CHAPTER VIII. HARRY HARDWICKE TAKES THE GATE NEATLY.
In the few days succeeding Hugh Johnstone’s still unsuspected departure, the dull fires of a growing jealousy burned and smouldered in Captain Harry Hardwicke’s agitated heart. The old nabob had neatly slipped away in the night, on a special engine, and the Captain heard all the growing tattle of Delhi, as to the social activity at the marble house. The open hospitable board of General Willoughby rang with the very wildest rumors. Alan Hawke seemed to be the “Prince Charming” of the hidden festivities.
Hardwicke, on the eve of his Majority, now darkly moped in his rooms, undecided to apply for a long home leave, unwilling to leave Delhi, and even afraid to ask his general for any positive favor as to a future station. Club and mess bandied the freest tattle as to old Hugh Johnstone’s lovely “importation.” Men eyed the prosperous Major Alan Hawke on his rising pathway with a growing envy. There was a smart coterie who now firmly believed that the Major’s only “secret business” was to marry the Rose of Delhi, and then, departing on an extended honeymoon, leave the “Diamond Nabob,” as the ci-devant Hugh Fraser was called, free to proclaim Madame Berthe Louison, queen of the marble house, and sharer of his expected dignity, the crown of his life, the long-coveted Baronetcy. When old Major Verner growled:
“That’s the scheme, Hardwicke! My Lady of France makes the condition that the young heiress shall be settled first. Gad! What a lucky dog Hawke is!” Then, Harry Hardwicke suddenly discovered that he loved the moonlight beauty of his dreams—the fair veiled Rose of Delhi. Hawke rose up as a darkly menacing cloud on his future.
His morning rides were now but keen inspections of the Commissioner’s garden, and, lingering on the Chandnee Chouk, he knew, by experiments, conducted with a beating heart, just where Justine Delande was wont to wander in the lonely labyrinth, with her lovely young charge. A low double gate, a break in the high stone wall, often gave him glimpses of the two women in their morning rambles and, with a softened feeling, born of her own secret passion for Hawke, Justine Delande watched a fluttering handkerchief often answer Captain Hardwicke’s morning salute.
“Tell me, Justine,” said Nadine, the morning after Hugh Johnstone had stolen away, “Why does my father not ask Major Hardwicke to visit us? He is to be promoted for his superb gallantry, he is so brave—so noble! He certainly has as many claims to honor as this—this Major Hawke—whom my father has made his confidant. I don’t know why, but I don’t like that man!”
“What do you know of Major Hardwicke, as you call him?” cried Justine in wonder at Miss Nadine’s growing interest.
“Ah!” the agitated girl cried with blushing cheeks, “Mrs. Willoughby told me how he dragged his wounded friend out of a storm of Afghan balls, and gave her back the child of her heart. It was General Willoughby who got him his Victoria Cross. And, she says that he is a hero, he is so gentle and manly—so gifted—a man destined to be a commanding general yet.” The guilty Swiss woman dared not raise her eyes to watch the fleeting blushes on Nadine’s cheeks.
“It is time, high time we leave India,” she mused, and then, the thought of separation from Alan Hawke chilled her blood. “Let us go in,” she said. “The grass is damp yet.” Captain Hardwicke’s argus eyes, love inspired, were now daily fixed on the marble house. He scoured Delhi and amassed a pyramid of detached fragmentary gossip in all his alarm, but one star of hope cheered him. Though Major Hawke was known as the only cavalier of Madame Louison, save the old nabob, now supposed to be ill at home; though Hawke drove out for a week with the lovely countess—to the great surprise of the local society, the handsome renegade had never once been seen in public with Miss Nadine Johnstone. Stranger still, the star-eyed Madame Berthe Louison had never accompanied the young heiress in the regular afternoon parade en voiture. “There’s a mystery here,” mused the lover. “Old Hugh and the Major appear daily with the Frenchwoman, but Nadine Johnstone has never been seen alone with anyone save her father, or this Swiss duenna. Hawke is making slow progress there, if any.” Meeting old Simpson, the nabob’s butler, Captain Hardwicke tipped him with a five-pound note. The old retired soldier grinned and opened his confidence.
“The Major! Bless your stars!” gabbled Simpson, “She’s a straightaway angel, and not for the likes of him! Major Hawke has a dark spot or two in his record—away back!” grumbled Simpson, “No, Captain! Major Hawke has never set eyes on her for a single moment, but the one night of that dinner. By the way, it is the only one we ever gave!” The butler swelled up proudly.
“That night she never lifted her eyes, nor spoke even a word to him. He comes to see the Guv’nor on business, an’ mighty private business it is. They’re locked up together often.”
“And, this marrying? The stories are now told everywhere?” queried Hardwicke, blushing, but desperately remembering that “all is fair in love and war.” He, an incipient Major, a V. C.—“pumping” an old private soldier.
