig and——” He paused, not quite sure that an animal bearing a charmed life could be included under the heading of game.
The inspector’s eye fixed him with silent inquiry as the single word “Yes?” was uttered. The cook hastily continued—
“Of late there has been a hyaena.”
“A cowardly, contemptible beast,” remarked Hillary.
“Except when angered, and then it is worse than a dog. Its bite is very bad. This hyaena, like the young master Stripes of last year, is a locomoting stranger and will presently cut his sticks and slope for more congenial locality.”
“Hyaenas would be of no use,” said Hillary, on behalf of his mythical friends. “Have you been in any of the jungles lower down the valley?”
“On two days I went for snipe in the swamps near the river below the bridge, but the leeches attacked me in the shanks and drove me to dastardly flight. I do not mind a here-and-there leech, but when they come in flocks and herds they are very diverting, and it is impossible to keep the eye fixed upon the game.”
Hillary’s next remark was made in the vernacular. “Is there any man in the village who could give me information about big game?”
The Paddybird considered for a moment and then replied, lapsing into his native tongue—
“The only person who could have told us was Varadia, the police peon. He passed frequently through the jungle.”
He glanced at the inspector, feeling certain that the murder and all its details were known to him. He who came and went as the rain learned the police news in some strange manner before other men.
“Varadia is dead, strangled by his wife, who will hang for it,” said Hillary.
The Paddybird opened his mouth to speak, but the only sound that issued from his lips was an inarticulate grunt. The note of his utterance was not affirmative. It did not escape the ear of the inspector, who went back to the subject of sport.
“There is another matter upon which I wish to consult you. Can you recommend anyone as a shikaree for my friend? He must be a man who knows the jungle thoroughly and would not be likely to lose himself.”
Again there was a pause while the Paddybird cast about in his mind for a suitable man. He could think of no one but the village constable.
“It is a pity that Varadia is dead. He knew every path and stream, every ridge and valley. He was the village messenger before he entered the police force.”
“It was but natural that he should have that knowledge. His duties took him all over the taluk. He must have been well known in the villages, where he doubtless had friends, possibly relations,” said Hillary, indifferently, his attention more occupied by the Paddybird’s wonderful gun, which he had picked up and was examining, than by the subject of the murdered man.
“The constable did not trouble himself with the village folk. He had no need of their friendship. Night and day he travelled on, never stopping to eat or sleep.”
“The jungle is not a safe place for travellers at night. Were he alive he could probably tell us where the tiger and the leopard stay.”
The Paddybird’s eyes gleamed with the awakening desire to impart knowledge. He no longer feared a cross-examination on the murder case. It was manifest that the inspector had no awkward questions to ask. His mind was full of big game and the possibility of showing a tiger to a friend.
“Many a time Varadia caught sight of the tiger and the leopard. Still more often has he heard the snapping twig in the jungle as the animal crept alongside of him unseen; but though it stalked him for miles it never sprang.”
“Afraid of the light which he carried, I suppose. How do you manage to keep your gun so free from rust? It hasn’t a speck upon it.”
“It is the paraffin oil, sir; the very best. No, it was not the lantern, it was the rod.”
The Paddybird lowered his voice and uttered the last words with an expression of awe. Hillary examined the stock of the gun, and noted that it was indented with a blow of some sort. Inwardly he was wondering what was meant by the rod. He had not heard of its existence. If he gave the Paddybird time and did not appear too eager himself, the explanation would be revealed with more truthfulness than if he asked for information. He pointed to the dent and inquired how it had been made. The Paddybird related a marvellous tale of a fall that he had sustained in escaping from a wounded bear in the low country of Ceylon.
“If I had had Varadia’s rod I should have been safe. The bear could not have faced me, but would have turned away, as the tigers and leopards always turned away from him. Even the elephants ran from him when they met him in the jungle,” he concluded.
Hillary listened without the faintest shadow of curiosity, and did not ask the question that the Paddybird confidently expected. Ah! no doubt the inspector knew all about the rod, and required no information concerning it; but the thought that it had been the cause of the constable’s death had not entered his mind. He had accused Varadia’s widow of the crime. It was a pity, since the inspector had so much knowledge that the knowledge was not complete. The Paddybird was beginning to burn to reveal his own pet theory of how the man came by his death.
“You can’t recommend any villager as a shikaree?” Hillary asked in a disappointed voice, as though it was the only matter that was of any importance.
“There is not one among them who would be of any use to an English gentleman. The village people cut grass and firewood round the village, but they never venture far into the jungle. No one would have either the wit or the courage to track a tiger or even a sambur into the depth of the forest.”
“They have no rods to protect them,” remarked Hillary.
“That is so, sir. Varadia was the only man who possessed one.”
“Did you ever see it?”
“Once he showed it to me and told me how his father obtained it. It was a short stick of the thickness of a cedar pencil such as you honour uses, and it was about twelve inches long. He carried it hidden in his cloth. Night and day he wore it, never laying it aside even when he slept; and he was safe.”
“A valuable treasure to own! Many people would desire to have such a talisman.”
“That is true indeed. It is said that the Munshi offered him a large sum of money for it, but he would not part with it.”
“It would be of no use to the Munshi.”
Hillary laid down the gun and took a pair of field-glasses from their case. With a soft silk handkerchief he applied himself to the polishing of the lens.
“The rod had other virtues besides keeping the holder safe from wild beasts. It could render him invisible if held in the hand with the end pointing to the heart. It also indicated where water flowed under the ground, and where treasure was hidden.”
“Did Varadia ever find any treasure?”
“Not that I know of. He was of a simple mind, content to use the rod as a protection against wild animals in the performance of his duty, and for no other purpose.”
It could not protect him against the evil designs of his wife, Hillary remarked, with a touch of contempt that stirred the Paddybird into an expression of dissent. The inspector continued: “You think that she is not guilty. I tell you that she is, and I shall be surprised if she escapes hanging. There is no one else who can have done the deed, but the woman herself.”
“It is not for me to say anything when master has spoken. I have no wish to appear as a witness in the case.”
“You? You will not be required. What you know about the case is known to others who are in a better position to bear witness. Mr. Benacre tells me in his note that there is plenty of evidence against the woman, and that no suspicion has fallen on any other person.”
“There is knowledge that makes the pudding, and there is knowledge that spoils it,” remarked the Paddybird, with increasing earnestness. He glanced up at the Englishman, whose attention seemed more than half-occupied with the task he had taken in hand. There was no sign of impatience to put an end to the conversation, or of haste to conclude the cleaning of the field-glasses. “Has the master time to listen?” he asked.
“Plenty of time. I have to wait here till your master comes, and I hear no sound of horses’ hoofs on the road at present.”
Hillary’s scant attention and indifference piqued his visitor and loosened his tongue. He had come with the conviction that he was to be made use of in some way. Although it was a relief to find that he was not to be drawn into publicity by appearing as a witness, it was disconcerting to be told that he could be of no use. He was so sure that he had got at the bottom of the peon’s death; and he had substantial reason for believing that it was not the work of the man’s wife. A certain fact had been communicated to him by Benacre’s boy which cleared the widow from all complicity in the crime, and that fact could not be known to the inspector, clever as he was. Hillary began to whistle softly over his occupation. It had the effect of starting the cook in his tale.
“I served an English master once in Ceylon who was fond of good living. He paid me high wages, but he was not a pleasant man to work for. When angry with his coolies he was in the habit of abusing his servants. At such times he threatened to send us all away—all except the head boy, whom he favoured greatly. He said that I should go as soon as he could find another cook as good as myself. The head boy had a brother who was a cook. This man desired to have my place, but he knew very little; not enough to please a man like my master. He came to me with rupees in his hand to buy my knowledge. Such as he might have learned easily from a book I sold him at a price that was good. I treated him well, telling him all the ingredients, which few cooks do, and how to mix them. It has always been my habit to deal honestly and to tell the truth. There were some dishes, puddings, and savouries that my master loved. They were learned by my father from an old Portuguese cook who came from Europe to serve the Portuguese Governor. These prescriptions were not to be found in any books. He desired to be shown how to make them, and gave no trouble over the price I asked. He particularly wished to have the prescription for a pudding of pistachio nuts and cream which my master always ordered me to make for his most honoured guests. I agreed to show him how it was mixed. I used a saucepan, and put the ingredients into it in due order. When they were well stirred, I said that now there was nothing more to be done but cook the mixture. Thirty minutes would be sufficient, and the pudding must be served as soon as it was done. It was too early in the day for me to cook it for my master’s dinner, so I set the saucepan aside to wait for the proper moment, and sent him away. Every word that I had said was true; not a single ingredient was omitted, and I mixed them in due order. That evening after dinner he returned in great wrath—for he had paid me five rupees. His pudding had been a failure. He asked about mine. There was a fragment left, and I bade the matey bring it. He tasted it and could not deny that it was excellent. He inquired how it was that he had failed since he had followed my directions closely in every detail. I replied that his skill was not so great as mine, and that there were few men who could cook like me. He went away sad at heart; and his brother called him the son of an owl and the grandson of a shoemaker, and said that he would never be able to please so difficult a master. So I kept mv place so long as I desired.”
“As I am not a maker of puddings, may I ask wherein the cook failed?” asked Hillary, with the shadow of a smile upon a mouth that was habitually sad.
“I showed him everything in the mixing, and in the ingredients; but I omitted to mention the cloth. He was deceived through the using of the saucepan for mixing instead of a basin. He placed the saucepan on the fire, and the pudding hardened and burned and lost all shape. Mine was put in a mould and tied in a cloth. Sir, truth may be told and knowledge gained in many ways, yet the result may not be satisfactory. There is always the cloth. Now, in the case of Varadia—his wife is nothing to me—but I do not wish to see an innocent woman hang; and it seems likely that she may be hanged if you ask no questions about the cloth.”
Hillary screwed up his eye and looked through one of the glasses critically. He was satisfied with the result of his labour, and directed his attention to the other.
“The pudding in this case is——?”
“The rod,” said the Paddybird, promptly, in eager anticipation of the questions he had dreaded, and now from very contrariness longed for.
“How did Varadia obtain the rod?”
The story was told in all its detail, and the Paddybird concluded with an exposition of his pet theory. Varadia had neglected his duty as a heathen. He was not under the care of any saint. The evil spirit in its anger had turned upon him and strangled him with the rope that was lying ready to hand. Such things had been known to happen before, but they were not spoken of, lest the wrath of the spirit should be roused. As he finished his story he was gratified to observe that he had succeeded at last in rousing the interest of the inspector, who had ceased polishing his field-glasses to listen.
“The rod has disappeared, sir, a sure sign that it was the work of the devil. Nothing else in the hut was touched. I heard it from one of the constables this morning. There was a rupee and-a-half tied in the corner of Varadia’s cloth, as master perhaps knows. If it had been a thief the money would have been taken. If it had been his wife she would have taken the money to make people think it was a thief.”
Hillary nodded his head, and said, “You are probably right. It was foolish of Varadia not to do pujah. Yet for all that I still think that the woman will be hanged. The English magistrate who will try the case, even Mr. Benacre himself, will not believe in the tale. Englishmen, as you know, do not believe in the evil spirits of this country.”
“It is true, sir; they have much to learn. With all their knowledge of India, they are still in ignorance concerning the pudding-cloth.”
“I am sorry for the woman, and would save her if I could. People who are hanged do not rest after death.”
A shadow of fear swept across the face of the Paddybird. Hillary noted it, and added—
“You need have no fear yourself. Having told everything that you know, the responsibility passes from you to me, and it is I who will be haunted. You will inquire in the village and let me know if you can find a reliable shikaree. Now it is time for you to go and fill your bag. As I walked through the jungle to this hut from Doorgapet, I saw a number of fowls feeding upon the ripened seed of the blue jungle flowers.”
The Paddybird rose to his feet, having received his dismissal. The cloud did not clear from his brow when the inspector assured him of his safety from the haunting presence of a reproachful ghost. He took up his gun and stood irresolute before Hillary, who said—
“There was a woman in my old district who was accused of killing her stepson. The evidence against her was as clear as it is in this case. There was one man alone who knew that she was innocent. He had been in her company at the very hour when the boy was decoyed away and drowned in the well. She called him as a witness, but he denied that he had seen her that day. He owed her a grudge, and so he let the law take its course by perjuring himself. Her sentence was imprisonment for life. She only lived three months. Grief killed her as surely as the hangman’s rope would have done, although not so swiftly. After her death she was frequently seen about the house of the man who had perjured himself. She usually appeared in the shape of a grey cat. Her wailing was terrible to hear, and her eyes, full of pain and grief, once seen could never be forgotten. The man could not endure the haunting. He drowned himself in the well, and at his death she disappeared. Take that path towards the peak. Keep to the left up the hill for a mile or more, and you will find the game.”
The Paddybird moved away with slow, reluctant steps. Hillary watched him from beneath the shady brim of his hat. When twenty yards away the cook turned back, as the inspector had anticipated. He went to meet him.
“There is still the cloth to be mentioned,” said the Paddybird.
“Where was the woman while her husband slept?”
The cook uttered a few words and turned on his heel.
“Stop,” cried the Inspector. “Your authority?”
“My master’s dressing-boy.”
When the Paddybird was at length allowed to go on his way, it was with the springing step of a man who has cast his burden on the shoulders of another. As Hillary gazed after his retreating form, which was quickly hidden in the jungle, his lips sent forth a low whistle, which was drawn unconsciously from him in his surprise.
Breakfast that morning was a hurried meal in camp. Benacre was preoccupied and disinclined to talk. His plans had been upset, first by Flordon’s obstinacy, and now by the murder.
The disposal of the dead cannot be deferred in India. Varadia’s body would have to be buried that evening; and there was much to be done before permission could be given to his fellow caste men to enter the house and make the necessary preparations.
The assistant superintendent rose from the table when breakfast was half-over begging to be excused.
“You must not expect me in to lunch, to-day, Mrs. Wentworth,” he said. “I have to meet Hillary in the jungle somewhere above the point where I showed you the Indian Ocean. I shall take some food with me, and shall be returning the same hour as last time. What are you going to do with yourself, Flordon?”
“I shall spend the day in the jungle.”
“Tell the boy that you want some tiffin with you. One of the tent-lascars can carry the basket and bring it back as soon as you have lunched.”
“Sandwiches and a flask of claret will do for me, and those I shall carry myself.”
Benacre turned to Olwen. “I am afraid that we have neither of us taken you into consideration, Mrs. Wentworth. By these arrangements you will be left alone all day. I hope that you will not find it dull.”
“Please don’t trouble about me; I can always amuse myself. I may go with Flordon. A day in the forest ought to be rather a pleasant experience.”
“You’re not coming with me,” said Flordon, with scant politeness. “My object in going is to shake myself free from all disturbing influences. I can’t work in camp, and I want to be alone.”
“Am I a disturbing influence?” she asked idly, with an amused smile.
“Not to me,” he replied, with an emphasis on the pronoun that somehow jarred upon Benacre. “I take good care to keep you and your sex in your place. You can go with Benacre if he’ll have you; but I fancy he would find you a disturbing influence in another way.”
He laughed in a manner that coloured his words and made the blood of the police officer boil. He thought it was prudent to pretend that he had not heard what had passed between husband and wife. He said—
“I must be off, Mrs. Wentworth, or I shall not get through with all I have to do before I go to meet Hillary.”
He left the tent burning with the old desire to assault the man; to ram his offensive words down his throat; to stretch him at full length upon the grass and bring him to a sense of decent behaviour. It seemed the only thing that would appeal to a man of that kind. He saved himself from violating the laws of hospitality by precipitate flight. As he did so, he was pursued by the thought of what Olwen must suffer. She had to endure the presence of this brute for a lifetime. Whenever he was tempted to consider the circumstances from her point of view, discretion vanished. A natural instinct of chivalry that was implanted in him rose up in arms on her behalf. He longed for the right to protect her. How it was to be obtained he did not stop to think. As he witnessed each aggressive act and heard the insulting jibe, he experienced an overwhelming desire to cast aside all conventionality and offer her a protection that would place an irreparable breach between her and her husband. Surely she would be justified in accepting it and in giving him that right to protect.
Why should she continue indefinitely to suffer under such an intolerable yoke? And after all, would Flordon grieve if he, Benacre, took her away on a life-long camping expedition? Would it distress the man to lose his wife? He was such a mean cur that he would probably be indifferent; possibly he might be glad to be free. There was no gratitude for the devotion she had shown throughout his illness, and still showed whenever he would permit it. Disturbing influence, indeed! Why was it that ill-conditioned men like Flordon were frequently endowed with money and the love of good women?
