CHAPTER X. A CAPTIVATED VICEROY.
There were several “late parties” in sumptuous Delhi, on the evening when Madame Berthe Louison drove quietly to the railway station at two o’clock. A little knot of tired officials were still on duty, and when some forerunner had given a private signal, a single car, drawn by a powerful locomotive, glided out of the darkness.
In a few moments a dozen trunks and a score of bags and bundles were tossed aboard the baggage van. Five persons stepped nimbly aboard, and then with no warning signal, the Lady of the Silver Bungalow was borne out into the darkness, racing on toward Calcutta with the swiftness of the wind.
Jules Victor, vigorous and alert, after several cups of cafe noir, well dashed with cognac, disposed his two Lefacheux revolvers in readiness, and then betook himself to a nap. His bright-eyed wife was in the compartment with her beautiful mistress, and ready to sound a shrill Gallic alarm at any moment. She gravely eyed the two escorting officials of the bank. Marie said in her heart that “all men were liars,” and she believed most of them to be voleurs, in addition. Jules, when the little train was whirling along a-metals a score of miles away from Delhi, relaxed his Zouave vigilance, and bade a long adieu to Delhi, in a vigorous grunt. “Va bene! Sacree Canaille!”
There was silence at the railway station when the head agent wearily said, “I suppose the Bank is moving a lot of notes back to Calcutta! They are a rum slick lot, these money changers!” When all was left in darkness, save where a blinking red and white line signal still showed, Ram Lal Singh crept away from the line of the rails. The rich jewel vender clutched in his bosom the handle of Mirzah Shah’s poisoned dagger, the deadly dagger of a merciless prince.
He had long pondered over the sudden demand made upon him by the Lady of the Silver Bungalow. And he greatly desired to re-adjust his relations with Hugh Johnstone and Major Alan Hawke. The daily usefulness of “Lying as a Fine Art” was never before so apparent to Ram Lal. He slunk away on foot to his own bit of a zenana.
“I must try to deceive them both! Fool that I was not to see it before! These two Generals are her friends, of old! The secret protector of the wonderful moon-eyed beauty here is General Willoughby, and the other General will secretly help her down at Calcutta. She came up here, secretly, to see her old lover Willoughby, and that is why she would be able to have a guard arrest me. For she said just what they said about the prison. Willoughby goes down often to Calcutta! Ah! Yes! They are all the same, these English! Fools! Not to lock their women up, when they have once bought them, with a secret price! And now, Hawke must never know of this paper I gave her. She would find out, and then have the General punish me. Now I know why she went not to the great English Mem-Sahibs here! And these two great General Sahibs have had her spy upon this old man, Hugh Fraser—the man who would steal away with the Queen’s jewels. They would have them. By Bowanee! I will have them first! For I can hide them where they never will find them! I will trade them off to the Princes, who know the old jewels of Oude. They will give me double weight, treble value.” Ram Lal crept into his hidden love nest, his skinny hand clutching the golden shaft of Mirzah Shah’s dagger. “I might surrender them later and get an enormous reward from the Crown,” he mused.
At the Delhi Club, Major Alan Hawke, in a strange unrest, paced his floor half the night. “I stand now nearly eleven thousand pounds to the good, with outlying counties to hear from, as the Yankees say.” He smiled, “that is, if the old fox does not stop these drafts. If he does, I’ll stop him!” he swore. And yet, he was troubled at heart. “I know Alixe Delavigne will call me back and pay me well. How did she find out about my bold bluff to Johnstone? Some servant may have overheard, and she is a deep one. She may even have her own spies there!”
“Justine, I can count on you to help me later. But, how to treat old Hugh?” His dreams of an army reinstatement came back to worry him. “I might go to Abercromby and warn him about Johnstone. Damn it! I’ve no proof as yet! Berthe Louison will fire the great gun herself.” The renegade fell asleep, torturing himself about the needless breach with Johnstone. “All violence is a mistake!” he muttered, half asleep. “The angry old man will keep me away from the girl forever, and the old brute is going to Europe. I have spoiled one game in taking one trick too roughly.”
Another “late party” was at Major Hardwicke’s quarters, where the loyal Simpson related to the lover all the gossip of Johnstone and General Abercromby, over their brandy pawnee and cheroots. Simpson was the eager servitor of the young engineer, whom he loved.
General Willoughby had a little fit of “work” which seized upon him, and so he toiled till late at night, sending some cipher dispatches to the Viceroy. “I may make a point in this, perhaps a C. B.,” said the old veteran, who was sharper when drunk than sober. “I’ll put a pin in Johnstone’s game, and get ahead of Abercromby.” This last old warrior had secretly vowed to force Hugh Fraser Johnstone to present him to the “little party in the Silver Bungalow.” The Calcutta general was a Knight of Venus, as well as a Son of Mars, and had guarded memories of some wild episodes of his own there in the halcyon days of the great chieftain who had builded it. A gay young staff officer whispered:
“Alan Hawke is the only one who really has the ‘open sesame.’ He knows that ‘little party.’ Didn’t you see Johnstone hurry her away? The old nabob, too, is sly.”
“Ah!” mused the General. “I’ll make Johnstone have Hawke here to breakfast. Devilish clever fellow—and he’ll take me there!” Alas! for these rosy anticipations. The “little party” was already at Allahabad before the gouty general awoke from his love dream.
And, last of all the “late parties” on this eventful night was Hugh Fraser Johnstone’s little solitary council of war. He had, with a prescience of coming trouble, detailed two of his own keenest personal servants to watch the Silver Bungalow, from daylight, relieving each other, and never losing sight a moment of the hidden tiger’s den. “I’ll find out who goes and comes there! By God! I will!” he raged. After a long cogitation, he evolved a “way out” of his quarrel with Hawke. “Damn the fellow! I must not drive him over into the enemy’s camp. I’ll have him here—to breakfast, to-morrow. The jewels are safely out of the way now. For a few pounds he will watch this she-devil, and that yellow thief, Ram Lal, for me. My only danger is in their coming together. I’ll get a note to him early.” Seizing his chit-book, he dashed off in a frankly apologetic way a few lines. “There! That’ll do! Not too much!” He read his lines with a final approval.