“Rank rot!” frankly said the butler, “They’re all strangers. The French countess is only sight-seeing here and buying out old Ram Lal’s shop. The old thief! She brought letters to the Guv’nor! That’s all! He’s no special fancy to her, and he set Major Hawke on just to do the amiable. The Guv’nor’s far too old to beau the lady around. Marry?—not him! And Miss Nadine’s just as silent as a flower in one of them gold vases. All she does is to look pretty and keep still, poor lamb. Her music, her books, her flowers, her birds. And as to Major Hawke and this Madame Louison—I’ve the Guv’nor’s own orders they are never to see Miss Nadine. That is, Hawke not at all, and the lady only when Miss Delande is present! Them’s my solid orders, and the old Guv’nor put my eye out with a ten-pound note—the first I ever got from him. No, Captain! You’ve done the handsome by me, and I give you the straight tip—wasn’t I in the old Eighth Hussars with your father when we charged the rebel camp at Lucknow? I’ve got a tulwar yet that I cut out of the hand of a ‘pandy’ who was hacking away at Colonel Hardwicke.”
“How did you get it, Simpson?” cried the young Captain.
“I got arm and all! Took it off with a right cut! You may know, Cap’n, that we ground our sabers in those old days! No, sir! Miss Nadine’s for none of them people, and Hawke is only in the house for business. He’s a deep one—is that same Hawke,” concluded Simpson, pocketing his note.
Captain Hardwicke began to see the light dawning. “Alan Hawke has then some secret business scheme with the old money grubber that’s all,” mused the young engineer officer, happy at heart. “I’ll fight a bit shy of him. His scheme may take the girl in. So, old Johnstone’s away a few days. Perhaps settling his affairs before his departure. I think,” the lover mused, “I will follow them to Europe, if they go, and, if they stay, Willoughby will ask for my retention, and, after all, ‘faint heart never won fair lady.’ Hawke is not an open suitor. If the old man should ever marry this French beauty, I may find the pathway open to Nadine Johnstone’s side!”
So, with a “fighting chance,” Captain Hardwicke determined that Miss Nadine should know his heart before long, and have also a chance to know her own mind. “The fact is, the old boy has lived the life of a recluse, that’s all, but I’ll find a way to pierce the shell of his moroseness. There’s one comfort,” he smiled, “No other fellow is making any running.”
In these swiftly gliding days of absence, Ram Lal Singh and the watchful Major Alan Hawke conferred at length over narghileh and glass. A sullen discontent had settled down on Hawke’s brow when Berthe Louison publicly departed upon her business trip with not even a fragmentary confidence.
“Wait for my return, and only watch the marble house,” said the Madame. “Do not be foolish enough to attempt to call on Miss Nadine. I heard Johnstone tell the Swiss woman not to allow you to follow up any social acquaintance with his daughter. ‘I want Nadine to remain a girl as yet,’ growled the old brute. Now, the Swiss woman may be able to give you some information.”
“I’ll do what I can,” carelessly replied Alan Hawke, but his eyes gleamed when she said:
“Do not sulk in your tent. On my return I shall have need of you. You can prepare to go into action then.”
“Where shall I address you at Calcutta?” demanded Hawke. “Something might happen.”
“Ah,” smiled Berthe Louison. “Nothing will happen. Not a line, not a telegram; send nothing, come what will! I return here soon, and, besides, Old Johnstone might watch and intercept it. Remember, we do not know each other. It would be a fatal mistake to write.” And so she went quietly on her way. The house was locked, the Indian servants having the Madame’s orders to admit no one, on any pretense. “Damn her!” growled Alan Hawke, when the door was shut in his face. “She feared I would give her away to Johnstone. No address! Not a line or a telegram! Only wait—only wait!”
Ram Lal infuriated him later with the news that nothing could be learned from the baffled spies of the household in the Silver Bungalow as to the first or second interwiew of Johnstone and the resolute Alixe Delavigne. “Money will not do it! Not a lac of rupees. The Frenchman and woman never leave her day or night. He is on guard with weapons and a night light at her door, and the maid sleeps in the room.
“And she has other secret helpers!” groaned the baffled Ram Lal. “She is writing and receiving letters all the time. And yet none of these come or go by the post. She does not trust you, Major,” said the jewel merchant, with a cruel gleam of his dark eyes. “I believe that she is some old love of Sahib Johnstone. They have deep dealings. She has bought a great store of jewels and trinkets from me.”
“Hell and fury! I’ve been duped!” cried Hawke. “I see it. That damned Frenchman takes and brings the letters! But who is her local go-between? Perhaps the French Consul at Calcutta, or some banker here! I can’t buy them all. She only needs me in case of a violent rupture with Johnstone. Damn her stony-hearted impertinence!”
And he mentally resolved to sell her out and out to the liberal old nabob. “He might then give his daughter to me for peace and safety. But I’ve got to do the trick before he finds out the falsity of Anstruther’s so-called telegram. And, first, I must have something to sell. She is the devil’s own for sly nerve, is my lady.”