No! a thousand times no! There was no love on her part. Her love had long ago been murdered in cold blood. Deliberately, and of set purpose, Flordon must have crushed down every tender blossom of emotion and killed her love. There could not be even a semblance of liking. Nothing remained but her strong sense of duty, her patience, her acceptance of the destiny she had blindly chosen when she married him. She put a brave face on it, and showed a courage that was worthy of a better cause; but was it to go on for ever? The spirit must break in time under the burden of it. In the eyes of the world it was to a man’s credit if he saved a human body from physical pain and death. The same credit ought to be given to one who saved a gentle spirit from torture and mental death. Despair loomed darkly upon him as the conviction insinuated itself that she was not the woman to accept freedom at any price. She would suffer and die sooner than deviate from the path of duty.
As he rode up the hill in the cool morning shadow that still lay on the steep western slopes of the ghats the mystery of Varadia’s death did not trouble him. It was not until he reached the point where he found Hillary waiting for him by the side of the road that he brought his thoughts back to the matters upon which he had come to confer with his subordinate.
Hillary relieved the syce of the lunch-basket, and the man led the pony back to camp. It was to be saddled for Olwen’s use after an early tea. Benacre had purposely informed her of the direction in which he was going, hoping that she would take the hint and come to meet him. She could ride up the hill, and they would walk home together. Perhaps Hillary might be persuaded to join them and stop to dinner.
There were other subjects besides the murder to discuss. Hillary had brought some papers for Benacre’s perusal which he would not trust out of his own hands by any messenger. There was also information to be imparted which it was safer not to commit to writing; reports of the work of the individual constables with the consideration of their merits for promotion; and the details of the different cases that were in progress in the taluk over which Hillary had superintendence. They had the hut to themselves without the presence of constables or servants. It was past two before the thought of lunch obtruded itself. Up to this time they had not touched upon Varadia’s death.
“I shall not be able to get to Doorgapet just yet,” said Benacre, as he finished his last sandwich. “Mr. Wentworth wants to stay here a little longer. I suppose you can do without me for a few days?”
“Certainly, sir; especially now that I must be over on this side looking after this murder case.”
Benacre related all that he had done in the matter, and gave his inspector the result of his investigations.
“So far everything seems to point to the fact that the constable’s wife had a hand in it. It is impossible to believe that a struggle could have taken place in the hut without her knowledge. If she did not strangle him herself, she was accessory to the crime—probably she assisted.”
“Was she in the hut at the actual time of the murder?”
“At the first inquiry she swore that she was asleep behind the screen. Now she appears to be frightened of making such an admission, and says that she was walking by the bridge. It is an unlikely tale. The women of the village are never abroad after the evening meal is served. They take their own food, wash up the pots, and are only too glad to go to bed as soon as their household duties are ended.”
“Unless they have a chosen companion for their nightly stroll.”
“Of course, there is that possibility. If such was the case, the woman and her companion may have done it between them.”
“Nothing was touched in the house?”
“Not a thing, as far as I could make out. There were signs of a struggle, but the scoundrel had got too far forward with the manipulation of the rope whilst his victim still slept for the poor fellow to have a chance of freeing himself. The constable took opium with his food, as so many of these men do, and he slept heavily.”
“He had a magic wand of some sort that was supposed to be of value for its occult properties. Was it found, sir?”
“Not that I know of. It could not have been of much importance, as it was not mentioned at the inquiry. Are you sure that he had a rod of that kind?”
“Quite sure; and also that it was no secret in the village nor in your camp. He had been offered money for it; but he could not be induced to part with it, as he believed that it was a charm against wild beasts and other dangers of the jungle. I must find out where the rod is.”
“It seems absurd to suppose that the crime was committed for such a trifling thing as that. The rod might have been taken with jewellery and money by a thief; but I should have thought that with all their superstition any covetous villager would have been afraid to take it by violence for fear of supernatural consequences. If the woman could produce a credible witness who could prove an alibi, I should be glad. At present matters look black for her.”
Hillary was silent. He re-packed the little lunch basket and handed Benacre the matches.
“I will carry this down to camp to-night, sir.”
“Where are you going to sleep then?”
“I shall turn into the police thana for a few hours probably, and get forty winks on the bench.”
“Come and dine with us, Hillary. It will do you good to drop the inspector for an hour, and find yourself among men and women of your own class,” said the assistant-superintendent, with a sudden friendly impulse that he could not account for.
An intense longing sprang into the eyes of the man as he listened. He was assailed with a temptation that was well-nigh irresistible. It was quenched with a determined effort, and the lips closed firmly in the short space of silence that followed the invitation.
“I cannot possibly dine in company in this khaki suit which I have put on for jungle work. No, sir; it is very good of you, but it will not be wise for me to allow myself to forget even for one short evening.”
“Perhaps you are right. I will send some dinner to the thana. At least, you may permit yourself that indulgence.”
“It is unnecessary. I have all that I need with me. It would be best not to mention my name in the camp, or draw attention to the fact that I am in the neighbourhood of the village.”
Benacre acquiesced; his subordinate was right. It was better for the work that Hillary should come and go like the rain.
“What is the attraction to Mr. Wentworth in this place, sir?”
“He has taken a fancy to the jungle, particularly that part of it above the village near the Kurumba’s cave. He wanders about with the Munshi, and spends the whole day in the forest, an excellent thing for his health.”
“Has he had bad health?”
“It was an accident. He was exhibiting some wonderful machine that he had invented, and the thing blew up and nearly killed him. It was a shock to his wife as well as to himself. He was obliged to have an entire rest from work of all kind. By-the-by, I think you told me that you had heard of him in England?”
“I had a friend who drove one of his cars. At the time, Mr. Wentworth was not married. Is she——?”
Hillary checked himself, remembering his position. It was not exactly the correct thing for him to be questioning his chief about his guests. Moreover, his curiosity was not great concerning the wife of the inventor. It was of the man himself he wanted to speak. Perhaps Benacre recognised that fact also, for be allowed the half-uttered query to pass unnoticed, and made a remark on another subject. Hillary, however, was not to be diverted from the object he had in view. It was a delicate matter to bring an accusation—for it amounted to that—against his guest.
“I think I understood you to say, sir, that Mr. Wentworth was strolling about the camp last night. If he went in the direction of the village he may possibly have seen something of the murderer—or of the woman.”
“I asked him this morning, and he assured me that he saw no one. He was not walking in the direction of the village.”
Hillary glanced at him, wondering if he was hiding anything. He had always found the assistant-superintendent open to a fault, and never guilty of reticence in anything connected with his work, having invariably shown the utmost confidence in his inspector. He concluded that he was ignorant of the little fact communicated by the Paddybird at the last moment. He pursued the subject with a view of enlightening Benacre.
“Was Mr. Wentworth alone?”
“Yes; the Munshi had gone to his quarters in the chuttrum. Mrs Wentworth is too much afraid of snakes to leave the camp after dark. Since his accident, which injured his head as well as arm and hand, he often has a distaste for company, and prefers to be alone.”
Benacre was recalling his ungracious refusal to permit Olwen to accompany him that morning. The excuse that he made for Flordon’s behaviour was not sufficient to absolve him from the charge of ungraciousness. Hillary was following up another line of thought.
“Your cook has been to see me. He came at my request an hour or so before you arrived.”
“What did you learn from him?”
“That there is a belief in the village that Varadia was killed by the spirit of the magic rod because he had neglected to do pujah to it. It is evident that the villagers do not lay the crime at the door of the widow.”
“Of course we can’t entertain their absurd theory for one moment. Who else could have done it but the woman?”
“The man who coveted the rod.”
Benacre was silent as he considered the new theory. He was perplexed, for he was well aware that Hillary was not in the habit of advancing theories without substantial foundation.
“I wish she could give a more satisfactory account of herself, and bring a witness upon whom some reliance could be placed to prove that she was elsewhere at the time of the murder,” he said at length.
“If it is absolutely necessary it can be done, sir. But if the rod can be found perhaps it won’t be necessary.”
“A man or a woman?”
“A man, sir.”
“Who is he?”
“Your guest.”
There was another silence, during which Benacre was obliged to consider a complication of affairs which he had not anticipated. His first impulse in his surprise, not to say consternation, was to discredit the statement. But the information threw an unexpected light upon some of Flordon’s movements and vagaries which hitherto had seemed capricious and meaningless. He thought he understood now why he was so ready to be left behind, and so anxious to see his host move on to another camp with Olwen. It was past four o’clock when Benacre looked at his watch.
“I must be walking back to camp,” he exclaimed, rising to his feet.
“I will walk part of the way with you. I must shut up the hut first.”
He put his waterproof coat, the lunch-basket, and other belongings inside the hut, and closed the door. There was nothing to tempt a thief during his short absence; in addition to which he had a reputation for possessing a supernatural knowledge, which rendered his property safe from pilfering fingers.
They started off at a leisurely pace, still discussing the murder case. The road ran through the forest for some distance, turning to the right and left as the gradient required. Although they continued to speak of business, Hillary was aware that he no longer held the undivided attention of his chief. Benacre’s eyes were upon each turn of the road.
Before they reached the point from which the silver streak could be seen, Hillary caught sight of a lady riding a pony. He looked at his companion. The eagerness, the unconscious joy that lighted up the face of the assistant-superintendent also illuminated the understanding of the inspector. He smiled as he broke off in what he was saying, and relapsed into a silence that was not noticed. It was nothing to him, he thought, if personal matters were becoming a little mixed in the camp.
Olwen recognised Benacre, and endeavoured to hurry the pony out of its steady walk. It disregarded the flickings of her whip, and refused to be hurried. Presently she stopped and sprang out of the saddle feeling that her own feet could carry her faster. She wore a short walking-skirt, and a shady hat. Giving the syce directions to lead the pony back to camp, she came towards them with a smile of welcome on her lips. Benacre hastened to meet her, advancing in front of his companion. His steps were arrested by an exclamation. He turned to see Hillary put his hands upon one of his knees as though he had been struck. Without another word the inspector limped off at right angles into the jungle and disappeared amongst the thick vegetation.
Benacre stood motionless, his attention divided between Olwen and Hillary. As she came up she inquired what had happened.
“Your companion vanished like magic; what has happened to him?”
“I don’t know. I must go and see. Will you stay here till I come back?”
“If I can be of any use, please call me,” she said, sympathetically. “It looked to me as if he had sprained his ankle rather badly; or be might have been stung.”
Benacre followed Hillary, and found him some thirty yards from the road, leaning against the trunk of a tree. His face was colourless, and his eyes full of agony. He had stripped off one of the puttees that covered his leg, and had drawn down the stocking. The cicatrice of an old wound scored the calf of his leg. He looked up as Benacre approached and said with an effort—
“It is trouble caused by an accident that happened to me some years ago. Occasionally I have cramp in it. While it lasts it is agony.”
The truth of his words was apparent in every line of his figure. Beads of perspiration stood upon his brow, and his lips were white; his tongue could scarcely utter the few words of explanation that he offered.
“Can’t I do anything for you?” asked Benacre, with concern.
Hillary glanced nervously towards the road.
“The lady—who is she? She must not see me—in this condition. I can’t face her—with my bare leg. She is—is she Mrs. Wentworth?” he gasped, as he grappled with the pain that tried his endurance to the utmost.
Benacre pulled out his flask and poured out some whisky, which he drank eagerly. It did not restore the colour to the pallid face, but it enabled him to speak with more coherency. He again asked whether the lady was the wife of the motor-car builder.
“Yes; she is Mrs. Wentworth, and I am sure that she would be glad to help you if she could. She has had plenty of experience with her husband. Shall I call her?”
“No! no! no! I am not used to having women hanging about me, sir. With my leg exposed like this I should bolt still further into the jungle if she came. You don’t think that she will come, do you?”
His face wore an expression of terror that would have made Benacre smile if he had not been of a sympathetic nature.
“It’s all right. She promised to stay in the road till I came back.”
“Please go on to the camp, sir, and leave me. I shall get the use of my leg back presently, and be able to walk as well as ever. I’ll take an hour’s rest in the hut, and that will put me all right.”
“Does cramp often seize you like this?”
“Not often; but when it does, it is far worse than the original wound for the time being.”
He began to rearrange his stocking and puttee. In the middle of it he stopped to say with increasing earnestness—
“I beg of you not to wait. Mrs.—Mrs. Wentworth will wonder what has become of you. I assure you that I am best left to myself.”
Very unwillingly Benacre yielded to his entreaty and was persuaded to return to Olwen in the road. Her first words were an offer of help. Benacre shook his head as he replied—
“You can’t do anything. The poor chap is so desperately shy of women that the thought of your seeing his bare leg seemed almost as distressing as the pain caused by the cramp. It is an old knife-wound, a nasty hack that from all appearances ought to have hamstrung him.”
“How did he get it?”
“I didn’t ask. Probably in some police affair. It is the sort of wound a man might have from a sneaking villain who had crept up unawares. We will give him a few minutes to pull himself together and to tie up his puttee, and then I will go to him again.”
“Do let me come with you.”
“The jungle is thick and thorny; I don’t know whether you can get along in skirts at all. However, you may try if you like.”
They waited a little longer, and then Benacre plunged back into the undergrowth towards the tree under which he had left the inspector. Olwen followed, in spite of Benacre’s entreaties that she would not venture. After a struggle she arrived at the spot.
“He has gone,” remarked Benacre, briefly.
“Where?” asked Olwen, to whom the vegetation appeared as an impenetrable wall. As she gazed at it she marvelled how any man or beast could pass through it.
“There is his track. You see he has gone up the hill towards the hut, preferring this difficult path to facing you in the road.”
They both smiled at the thought of the terrified fugitive; but in spite of their amusement they were both much concerned for his welfare.
“I wonder if he is safe,” remarked Olwen.
“He knows the jungle thoroughly, and is not likely to lose his way.”
“He may be feeling faint and ill. Hadn’t you better go back to the hut and see if he wants any assistance?”
“What will you do?” asked Benacre, looking at her in perplexity.
“Come with you, of course,” she answered promptly. “I have had no walking at present, as I rode up here. I can manage it easily.”
She regained the road, and started off immediately in the direction from which Benacre and Hillary had come, giving him no option in the matter. It took twenty minutes, being all uphill, to reach the path that led to the hut.
“I will go and see if he has returned,” said Benacre. “You will be quite safe here, although it is so lonely.”
The forest had grown dark as the sun descended, but Olwen had no fear. There was still plenty of daylight. She had not long to wait; Benacre returned, saying that he could see nothing of his inspector. The hut was just as it had been left, with the palm-leaf door securely fastened on the outside.
“Perhaps he has not had time to get here. We will sit down on this rock and wait. You are sure that he will not lose himself in the forest?” said Olwen.
Benacre’s smile at the thought of his astute officer losing himself reassured her.
“All that I fear is that he should be disabled and detained in the open air till the morning,” he said.
They remained there for a short time. Benacre shouted and blew his police whistle, and they strained their ears for a distant reply, but there was no response. A stag further up in the jungle was trotting down towards the nearest pool, followed by his hinds. He stopped and listened, sniffing at the air. A large hawk-owl screeched in defiance of the shrill blasts, and there was a rustling of the foliage as a timid bird or two scuffled away. The sun sank into the heat haze in the west, and the moor hung high above them.
“We really must be going back to camp, or we shall be benighted,” said Benacre, breaking off in the conversation, which had never once flagged whilst they sat there.
“Don’t look so anxiously at me,” said Olwen, laughing at the serious tone he had adopted. “I am not afraid of being in the forest after dark, since you have assured me that it does not harbour any tigers. How far are we from camp?”
“Nearly four miles.”
“We shall have a delightful walk back. Could there be a more perfect evening? The moon does not set till nearly midnight, so we need not fear being benighted. Our only anxiety is on behalf of Inspector Hillary. Where can he be?”
“I am afraid that you are partly the cause of his disappearance, Mrs. Wentworth. We need not trouble ourselves about him. I feel sure that it was only what he said, an attack of cramp, which, whilst it lasts, is undoubtedly excruciating pain. By this time he has forgotten all about it. He has taken a short cut through the jungle that will bring him into the village by some little-used path, and he will be in the midst of the villagers without their knowledge.”
They settled down into an easy pace. Olwen seemed to have lost all count of the hours. She stopped here and there to look at the afterglow effects, to watch the flight of a bird, and to listen to the voices of the coming night.
