3
The convalescence of Dana Charteris was short. A break in the rains had more than a little to do with her recovery, for the sunshine was a golden elixir that aroused the stricken forces of her body, was a warmth that wiped away the fever-stains and ripened a faint color in her cheeks.
Once Trent offered to read to her. She begged him instead to tell her of those tiger-hunts with his father. That seemed to touch a spring that opened secret vaults of his nature. There was color and feeling in his telling. He spoke in the abstract. She could smell the beast, flanks aquiver, and wet, monsoon jungles in his sentences—sentences that abounded with the metaphors that he liked to use.... India lived in her while he talked—India, her wildernesses and her cities, her heart-break and her treachery. Too, he taught her a few Hindustani words and phrases.
But his contributions did not alone make those hours rare. Her gifts were as precious as pearls. Gossamer dawns when the sun's sabers smote the lingering darkness and sent it reeling, when life seemed at its ripest; the languor of purple nights, campfires glowing in the dusk—all these were but vessels for the exquisite revelation of her.
Yet under their talk was a strain that never relaxed. In the main part, they spoke guardedly. The man never ceased to wonder what the consequences of the delay would be, and it concerned him more than a little what Sarojini Nanjee might do if she learned through Masein of an alien presence in the caravan; while the girl, realizing she was holding him back, yet dreading the time when he pronounced her entirely recovered, was in a constant state of chaos.
The fourth day after she passed the danger mark brought to a climax their play-acting. The sun, like a red-lacquered ball, was rolling toward the hills, shying little bronze disks at the river, and Dana Charteris was seated on a blanket in front of the tent. Trent went to his kit-bag to get a fresh supply of tobacco, and the gold bracelet slipped out. She smiled—a frightened smile. She broke the tension by saying:
"There's no use to pretend any longer. I can't endure it. I'm delaying you. I am strong enough to—to—" She stopped; began anew. "Oh, you've been fighting against it! You're afraid for me to speak, afraid—" Again she halted, groping for words.
He had picked up the bracelet. She caught his hand.
"Sit down, won't you?"
He sank beside her. But his eyes were upon the heavily-chased circlet of gold.
"You've been so kind!" she breathed. "And all along, when you realized I had been deceiving you, you tried to tell yourself it wasn't true; that there might be two bracelets like that, and that it wasn't I who wore it at Gaya that night. But there's probably not another bracelet like that in India. My brother bought it for me in Delhi. It was I who wore it at Gaya—who spoke to you on the road—who eavesdropped—who tried to cheat you—who ran away, like a coward, when it became known that Captain Manlove had been—been killed!"
Strained silence followed, the girl eagerly watching his face for some expression either of encouragement or condemnation, the man staring at the bracelet in his hands. She forced herself to go on.
"There's so much to tell that.... Well, I'll start at the very beginning, when my brother sent for me to come to India—"
Followed a recital of the meeting in Delhi and of her brother's story of the jewels of Indore.
"That night some one entered Alan's room and stole the imitation Pearl Scarf," she continued. "Alan was hurt—stabbed. Later I found the thief's turban and, inside, a scrap of paper with foreign writing upon it. When I showed it to Alan, he said it was Urdu. Translated, it read something like this: 'His name is Major Arnold Trent, of Gaya.'"
Trent lifted his eyes questioningly, and she nodded.
"Yes, your name and address. That was all.... Alan was of the opinion that the package Chavigny carried into the bazaar at Indore contained the real Pearl Scarf, and that instead of the copy he snatched that. By some means, he believed, it was traced to him—and stolen—whether by Chavigny or another he could only guess.
"I had an inspiration." She smiled slightly. "You will think me foolish—yet—yet you seemed to understand on the Manchester when I told you of the 'Caves of Kor' and the pirate island. I saw the doors of my adventure opening. Too, I wanted to help Alan. I suggested that I might learn something if I went to Gaya; Alan couldn't because of his hurt. He wouldn't hear of it at first, but I finally persuaded him—and went to Gaya, intending to go no further, not realizing—"
She broke off abruptly, shrugged.
"The afternoon I reached Gaya I hunted up your bungalow, merely to get the location. That was the time I met you on the road. I'm a poor adventurer, for that encounter frightened me dreadfully—and by the way you looked at that"—indicating the bracelet—"I knew you'd recognize it if you saw it again. That night I returned—and—" She paused, quite evidently confused. "You'll surely think I—I—"
"Go on," he said laconically.