“She is too smart for us, as yet,” soothingly said Ram Lal. “But wait; wait till they return! Pay me well and I will find out all that goes on. I can always get into the marble house at night. At any time, I may spy on old Johnstone and get the secret there. I have a couple of men of my own in his house. They know where to leave a door, a window, an opened sash for me. And at the Silver Bungalow, I can go in and out secretly by day and night. She would not know. You would not wish anything to happen to her?” The old jewel merchant’s voice was darkly suggestive.
“No! Devil take her!” cried Hawke. “What I want to know is hidden in her crafty head and stony heart. Death would bury it forever. Nothing must happen either to her or to him. It would spoil the whole game. Don’t you see, Ram Lal, there’s money in this for you and me just as long as we keep them all here under our hands. If they separate—even if one goes to Europe—you can watch one and I the other. You can always frighten money out of old Johnstone if we tell each other all, and I can follow that woman over Europe and dog her till she is driven crazy. She will fear me just as long as old Hugh Johnstone is alive, for I could sell her out to him. No one else cares. They must both live to be our bankers. Now tell me, why did either or both of them go to Calcutta—what for?” Ram Lal figuratively washed his hands in invisible water.
“Running water, passing silently, leaves no story behind, Sahib,” he said, simply. “We have not caught our eels yet. But they are both coming back into our eel pot.” And as the days dragged on Alan Hawke beguiled the time with the most energetic inroads into Justine Delande’s heart.
“Some one must break the line of the enemy,” darkly mused Alan Hawke, as in the unrestrained intimacy of their long, morning rides, he influenced the Swiss woman’s heart, love-tortured, to a greater passionate surrender.
“It maybe all in all to me, in my secret career, your future fidelity,” he pleaded. ‘“It will be all in all to you, and to your sister. There will be your home, the friendship of an enormously rich woman! The girl will have a million pounds! And you and I, Justine, shall not be cast off, as one throws away an old sandal.” The cowering woman clung closer daily to the man who now molded her will to his own.
The absence of Johnstone and Madame Louison seemed confirmation of the rumors of coming bridals.
“They will come back, as man and wife!” growled old Verner, to Captain Hardwicke, “and then, look out for a second bridal! Hawke and the heiress!” But Harry Hardwicke only smiled and bided his time. His daily morning ride led him to the double gateway, to at least nearby the isolation of the lovely Rose who was filling his heart with all beauty and brightness.
Major Alan Hawke had withdrawn himself into a stately solitude at the Club. His evenings were spent with Ram Lal, and his mornings with the deluded Justine, who dared not now write to the calm-faced preceptress in Geneva how far the tide of love had swept her on. In the long afternoons, Major Hawke was apparently busied with the “dispatches” which duly mystified the Club quid mines, as they were ostentatiously displayed in the letter-box. No one but Ram Lal knew of the abstraction from the mail, and destruction of these carefully sealed envelopes of blank paper. But the thieving mail clerk in their secret pay, laughed as he consigned them later to the flames.
The astute Major was not aware that he was being daily watched by secret agents representing both the absent ones whom he desired to dupe. But a daily letter was dispatched by a local banker to a well-known Calcutta firm, which reached Madame Louison, and old Hugh Johnstone, busied at his lawyers, or sitting alone at night with Douglas Fraser in Calcutta, smiled grimly, when he, too, received his data as to Hawke’s progress. A growing coldness which had cut off Hardwicke’s friendship seemed to interest Hugh Johnstone. “I suppose that old Willonghby thinks Hawke is spying upon him. Just as well!”
There had been a lightning activity in the old man’s movements before Madame Louison arrived in Calcutta. He was fighting for his future peace and his coveted honors. The lawyer with whom he spent his first day was astounded at the peculiar nature of the last will and testament which the old nabob ordered him to draft at once. “The steamer, Lord Roberts, goes to-morrow, and I wish a duplicate to be deposited here in the bank, under your care, as I shall write to my senior executor regarding it.”
The nabob’s remark, “Make your fees what you will. I give you carte blanche!” had silenced the remonstrances which rose to the lawyer’s lips. “I know what I am doing, Hodgkinson,” said Hugh Johnstone. “Blood is thicker than water! I can trust nothing else. These two men as executors will exactly carry out my wishes. In naming a guardian by will, for my daughter, I do not forget that she is yet a child at eighteen, and, at twenty-one, she may be the destined prey of many a fortune hunter! As for my directions and restrictions, I know my own mind!”