Her fear of the consequences of this intimate companionship had vanished. Restraint and reserve, she had decided, would only increase the difficulty. During the long hours of the morning which she had spent by herself there had been time to think, to examine her own feelings regarding Benacre. Her strange experience with the Kurumba had opened her eyes to the true state of the heart. Until that moment her mind had been occupied with Benacre. No sooner was she under the mysterious psychical influence of the medium than Benacre vanished from her dreams, and the image of the boy-husband returned. Flordon had said in his careless manner that if she had ever loved any man, she loved Lewis. He spoke but the truth, and she no longer doubted or distrusted herself.
Strong in the knowledge of herself, she determined to show her host exactly what their friendship should be, and must be, if it was to continue in the future. There were only a few days more to be spent together. In those few days she would establish an understanding of good comradeship from which all other emotion should be eliminated.
Benacre was conscious that a transient reserve on her part had vanished. There was nothing to cloud the pleasure of the walk; no restraint on her side; no fear of himself on his. The evening was perfect. Although clouds gathered high up on the ridges, there was likelihood of rain before the early morning. Through the clear atmosphere the light of the half-grown moon spread over the earth with the brilliancy of the full moon in temperate climates. The evening air was fresh and filled with the scent of blossoms. Summer in all its fulness lay over the responsive earth. They felt its breath in every fibre, and were in sympathy with rejoicing Nature.
As the silvery darkness closed in upon them, they drew nearer to each other, and Benacre slipped his arm in hers. Their footsteps lagged as they approached the camp. The assistant-superintendent found himself speaking, he knew not why, of matters that concerned himself intimately, things that he had never mentioned to a living being—his aspirations and ambitions, and his ideals, his hopes, and his future.
It was past eight o’clock when they reached the tent, and the dinner hour had been fixed for seven.
Provided with a light lunch, a rug, and his plans, Flordon started for the Kurumba’s cave at an easy pace. He crossed the bridge and entered the village, passing the little police-station where Hillary proposed to sleep that night, if he slept at all. Leaving the road he turned off by the footpath that led near Varadia’s house. As he approached it the sound of wailing assailed his ears. He quickened his steps with the animal instinct of antipathy for any form of pain. His hard nature was rarely touched by pity.
A woman issued as he strode by, and close behind her came the Munshi. She pursued the Englishman and began to speak rapidly in a tone that was half entreaty, half a threat.
“What does she want?” Flordon asked irritably of the Munshi.
“She is the mother of the widow.”
“I don’t care who she is. I want to know what she means. I gather that she is making a request. It is something about saving her daughter. How am I to save her?”
“The police declare that Varadia’s wife committed the murder. She says that your honour can prove that she was not in the hut at the time of the murder.”
“I prove it? How can I prove such a thing?”
“Varadia’s wife swears that she was with your honour that evening.”
The blood mounted to Flordon’s face, and an angry light came into his eyes as he replied—
“What infernal impudence! I am not going—I do not admit anything of the kind.”
The Munshi glanced at the woman with a curious satisfaction as he said in his own language—
“His honour was not with your daughter that evening, nor did he see her on the road. She must not think to save herself with such a lie. It was her own rope that was round her husbands neck, and it was twisted by her own hands.”
“She will call him as a witness,” exclaimed the woman angrily.
“She may call as much as she likes, but it will be useless. It can only damage her cause. If his honour is called I shall also appear to swear that I saw him alone at the time of the murder.”
“What’s that, Munshi?”
“I am telling this impertinent woman that if your honour is called as a witness, I myself will appear to give evidence that your honour was alone at the time of the murder.”
Flordon broke into a harsh laugh. “You people will swear to anything. Come along up the hill. Make that old woman understand that I will not serve as a witness. I am going to Bombay in a day or two to take ship for England. If she calls me I shall not appear.”
He strode forward without waiting to hear further protests. The woman, having no knowledge of the legal procedure in such cases, accepted his fiat with a gesture of resignation, and re-entered the hut to resume her lamentation over the dead. The Munshi was divided between desire to remain near the house of mourning, and his curiosity to learn what agreement the Englishman would make with the Kurumba. According to the custom of the East, a commission was due to him from the Kurumba; but these men who practised religion and magic were not in the habit of parting with any portion of their gain. It was theirs to receive, not to give; and they recognised no law of commission. His greed prevailed, and he followed the Englishman to the cave.
The Kurumba was seated at the entrance upon a spot where the rays of the sun were just beginning to penetrate. He had his dark rough blanket wrapped round him, as though he found the fresh cool air of the forest chilly. He lifted a bloodshot eye to his visitor, making no response to his half-contemptuous greeting.
“Well, you old humbug! Are you going to give me a good time to-day, I wonder?”
The question, being in English, was lost upon the native, who grunted. The Munshi addressed him, and he made a gruff reply.
“He says, sir, that he is tired to-day; that it is harder to work for your honour than for the village people. He has to do pujah to-night in Varadia’s house before the burning.”
“I pay him well—a great deal better than the villagers—so he has no cause to complain. Tell him that if I am successful I will give him a present.”
Again the Munshi spoke and the Kurumba listened, grunting occasionally in reply, but not in acquiescence. During this conversation Flordon settled himself down in his old position and spread out the plans. He scanned them with eager anticipation, concentrating his mind upon the disjointed notes and jottings that he had made. His brain was blind and unresponsive, just as it had been the day before, and he failed to comprehend what he had intended by the rough notes. He passed his hand over his forehead and eyes, as though he would brush away a veil. Glancing up at the Kurumba with something like irritation at the delay of the man in beginning to exercise his influence upon him, he met his eye. There was refusal in it, and the magician rose to his feet with the manifest intention of departing.
Alarmed at the thought of another blank day, Flordon hastily thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out five shining gold sovereigns. He held them out and jingled them on the palm of his left hand. The gaze of the Kurumba was arrested at the sight of so much gold. He resumed his seat in the patch of sunlight, keeping his small glittering eyes in their bloodshot setting fixed upon the money. Flordon picked a coin out of the number and held it up, saying in the language of the country—
“Take it; it is yours. The rest are yours by-and-by if I get what I want.”
The Munshi followed with rapid speech, and the bargain was made. The Kurumba consented to sit whilst the Englishman worked.
“Give me some cocoanut milk,” said Flordon presently.
Without troubling himself about cause and effect, he was determined to leave no stone unturned in the accomplishment of his purpose. Whether the Kurumba stimulated his brain by means of some drug, or whether he exercised some strange psychic force, he did not care, as long as the brain could be stirred into action, and the virility restored which it possessed before the accident.
The Munshi brought the cocoanut bowl from the cave, opened a green cocoanut with the country knife he carried in his girdle in common with most of the men who had occasion to pass through the jungle, and poured out the semi-transparent liquid. The Kurumba took no notice of the action. His eyes had already lost the glitter of consciousness; his head had sunk forward, and his body showed every sign of the rapid approach of the trance state; he was insensible to all that passed around him. Flordon tossed off the milk and returned to his plans. The Munshi sat down and watched the two men unobserved. in less than half-an-hour he stole away to look after his interests elsewhere, satisfied that the séance would last some time.
There was a slight breeze among the upper branches of the trees. The glossy foliage reflected the sunlight in tiny points of light. The soft herbaceous plants of the undergrowth wore the vivid green of fresh tropical vegetation. A sweet scent of flowers hung in the atmosphere, and the sound of bees came from the curtain of creeper that Nature had thrown across the entrance of the cave. From the ledge above where the creeper had found a strong foothold, long tendrils hung down to within three or four feet of the ground. Now and then a breath of air penetrated low enough to sway the strands and to assist them to weave their plaits. For all its fragile appearance, the slender line was strong enough to entangle a stag, and hold it in its embrace if it carried its antlers carelessly.
The peace of the forest, its vastness and solitude, enveloped the busy inventor. His fretful impatience at the limitations of the human brain melted under its influence, and a blessed calm rested upon him. The irritation produced by the trivialities of his daily life disappeared, and his mental atmosphere lost its murkiness and confusion.
He applied himself to the sheets of calculations. The sense of incompetency that had barred his progress on the previous day was gone, and fresh fields opened a wide vista, inviting him to march forward into their unexplored space. He trod boldly and confidently, and built his structure with an unfaltering hand.
He would not trust to memory again, nor be satisfied with disjointed jottings. His pencil moved rapidly, now in writing, now in figures, now in sketch. The fingers that held it were firm. It seemed in some mysterious manner as if a master mind worked within him and invisibly guided him. There was a vague conviction that it was not his normal self that grasped the facts and conquered the theories. A strange influence was operating, and under it he made steady progress towards his goal. With giant strides he pressed forward as the hours went by, oblivious of the presence of the Kurumba, blind to the beauty of the forest, deaf to the song of the mountain stream and of the birds.
His marvellous invention was complete in all its details. There it was upon the sheets, every part perfect, a flawless machine that could not fail. Nothing was left to fickle memory; every fraction, every minute item was crystallised clearly and concisely in description, in figures, and in diagram. As he regarded his work and was convinced of its completeness and perfection, a great trembling seized his limbs. It was the strange quivering of the nerves known to the inventor, to the explorer, to the pursuer of big game, that comes at the moment of the fulfilment of ardent desire and of a man’s highest hopes. It was the exultation of success. He felt the tingling to his finger-tips, as he was lifted upon iridescent wings that bore him into the realm of triumph. His ambition was satisfied, his goal attained.
He flung down the pencil and stretched himself, glancing for the first time towards the Kurumba. The man’s eyes were opened and were fixed upon himself with a heavy stare. The glitter had gone from them and his vitality seemed at a low ebb. Exhaustion marked his every movement, and he shivered in the warm sunlight. Flordon smiled with the indifference of a vampire for its victim. Already he was taking to himself the credit of his success. It was absurd to think that he could be indebted in any way for his mental illumination to that contemptible, half-civilised creature of the woods. The thought of deriving vitality from such a source was distasteful to him; it hurt his vanity, and he rejected it. If any artificial stimulant had been given to the brain it was through the medium of the cocoanut milk.
The Kurumba rose and staggered towards him, holding out his hand. Flordon flung the sovereigns into it, saying—
“You have earned them this time, you old fraud! There they are, one, two, three, four; the best money I ever spent in my life.”
The magician did not understand what was said. It was sufficient for him that the money was paid. He returned to the cave and disappeared under the curtain of foliage, pushing the festoons aside with his body as a wild animal brushes through the undergrowth of the forest. Flordon glanced at his watch.
“Four o’clock! I’ve been working for hours; it seems like ten minutes.” He looked at his plans again and bent over them. “Yes! There it all is safely set down in black and white. The Spook is caught and nailed to the board at last. I may give my brain a rest without fear of losing my secret this time. By Jove! It’s been hard work, though!”
He lay back with a feeling of mental exhaustion. The atmosphere of his brain was already thickening, and its marvellous translucence was rapidly passing away. However, he did not trouble himself about the reaction this time. He could allow himself relaxation and rest, for he had honestly earned it. Searching for his neglected lunch he ate his sandwiches with hungry relish. As he finished the Munshi appeared.
“Has your honour spent a pleasant afternoon?” he asked, with some curiosity.
“It has been most satisfactory. I am quite ready to go home.”
“Shall I give the Kurumba the promised sovereigns?”
“I’ve paid the old man. He slept the whole afternoon—a wonderfully easy way to earn a living—and woke up to ask for his money when I had finished my work. He didn’t deserve to be rewarded, but I was so pleased with myself that I gave him the gold without hesitation.”
“Your honour would have done better to have allowed me to pay him. I bargained yesterday for a smaller sum. I might have saved your honour a couple of sovereigns. The man is not accustomed to receiving gold. Such a large sum will turn his head. I am sorry that your honour did not wait for my return and make the payment through me,” said the Munshi, with some vexation.
“You mean that you would have blackmailed the old fellow and robbed him of half his spoil?” said Flordon, with a directness that was almost brutal. “You will have to get your commission out of him without my assistance, let me tell you.”
He busied himself over the precious sheets, reassuring himself of his success over and over again, and took no further notice of the Munshi, on whose face there flashed a momentary gleam of anger. Under trouble and depression the inventor was disagreeable enough, but under elation many people found him still less endurable. He became aggressive, and assumed an overbearing manner suggestive of contempt, that was peculiarly irritating to members of his own sex.
“Did your honour see which way the Kurumba went?” asked the Munshi, smoothly.
“He vanished inside his cave, to hide his money, probably. He must have a nice little store put by somewhere inside that den.”
The Munshi entered the cave as he had once entered it before, but this time there was no hesitation nor timidity in his bearing. The interior was in semi-darkness, the sun being already low in the west, and the shadows deepening in the forest. He slipped off his leather sandals and stepped along silently, peering from side to side until he reached the recess. He was suddenly confronted by the magician, who stood in one of the natural fissures. The sovereigns he had received from the Englishman were in his hand. He was in the act of tying them into a small compact parcel with a piece of muslin. He did not look up, although he faced his uninvited visitor. The Munshi, believing himself unnoticed, watched the proceeding closely, as the knot was tightened and the little packet pushed into a hole in the rock. The hole was then filled with a block of stone that fitted so exactly as to hide all sign of the opening.
“Half of the money is mine,” said the Munshi in a low voice.
The Kurumba exhibited no trace of surprise or vexation at his presence. The only acknowledgment was a fixed stare from heavy, expressionless eyes that might have belonged to a carved image. It disconcerted the intruder, who said in a louder tone—
“Give it me now. If it had not been for me, you would never have touched the Englishman’s gold.”
The eyes continued to regard him with the same unwinking fixity. In the dimness of the cave the likeness of the Kurumba to a figure of stone increased. The Munshi’s excited fancy traced a resemblance to the image of a certain village demon, to whom the people offered blood sacrifices in a little temple near the river. He made an effort to shake off the disagreeable sensation, and reminded himself that it was only the Kurumba who stood there. He repeated his request in a voice that grew louder as his courage failed; at the same time he backed towards the entrance, glancing at the spot where the money was hidden with shrewd, observant eyes that took in every detail.
Flordon was becoming impatient to leave, and he called to him—
“Munshi! Munshi! where are you? I am going home to camp. Come and carry this rug.” There was no immediate response to the demand, and he continued with a shade of irritation, “You come out of that! I know what you’re after! You leave that old man alone! You get enough with what I pay you, and he is quite right in refusing to submit to your extortions.”
The Munshi issued from the cave with an angry light in his eye. His design had been frustrated and he resented the Englishman’s interference.
“I ask for no more than my right, a matter that you know nothing about.”
Flordon turned on him sharply. “Don’t let me have any impertinence! You take too much upon you. More than once of late your manner has not pleased me. Here! carry this rug and lead the way home.”
He threw the rug to the Munshi, who allowed it to fall at his feet. The man kicked the rug aside with fierce contempt, and said—
“You treat me as a servant. I am not a cooly to fetch and carry at your bidding. I was engaged to teach you the language——”
He spoke disrespectfully, and his manner bordered on insolence. The light that Olwen had occasionally seen in her husband’s eyes appeared. The Munshi noted it and quailed. It was the light that came into the eyes of a wild beast that was enraged.
“Be off or I will——”
The threat was not completed. The sight of the clenched fist was sufficient. If anything more were needed to bring the man to his senses, it was the cry of the hyaena which suddenly rang out on the hillside. He was not above the superstitions of the country in which he lived. He shared in the beliefs of the people, even though he might smile when speaking of them to an Englishman. Was it the cry of the affinity responding in sympathy to the wrath he had so rashly roused?
He picked up the rug and threw it over his arm. Flordon made a sign with his hand, and in obedience to it the Munshi led the way down the narrow path. The forest was already enveloped in deep shade, although daylight remained. He glanced apprehensively to the right and left as he moved along at a quick pace. If he had dared he would have asked his companion to walk in front, but since the cry of the animal had reached his ears, his one thought was not to incense the hot-tempered Englishman further. On the contrary, it would be advisable to soothe him if possible.
There lurked in his mind a suspicion that Flordon had some sinister motive in obliging him to go in front, whereas the latter had merely acted on the spur of the moment. By keeping the Munshi in sight he would be able to frustrate any attempt to resume the blackmailing. The object was of a practical nature. If the magician were mulct of his gains, he would naturally come to the Englishman for restitution, and Flordon might find himself called upon to make good the loss, since the Munshi was in his employment. It was not his intention to pay any man twice over, however valuable his services might have been. He therefore adopted the plan of seeing the blackmailer in front of him, and of giving the Kurumba time to safely dispose of his treasure.