She averted her face, a flush upon her cheeks.
"I listened outside a window and heard you tell Captain Manlove of your orders from Delhi and that you were going to Benares. After that I hurried away. As I was leaving the compound Captain Manlove came to the door. I went back to the Dâk Bungalow and sat down and thought. Oh, I thought a long while. Then I rode to the telegraph office and sent a message to Alan, saying I was leaving for Benares. While I was there an officer came in and I heard him tell the clerk that Captain Manlove had been found"—she hesitated—"dead."
The muscles of Trent's jaw tightened visibly as she pronounced the word. Otherwise he was expressionless, still staring at the bracelet. Why didn't he move or say something, she wondered? It was maddening, the way he kept silence!
"The picture of Captain Manlove," she resumed, "as I last saw him in the doorway haunted me. I thought of a hundred things that might happen if it were learned that I had gone to your bungalow just before—before his death. So"—there was a bitter note in her voice—"so I left within two hours, buying a ticket to Mughal Sarai instead of to Benares."
For the first time he asked a question; but he did not raise his eyes.
"You took the coral pendant from my room—there at Benares?"
She nodded. "That piece of coral! It caused me hours of anxiety! The afternoon you arrived I saw it in your hands while you were sitting on the portico. It rather fired my imagination, although I didn't know its significance then. After dinner, when you left the hotel, I tried to follow, but I became hopelessly lost. I had a frightful time finding my way back to the hotel. But I wasn't to be cheated; intrigue was burning in me that night. I borrowed a skeleton key and sent my servant—a man I had hired—to search your room and bring me the piece of coral. Of course, when I found that it opened and that Chavigny's alias was engraved inside, I knew I had a valuable clue. But my servant wasn't able to return it, for when he went back there was a light in your room.... I was in a dilemma. I didn't know what to do."
"But why did you send him to my room in the first place—or follow me to Benares?" he interrupted quietly. "Surely you knew I was on a Government mission and that—I sha'n't mince words—that you were interfering with affairs that didn't concern you."
"Yes, I realize that," she confessed. "Oh, I admit I was wrong—but I had entered the 'Caves of Kor' and the lure of them drew me on."
"I don't mean to be unkind," he broke in, relenting. "I—"
"You are simply telling the truth," she supplied. "I shouldn't have done it, but I deluded myself into believing I might recover the Pearl Scarf and help Alan. I was selfish enough to want him to achieve at the cost of another's failure. That was why I went on to Calcutta. I had no idea where you were going, that next morning at Benares; that is, until I saw a porter take your trunk from your room. Then I sent my servant to find out where it was bound, and—I packed quickly and followed."
"Then you tracked me to the Chinese quarter there, instead of—" He did not finish.
She knew that the truth would tarnish a memory, but she could not evade it. She smiled wanly.
"I have reached the 'Temple of Truth' in my 'Caves of Kor'! Yes, I followed, with a guide. Alan had wired me the name of a man who he said would serve me well—an old bearer of his. I waited all afternoon on the upper porch of the hotel, and when you left I followed, with Guru Singh, the bearer. We hired an automobile, instructing the driver to keep you in sight. When you left your automobile, we left ours.... Oh, those frightful places you led us through! Of course we were halted when you went into that house in that dreadful street.
"I determined then to make your acquaintance. Just before you came out I sent Guru Singh away; then I deliberately threw myself upon your mercy. But oh, I felt guilty! I realized that you didn't suspect it was all deliberate and planned!
"The next morning I made another desperate move. I had to return that piece of coral. Too, I wanted to learn your plans. I gave the pendant to Guru Singh—with instructions. To insure him against discovery, I—I asked you to go shopping with me. Guru Singh found a packet in your trunk showing that you had a berth on the Manchester to Rangoon, and that from there you were going to Myitkyina, to the shop of Da-yak, a Tibetan. But your servant happened along, and in the excitement Guru Singh forgot to leave the coral. It seemed that I'd never rid myself of it!"
The sun was almost below the hills now. A gong in the nearby Shan village rang clearly across the quiet evening. Both Trent and the girl sat motionless, listening until it died out.
"I wired Alan that I was going to Rangoon and would wait for him there," she said, taking up the thread of her story. "I didn't send it until just before I went to the boat, for I was afraid he might say no—and, oh, I wanted to see my adventure through!