When Hugh Johnstone, Esq., of Delhi and Calcutta, had seen the fleet steamer, Lord Roberts, sail away for London, bearing a carefully registered document addressed to “Professor Andrew Fraser, St. Agnes Road, St. Heliers, Jersey, Channel Islands, England,” he could not remember a detail forgotten in the voluminous letters of positive orders now also on their way to his distant brother. He smiled grimly as he entered the P. and O. office, and, after a private interview with the manager, called his nephew, Douglas Fraser, away to a private luncheon. They had first visited the one bank, which Johnstone trusted, and there deposited a sealed document to the order of “Douglas Fraser, executor.” The young man had been alarmed at his stern old uncle’s curtness, on the return trip from Allahabad, his strange manner and his grim silence. But he was simply astounded when his nabob relative quietly said:
“I have obtained a six months’ leave of absence for you! Let no one know of your movements. Leave your rooms and baggage just as they are. I will now move in there, and put one of my servants in charge while you are gone. I have made my will and named your father as my executor and the guardian of my daughter, and you are to succeed, in case of his death! There will be a small fortune for you both in the fees, and neither of you are forgotten in the will! I have drawn two thousand pounds in notes for you, and here is a bank draft on London for three thousand more!” The young man was sitting in open-mouthed wonder, when the nabob sharply said: “Now! Have your wits about you! I bear all the expenses here, and your office pay goes on. You will be promoted on your return. The manager of the P. and O. is my lifelong friend.”
“What am I to do?” gasped the young man, fearing his uncle was losing his wits.
“You are to disappear from Calcutta to-night. Go without a word to a living soul! You are neither to write to a soul in India, nor open your mouth to a human being, in transit. You are to go by Madras, take the first steamer to Brindisi, and then hurry by rail to Paris and Granville, and to St. Heliers. You will find your detailed orders there with your father. Then stay there, await my orders from here, not leaving your father’s side, a moment. Now, I tell you again, your future fortunes depend upon your exact obedience! I will give you my private wishes after we have had luncheon. The only thing that you will have in writing is an address to which I wish you to cable each day after you land at Brindisi, until you turn over your business to your father. You may cable also from Aden and Port Said.”
The luncheon was “a short horse and soon curried.” For a half an hour Hugh Johnstone earnestly whispered to his nephew, whose face was grave and ashen. At last the old man concluded, “Here is a letter to use at Delhi. There will be a telegram already in the hands of the two parties intended.
“‘Remember! You are to go, but once, from here to your lodgings. Then simply disappear! Take nothing but a mackintosh, an umbrella, and your traveling bag. Buy at Madras what you want. Here’s a couple of hundred pounds. You will find the engine at the station now in waiting for you. The whole line is open for you. Do your Delhi work at night. The train will be made up for you the very moment you arrive at Delhi. I give you just one day to connect with the Rangoon at Madras. You are not for one single moment to lose your charge from sight till on the steamer. From Brindisi, the directions I have given cover all. Here is an envelope for the Swiss woman which will make her your friend. Now go, Douglas! This is the foundation of your fortune. If you succeed, you will have all I leave behind in India. In case of any trouble in India, telegraph instantly to this address, and I will join you at once. Memorize this address, and destroy it then! Telegraph to me from Delhi, but only when you start. And, when you sail from Madras, only the name of the steamer. The trainmen will do the rest. They have their orders already. Is there anything else?”
The young man pulled himself together. “It’s like the Arabian Nights!”
“Go ahead, now, and show yourself a man!” cried Hugh Johnstone, almost in anguish. “I do not wish to see you again until you have earned your fortune! One last word: You are to make no explanations whatever!”
The young envoy grasped his kinsman’s hands, crying: “You may count on me in life and death! I’ll do your bidding.”
Old Johnstone drank a bottle of pale ale and composedly smoked a cheroot, after he had watched the stalwart, rosy young Briton stride away on his strange journey. A robust, frank-faced, fine young fellow of twenty-six, with the fair brow and clear blue eyes of the “north countree,” was manly Douglas Fraser.
Toiling resolutely to rise, step by step, in the service of the Peninsular and Oriental Steamship Company, he had never dreamed of the sudden favor of his rich kinsman, and yet, loyal as the good Sir James Douglas, he silently took up his quest.
“I can’t understand the old gentleman.” he mused as he hurried a half an hour later into the station, through prudently selected by-streets. “There may be some old official entanglement hanging over him yet. Some reason why he would quit India quietly, or perhaps some one who owes him a grudge. At any rate I’ll do my duty to him like a man—to him and to the others—like a gentleman.”
Hugh Johnstone measuredly betook his way to Douglas Fraser’s lodgings.
Before the old man was settled on Douglas’s cozy wicker lounge, the pilot engine was tearing away with the young voyager, who had simply stepped out of his own life to make a sudden fortune.
“Now, damn you, Alixe Delavigne,” hoarsely muttered the old man, when alone, “I will see you to-morrow! You shall rule me until I get these two coffers out of the bank, and until our home-coming at Delhi. Then, you jade,” he growled, “Ram Lal shall do the business for you, even if it costs me ten thousand pounds!” which proves that an old tiger may be toothless and yet have left to him strong claws to drag his prey down. “Money will do anything in India or anywhere else!” the old nabob growled, forgetting that even all the yellow gold of the Rand or the gleaming diamonds of the Transvaal will not avail to fill the burned-out lamp of life!