They had proceeded half way when the Munshi stopped short at a bend in the path, uttering an exclamation of alarm. In deadly fear he stood staring at the form of a wild beast dimly discernible in the jungle above the path. It was the hyaena. It opened its black muzzle and snarled ill-temperedly, showing its white teeth and red tongue. The mane round its high shoulders bristled as it maintained its ground. With shaking limbs the Munshi fell back upon his companion.
Flordon was startled, but he had no share in the alarm of the Hindu. He was sufficiently familiar with the facts of natural history to know that, under ordinary circumstances, the hyaena is a sneaking, cowardly beast. Unless wounded and driven to bay or suffering from rabies—not an uncommon disease among the hyaena and jackal tribes—it prefers to slip away into some hiding-place to facing its enemies. He shouted at it and it slowly turned tail, creeping under cover of the rank ferns beneath the trees.
He glanced at the trembling man who had sought shelter almost in his arms, and caught sight of a short white rod held between shaking fingers, with its end pointing towards the spot where the beast had appeared. Flordon lifted his eyebrows in surprise, and the Munshi hastily thrust the wand back under cover of the blue cotton coat that he wore. His agitation increased as Flordon’s laugh filled his ears.
“Sir, why did you call the hyaena down? Was it because I angered you? I did not mean to displease you, and I ask your pardon for my rudeness.” As Flordon made no reply he continued more abjectly than ever, “I thought your honour was going to order the beast to break my bones.”
The thought of having given the Munshi a severe fright fell in with his humour; he did not disabuse his mind of the impression that the animal had come at his bidding.
“You deserve to be torn in pieces, you thief! I saw what you held in your hand. It was Varadia’s rod. You have been let off this time, but you had better take care how you behave. I have got you now in the palm of my hand.”
“I am no thief, sir!” cried the Munshi, piteously. “I found the rod in Varadia’s hut. It was thrown on one side with the firewood, and I knowing that it was too valuable to be burned, picked it up.”
Flordon cast a contemptuous glance at him, and said with some impatience—
“Get on! it is late. I have already heard too much of Varadia, and I wish to have nothing more to do with him. What is it to me whether you hang for his murder or the woman, since one of you must hang?”
Down towards the river the cry of the hyaena sounded again. It seemed to the agitated Munshi that there was a note of exultation in it, and that it voiced the emotion of the man.
Having reached the road, Flordon dismissed his companion to the native rest-house where he had a temporary lodging. Already the incident of the hyaena had faded from the mind of the inventor. He was fatigued and wanted food. He was also eager to inform Olwen of his intention to start for Bombay the very next day. His object was accomplished so far. Now he was possessed with an urgent desire to put his plans into execution in the workshops. He shouted for his servant.
“Where’s your mistress?” he demanded.
“Gone out riding, sir.”
There was nothing to be done but to wait until she came in. More than an hour elapsed. During that period he bathed and changed into the clothes that he usually wore for dinner. Pacing up and down on the grass in front of the tents, his eye frequently wandered in the direction from which they must come. It was seven o’clock, but there was no sign of Olwen nor of Benacre. He was not aware that they were going to meet upon the road. Nothing to that effect was said as the assistant superintendent left in the morning.
Another hour went by, and his watch told him that it was just eight o’clock. He called to the servants to bring dinner, determined to wait no longer. They rattled plates and were apparently very busy dishing up, but the dinner did not appear. Ten minutes later Benacre and Olwen strolled up the hill in the moonlight without haste. She had taken his arm on the narrow path where the ground was unequal and rough, and as they walked they were still deep in conversation—too deep to take any note of Flordon, who advanced to meet them.
“You’re a nice couple, to keep a man waiting for his dinner all this time,” he exclaimed.
“I am very sorry,” exclaimed Jack, suddenly brought to earth by the sight of his hungry guest, ready dressed for dinner. “We were delayed by my inspector, who had cramp rather badly.”
“Oh, I understand; and you were talking over the accident, of course, as you came up the hill arm-in-arm. It is a pity that you did not go off on that little tour by yourselves. You could have kept what hours you liked then without troubling yourselves about a third person.”
Benacre felt his wrath rising.
“It is my fault, Flordon,” said Olwen. “I insisted on Mr. Benacre going back to look after Inspector Hillary, and it made us late.”
“‘Mr. Benacre,’ indeed! No doubt you call him Mr. Benacre when you are leaning on his arm in the moonlight! But I don’t mind. I have my remedy——”
Before he could utter another word, Benacre had taken him by the collar, choking the words in his throat, and had thrust him back towards the dinner-tent. Olwen, with burning cheeks, fled precipitately to her tent. A quarter of an hour later Benacre’s voice hailed her from outside—-
“I have come to take you in to dinner, Mrs. Wentworth. Your husband is waiting for us.”
She joined him at once “What did you do? What——?”
He felt her tremble on his arm as they stood for a few seconds in the moonlight.
“I have silenced the evil-tongued brute. Forgive me; I cannot speak of him otherwise. It is a daily torture to me to see you with him. He is not fit to touch the hem of your dress—you, whom I would serve with the last drop of my blood.” His voice broke, and she tried to utter words that would restore him, but they would not come. He continued in low pleading tones, “Do not be angry with me, Olwen. I thought I was sufficiently master of myself to have spared you this, but he has driven me into it. I only desire to serve you. I ask for nothing in return. It is not your fault that I have given you the love of my life, a love that I shall never offer to another woman.”
She heard him spell-bound. Her naturally warm responsive emotions were suddenly quickened into a glowing vitality. She believed that they were dead, that they had perished with Lewis. All that afternoon she had rejoiced in the establishment of what she had called a firm friendship. Here, in one short second, the barrier was broken down, and she was listening with something like hungry avidity to words against which duty vainly raised a protesting voice. Restrained as they were, they dropped like sparks of fire upon her heart, and the stubble in the field from which the corn had long since disappeared, burned up into a blaze that bid fair to blind her. It was not for long. During the silence that elapsed she regained command of herself, and stifled the despairing cry of her starved nature, the longing for love that she could not entirely destroy; level strong, tender, encompassing love! love to which she might turn and cling with warm response! The beautiful lambent flame that had been kindled was ruthlessly trampled out. The light that had glowed in her eyes, the smile that had curved her lips vanished, and she was left grey and, cold as the hills in the death-glow.
“We will forget what has happened. This little episode shall not interfere with our friendship, which must be lasting, for my sake if not for yours,” he said just before they entered the tent.
Flordon was already seated at the table. He was unusually quiet and amiable. It seemed as though he was equally anxious to forget the events of the last half hour. Olwen wondered what charm Benacre had used to produce such a favourable result. The charm had been potent enough to cause the inventor to forget to brag about his invention.
Benacre left Hillary in the jungle apparently racked with a deadly pain. The face of the inspector was white and drawn; his eyes had an unmistakable expression of agony in their depths. The moment his chief’s back was turned he hastily finished refastening the puttee, and plunged into the ravine close at hand, taking an opposite direction to the road. At the bottom of the valley ran a mountain stream. He followed its course down the valley, leaping from boulder to boulder, and wading through the shallows. At a point where two game tracks came out upon a pool, he left the stream, and mounted the opposite side of the hill. The pace at which he travelled was creditable, for a man who averred that he was crippled with cramp in an old wound.
After walking a mile at this desperate headlong rate, he settled down to a more leisurely stride, and presently arrived at a spot where a piece of bare rock jutted out of the jungle and overhung the forest. He seated himself under its shelter, and with clenched hands and bowed head endeavoured to face his misery. Suffering was stamped upon his features, and marked every line of the bent figure. The dew stood upon his forehead in large beads, and he drew his breath; in painful gasps.
“God in Heaven! What have I done? His wife! That brute’s wife! I never dreamed of such a thing—God knows that I acted as I believed for the best—it seemed the only way—but—I was a coward; I know now that I was a coward. I dared not face consequences of disobedience to orders. Great Heaven! How I have been punished!—the death of those men—one of them the best friend I ever had in my life—myself exiled and friendless! As if that were not enough, this comes, the worst blow of all! I believed she was safe with my mother; that she could live without me; that she would be happier in the belief that her husband was dead rather than that he lived only to be degraded and disgraced! Oh, that I had died with my men!”
He threw himself upon the ground in his agony. The hot tears fell, but they could not wash away the vision of the smiling unconscious woman who advanced so eagerly along the road. The eyes that looked upon her to-day were those of a man, not of a boy. Under tribulation he had matured, as the plant matures under the electrical discharges from the clouds, and the beating of the tropical rain. A fierce love was suddenly awakened by the sight of her, an overmastering desire to claim his rights. It was followed swiftly by jealousy. He recalled the expression on Benacre’s face as he advanced to meet her. The Paddybird’s communication returned in all its significance. His thoughts maddened him. These things could never have been, if he had not allowed himself weakly to be carried along in the stream of events that placed his name on the list of the dead, and saved him from having to face a court-martial.
“My wife! my wife! Olwen! my wife!” he cried in bitter remorse, in direst agony, as he bit and tore at the cambric handkerchief with which he had swept the dew from his forehead.
For two terrible hours he grappled with his pain. The shadows deepened, and the flaming colours died out of the sky. The afterglow gave place to the death-glow, under which the face of Nature grew grey and colourless. High in the west the moon floated. By its light Olwen and Benacre strolled back to the camp, all unconscious of the tragedy that was breaking a man’s heart on the hillside.
The sound of tom-toms in the village came up from the valley on the evening air, and recalled the inspector to the realities of his duty. Though despair might seize him, and eat into the very core of his life, there was work to be done which could not be deferred nor put aside. Nay, more; it required his whole attention. He gathered his scattered thoughts with a supreme mental effort, and centred them upon the design that he had in hand. His suspicions had been roused, and directed towards two men, the only two who were likely to covet a treasure of the nature of the magic wand.
Following the game track in its many windings he arrived at the cave of the Kurumba. He trod cautiously, and stopped frequently to listen, standing as motionless as one of the trunks of the trees.
There was no sign of the magician. The fire that had been made near the entrance of the cave the day before had not been lighted. No lamp glimmered within, indicating that he intended to pass the night there. The inspector knew his habits well, and was satisfied that he had been summoned to the village to work charms over the corpse before it was carried to its burning. Hillary had the forest to himself. It was unlikely that any of the villagers would be absent from the cremation. If they were not there as friends and mourners, they would go as sight-seers.
A broad patch of light from the moon fell upon the face of the rock, illuminating the foliage that hung down before the entrance of the cave and rendering the deep shadows of the interior of the cavern an inky black.
If the forest was beautiful by day, it had a charm that belonged especially to it at night. The grand columns of the trees that rose thirty feet before they branched, stood out gigantic and ghostly in the silvery light. The boulders among the undergrowth took strange shapes, suggestive of weird beings that shunned the day. The evening breeze had died down and the air was motionless.
In the warmth of the afternoon, when Flordon had sat there, Nature, lulled by the murmuring water and the hum of the bees, appeared to doze and dream; but in the stillness of the night she opened her eyes widely with a quickened sense of watchfulness. The sentinel trees, as well as each separate bush and fragment of rock, seemed alert and observant. Although the songbirds were silent, and the honey-intoxicated insects had crept into warm crevices for shelter, the forest had its voices. There was a flutter of a strong feathery wing in the branches above, and the discordant shriek of the hawk-owl echoed from the rock. Occasionally the howl of a jackal resounded from the direction of the river and the nightjar screamed in response. The only voice of the day that continued its chant through the hours of the night was the falling water of the stream that passed near the cave.
Presently the sharp ear of the inspector caught the snapping of a twig on the path below. Quick as thought he stepped behind the large rock half buried in the earth near the cave. It was dedicated to the use of the devil, to whom the Kurumba did pujah on behalf of the votaries who brought their offerings. The inspector was untroubled by the fear of evil spirits, and the spot commended itself to him as being the place where a native, even the Kurumba himself, would be least likely to look for a human being. Any appearance of the kind would be taken as a manifestation of the devil, and to venture within a certain radius of the stone would place the rash intruder within the power of the evil one.
Some one was approaching with cautious steps. It was a man. Hillary could just discern the outline of his figure. He wore a coat and a white loin-cloth, showing that he was not a villager. It was strange to find a native other than the Kurumba passing through the forest at this time, and he wondered what his destination and errand could be.
When the man reached the level of the cave he stopped and listened, peering on this side and that as though he dreaded some supernatural appearance. He could not be in search of the Kurumba. It was known to all the village that he was occupied at Varadia’s house. He felt his way cautiously to the entrance of the cave. As the light of the moon fell upon his figure Hillary recognised him.
“The Munshi! Now, what on earth does he want up here at this time of night?” thought the inspector, who knew nothing of the transaction of the afternoon.
The man stood for some time at the entrance, listening intently and gazing into the deep shadows of the interior. The flutter of a bat caused him to draw back. The creature of the night rustled its leathern wings in the tangled creeper and flew off on its hawking expedition among the moths of the forest. It was some minutes before he gathered courage to advance again. Moving a step or two at a time, he crept into the interior. Without a sound he passed on till he arrived within the recess where the darkness was complete.
Hillary could distinguish the flicker of a lighted match, although he could not see the person who held it. It was allowed to burn sufficiently long to enable the intruder to examine the cave. A second match flickered. Hillary heard a stone fall, and the Munshi uttered a growl of rage. He had found the spot where he had seen the money placed, and had succeeded in moving the stone, but the cavity was empty. In his vexation and disappointment he had allowed the stone to fall. A third and fourth match were burned in the vain search for Flordon’s sovereigns. The fallen stone was recovered and put back in its place so that no trace of the search might be left. The Munshi did not hurry himself. He had seen the Kurumba seated beside the corpse, and had little fear of his return. Even if he had appeared to ask his business, the Munshi had his excuse ready in the shape of a renewed and urgent demand that he might receive his commission. Angry and disappointed, he came back to the entrance. Hillary, seated behind the devil-stone, saw him stand beneath the fringe of creeper preparatory to pushing his way out by pressing the weight of his body against the foliage.
Suddenly a strange thing happened. The long tendrils of the creeper swayed as he touched them without yielding altogether to the pressure. They swung back upon him and seemed to buffet him in the face. He made a second effort, exerting a little more force, but again he was baulked. A festoon caught him under the chin; another lay across his body in a slanting direction; a third had him by the shoulder. The check to his progress irritated him, and he tried, by a vigorous shake of his frame, to free himself. His action stirred the creeper throughout its lengths, and seemed to give the long strands an animation of their own. They moved with a snake-like motion, coiling round his body and increasing their grip upon him.
Hitherto his actions had been impatient rather than strenuous, and he had not exerted much force in his endeavour to disentangle himself. With a growing impatience he lunged against the obstacle, throwing the entire weight of his body against it. It yielded so far as to swing forward; but the backward motion was equally strong, and his attempt to release himself was frustrated. His ill-temper was rapidly changing into consternation and alarm. He was surprised and confused to find his egress from the cave barred in this manner.
With the intention of tearing the confining strands asunder, he tried to lift his arm; but, like the strands of waterweed, the more the lianes were set in motion, the more they became entangled and the tighter they clung. His arm was enmeshed, and he was incapable of raising it to fulfil his purpose. He hastily put out the other hand, but it was caught in like manner and practically bound to his side.
Thoroughly frightened, he realised that he was a prisoner. His belief in the supernatural powers of the Kurumba filled him with apprehension. Secure in the possession of the magic wand, he had not expected to meet with any opposition. The possibility that the rod might fail had hitherto not entered his head. What if the spirit of the rod were in subjection to the Kurumba? The doubt disturbed him, and deprived him of confidence. Summoning all his strength, he endeavoured to extricate himself by sheer physical force.
As Hillary watched the struggle, it seemed to him that the strength exerted by the unhappy man was somehow communicated to the lianes and turned against him. The more they were agitated by his violence, the closer they were drawn around his body. It was a deadly combat between the animate and the inanimate; a battle of life and death; and there was something peculiarly horrible and weird in the manner in which the vegetable growth fed upon the force of the man and derived its movement from his. Hillary watched the upper part of the creeper closely for some sign of a guiding hand above, but could distinguish nothing that revealed the presence of a human being. The first movement of the lianes had had its origin in the movement of the Munshi, and every increase in violence corresponded with his own augmented efforts to free himself.