"On shipboard Guru Singh at last succeeded in returning the coral—but that inevitable servant of yours appeared. I was terrified when I learned that Guru Singh had been caught! I felt responsible for it, and afterward I carried food to him several times. That was what I was doing the night I met you on deck. I was frightened, and I flung plate and all overboard. Then.... But you know what occurred then. I had come to hate myself for what I was doing, yet the thing was a Medusa. It held me and I let it draw me on.
"I met Guru Singh, by previous instructions, at the pagoda in Rangoon, and we drove to Alan's bungalow—but only to leave part of my baggage, and that night I took a train for Myitkyina with Guru Singh. When we got there I realized the presence of a strange white woman would be noticed in so small a place, so I instructed Guru Singh carefully and went back to Mandalay to wait.
"The second day in Mandalay I heard from Guru Singh. He wired for me to come. When I arrived he told me he had found where the jewels were—also that you had left Myitkyina. It seems that Da-yak was arrested"—here the muscles of Trent's jaw tensed again—"and your servant, too. Guru Singh said he bribed the jailer to let him see Da-yak, who, after he was paid liberally, told where you had gone.... He said the jewels had been taken to a city in Tibet: the name is Shingtse-lunpo. The sum of his words is that this place is the penetralia of a band called the Order of the Falcon, with a man known as the Falcon at its head. The Tibetan took oath he didn't know the Falcon. At any rate, he said that to get there one had to go first to a town across the China border—Tali-fang, he called it—and that only three men in Myitkyina knew the route to Tali-fang, one of whom had gone with your caravan and another with some one else. The third was a Buddhist priest. Da-yak said there were several ways of reaching Tali-fang and that you had been sent by the longest. At Tali-fang one would have to depend upon his own resources to get a guide to take him into Tibet, he said. That was all he would tell—or rather, he said that was all he knew."
"I don't suppose," Trent questioned, "he told who had him arrested?" Yet Trent felt that he knew without asking who had arrested Da-yak and Tambusami.
"No," she replied.
Trent nodded—more to himself than to her—and she went on.
"That the jewels were in Tibet—vast, mysterious Tibet—both frightened and fascinated me. To go where no white woman, had been—the land of Marco Polo, Orazio della Penna and Huc! You can understand the lure of it. Yet I think I must have been a little mad to have attempted it—but we all are, aren't we?
"Guru Singh—poor, dear Guru Singh!—tried to persuade me to turn back, but I wouldn't. We went to the Buddhist priest. For an extortionate sum he agreed to guide us to Tali-fang. So we outfitted a caravan, Guru Singh, the monk and I, and two days after you left Myitkyina we took the same trail. I went as a man; I thought it would excite less suspicion. Before leaving, I wrote Alan. I waited until then because I knew he would disapprove.
"At several villages we learned that you had already passed; then, the third afternoon, one of the porters, who was ahead, came back with the news that your pack-train was about a mile in advance. We marched more slowly after that. The nearness of another white person reassured me, for—oh, before that it was terrible in those jungles and swamps! I think the loneliness and the fright, after dark, would have driven me mad had I not remembered what the converted Brahmin priest, who lectured at home, said about the jungle. That comforted me.
"Last—When was it? I can't remember now—but it was late afternoon and I was sitting in front of my tent. The Buddhist priest passed. There was something about him, the way he looked at that moment, that struck me numb to the heart.... I realized what an impossible thing I was trying to do; wondered what would happen if I reached Tali-fang and found I couldn't go further. Yet—yet I couldn't turn back. As I sat there, thinking, a desperate plan unfolded.... I told Guru Singh.
"The next afternoon, late, he and the priest and my porters left for Myitkyina. Guru Singh stayed behind until—until I fired the shot—and—and your muleteer brought you. I began to feel ill, suddenly. I.... Well, that's all. I had intended to tell you that my porters deserted—and other lies, too. I knew you wouldn't leave me; you couldn't send me back, and you'd have to take me with you. But after—after all you did—I couldn't falsify; I couldn't.... Now you know the truth."
She halted—halted and waited for him to speak. But he did not. His eyes were still upon the bracelet, nor did he look up. The silence was long and tense. Finally, unable to endure it longer, she moved her hand tentatively; dropped it; raised it again and let it rest lightly upon his sleeve.
"You—you believe me—don't you?" she faltered.
He drew a deep breath; lifted his head.
"Yes," he said, looking across the river. "Yes, of course I believe you. I'm only wondering what I'm going to do with you."
He rose then and moved off rapidly toward the canebrake.