The prolonged absence of the embryo Sir Hugh Johnstone was a matter of public comment in Delhi, while the knowing ones winked significantly at the almost triumphal departure of Madame Berthe Louison, whose special car and ample retinue made her a modern European Queen of Sheba. “Tell you what, fellows,” said “Rattler” Murray, otherwise known as “Red Eric, of the Eighth Lancers,” “the old Commissioner will return superbly ‘improved and illustrated’ with her, a new edition of the standard old work. You see, there’s a French Consul-General at Calcutta, and then and there the matrimonial obsequies will be performed. But I’ll give him just a year’s life,” and the gay lieutenant struck an attitude, quoting the menacing jargon in “Hamlet”:
“In second husband, let me be accurst; None wed the second, but who killed the first.”
“What infernal rot you do gabble, Murray!” suddenly cried Alan Hawke, dropping a double barrier of the newest Times, as he prepared to leave the clubroom in disgust. “Hugh Johnstone was only called down to Calcutta on some important financial business some days ago, and he went there simply to rearrange some of his large investments. Madame Louison is only a stranger here, a tourist traveling incognito, and connected with some of the best noble families of France.” With great dignity Major Hawke stalked away to his rooms, leaving the club for a long drive in disgust.
By the next evening Madame Berthe Louison had been discovered to be a noble relative of the Comte de Chambord, “traveling incognito,” and then the clacking tongues of gossip rose up in a shrill chorus of greater intensity. Immense investments of the Orleans fortunes in Indian properties to be managed by Major Alan Hawke were discovered to be the object of her Indian tour, with wise old Hugh Johnstone as an infallible financial adviser. But Alan Hawke smiled his superior smile and said nothing.
All this and more soon reached the ears of Capt. Harry Hardwicke, whose fever of gnawing curiosity and romantically born love was now strong upon him. A second conference with his old friend Simpson enlightened the engineer officer upon many things, as yet “seen in a glass darkly.” He began to fear that Alan Hawke was growing dangerous as the secret juggler in the strange social situation at the marble house. With the vise-like memory of an old soldier, Simpson had retained various anecdotes not entirely to the credit of the self-promoted Major Alan Hawke, and had partly supplied the hiatus between the sudden disappearance of the desperate lieutenant, a rake gambler and profligate, and the return of the prosperous and debonnaire Major en retraite. “Don’t let him work too long around Miss Nadine, Major Hardwicke,” said the wary Simpson. “Sly and quiet as he seems, he’s surely here for no good. I know him of old. He’s forgotten me, though.”
That night, the night when Berthe Louison, in her special car was nearing Calcutta, at last, Captain Hardwicke was haunted in his dreams by the sweet apparition of Nadine Johnstone, and her lovely arms were stretched appealingly to him. It was the early dawn when he awoke, and sprang blithely from his couch. “If that graceful shade crosses my path to-day, I’ll speak to it in the flesh—though a dozen Hawkes and a hundred crusty fathers forbid,” he gayly cried, for his entrancing dream had given him a strangely prophetic courage.
In the ambrosial freshness of the morning, a long gallop upon his pet charger, “Garibaldi,” restored the equilibrium of the young officer’s nerves. He had neatly taken the strong-limbed cross-country horse over a dozen of the old walls out by the Kootab Minar, and with the reins lying loosely on Garibaldi’s neck, he rode back to the live city by the side of its two dead progenitors.
The bustle and hum of awaking Delhi interested him not, for a fond unrest led him down to the great walled inclosure of the marble house.
“Shall I see her to-day? Will she be in the garden?” he murmured in his loving day-dream.
The springy feet of the charger dropped noiselessly on the lonely avenue and already the double carriage gate was in sight. An instinct of martial coquetry caused Harry Hardwicke to gather up his reins and straighten lightly into the military position of eyes right. He was watching the gate of Paradise, a Paradise as yet forbidden to him.
Yes. There was the gleam of white robes shining out across the friendly gate.
Standing under a huge spreading camphor tree, a graceful form was there, clear cut against the dark foliage, and seeming to float upon the tender green of the dewy grass. A nymph—a goddess, shyly standing there, was shading her eyes with one slender hand and gazing down the path toward the golden East which was bringing to the Lady of his dreams, a flood of golden sunlight and her secret adorer, the man whose lonely young heart had throned her as its queen. Hardwicke raised his head quickly as a wild shriek sounded out upon the still morning air.
The lover with one agonized glance saw the outspread arms of Justine Delande, and heard again a voice which had thrilled his soul in loving memory. It appealed for aid. Nadine was shrieking for help.
With one glance, the young soldier gathered his noble steed. There was but twenty yards for the rally and the raise, but the game old “Garibaldi” dropped as lightly on the other side of the closed carriage gate as any “blue ribbon” of the Galway “Blazers.”
There was a moment, but one fleeting moment, given to the lover to see the danger menacing the woman whom he loved. His heart was icy, but his hand was quick. There, a few feet only from the horribly fascinated girl, a cobra di capdlo rising and swaying in angry undulations. The huge snake was angrily hissing with a huge distended puffed hood swelling menacingly over the dirty brown body. “Standfast!” yelled Hardwicke in agony.