Too late the Munshi remembered the knife that he wore at his waist. He made a frantic endeavour to reach it. It was useless. The pliant stems, though they swayed this way and that in response to his motion, held him fast. A panic seized him as he felt the strands tightening each time that he threw his weight against them. The compression across his chest and round his neck was beginning to choke him. The thick foliage enveloped his head and blinded him, increasing the dreadful sensation of being suffocated. He lost his presence of mind entirely as a man might lose his head in drowning. In his terror and confusion he missed his footing and was unable to regain it.
All at once Hillary recognised the fact that the man was being slowly and surely strangled. The life was going from him in voiceless gasps. The inspector darted from his hiding place, pulled out his knife, and slashed away at the tangle. Feeling for the strands with his fingers he severed those that encircled his neck. By the light of the moon he could just distinguish the green stems that were coiled like cords round the throat. One of them pressed so deeply into the flesh of the neck, that it was with the utmost difficulty that he forced the blade of his knife beneath it without making a wound.
He had not freed the arms and body but only the neck when he felt a strand of the creeper sweep across his own throat. In an instant he seized the lianes above, tore down the festoons, cutting and slashing until half the beautiful foliage lay on the ground.
As the last great wreath fell some loose pieces of rock were dislodged from the ledge above where the plant had its roots. A small avalanche of stones descended and with them came a long, writhing body. By some curious mischance the head of the snake was crushed in its fall under a piece of rock.
Hillary drew the unconscious Munshi away from his dangerous proximity to the dying python and disentangled him from the last wreath. Kneeling down by his side he examined him, wondering if after all the lianes had completed their deadly work. But the man was not dead. He had only fainted. As Hillary felt for the beat of his heart, his hand encountered something. An exclamation escaped his lips as he drew out the object, and looked at it in the moonlight. He recognised it at once. It was the magic wand that had belonged to Varadia. The cord by which it had been secured to the neck of the Munshi had been severed when the lianes were cut, and the rod was slipping away from its hiding place.
Consciousness was returning to the prostrate man, and he opened his eyes. The sight that met his gaze filled him with a deadly fear that made his vision darken again and the faintness return. The inspector was in the act of examining the rod. As soon as he perceived that the Munshi had recovered his sense he quietly placed the rod in his pocket.
“Give it to me, sir, please. I had it from my father when I was a boy, and I have treasured it ever since.”
Hillary bade the man rise to his feet, but he was too weak to stand alone.
“If the rod is yours, you shall have it again. For the present it remains with me. “
“I dare not pass through the jungle without it,” whined the man, quaking in every limb. “I should not be safe from the wild beasts—or from the power of the Kurumba,” he added in a lowered voice, as though he feared that the rocks and trees might hear and repeat the words.
“The wand did not seem to be of much use in protecting you from the lianes. How was it that you managed to entangle yourself?”
The Munshi did not reply. A rustling among the fallen strands caused him to turn and look at them. Was it possible that they had power to rise of themselves and enmesh him again? Relief on that point was swallowed up by the sight of the snake. Although its neck was broken and its head battered, it still moved after the manner of its kind, and quivered throughout its length. It glistened in the moonlight, its brown bars showing black and its grey scales silver. It was horribly beautiful, a loathsome, fascinating sight that even held the attention of the self-contained inspector for a while.
“The snake! Where did it come from?” cried the Munshi, hoarsely.
“From the rock above; it fell with the creeper whilst I was releasing you; it will do you no harm if you keep out of its reach.”
The Munshi seemed unable to take his eyes from it. He put his hand to his throat where the lianes had compressed it, as though the flesh still smarted from their grip. His tongue was parched and he trembled with a quivering motion that was not unlike that of the dying snake. Hillary guessed what was in the mind of the man. He knew the superstitions of the natives, and the significance of the destruction of wild beasts, birds and reptiles. They all had their affinities.
“I am afraid you were here for no good purpose, Munshi. If you had any design upon the Kurumba’s property it was not successful. Apparently he knows how to take care of his own.”
“I thought the rod would be strong enough,” gasped the other.
“Another time when you are prying about the Kurumba’s cave, I should advise you to make sure that he has not left a guardian to watch over his belongings. If I had not happened to be passing at that moment you would have died among the lianes as the snake is dying, not with a broken back and skull but of strangulation as Varadia was strangled by his wife’s rope. You have had a narrow escape.”
The Munshi shuddered at the allusion to the dead constable.
“The Kurumba has no assistant, sir. He is performing ceremonies himself in the constable’s house. I left him there reciting muntrums. These men have help from the spirits. Though he may seem to be sitting there, he may be here. It was his arm that drew the lianes round my neck. It was his hand that struck down the snake and killed it. The devils that serve him are stronger than the devil that serves the owner of the rod; nevertheless the spirit of the wand has power over wild beasts. Only this afternoon it preserved me from the hyaena. Please give it back, sir. I dare not move without it.”
The Munshi whimpered partly from fright, and partly because he was unhinged and profoundly sorry for himself.
“All in good time,” replied Hillary with encouragement. This was not the moment for denouncing the man as a robber and murderer. If justice was to overtake him and give him due punishment, it would be advisable to allay his fears for the present. He continued. “You can go back to the chuttrum quite safely without it. I will see you through the wood as I am going down to the thana. You can walk now without assistance. Go on in front and I will follow close behind.”
Casting a parting glance at the dying snake upon the confused heap of lianes, the Munshi obeyed the inspector.
“Will the snake die, sir?” he asked.
“Assuredly; its head lies under the boulder. So you saw the hyaena this afternoon; where was it?”
“Close to this path. Mr. Wentworth and I were going back from the cave.”
“How does Mr. Wentworth amuse himself at the cave?”
“He studies sheets of paper and makes drawings and calculations. The Kurumba sits near and gives him his desire.”
“What is his desire?”
“I know not, sir, unless it be strength to calculate the figures.”
“And for that he rewarded the man of magic with gold?”
“Five sovereigns, sir,” replied the Munshi eagerly. “Is was agreed between the Kurumba and myself that if I brought the Englishman to him I should have half whatever sum was given.”
“Did the Kurumba give it?”
“No, sir. He is an evil-minded man whose word cannot be depended on.”
“So you went to the cave to help yourself, and found the hole empty?”
“Was your honour in the cave?” asked the Munshi, in surprise.
“Oh no! I was only passing on my way to the thana.”
They moved down the hillside in silence. A sudden thought had come to disturb the Munshi afresh. The Englishman must have seen the inspector and given him an account of the transactions with the magician. A cold shiver ran through him as he recalled the tale he had told Wentworth of how he had picked up the rod in Varadia’s house. It did not tally with that which he had given to the inspector. They emerged from the jungle and followed the pathway leading past Varadia’s house.
“The corpse is not yet carried to the burning ground; they are late with their ceremonies,” remarked Hillary, as he caught sight of the flare of torches round the hut.
He stopped and inquired of a villager, who was standing at the entrance of the yard, the reason for the delay.
“It is the Kurumba, your honour. He cast the spells early and recited many muntrums. Suddenly he fell into a trance from which we dared not rouse him. It was plain to us all that he fought with the evil spirit and struggled for the victory. He has lately awakened and is much exhausted. We are going to the burning ground as soon as he gives the order.”
As he spoke the Kurumba came out of the hut into the full light of the flickering torches. He fixed his eyes upon the Munshi, who slunk behind the inspector. Again the likeness to the image appeared. It seemed to the Munshi that there was a threat in those staring eyes, in the gleam of the teeth through the parted lips that muttered incantations; or were they curses against himself? Oh, if he had but the rod! It might not be strong enough to use aggressively, but it was surely powerful enough to protect him from malicious curses.
“Come, Munshi. I promised to see you safe to your lodging in the chuttrum. Let us be off. My constables will be waiting for me,” said Hillary’s voice.
They resumed their journey and arrived at the rest-house. The Munshi had taken up his abode in a little lean-to shed at the back of the chuttrum. The door was fastened with a padlock that was not of the common pattern to be bought in the bazaar. It bore the name of a well-known English maker. The inspector glanced at it as his companion produced the key and opened the door. He had already found an opportunity of examining the padlocks, and had discovered that none of the skeleton keys fitted it.
“Good night, Munshi,” said Hillary, as he turned away in the direction of the police-station.
The Munshi did not reply to the greeting. He longed to make one more appeal for the possession of the rod; but he dared not mention the subject again. It would serve his purpose best if the rod could be forgotten. He closed the door, carefully shooting the bolt inside.
Lighting a small cocoanut-oil lamp he sat for some time in deep thought. He was haunted by ugly visions and vague fears. There was the dying snake with the rock lying upon its head. Throughout the night its death throes would continue until the rising of the sun. Was the incident prophetic? Did it augur ill for him? There was the Kurumba and his curses. He knew what they would bring unless they could be averted—madness and a violent death. Lastly, there was the inspector, who came and went like the rain. He was as searching as the rain, and nothing was hidden from him. Without doubt he had been to the Englishman in camp, and learned all about the attempt to blackmail.
He remembered how he had angered Wentworth, and how the hyaena had been called down to destroy him. The design had been frustrated by the power of the magic wand. Disappointed of his revenge, the Englishman must have gone to the inspector and have told him about the rod. And Hillary Dorai would not rest until he had brought him to justice. The punishment for killing a man was hanging. It was far worse than the curse of the Kurumba. There was but one remedy—flight.
He started to his feet. With feverish haste he untied bundles of clothing. Coats and loin-cloths, turbans and shawls were tossed aside in his frantic search for more highly valued property. Articles of jewellery, rings, precious stones, bangles, necklaces, pendants, sovereigns, were thrown together. Some he tied in the ends of his loin-cloth, some were hidden in his turban, some he strung upon a cord and hung about his neck under the coat that he wore. Last of all, he brought out a false black beard, which he secreted in his pocket ready to slip on as soon as he had got clear of the chuttrum.
Extinguishing the lamp, he opened the door noiselessly, carrying his shoes and a loaded staff in his hands. He was just about to step down from the threshold when two police-constables presented themselves before him.
“It is the order of the inspector that no one leaves the chuttrum.”
He paused and looked the two men up and down, measuring their strength with his. Was it possible to strike them to the earth with his staff? He shifted the stick to his right hand. At that moment a third man appeared. He repeated the words uttered by the first.
“It is the order of the inspector that no one leaves the chuttrum.’
It was useless to fight against fate. He turned back into the room with a curse between his lips. This was the work of the Englishman, and none other! If he had paid the Kurumba in the proper manner through himself, there would have been no difficulty; there would have been no necessity to visit the cave and rouse the anger of the magician; there would have been no accident to discover the rod; and, lastly, there would have been no encounter with the lianes, no dying snake, no delivery into the hands of the inspector. He cursed the unconscious Flordon over and over again, crying that he, and he only, had brought misfortune upon his head. The man whom he thought to bring into subjection under his own power had him in the hollow of his hand. How should he escape from the fate that was threatening him?
When Hillary had given the orders by which the Munshi was to be kept under observation until he could be arrested in due form, he retraced his steps towards Varadia’s house. Two or three of the villagers had seen him as he stopped to ask his question in passing concerning the cause of the delay; but their attention was too much engaged with watching the preparations for the cremation to heed his movements. Taking up a position at a little distance where he was not visible to the crowd, he looked on at the final proceedings with no particular object beyond a general observation of a larger assembly of the people than usual.
The body of the constable was draped in white muslin and decked with flowers. It lay upon a primitive bier of bamboo. The bearers raised the bier to their shoulders amidst renewed lamentations from the mourners. The whole village was in attendance. If any had desired to sleep it would have been impossible. The noise of talking and of tomtoms filled the air. There is no awed hush in the presence of death among Orientals.
Most of the members of the camp household were present, Benacre’s boy and the old kitchen woman being the only absentees. They had been left behind to answer any call that might be made from the tent by the masters and mistress. The dressing-boy was quite satisfied with the decree of the Paddybird which assigned to him the duty of attending the camp. The sight of the dead man on the previous evening, when he had first discovered the murder, had unnerved him, and he had no desire to look upon these distorted features again or to follow him to the burning-ground.
The body was borne aloft, and the party started with slow steps for its destination by the river. The tomtom beaters, the blowers of horns, and the mourners clustered round, doing their best, as they believed, to frighten away the spirits that hovered over the corpse. The flare of the yellow light from the flickering torches and the slanting rays of the moon illuminated the moving figures. The mourners abandoned themselves to their grief in the customary manner, tearing their clothes, swaying their bodies, and occasionally casting themselves to the ground, from which they had to be lifted and set upon their feet again. These extravagant signs of sorrow wrung tears and sighs from the company, and added to the prestige of the poor constable.
The Kurumba’s duties were over, and his presence no longer required. He had received the reward for his services, and, being of another caste, he was not expected to accompany the procession to the spot where the final rites were to be performed. They could only be carried out by the nearest relatives of the deceased. He was at liberty to return to the cave as soon as he desired, but he showed no haste to be gone. All trace of the trance had disappeared, and his eyes were wide awake and observant.
As the last straggler among the sightseers departed at the heels of the crowd, Hillary came forward. He was satisfied that the man who had committed the crime could be none other than the Munshi, and he had been marked down. There was no further necessity for keeping the Kurumba under surveillance, since suspicion no longer rested upon him. As he approached the magician, he met his eye in friendly fashion and greeted him with the honorific term used by the natives.
“Salaam, ancient and wise one. I have seen this evening how you are able to take care of your own property whether you are absent or present.”
“Your honour saw the Munshi in the cave. He came out as empty-handed as he went in,” replied the Kurumba.
“That was so, judging from his manner as he searched. It seemed to me that he was disappointed at every turn. You were a match for him, though I don’t exactly know how you managed it. I thought at first that it was going to be a robbery case, but you—or your brother, if you have one—very nearly made it something else.”
“Your honour would have done well to have let the man die as the constable died,” said the Kurumba.
Hillary looked at him with curiosity, wondering how much of his occult power was real and how much was knavery. He was well aware that these men claimed to have the power of traversing space, of temporarily animating inanimate substances, and of rendering themselves invisible or unrecognisable at will. They also exercised a strange physical force for which he could not account, except by ascribing it to an occult origin. Of this he had seen more than one example. They professed to be able to project it at will, and by its means to produce levitation and the locomotion of heavy bodies. These gifts, if they may be so called, are said to be inherited by birth as well as by tradition. The example that he had seen was the act of levitation. This very man had laid himself down upon a canvas cot belonging to one of the villagers who looked on; the cot with its burden rose three or four feet in the air, and was held suspended whilst the Kurumba fell into a kind of trance. Scarcely able to believe his own eyes, Hillary had passed his stick beneath the cot to assure himself that its feet were really off the ground. There was no mechanism by which the effect could have been produced, and he was left with the alternative of doubting his own vision or believing in the supernatural power which the man claimed to possess. He regarded him at the present moment with an open mind, wondering how much he knew and how much he guessed; and whether the entanglement of the thief was accidental, or due to some force exercised by the Kurumba; and if it was premeditated force, whether it emanated from the man himself, or was produced by the prosaic means of an accomplice hidden in the foliage, an experienced accomplice who had evaded detection.
“So you know what happened to-night at the cave? You have the wisdom of the gods, old wise-head,” said Hillary.
“It was foolish to help him to escape.”
“You ought to understand by this time that Englishmen don’t stand by and allow men to die while they look on, if they can help it.”
“Not bad men?”
“Not even bad men may be permitted to die if they can be saved, unless it is the order of the magistrate that they are to be hanged with a rope.”
“If a man has done evil and deserves to die, it matters little how death comes, whether it is by the order of the magistrate or by the hand of the man whom he has wronged. It is but the fulfilment of his fate, to which end his own actions have brought him.”
“It is not right to kill,” said the inspector.
“In a country where the gods are not the same as our gods, that may be so,” admitted the man of the jungle. “Here if one dies—no matter how—it is by the will of the gods; and who can contend against his fate, since it is written down at birth?”
Hillary was leaning upon the low wall that surrounded the little yard in which Varadia’s hut was enclosed. His eyes were fixed upon the hill where his chief had pitched his tent. Lights were visible, showing that Benacre and his friends had not turned in. The Kurumba watched him closely, glancing towards the spot to which his gaze was directed. The small black eyes came back to the preoccupied Englishman and rested upon him with earnest inquiry, as though they would penetrate the cloud of trouble that sat there. After a short space of silence the Kurumba said slowly—
“The lady is good, but the man is bad. If your honour were of this country and served our gods, you would go to her and kill the man as he lies asleep in his cot. That would be only the fulfilment of the will of the gods.”
Hillary was startled by the words. Hidden somewhere in his chaotic mind was an insinuating instinct, that had neither form nor shape, to go and do that very thing suggested by the Kurumba. Until the words were uttered he was unconscious that such a desire was harboured. The morality that had slid from his tongue as he talked upon the subject of homicide had blinded him to its presence. He replied quickly—
“You are a clever reader of thoughts, but you are wrong this time. It is not my will to kill anyone. It is not the way of the Englishman.”
“I said ‘if your honour were of this country,’” said the Kurumba.
“If I did such a thing,” Hillary continued, unconsciously preaching down the wild promptings of the animal within him, “the lady would never speak to me or look at me again; therefore I should gain nothing but shame in the eyes of my countrymen, and undoubtedly I should die by the order of the magistrate.”
“The wider the spread of the tree in the sunlight, the broader is the shadow round its feet. The English are wise in some matters. In others their feet rest in the darkness of foolishness. Thus it is that where they are concerned in this country there is much left for the gods to do. If you will not go to her, she shall come to you.”
The ghost of a smile crossed Hillary’s lips. The Kurumba saw it in the light of the moon. He understood its meaning; the Englishman disbelieved his prophecy. He continued with greater emphasis——
“She will come, I tell you, she will come. When she comes to you do not turn away. The gods give once, perhaps twice, then they trouble no more about the matter. I see it; they are favourable. Even if you will not kill and take what is your own she will come to you; you will rest in her arms; she will give herself to you.”
During this speech the Kurumba approached closer still and laid his hand upon Hillary’s shoulder. The touch of the bony fingers was like the clinging touch of a large bat. They pressed into his flesh; he could feel them quivering to their very tips with the strong muscular movement of the limbs of an animal labouring under unusual excitement. By some unknown means the man seemed to have established a subtle communication with the subconsciousness of his companion and to have dethroned reason. The forcible words, spoken in the native tongue, although of a moderate nature, conveyed impressions not expressed in speech. They conjured up visions that were strangely distinct. The reality and the lurid covering of these mental pictures set his pulses throbbing and caused him to tremble in like manner.
A groan of passionate pain was wrung from his lips. Once more the emotions that had torn him to pieces in the forest sprang into life. This time they were accompanied by a demon of revolt. It seemed to acquire its masterful vitality from without rather than from within. The savage temperament of the semi-civilised human being who held him in his grip was placed en rapport with his own mind. It communicated its untutored force to his, and plunged him into a turbulent psychic atmosphere that was brutish. It incited him to take what was his own, and to hold it with the same brute strength by which the wild beasts of the forest held their own. His higher nature was overthrown temporarily, and he was dominated by an uncivilised instinct that urged him on to the commission of deeds which in saner moments he would have deemed nothing short of madness. He communed with evil spirits; he was no longer master of his emotions; his morality was extinguished and the animal in him had full sway.
It did not last long. With a desperate effort he shook himself free of the Kurumba’s grasp. The mysterious wire along which the strange current of thought travelled snapped as suddenly as it had been established. With its rupture the evil influence ended. Reason was reinstated, and brute passion was conquered. The mad impulse that had swayed him with cyclonic force subsided, and he regained command of himself. The desire towards violence of action, the selfish, scorching jealousy that demanded the instant restitution of his own property, even though it might mean death and disaster to others, were trampled under foot. The terrible temptation to which he had been subjected was past.
Reason lifted her voice and cried bitterly and despairingly within him; what if he established his identity even without violence and claimed her? He had nothing to offer, neither position nor money. Now at least she had wealth; and for all he knew there might have sprung up a kind of love born of gratitude for the gifts that money showered upon her. Her love for him, that early affection of simple girlhood, tender but immature, must have perished long ago, and at best be but a memory. It was not impossible that the stronger nature of his cousin had succeeded in kindling a flame that he felt himself capable now of kindling. But he had deserted her, and the opportunity was gone.
Gradually his strength returned to him, and he emerged from the maelstrom, into which he had been plunged all unawares by the man of the jungle, shaken but whole. Traces of the severe combat were evident upon his features. His brow was bedewed and his hands were still clenched; but the Kurumba knew that the battle was over and that he was not the victor. His eyes dwelt upon the face of the inspector with something like an expression of pity in their glittering depths. It was not the merciful pity of sympathy for a human being in trouble; it was the pity of the strong for the weak. He had lent him wings, but he had not dared to soar; he had launched him upon the path that led to restitution, bidding him take with a strong hand that which was his, and keep it by the law of might as well as right; but he had weakly turned his back upon the goal. He had shrunk from doing the will of the gods now that the way had been opened, and had relapsed without a struggle into the deadening realm of resignation, a kingdom to be entered only when the gods have closed all other doors and brought a man to his fate.
There was nothing more to be done. When the bullock lies down upon the road the whip and the goad are useless. Even a fire lighted beneath it will not bring it to its feet if it is determined to lie there. Like the bullock, the Englishman could not be roused to act for himself and traverse the road that stretched out so plainly before him. His fate must be worked out by the gods. As the Kurumba had said, such weakness left much for the gods to do.
The man of magic drew back and regarded Hillary with eyes from which the glitter slowly faded. He accepted the circumstances without making further attempt. His spirit had wrestled in vain with the spirit of the Englishman. If he had been a compatriot he would have made another effort, knowing that in the end he would prevail; but being of another race he doubted his power.
Fate was not to be fulfilled by the means he had tried. It mattered not; there were other means of accomplishing his destiny. He said as he turned away—
“Your honour has not had the courage to do the will of the gods. What is written for us at our birth cannot be avoided; it must be accomplished, and if men fail through weakness and ignorance, the gods themselves will perform all that is written in the book of fate. Therein only lies justice.”
Hillary only half heard his words. He lifted his head and looked at him. Something in the man’s expression recalled him to a sense of his duties.
“Let no man kill another, or assuredly the law will bring him to punishment, as the Munshi will be brought in due time,” he said.
“Your honour is good to me and to the people. No harm shall overtake us, and nothing but good shall come to you from us.”
With these words he passed out of the little yard and disappeared in the direction of the village. Hillary was too much occupied with his own thoughts to heed which way he went. Presently he, too, bent his steps towards the road, first to the bridge and afterwards to seek the shelter of the thana, where he would find some hot coffee and bread, which must serve him as dinner.
Down below the bridge the pungent smoke curled upwards in the heavy night air from the funeral pile. The yellow flames enveloped the remains of the constable and cast a glow that was reflected in the ripples of the water. The jackals prowled about on the outskirts of the burning-ground, sniffing and whining out their disappointment as the fire deprived them of their prey.
Hillary could see the light of the fire from the bridge, but could hear no sound. The cries of the mourners were ended, and the beat of tomtoms silenced. The last office had been performed, and the villagers were beginning to straggle back to their homes, sleepy and ready for their blankets now that the cremation ceremonies were over.
On the hill where the camp was pitched the lights still burned. His eyes rested on the tents, the shadowy white of the canvas just discernible against the dark foliage of the trees behind them. Was it fancy, or could he really distinguish the pale draperies of a woman’s skirt, as a lantern was carried from one tent to another? It was the hour when she usually retired. . . . A thousand memories sprang up. . . . He turned away abruptly towards the thana.
The moon sank below the horizon and darkness overshadowed the valley. Clouds gathered over Doorga’s head, and thin streams of electricity ran in crinkled paths through the rain-charged vapour. Occasionally a rumble of distant thunder came down the hillside, and the innumerable mountain rivulets grew turgid and noisy with the addition to their volume of water from the plateau.
The chuttrum was situated in the centre of the village, and at some little distance from the police-station and bridge. The street in which it stood was part of the high road. A few native shops on either side formed the street. Their owners were asleep behind their empty stalls, and upon the thresholds lay the large yellow pariah dogs that every householder keeps to protect his domicile.
Within the chuttrum three cart-men slumbered, announcing their presence in the dark recesses of the building by their snores. Their cattle were tethered under one of the trees that avenued the road. The large hooded country carts with their heavy yokes were close by. The front of the rest-house, with its open verandah, faced the street. On its two sides and at the back there was a blank wall. It was against the wall at the back that the shed occupied by the Munshi had been built. It opened upon a yard enclosed by a mud wall.
Under a tree that stood in a corner of the enclosure sat the Kurumba. He had made a fire of sticks, and as they crumbled away into ashes he blew up the red embers and cast powder upon them. Transparent tongues of flame leaped into the air, circling and swaying without smoke like captured beings. He breathed upon them, and they bent to the ground, only to leap up again as he muttered his incantations.
Behind the door of his cell lay the Munshi, with his eye at a chink in the boards. A deadly fear held him paralysed and silent. Now and then through the long hours of the night he closed his smarting eyes. Sleep refused to come; he was impelled to open them and look again through the chink. It was always the same. The Kurumba fed his fire with fresh sticks, blew upon the embers, and cast his magic powder over the glowing ashes. The spirits, in the shape of coloured flames, leaped and danced, swayed and bent as the terrible muntrums were recited that commissioned them to their task. What that task was the superstitious Munshi trembled to contemplate.
Not until the first streak of dawn did the Kurumba finish weaving his spells. Then he rose, gathered the ashes of his fire into an earthenware dish, and cast them towards the door behind which the Munshi lay, setting free the demons to do their work.
The guilty man felt them settle like flies upon him, and creep down through his skin into the very centre of his vitals. Some pierced his brain, as the electricity pierced the storm-cloud in sharp, zig-zag paths of fire. Some hid beneath his tongue, ready to send forth their curses by its agency. Others hung like sparks of dazzling light before his eyes, and filled them with blood. In his madness he could see the demons that possessed him dancing, bowing, swaying as the tongues of flame danced and bowed and swayed before the magician.
Half an hour before the first ray of light announced the brief dawn of the Indian day, the kitchen woman rose from her mat behind her barricade in the kitchen tent. She folded her cloth around her, rolled up her bed, and pushed back the cooking-pots with which she had screened her lair. The Poochee was lying under the kitchen table, still wrapped in deep slumber. She gave him a prolonged shaking, rocking his inanimate body to and fro till he sat up and rubbed his eyes.
Within a short space of time the whole camp was astir. The fire burned brightly, and a kettle sang in its midst. There was a pleasant aroma of freshly-made coffee in the crisp morning air, and a welcome clatter of tin pots. As the broad beams from the sun shot up into the sky behind the mountains, the household gathered round the fire in readiness for the chota hazri. The Paddybird presided at the informal meal, and kept an eye upon the doles.
A woman from the village arrived with an ample supply of fresh rice cakes, which she distributed at the direction of the cook, reserving for him some that had been prepared with special care. A villager brought some goat’s milk, and the coffee was served by the kitchen woman in scrupulous order of precedence.
The fumes of the hot coffee dispersed the last trace of slumber, and thoroughly awoke the little party to the events of the immediate past and present. The subject uppermost in their minds was the cremation of the constable and its attendant ceremonies.
“It was strange that the Kurumba should fall asleep in the middle of his business,” remarked the matey. “The ceremonies were not long enough to cause him to be tired.”
“Sleep, indeed! it was not the kind of sleep that fatigue brings,” said the Paddybird, in a tone that caused the company to glance at the speaker with a slight uplifting of the eyebrows.
The matey took refuge in silence, and devoted himself to the consumption of his appas and coffee. Curiosity was roused, and the Poochee, in an insinuating tone that seldom failed, asked—
“What kind was it, little father?”
“When these men sleep, as the Kurumba slept last night before the corpse, it means that strange things are done elsewhere. Ask him; he can tell you better than I can. The Kurumba is his swami, not mine.”
The Paddybird looked at the villager, who was standing near with his chatty of milk, waiting to know if more were required before he returned to the village. He felt the honour of being deferred to, and hastened to support the statement. One of the company asked what the general opinion was among the villagers. The man replied that there was no doubt but that the Kurumba, when he fell into the trance (he called it sleep), was contending with some power; he was exerting strength. Against whom? The man shook his head; he could not say. Perhaps he fought with the devils that desired to disturb the dead constable. Perhaps he punished someone at a distance who had given him offence. It was impossible to say. He was known to be well versed in all kinds of magic, and through his magic he overtook those who were wicked.
“Was it the spirit of the rod with whom he fought?” It might have been, but that was not the supposition. The devil, having secured his property, was satisfied. Varadia had been sufficiently punished by death. What should the spirit want with his body after it had killed him and taken away the rod? If it desired to do further harm it would have attacked the widow and disfigured her, perhaps have killed her. At the mention of Chandama the appa woman’s tongue was set going, and she had much to say on the subject.
“She is to be released from the police-station this very morning. The inspector himself wrote a letter to the Assistant Dorai to ask for the order.”
“How do you know?” asked the milkman.
“The constable who carried the chit came to my house, knowing that my fire is lighted early to bake my cakes. I gave him some boiling water, and he opened and read the letter, telling me what was written therein, because I provided the tin pot with the hot water.”
“What did the inspector say?”
“That he knew that the widow was innocent and might be set free.”
“Was there no more?”
“The rest the inspector said that he would tell to the Assistant Dorai at the thana this morning.”
“Thus it always is with the inspector. He keeps all his knowledge to himself,” said Benacre’s boy. “That which I find out in my master’s office is not of much use to the inspector’s boy, and he has nothing to give me in return.”
“The onion may be hidden, but there is always the smell. Though we cannot obtain information from his words or his writings, there are his deeds. He may hide his knowledge, but he cannot hide the smell of it,” said the Paddybird. “We know that he passed Varadia’s hut last night and that the Munshi was with him. It was easy to see that the Munshi’s liver had turned to water. As we came back from the burning ground, the constable at the thana said that an order had been given by the inspector to keep the Munshi in the go-down and not let him go free.”
There was a chorus of exclamations at the astuteness of the cook; the matey ventured to make another remark, which was as disastrous as the first, and brought down upon him the scorn of his superior.
“Then it was the Munshi who murdered Varadia.”
“Hear him talk! It is like the crow on the roof of the verandah at noon. It is well known to the inspector how the constable came by his death. I spoke with him yesterday and told him about the rod. He replied that Varadia might well have come by his death in that manner, but that no English magistrate would believe it. I also informed him that the widow was innocent. This he acknowledged as well. He is a just man and will take care that no harm comes to her.”
“Then why is the Munshi imprisoned?” asked the matey, determined not to be brow-beaten again before the whole camp and the two people from the village.
“Anyone with sense can see that before making a request for her to be set at liberty it was necessary for the police to have someone in custody, otherwise they feel shame. The inspector shows his wisdom in not leaving the matter in the hands of the constables. He remembers their stupidity over the arrest of the chuckler. He has taken care to seize on one whom he knows to be bad.”
“Ah! very bad! very bad! Did we not see how the Kurumba looked at him as he passed the hut?” said the syce, who, being of a lower caste, had leaned over the wall and been a spectator from outside.
“Ah hah! the Kurumba,” exclaimed the milkman with excitement. “By some means the Munshi has angered him.”
“The Munshi has done nothing against the man of magic. Why should the Kurumba be angry?” asked the Paddybird with curiosity.
The villager wagged his head with importance, as he once again held the attention of the servants. They focussed their eyes upon him in silent expectation, as they waited breathlessly for the information they felt convinced that he was about to impart.
“Sit down by the fire; the morning air is cold,” said the Paddybird by way of encouragement.
The caste of the man made it impossible for them to offer him some of their coffee, but there was nothing to prevent him from joining their circle and warming himself at the fire. He squatted on his heels near the Paddybird, taking care to place himself so that their shadows did not fall upon himself.
“Last night, after the moon set, the Kurumba arrived at the chuttrum. He seated himself under the tree in the yard and made a fire. Just in front of the fire is the go-down occupied by the Munshi. As the yellow flames of the wood died down, others of a different colour sprang up——”
“As they sprang at his bidding when he cast the devil out of my gun. They were taller than an elephant and of all the colours of the rainbow!” exclaimed the Paddybird.
“He made them dance this way and that like nautch-girls. He whispered in their ears and commanded them to fasten upon the Munshi; to eat his heart out and put fire in its place.”
“Ah! bah!” chorused his hearers generally, led by the Paddybird himself. The tale was thrilling to the delightful point of blood-curdling, and the village woman felt that her information was but buffalo’s milk compared with this rich cows’ milk the herdsman was offering. The Paddybird asked if he had seen with his own eyes all that he described.
“I was sleeping and saw nothing. If I had been awake I should not have dared to gaze at the working of the spells. Such men as the Kurumba can curse too easily. The constable who was on guard during the night saw it all and told me. I took him some milk for his coffee at the thana. He said that his knees shook as he watched the devils in the fire. They danced with joy as each curse was uttered. They tried to go to the Munshi, and leaned towards him, but the Kurumba had them fast by the feet and obliged them to stay and listen to the muntrums.”