There was a gleam of steel, the rush of a charger’s feet, and as man and horse swept by the fainting girl—the swing of a saber, and the heavy trampling of iron-clad hoofs! Only Justine Delande saw the flashing saber cleaving the air again and again, as Hardwicke gracefully leaned to his saddle bow, in the right and left cut on the ground. And Garibaldi’s beating hoofs soon completed the work of the circling sword.
And then as the Swiss woman broke her trance and turned to run toward the house, the young horseman leaped lightly to the ground. “Go on, go on!” he cried. “The other snake is not far off!” When Simpson and the frightened domestics rushed out to the veranda in a panic, they only saw before them a graceful youth with his strong arms burdened with the senseless form of the woman he loved—the woman whose life he had saved!
And, dangling from his right wrist, by the leather sword-knot, hung the saber which Colonel Hardwicke had swung in the mad onslaught on the mutineers’ camp at Lucknow.
“Here, Simpson! Send for Doctor McMorris!” cried Hardwicke, as a dozen willing hands sprang to aid him. “Bring brandy, ammonia, and oil!” There was a bamboo settee on the veranda. It received the precious burden which the soldier had held against his heart. “Carry her to her rooms! Gently, now!” commanded the captain. Seizing Justine by the arm, he said: “I think that I arrived in time. Go! Go! You will find me waiting for you here! Examine her at once! The hot iron and artery ligatures alone will save her if she was bitten!” His brow was knotted in agony.
“You came between them!” gasped Justine. “The thing never reached her side!”
“God be thanked! Go! Go!” cried Hardwicke. “I have my work to do here!” A black servant had already led the dancing Garibaldi out to the open safety of the graveled carriage drive. “Look to my horse!” cried Hardwicke. “See that he is not bitten!” and then he slowly walked over to where a dozen menials, with heavy clubs, had beaten the writhing cobra into a shapeless mass.
“Come away, all of you!” cried the captain, in Hindustanee. “Run, some of you, and get the snake catcher!” Doctor McMorris, arriving on the gallop, had reported the absolute safety of the frightened girl, when Harry Hardwicke, leaning on his sheathed sword, watched a slim, glittering-eyed Hindu, followed by a boy bearing an earthen pot, who had noiselessly reconnoitered the vicinity of the great tree. The boy most keenly watched all the movements of his white-robed master, who, drawing a little fife from his red cummerbund sash, began to play a shrill, weird tune. A frightened household coterie watched from a safe distance the thirty-foot circle of herbage around the shade of the giant tree trunk. A shudder crept over the watchers as a huge brown head, with two white circles on the back of the neck, rose slowly out of the grass, and two red-hot gleaming eyes blazed out, as an immense cobra swelled out its fearfully disgusting hood, and, rising halfway, bloated out its loathsome head, swaying to and fro, to the strange music. “There’s the mate!” quietly whispered Hardwicke to Simpson. The snake now showed its greasy belly, like dirty stained marble, and the lithe boy, circling behind it, warily essayed to drop the red earthen pot over its head. But one of the excited servants, stealing up, had released a little mongoose, which now bravely darted upon its deadly enemy.
Seven times did the active little animal dart upon the huge reptile, in a confusedly vicious series of attacks and close in a deadly conflict, and, when, at last, the snake charmer walked disgustedly away, the little ferret’s sharp teeth were transfixed in the throat of its dead enemy.
A handful of silver to the snake catcher and his boy sent them away delighted, while the wounded mongoose, having greedily sucked the blood of the dead cobra, wandered away in triumph, creeping on its belly into the rank grass in search of the life-saving herb which it alone can find, to cure the venom-inflamed wounds of the deadly “naja.” The silent duel was over, and the bodies of the dreadful vipers were hastily buried.
“I shall call this afternoon, at five, to ask Miss Johnstone if she has entirely recovered,” gravely said Captain Hardwicke to Mademoiselle Justine Delande, when the still excited Swiss woman poured forth her congratulations to the young hero of this morning’s episode. Hardwicke was standing with his gloved hand grasping the mettlesome “Garibaldi’s” bridle. Justine Delande threw her arms around the neck of the noble horse and kissed his sleek brown cheek. Then she whispered a few words to Captain Hardwicke, which made that young warrior’s heart leap up in a wild joy.
He laughed lightly as he said: “Keep this quiet. Pray do not allow Miss Johnstone to walk any more in the dewy grass. These deadly reptiles affect moisture, and, strange to say, they love the vicinity of human habitations. As for ‘Garibaldi,’ good old fellow, I’ll bring him this afternoon, but I’ll not take him again over the gate. It was a pretty stiff jump for the old boy.” When Simpson escorted the happy Captain to the opened carriage gate, he threw up his wrinkled hand in salute.
“You’re your father’s own son, Captain, and God bless you and good luck to you and the young mistress.”
There was no answer as Harry spurred the charger down the road, but Simpson pocketed a sovereign, with the sage prophecy that things were at last, going the right way.
The watchful Hugh Johnstone was already in waiting, on this very morning, at the East Indian station in Calcutta, with a sumptuous carriage; for a telegram had warned him that the woman whom he dreaded, and had secretly doomed, was fast approaching. His heart was resolutely set upon the master stroke of his life, for a private audience with the Viceroy of India had been graciously granted him at two o’clock. “I am saved—if nothing goes wrong,” he murmured, as the Delhi train trundled into the station.
A steely glare lit up his eyes as he advanced with raised sun helmet to meet the Lady of the Silver Bungalow.
In the train were one or two of the curious Delhi quid nuncs, who smiled and exchanged glances as the embryo Sir Hugh led the lady to the carriage.
On the box Jules Victor sat bolt upright clasping a traveling bag, while Marie gazed at the swarming streets of Calcutta from her mistress’s side. “She is on the defensive. I’ll show her a trick,” old Hugh murmured, as he noted the servants’ presence.
A few murmured words exchanged between the secret foes caused Hugh Johnstone to sternly cry, “To Grindlay and Company’s Bank.”
The dark goddess Kali, patron demon of Kali Ghatta, was hovering above them in the pestilential air as the carriage swiftly rolled along the superb streets of the metropolis born of Governor Charnock’s settlement in sixteen eighty-six. The gift of an Emperor of Delhi to the ambitious English, Fort William had grown to be an octopus of modern splendor. Down the circular road, past the splendid Government House, they silently sped through the “City of Palaces.” Berthe Louison never noted the varied delights of the Maiden Esplanade, nor, even with a glance honored Wellesley and Ochterlony, raised up there in marble effigy. Her face was as fixed as bronze, while Hugh Johnstone, right and left, saluted his countless friends.
Men of the Bengal Asiatic, the Bethune, the Dai-housie, plumed generals, native princelings, gay aides-de-camp, grave judges, and university Dons eagerly bowed to the richest civilian in Bengal—the homage of triumphant wealth.
Stared at from club windows, Johnstone, with proudly erect head, nodded to fashion’s fools, crowding there all eager to catch a glimpse of the lovely Lady Johnstone in posse.
For these last days of waiting had been only a mental torture to the nabob assailed by rallying gossipers. He was now counting grimly the moments till a telegram from Delhi should seal his safety for life. And then, his dark and silent revenge!
At Grindlay’s Bank, Madame Louison quietly descended, leaning on the arm of Hugh Johnstone. There was hurrying to and fro on their appearance, and in ten minutes a second carriage received the disguised Alixe Delavigne, while the Manager of Grindlay’s escorted her, under the eyes of her two guardians. The Golden Calf was the reigning god, even in these later days.
With a dignified pace, the carriage of Hugh Johnstone led the way to the Bank of Bengal, where a private room soon hid the three principal parties from the gaze of the multi-colored throng of clerks and accountants. A conference of the gravest nature ensued, as both the Bank Managers jealously watched each other.
Hugh Johnstone was as pale as a man wrestling with the dark angel when Madame Louison produced a faded document and a receipt of extended legal verbiage. The Manager of Grindlay’s gazed, in mute surprise, when the highest dignitary of the Bengal Bank at last entered the room, followed by two porters bearing two brass-bound mahogany boxes of antique manufacture. Hugh Fraser Johnstone’s stony face was carelessly impassive.
“Pray examine these seals!” the newcomer said, “and, remember, Mr. Johnstone, that we exact your absolute release for the long-continued responsibility. Here is a memorandum of the storage and charges. You must sign, also, as Hugh Fraser—now Hugh Fraser Johnstone.”
Old Hugh Johnstone’s voice never trembled, as he said, after a minute inspection:
“I will give you a cheque.” Then, dashing off his signature upon the receipt tendered by Madame Louison, he calmly said: “These things are only of a trifling value—some long-treasured trinkets of my dead wife’s. May I be left alone for a moment?”
The three silent witnesses retired into an adjoining room. In five minutes, Hugh Johnstone called the Bank Governor to his side. “There is your receipt, duly signed, and your cheque to balance, Mr. Governor. We are now both relieved of a tiresome controversy. Will you please bring in the others?”
With a pleasant smile, the flush of a great happiness upon his face, Hugh Fraser Johnstone remarked: “I desire to state publicly that Madame Louison and my self have, in this little transaction, closed all our affairs. I have given to her a quit-claim release of all and every demand whatsoever.” With kindly eyes, Berthe Louison listened to a few murmured words from Hugh Johnstone. Bowing her stately head, she swept from the room upon the arm of the polite manager of Grindlay’s.
“Home,” said the genial banker, as he deferentially questioned the Lady of the Silver Bungalow. “Do you honor us with a long visit?” he eagerly asked.
“I return to-morrow evening, on the same train with the soon-to-be Sir Hugh. I only came here to attend to some business at the French Consulate and to adjust this trifling matter.” Hugh Johnstone writhed in rage, as he saw the cool way in which Berthe Louison fortified her safety lines.
Before they were in the shelter of the banker’s superb mansion, Hugh Johnstone was double locked within the walls of Douglas Fraser’s apartment.