Questions were asked, and the information was repeated more than once with various embellishments, whilst all sorts of guesses were hazarded as to the reason of the Kurumba’s extraordinary proceedings.
“Did the inspector pay the Kurumba to curse the man?” inquired one of the lascars.
The milkman shook his head; he could not say.
“Why should the inspector want to curse him? Besides, that is not the way of the Englishman. He works by the law, and not by magicians,” pronounced the Paddybird.
“What is your opinion, little father?” asked the Poochee.
“There is no smell of cooking without meat of some sort in the pot. By the action of the Kurumba we may be sure that in some manner the Munshi has given offence. How long did the Kurumba work?”
“The whole night, even until the dawn. I met him myself as I passed down the street to the thana. He was then leaving the chuttrum.”
“The whole night. That leaves much. Who could afford a gift large enough to secure his services for the whole night?”
“It must have been by the order of the gods alone that he wove spells for so a long time,” said the villager.
“Did the Munshi try to run away?” asked Flordon’s boy, who had great faith in flight.
“He would have escaped before the arrival of the Kurumba if he could, but it was not possible. Just at the moment when he opened the door of the go-down to leave it with a bundle, and his stick in his hand, it fortunately happened that two police peons, who were proceeding, the one to his house, the other to the thana, had stopped to speak to the man on guard. They said that as the Munshi opened the door he looked evilly at them as though he would have killed them. Seeing three men, he retired back into the go-down. In order that he should not get away in the night, the constables drove a staple into the door on the outside and fastened it with a padlock.”
“That was true wisdom. A fowl that is caught gives no trouble to the cook when he wants it for curry,” remarked the Paddybird. “What will they do with him this morning?”
“After the inspector has talked with the Assistant Dorai the Munshi will be arrested in the go-down and brought down to the thana, the constable told me; and the woman will be set free.”
“It is likely that I shall have business down in the village presently. Possibly I may see him brought. It will be good for my eyes. He has ever been proud and arrogant; and though he has taken fifty rupees a month from the Wentworth master besides presents, he has never given a pie to one of us.”
The last drop of coffee had been drunk, and the Paddybird rose to his feet as a signal for the rest of the company to disperse to their several duties.
“There is plenty of work to-day for all of us,” he said. “The Wentworth master and mistress are leaving after lunch to catch the mail train.”
“And I shall go back to my father’s house,” cried Flordon’s servant, with a joy he could not hide.
“So there will be no need for sick grandmothers and bad pains again,” said Benacre’s boy, with a laugh against his companion, as he hurried off to take the tea into his master’s tent.
The cook detained the villager to make the necessary arrangements about the supply of cattle for the carts.
“Late last night the order was given for the departure to-day. There must be a pair of bulls for the luggage cart and two good trotting bulls for the coach. The payment will be liberal, and there will be a present for the driver.”
Under these conditions the herdsman made no difficulty, and promised to send his son to drive the coach. The question of the cattle settled, the Paddybird reverted to the all-absorbing topic.
“Did the constable who was on guard say how the Munshi behaved whilst the Kurumba worked the spells?”
“He groaned many times during the night when the devils leaned towards him. He could see them through the splits in the door. After all was finished the Kurumba rose and set free the devils by casting the ashes in which he had bound them upon the go-down, then the Munshi cried out as if a hundred fire-sticks touched his skin. It was a wild cry, as of one who is lost.”
At this moment Flordon’s boy hurried up to the Paddybird.
“My master asks for his big box. He is in a hurry for it.”
“Have you taken in his tea?”
“Not yet. I have come now to fetch it. He called loudly to me from the tent to have the box brought, and ordered me to begin to brush and fold his clothes.”
“And the mistress? Does she ask for her boxes also?”
“She is in no hurry. She is dressed, and is wearing her sun topee. The ayah says that the mistress will walk to the village, and there will be plenty of time to fill the boxes after breakfast.”
The Paddybird gave directions to the lascars to carry a packing case to Flordon’s tent. He then went to the kitchen, where he conferred with his understudy on the momentous question of breakfast and the preparations that were to be made.
“A little later I must go to the village. One of the men who has a garden promised to let me have some young brinjalls for a curry. Take care that you and the kitchen woman have everything ready for me by the time I come back. There is the chicken mullagatawny and the pilchards on toast, the ox-tail salmi and the roast jungle-fowl, the curried brinjalls, and, lastly, the savoury omelette. Let the breakfast be good. It is the last we shall prepare, and I do not wish my name to be spoiled. The mistress will give me a character note before she goes if you do not fail with the dishes.”
The Paddybird spoke sorrowfully. Although he had served Olwen only a short time, he had become attached to her. Under her régime expense had not been the primary consideration in the housekeeping. He had had a free hand to try various recipes—he always spoke of them as prescriptions—that were not numbered under the head of economical cooking. As for tinned meats and vegetables, so dear to the heart of every Indian cook, and so admirably served up, there had been no limit. With Mrs. Wentworth’s departure he would have to revert to chicken and kid, to eggs in different forms, and curries with a restricted hand in their preparation. In addition to this, there would be a closer scrutiny of the house accounts. He sighed as he recalled the superficial glance which Mrs. Wentworth was in the habit of casting over his neat columns of figures. Never once had he been asked to account for each separate egg that he had used; nor for details as to the disposal of a sheep that had been cut up in camp; nor had she grumbled at the prices charged for chickens. She paid the rupees with the ready hand of a rich woman, and thanked him for his excellent and varied dishes. Unknown to himself he shared his master’s opinion that a life of camping with her would be a life of happiness.
Flordon’s first thought on waking was the Spook. Before he was called he had the sheets unrolled and spread out upon his cot. Eager to verify, yet half fearing to look, he pored over them with knitted brows. He felt his heart leap with exultation as he found everything complete in detail. It was all down in black and white, all easy to follow, all plain to be executed as soon as he could get hold of a couple of his skilled workmen. If he could but take the plans then and there to the workshops, the men might begin to construct the different parts at once.
The thought of his long-neglected works filled him with impatience. He longed to be in London again with am intensity that under ordinary circumstances would have made him extremely irritable. Since his interview with Benacre the evening before, he had thought it advisable to show a different front. The only person to whom he dared exhibit any shortness of temper was his unfortunate dressing boy. The tone in which he had ordered him to have the tin-lined packing-case brought had made the chokra doubly thankful that his service was so soon to end.
There was another reason why he was anxious to get away without any delay. It was one that he would not consciously admit, although it influenced him more than a little. Benacre had spoken of the possible necessity of calling him as a witness on Chandama’s behalf. If it came to Olwen’s ears that he was talking with the woman near the camp at that time of night how would she take it? He had not been very lenient towards her when he had discovered that she had been tripping in the matter of self-hypnotism. He could not expect her to show greater leniency towards himself, especially where the offence might assume a more serious complexion. Hitherto he had steered clear of all rocks of that kind. It would be inconvenient if she grew suspicious. He was no worse than his fellow-men. It would be intolerable to have a jealous wife who would not trust him out of her sight.
A third reason presented itself to his mind. It would be as well to separate Olwen and Benacre. He was not jealous, although he had lost his temper and given utterance to some feeling on the subject in his irritation at being kept waiting for dinner. They might have been amusing themselves, but he could trust Olwen’s discretion. It was Benacre he feared. Would he keep his knowledge to himself? He drank his tea and directed his servant to lay out and fold those things which had only been required in camp, and would not be wanted on the voyage.
“Olwen!” he called. “Are you getting on with your packing? We mustn’t fail to get away to-day or we shall miss the P. & O. at Bombay.”
She noted the unusual mildness of his tone, and put it down to his pleasure at the prospect of returning to England.
“You need not fear,” she replied cheerfully. “I shall be ready in time. I am going out for a walk whilst it is cool. It is my last chance of seeing the river.”
“That reminds me that I must go out, too. I want to find the Munshi and pay him off. He lodges at the chuttrum somewhere up the village street.”
“Will you come with me?”
“No; I’m not ready to go just yet. Don’t wait for me. I shall walk quicker than you do.”
She had never known him so gracious, and she again wondered what spell had been worked to effect such a welcome change. She went outside the tent and stood for a short time upon the crest of the knoll, from which the view was superb. The rugged outline of the Western Ghats was sharply defined against the primrose sky. The valleys hid themselves under a mantle of the deepest ultramarine blue. Upon Doorga’s peak hung long trails of vapour, the remains of the thunderstorm of the night. In the morning light they were gilded with pale gold. They lingered about the hilltop as though they intended to stay and defy the fierce rays of the sun.
“Taking a last look at the mountains, Mrs. Wentworth?” said Benacre, behind her.
“Yes, and no—I cannot bear to think that I shall never see them again.”
“Is there any reason why you should not repeat your visit to India? Have I said or done anything——”
She interrupted him impetuously as she walked down the path by his side.
“No! no! no! Please don’t imagine such a thing; it would distress me beyond measure.”
“Then you will come again if I send you an invitation?”
His eyes rested on her with an earnestness she could not fail to note. His look warned her that she must be on her guard. It was easy to say that certain expressions should be buried in oblivion. Her woman’s instinct told her that words could not be unsaid any more than a bird’s nest once taken could be put back. She did not answer his question, but said—
“It is your turn to pay us a visit. I shall expect you to come to us in London when you are next on furlough.”
He made no reply. He understood what she meant. They must establish their friendship on a new footing before they started on another camping expedition. It could be best accomplished as she suggested, by his going to stay with them in the formal Metropolis, where there would be no perpetual summer, no continual tête-à-tête without the presence of Mrs. Grundy, no monopoly of her attention. He would see her surrounded by other men and women, and share her smiles with them.
They walked together down the path as far as the road. Was it only yesterday that they sauntered down the road so blithely and happily, like boy and girl, chattering over personal matters that only concerned themselves, careless of the hour, oblivious of the man who was destined presently to shatter the golden hour for them? Benacre looked up the hill towards that distant stretch of forest into which Hillary had so suddenly darted.
“Which way are you going?”
“Not up there; I shall never take that walk again. I will come with you as far as the bridge,” she said, resolutely turning her back upon that portion of the road which held his lingering gaze.
“What are you going to do at the bridge?” he asked absently, as he caught her up and fell into her pace.
“I am going to say good-bye to the river and take a last look at it. I love to watch the clear water as it runs over its bed of stones. It is so brown and deep under the centre arch; and it swirls and eddies without a sound in such a business-like manner. At the side where the cattle wade into the shallows to drink, it ripples and fusses along, just like a self-conscious girl out for the first time in a new dress.”
He knew that she intended him to smile; so he smiled; and she flattered herself that she had chased away, for a time at least, the heavy cloud that had arisen since their departure had been mooted. He stayed, at her request, to look over the parapet of the centre arch. Though they spoke only of the river, the impending parting was in the minds of both.
In the verandah of the thana, just beyond the bridge, paced the inspector waiting for his chief. As he reached the end of the verandah nearest the river he caught sight of the white skirt. He stood perfectly still, like a figure carved in marble, and watched the man as he leaned towards his companion, and bent his head near hers to peer down into the water.
Then, as Benacre left her and came towards the thana, Hillary suddenly forsook the verandah and entered the little office-room of the police station. Here his chief found him composed and ready for business without a trace upon his face of the turmoil within.
They proceeded at once to the matter they had in hand. Hillary gave a full account of his adventure at the cave and the extraordinary incident he had witnessed which had so nearly been a tragedy. He showed Benacre the magic wand, telling him how it had fallen into his hand as he freed the Munshi from the creeper.
“There seems to be no doubt,” remarked Benacre, “that the constable was murdered for the sake of his wand, and that the Munshi is the man we want. What was he doing at the cave?”
“He was prying about for no good purpose. I think he intended to rob the Kurumba, but he drew a blank. The Kurumba can take care of his own without the assistance of the police. I never saw a man nearer being strangled than the Munshi.”
“That attempt to strangle could only have been made by the Kurumba himself or by an accomplice. Those jungle people are very clever in their manipulation of the lianes. I am glad he wasn’t successful, or we should have had another unpleasant murder case upon our hands. You have released the widow?”
“As soon as your note came, sir. She went away at once with her mother. I know where the family can be found if we want her again; but I don’t think that there is any likelihood of it.”
“I am not sure that it will be easy to bring the crime home to the Munshi. We shall require more evidence than the mere possession of the rod. I should like to question the man myself. Will you send a constable to fetch him?”
“Certainly, sir,” replied Hillary, going out of the office into the room occupied by the constables. There was one man on duty, and he gave him the needful direction. The man, instead of hurrying off, continued to stand at attention.
“What do you want to say?” asked Hillary.
“If he is violent, what am I to do, sir? I cannot bring him through the village single-handed. He is strong and active, and may easily escape,” said the police peon.
“You need have no fear. He came down quite quietly with me yesterday from the cave, where I met him. However, call up the other man, and take him with you if you like. If there is any sign of violence in the Munshi, slip on the handcuffs; but there must be no violence on your part beyond what may be absolutely necessary. You men are too ready to use coercion without giving people time to submit. Let him have the chance of coming quietly if he will.”
Still the constable did not move, but remained standing at attention. The inspector understood what it meant. He was not satisfied with the order. Instead of sending him off with a reproof for his dilatoriness, he asked what else he had to say.
“Does your honour know that the Kurumba sat outside the go-down all night long, and made magic?”
“Was that so? I don’t think it; matters. The Kurumba will not assist the Munshi to escape. He desires to see him punished.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you anything more to say?”
“No, sir.”
“Then go and bring the Munshi here. Mr. Benacre is waiting to see him.”
The constables departed on their errand, and Hillary returned to the office. As he entered Benacre glanced up from some papers he was looking through and inquired after his health.
“I hope you did not suffer much from your attack. We went back to the hut to look for you, but couldn’t find you.”
“It was very good of you, sir. I went on to the village by a path through the jungle. I wanted to get to the cave without being seen. I am sorry you had the trouble of going up the hill again.”
He spoke with an effort, endeavouring to hide his confusion under a show of searching out documents.
“Mrs. Wentworth insisted. She was much concerned to hear that you were in pain. She thought it brutal to leave you alone in the jungle without assistance.”
“It was very kind of her,” murmured Hillary, in a stifled voice.
He laid some papers before his chief to read through and sign. Benacre sat down before the office desk and at once applied himself to the work. The device was successful, and the inspector was relieved when those friendly eyes were diverted and the assistant-superintendent’s attention withdrawn from himself.
Down by the river Olwen watched the stream rippling in tiny wavelets. Now and then she looked up the valley towards the hills with their noble lines of ravine and peak, sholah and crag. The sun had mounted just above the range, and was casting golden lights towards the village and upon the summits of the mountains. The lingering shreds of vapour floated away in diaphanous clouds upon the morning breeze.
It was a perfect spot, and Olwen’s enjoyment of it was intensified by the thought that their little party had had it to themselves. It was only human to revel in the exclusive possession of the beautiful, and to rejoice because there was no insatiable touring stranger to claim a right to share it with her.
Presently the Paddybird appeared carrying his gun in approved sportsmanlike fashion. He had learned the trick from the planter who had given him the gun, and he prided himself on his English sporting appearance. He slackened his pace and salaamed. From his manner she rightly supposed that he would be gratified if she encouraged him to stop a few minutes and talk.
“Good-morning, cook. Are you going into the forest to shoot pigeons?” she asked.
“It is my design to lurk on the heels of unwary game birds by-and-by in the jungle. I shall frequent their feeding grounds in the hope of potting a few. But before doing so I must pay a visit to a grubbing fellow in the village. He has a garden which fills him with pride. It is a big apple in his eye. I am to have some young brinjalls of his growing to make a curry for madam’s breakfast. It is a dish of superfluous excellence that will surfeit your excellency.”
“Have I tasted it before?”
“No, lady; I have never been able to get the right brinjalls. Those in the market are either too juvenile or too disgustingly tough and aged. They must be gathered in the nick of time, or the curry will all go to pot and be spoiled.”
“I hope you won’t put too much pepper in it.”
“Just sufficient to tickle the tongue and please the taste. I do not leave these critical matters to my fool-kitchen-matey, though he is a clever boy and shows great promise. Where your honour’s appetite is concerned I make it a personal affair to mix the prescription with my own hands. It is with copious regret that I have heard of your honour’s departure being fixed for this afternoon. I was not aware that the master intended to hook it so soon, or I would have given the curry before.”
“I, too, am sorry to go. You are an excellent cook as well as a first-rate shot. I don’t know what we should have done without your gun,” said Olwen genially, her eyes bright with suppressed laughter.
The Paddybird beamed. Praise of his gun and of his skill in using it made him glow with pleasure.
“It has been my pride to slay as well as cook the grub for madam. There is one little matter that troubles my mind.”
“What is it?”
“Some time ago your excellency asked me to buy some small brass pots and spoons such as are in common use among the people of the district. I intended to do this on our return to Beypore. My intentions are frustrated by this leap-in-the-dark move. There is a little stall in the village where a few worthless bits of rubbish may be spotted. They are nothing but country-made objects such as are in everyday use among the villagers. There is nothing foreign or curious in their shape.”
“Those are exactly the kind of things I want,” said Olwen, in pleasant anticipation of securing the genuine native curiosities.
“Then I will presently slope in that direction and show madam the way.” He noted her gaze fixed upon a sand bank, where wader birds of different kinds foraged in the wet sand for their morning meal. “Missus is pleased to take notice of the birds that gambol and scoot along the river bank. They are all within an easy shot.”
“What are they—snipe?”
“Not snipe, lady. The snipe is a shy bird that blushes to find himself in company with human beings. Those are common sorts of wading birds.”
Olwen betrayed her ignorance still further by asking if they were florican.
“Not real floricans. They are half-caste floricans. When I have been feeling shuck from a go of fever, and unable to walk far, I have shot them for the master’s table. Roasted, and served up with bread-crumbs and a nice sauce, they make a good dish; but for your honour’s eating they are poor and insignificant.”
During this conversation Flordon issued from the path leading from the camp and passed them. He did not stop, but said as he went by—
“I’m just going to see the Munshi. Don’t stay out in the sun too long, Olwen.”
He strode away with something of his old briskness of gait, and did not wait for an answer. His wife glanced at his retreating figure with satisfaction. Their visit to the East had fulfilled its purpose. She turned once more to the river, loath to leave it.
“Do the stags come down to drink anywhere near the bridge?” she asked.
The Paddybird was proud to be questioned upon the subject of game of any kind. He replied—
“They are too timid and underhand to come near the village. They drink from lonely and secret pools higher up and lower down the river. The jackals and hyaena have no bones about intruding their unwelcome presence. They enter the village and carry away the dogs and kids from under the very nostrils of the people. Although they have no courage, they are blatant, obtruding beasts, prowling and slinking round in the huts with a hunger that is never satisfied.”
Olwen reluctantly tore herself away from the parapet, and, under the guidance of the Paddybird, walked towards the village.
The bridge extended for some distance beyond the river on either side. It carried the road over low-lying land that was flooded in the rains. Where the masonry ended the road was raised upon an embankment until it reached the higher ground and began a gentle ascent. Further on it dipped downwards as it followed the valley.
The thana was the last building of the village, on the bridge side. A raised verandah ran the length of it, and there were steps at each end. The rooms opened into the verandah. At the end nearest the river a large tree cast a welcome shade over that portion of the house. The constables made use of the tree as an al fresco dining-room in fine weather. It was also the village rendezvous in the evening for gossip.
There was no house immediately adjoining the police-station. The first dwelling was about twenty yards beyond it. The little mud hut was enclosed in its own yard, and was nearly hidden under the luxuriant vines of a gourd known as the snake vegetable. Higher up the houses stood more thickly, and were on both sides of the street.
The village was awake and stirring, the men moving off to their agricultural labours on the wet lands near the river, the women going to the river for water or into the jungle to cut wood. Barefooted and uncovered to the waist, the wives and daughters passed to and fro with brass water-pots upon their hips or heads. The little brown bodies swayed to the noiseless tread upon the smooth road. They chattered as they went, the topic of their conversation being the incidents of the evening before. They had seen the cremation of the constable with their own eyes. Other events, which had happened outside the chuttrum, they had only heard of. The mystery attached to the Kurumba’s action was of absorbing interest. The tale grew with frequent repetition, and many were the conjectures as to the result of his midnight incantations.
The morning was perfect, and the figures seemed to Olwen to harmonise with the beauty and peacefulness of the scene. In that remote valley how many generations of women had trodden the path to the river, clothed in garments of a similar fashion, and bearing brazen water-vessels of the same shape? How many generations of mothers and daughters had passed back in the morning sunlight with gleaming pots and sparkling drops of water dripping from their clothing? After she herself had departed the even routine of their lives would still continue, as surely as the golden wreaths of vapour would continue to gather round Doorga’s head and disperse at the bidding of the sun. She glanced round frequently as though she would impress the scene upon her mind, and carry away not only the picture, but some of the peace and retirement that pervaded it.
She was roused from her contemplation by the sound of distant shouting that came from the direction of the village. There was nothing alarming in the noise. She concluded that the men in going to their morning labour in the fields called greetings and news to each other in passing.
On a repetition of the shouts she noted that the two women, who were passing, stopped and glanced back in the direction from which the sound came. With a little exclamation of alarm they broke into a run, uttering cries of warning to their fellows on ahead.
Olwen saw them dart into the scrub and disappear down the bend of the road where the bridge ended, and she lost sight of them in the thorny vegetation that grew rankly on the bank. She turned to the Paddybird for an explanation. He, too, had stopped short, and was listening intently.
The shouts were repeated. They echoed from house to house at the other end of the village. The pariah dogs yelped in reply, and the peace of the morning was broken. The cries began to assume articulation. The quick ear of the cook caught them and interpreted them aright.
“Amok! amok! amok!”
Olwen could guess from the action of the women, as well as from the expression of her companion’s face, that something unusual, possibly something serious, was impending, although she was totally ignorant of its nature. He looked back eagerly at the bridge, then at the thorny growth upon the bund, then at the thana, as though considering which course of action would be best.
“What is the matter?” asked Olwen, as he did not speak.
Again the terrible words were borne in upon them on the morning breeze, this time louder and more articulated.
“Amok! amok! amok!”
He glanced desperately to right and left and said incoherently—
“Missus, come away!”
“From what? What is it? Is it a mad bull running loose?” she inquired, with a touch of impatience.
A qualm of fear passed through her, caused more by what she read in his face and manner than by apprehension raised by the mere sound of shouting. The noise increased, and this time there were added to the shouts of warning screams of pain as well as of terror. The significant words were repeated nearer than before, leaving the cook in no doubt as to the course he must pursue.
“Amok! amok! amok!”
“Holy Jesu! it is the Munshi!” he exclaimed.
In the distance she could see figures approaching. One was a woman who had cast aside her water-pot and was running for dear life. Close at her heels scudded a long, sinewy form. She was overtaken. There was a flash of steel in the morning sunlight, and she rolled over in the dust writhing in the throes of death.
Now at last Olwen began to understand. She realised that a terrible tragedy had been enacted before her eyes. It had happened all in a second, and might be repeated at any moment.
The Paddybird gave her no time to watch the destructive path of the maniac, no time to think or even speak. Holding his gun in one hand, he seized her with the other, and dragged her forward towards the advancing figure. It was too late to run back across the bridge to the camp. He dared not risk the attempt, to find cover in the scrub, where the women knew of winding paths, but he did not. Her flowing skirts would be caught by the thorns, and she would be held prisoner, an easy victim for the madman’s knife. He measured the distances with his eye between themselves and the flying figure and the thana, and decided to make for the thana, relying upon his mistress’s youth and activity and his own strong arm.
By this time, although it was but the duration of a few seconds, Olwen comprehended what was required of her. After the fall of the woman under the blow of the knife she recognized the danger. There was no need for the pathetically humorous request of her rescuer to urge her to do her utmost.
“Take to heels, lady! take to heels! quick, lady!”
It was a race for life, as it had been with the woman. She caught the gleam of the knife as it was held in the hand. There were crimson splashes on the fingers that grasped it. She could see the distorted features, and the glaring, blood-shot eyes of the maniac as he drew nearer. Foam was upon his lips. Between them the tongue was visible, a bright red behind the white teeth.
“To the thana, lady!” panted the Paddybird, as he swung her round the corner towards the steps of the verandah.
He loosed his grip upon her hand, stopped and turned to bay to cover her retreat. The action might cost him his life, but it would save her. But if he had to die, he had no intention of dying tamely and without a struggle. He brought his gun to his shoulder, and fired wildly at the Munshi. The shot grazed his ear, but otherwise took no effect. The Munshi paused and lunged savagely at his assailant. The Paddybird drew back quickly and parried the blow with his gun. The point of the long, sharp knife was averted from his heart, at which it had been aimed, but he did not escape altogether. The blade caught him on his forearm. inflicting an ugly gash, from which the blood flowed freely.
Although the discharge from the gun did not bring the assassin to the ground, it had the effect of turning him away from the thana. With a scream of rage he pursued his mad career down the road and on to the bridge. The Paddybird, nothing daunted, though his arm was bleeding, followed, and, bringing his gun once more to his shoulder, he sent the contents of the second barrel after the flying form with better effect. The stinging shot upon his legs caused the Munshi to swerve aside just as he reached the centre arch.
At the very spot where Benacre and Olwen had so lately stood looking down into the brown depths of the water the Munshi leaped. The silent, swirling volumes caught him upon their bosom, and sucked him down below. He was carried along by the current, now helplessly rolled over upon the bed-rock in the depths, now tossed upon the bubbling surface. Writhing and struggling like the dying python that was pinned down upon the mass of torn creeper, he passed from the view of the Paddybird, who leaned, faint but triumphant, against the parapet.
Here Benacre found his servant a minute later, striving with trembling fingers to bind up his wound. He was hysterical with loss of blood, and with joy at having saved his mistress from the hand of the terrible homicide.
“It is the Munshi, sir. He has run amok, and gone to blazes in the river. It is the doing of the Kurumba. He was cursing him all last night outside the chuttrum.”
The assistant-superintendent had had experience on more than one occasion of the peculiar form of frenzy known as “running amok.” It is a homicidal mania of acute form, common among Orientals, induced by religious excitement, or by an overpowering desire for revenge. It may also be caused by desperation and despair, as in this case, when deeply-laid schemes have been frustrated, and retribution is imminent. Especially may it be brought about by the action of one who is believed to possess occult powers. The credulous mind is so worked upon that mania of a terrible character is produced. The subject is endowed with superhuman strength, and, in an incredibly short space of time, he kills and slays defenceless people right and left, sparing neither women nor children.
Benacre glanced down the river, wondering if he would reach the bank, and continue his destructive course.
“He is drowned, sir, dead as a door screw. There is no fear of his return. The stream, after last night’s rains on the hills runs strong. He will never be able to crawl out.”
The Paddybird spoke the truth. His master wasted no more time looking after the criminal, but set himself to bind up the wounded arm, using his own handkerchief.
“You must have this attended to by the apothecary at once.”
“It is all right now, sir, and will wait. Where is the other master?”
Benacre, startled, looked up at him, and said sharply—
“In camp, isn’t he?”
“No, sir; as I stood here talking to the mistress, not ten minutes ago, he passed on his way to the village, saying that he was going to see the Munshi and pay him up.”
“Good Heavens! but no, it can’t be! Two constables were sent to bring the Munshi down. They took handcuffs with them, with orders to use them, if necessary.”
“He had no handcuffs on, sir.”
They were walking with rapid steps towards the village. The Paddybird pointed to the figure of the woman lying upon her face in the dust.
“Look there, sir; there’s a piece of his work, and we saw it all, the mistress and I.”
They stopped to carry the poor creature to the side of the road, and lay her down. Benacre felt her pulse. The knife had done its cruel work, and the heart had ceased to beat.
They passed on, dreading the sights that might meet their eyes. The path of a man running amok is usually studded with his victims, very few of whom escape death, if caught unawares. The terrified inhabitants were still hiding in their houses, fearing lest the maniac should return.
At about fifty yards from the chuttrum lay the motionless body of a man dressed in a grey flannel suit. His sun-topee had rolled to the side of the road; his face was turned up to the sun. The pale blue eyes were open, but already glazed in death. The knife, driven with superhuman strength, had gone home to the very hilt, and pierced the heart.
Flordon, with all his faults, his refined brutalities, his sharp tongue, his clever brains, was gone. The great inventor who confidently hoped to astonish the world was dead, and with him died the secret by which he would have conquered that obscure force of Nature, whose mystery it is not yet given to man to fathom.
Between Flordon and the chuttrum lay the two constables. To Benacre’s relief they still breathed. The knife had been used on both, but they had clung to the madman tenaciously, and had so hampered his movements that he had not been able to effect his murderous design. When asked later why they had not disarmed their prisoner, they replied, with the supineness of the Oriental, that no order had been given.
The frightened villagers, seeing the assistant-superintendent and his servant in the street, plucked up their courage and issued from their hiding-places. Benacre assured them that they had nothing to fear, and sent them to look after the woman who had fallen a victim. By his orders the constables were carried into the chuttrum to have their wounds attended to. A stretcher of bamboo was improvised for the transportation of Flordon’s body to the camp.
The thought of the camp brought back the memory of Olwen. Before she was allowed to see her husband it was necessary that she should be prepared for the sight of that lifeless form. Where was she? He had forsaken her in the excitement of the urgent call to duty, and had left her at the thana, commending her to the care of his inspector. He had forgotten Hillary’s antipathy to the sex. He smiled grimly at the thought of his inspector ministering to the needs of an unnerved woman.
At the discharge of the gun close behind her, Olwen stumbled blindly into the office, brushing past Benacre, and almost falling against his companion.
“Look after Mrs. Wentworth, Hillary. I’ll go and see what’s up,” cried the assistant-superintendent.
“Take this revolver, sir,” called Hillary after him, opening the desk and handing him out the pistol.
Olwen started violently. Her nerves were already strained, and the sound of Hillary’s voice only served to increase her agitation.
“Give Mrs. Wentworth a glass of water. I am afraid she is going to faint,” said Benacre, as he seized the revolver and left the office precipitately to follow the flying figures that sped towards the bridge.
Hillary filled a tumbler from the earthenware jar that stood on the floor, and handed it to Olwen, who had sunk into a chair. His eyes met hers steadily, and there was silence between them. She took the glass with trembling fingers and put it to her lips, but was too paralysed to drink. He caught the glass before it fell, and placed it on the table.
“Lewis!” she said with a hoarse gasp.
“You mistake—I am—Lawrence Hillary.”
Her gaze held him; he tried to turn away, to act the part of the inspector and the stranger; but he was powerless. He endeavoured to utter commonplace assurances that she was safe and need have no further fear, but the hollow words refused to come. There was that in her eyes which told him that lies would be futile. She had recognised him, and it would be useless to deny his identity. As for her, the danger of barely two minutes ago was forgotten. Her mind was filled with but one thought. She was face to face with the dead, the beloved dead, with whom she had communed in secret. Her hands grasped the wooden arms of the chair upon which she sat, and she leaned slightly forward towards him as she again uttered his name.
“Lewis!”
This time there was no query in her voice. Surprise and belief in the reality of the vision rang in her stronger tones. There was also a note of joy, unmistakable joy.
He heard it, and felt his heart leap in response.
Suddenly he drew back, as though assailed by fear. It was true; he was afraid of himself. His eyes were averted and sought the door. She divined his purpose. Ah, no! This must not be! The reality must not be allowed to elude her as the vision had slipped from her grasp. She forgot everything but the great, the marvellous fact that he stood before her, not in the shadowy form of a spirit, but in the full vitality of his human manhood. She forgot Flordon’s existence, her relation to him, her duties. She could only remember that Lewis was there, and that in another moment he would fly from her presence unless she held him by her love.
She rose from her seat, and, extending her arms, advanced towards him, confident, full of unconcealed love, her voice ringing with a great joy.
“Lewis, my beloved, come to me!”
There was no more thought of flight.
High up on Doorga’s side sat the Kurumba, his head bowed forward, his eyes fixed in the trance of one who works out the will of the gods. As the sun’s rays mounted the Western Ghats and shot down in the valley, the knotted body of the rock snake quivered for the last time throughout its length. The prismatic colours had faded, leaving its scales a cold brown and ashy grey. It lay still and motionless, even as the body of the Munshi lay at the bottom of a pool half a mile below the bridge.
“She will come to you; you will rest in her arms; she will give herself to you.”
The will of the gods was accomplished, and their servant might rest. The tense body relaxed, and the strange man of the jungle passed from his trance into a deep, restful sleep.