“I have two hours to work in” he gasped, after a nervous examination of the contents of the cases which had been placed at his feet in his carriage. “And, then, for the Viceroy! But first to the steamer and the Insurance Office!’”
Not a human being in Calcutta ever knew the contents of the small steel strongbox which occupied the place of honor in the treasure room of the Empress of India on her speeding down the Hooghly. But a Director of the Anglo-Indian Assurance Company opened his eyes widely when Hugh Johnstone, his fellow director, cheerfully paid the marine insurance fees on a policy of fifty thousand pounds sterling. “I am sending some of my securities home, Mainwaring,” the great financier said. “I intend to remove my property, bit by bit, to London. I do not dare to trust them on one ship.” The director sighed in a hopeless envy of his millionaire friend.
Hugh Johnstone’s Calcutta agent was also solemnly stirred up when his principal gave him some private directions as to the custody of his private papers and a substantial Gladstone bag, consigned to the recesses of the steel vaults. “I go back with these papers to Delhi to-morrow night. Give me the keys of my private compartment till then. In a few months I may be called to London. Douglas Fraser will have my power of attorney.”
With a sunny gleam in his face, Hugh Johnstone then alertly sprang into his carriage, when he had finished his careful toilet, to meet the Viceroy of India. The two brass-bound mahogany cases were left standing carelessly open upon his table in Douglas Fraser’s rooms, neatly packed with an assortment of toilet articles and all the multitudinous personal medical stores of a refined Anglo-Indian “in the sere and yellow.”
“Five pounds worth!” laughed Hugh Johnstone, as he closed the door. “Now, in one hour, my Lady Disdain, I can say ‘Checkmate.’ Ram Lal shall attend to you later—behind all your bolts and bars. He will find a way to reach you.”
It was a matter of profound speculation to the gilded youth of the Government House what strangely sudden friendship had blossomed to bring the august representative of the great Victoria, Kaisar-I-Hind, and Queen of England, as far as the middle of the audience room, in close colloquy with, and manifesting an almost affectionate leave-taking of, the silver-haired millionaire of Delhi.
But that night the most confidential General “at disposal” received from the Viceroy some secret orders which caused the experienced soldier’s eyes to open widely.
“Remember! The personal interests of the Crown are involved here!” said the Viceroy. “Any mistake might cost me my Sovereign’s confidence and you your commission, perhaps a Star of India!” he laughed, with an affected lightness.
In far-away Delhi, as the sun faded away into the soft summer twilight, Harry Hardwicke was sitting at the side of Nadine Johnstone, while her stern father secretly exulted in distant Calcutta. He had already mailed by registered post a set of duplicated receipts and insurance policies for his last shipment addressed to “Professor Andrew Fraser” and his mind was centered upon some peculiarly pleasurable coming events to take place in the Marble House. But the dreamy-eyed girl watching the man who had so gallantly saved her life, thought only of a love which had stolen into her heart to wake all its slumbering chords to life, and to loosen the sweet music of her singing soul! They were alone, save for the bent figure of Justine Delande at a distant window, and the spirit of Love breathed upon them silently drew them heart to heart.
Here now, before the divinity so fondly worshiped, Harry Hardwicke lost his soldier’s ready voice. “Say no more! You need rest, Miss Nadine! I shall only call to-morrow to assure myself of your perfect recovery. When your father returns I shall do myself the honor to ask his formal permission to visit you later.” There was a sigh and a sob as Nadine Johnstone took her silent lover’s hands and pressed them in her own, bursting into happy tears.
“I owe you my life—my father shall speak, but in my own heart I shall treasure your splendid bravery forever!” Her tall young knight stooped over the little hands, kissed them, and was turning to go, when the maiden slipped off a sparkling ring. “Wear this always for my sake; I can say no more till we meet again!” And, bending low, Captain Hardwicke stepped backward, as from a queen’s presence, leaving her there, weak, loving, and trembling in a strange delight.
As he rode slowly homeward in the evening’s glow, he passed Major Alan Hawke dashing away to the railway station in a carriage. Traveling luggage told the story of a sudden jaunt. A wave of the hand and the secret-service man was gone. Hawke growled: “Damned young jackanapes, I’ll fool you, too; but what does old Johnstone want?” He was reading a telegram just received: “Come to meet me at Allahabad. Have brought the drafts. Want you for a few days down here.”
At ten o’clock next morning, Simpson, his voice all broken, his old eyes filled with tears, dashed into Captain Hardwicke’s office. “Dead?” cried the young soldier, springing up in a sudden horror. “No. Gone over night—both the women—God knows where, but they left secretly, by the Master’s orders!” And then Hardwicke sank back into his chair with a groan. But, at Allahabad, Major Alan Hawke was raving alone in a helpless rage. There was no Johnstone there, and Ram Lal Singh had telegraphed him: “The daughter and governess went away in the night by the railroad—special train. A man from Calcutta took them away.”
“You shall pay for this, you old hound!” he yelled, “Yes, with your heart’s blood.’”