“Dear Hawke: I’ve been worried to death with a lot of people thrust on me. Mere figure-heads. You must excuse an old friend—an old man—and Madame Louison is like all women—only a bundle of nerves. Come over to the house to-day at noon and breakfast with Abercromby and myself alone. I’ll send you back to Calcutta with him on a little run. I appreciate your manliness in keeping out of my little misunderstanding with the Madame. By the way, a few words from Abercromby to the Viceroy would put you back on the Army Staff, where you rightly belong. Let bygones be bygones, and you can make your play on the General, It’s the one chance of a life. Come and see me. J.”
“There! He will never show that!” mused Hugh Johnstone. “It touches his one little raw spot!” And calling a boy the old Commissioner dispatched the note, carefully sealed, to the Club. The last one to seek his rest in the marble house, old Johnstone was strangely shaken by the events of the day.
Berthe Louison’s threats, Ram Lal’s stubborn refusal, and the useless quarrel with Hawke had unmanned him. He drank a strong glass of grog and then sought his room. “All things settle themselves at last! This thing will blow over! I wish to God that she was out of the way! I could then handle the rest!” For in his heart he feared the defiant woman.
There were two men equally surprised when gunfire brought the “day’s doings” on again in lazy, luxurious Delhi. Over his morning coffee, Major Alan Hawke thankfully cried: “I am a very devil for luck! This old skinflint is opening his bosom and handing me a knife. By God! I’ll have my pound of flesh!” He leaped from his couch as blithe as a midshipman receiving his first love letter from a fullgrown dame. There was great joy in the house of Hawke.
But when Simpson entered his master’s room he was followed by a wild-eyed returning emissary, who waited till the old soldier had left the room. Hugh Johnstone suddenly lost all interest in the breakfast tray, the letters and his morning toilet, when the Hindu fearfully said: “They are all gone—the Mem-Sahib, the two foreign devils, and all their belongings!”
Johnstone was on his feet with a single bound. “Gone! What do you tell me, you fool?” He was shaking the slim-boned native as if he were a man of straw.
“They went to the railroad at two o’clock at night, the coachman told me. We only began our watch by your orders at daybreak. She had been then gone four hours.” Johnstone foamed in an impotent rage.
“Who is left in the house?” he roared.
“Nobody, Sahib.” tersely said the Hindu.
“Get out and send me Simpson!” the old man sternly said. “Go back and watch that house till I have you relieved. Tell me everyone who goes in or out!”
And then the horrible fear that Willoughby or Abercromby had deceived him, began to dawn upon his excited mind. “Simpson,” he cried, “there’s a good fellow! Take the first trap and get over to Major Hawke. Tell him that I must see him here, at once, on the most important business. He must come. Then get to Ram Lal, and bring him yourself to your own room. Let me know, privately, when he is there. Never mind my dressing. Send me a couple of the others. Is the General awake?”
“Just coming down for his ride! Horses ordered in half an hour!”
Simpson fled away, muttering, “Hardwicke must know of this!”
Hugh Johnstone fancied that he was dreaming when he met his official guest, refreshed and jovial, but still under the spell of Venus.
“See here, Hugh!” said the gallant Abercromby. “I want you to present me to that stunning woman over there, at the Silver Bungalow, you know. They tell me she’s the Queen of Delhi. You old rascal, I’m bound to know her! Can’t we have a little breakfast there, under the rose?” A last desperate expedient occurred to Johnstone. His baronetcy was in danger now.
“There’s but one man in Delhi can bring you within the fairy circle. That’s Hawke—a devilish good officer too, by the way! Ought to be back on the ‘Temporary Staff,’ at least! He comes here to breakfast! I’ll turn you over to him. He manages all the lady’s private affairs. He is your man.”
General Abercromby turned a stony eye upon his host. “Does Willoughby go there?” he huskily whispered.
“Never crossed the line! Hawke is far too shy. You see, Willoughby has not recognized Major Hawke’s rank and past services!”
“Ah!” said the jealous warrior. “If Hawke is the man you say he is, I can get the Viceroy to give him a local rank, in two weeks! Send him down with me to Calcutta!” and the gay old would-be lover jingled away on his morning ride.
“This may be my one anchor of safety!” gasped the wondering Johnstone, as Alan Hawke came dashing into the grounds. In half an hour, the broken entente cordiale was restored, and Johnstone had slipped away and questioned the wary Ram Lal.
“All I know is that the lady hired the house temporarily from me, I am agent for Runjeet Hoy, who owns it now. She went without a word, and gave me three hundred pounds yesternight, for her rent and supplies. I asked the Mem-Sahib no questions. She went away all by herself, in the middle of the night.”
“Ah! You know nothing more?” sharply queried Johnstone.
“Of course not! I thought you, or Hawke Sahib, or General Wilhoughby, was a secret friend.” Slyly said Ram Lal.
“She owes you nothing? You do not expect her to return?” the nabob cried.
“I think she has gone to Calcutta! She came from there.”
“Come to-night, privately, Ram Lal. I’ll show you how to get in. Just tap at my bedroom window three times. Come secretly, at eleven o’clock, and find out all you can. Wait in the garden till the house is dark. I’ll pay you well,” continued Johnstone, leading the old jeweler to his bedroom. “I will leave this one window unfastened. So you can come in! The room will be dark!”
“The Sahib shall be obeyed!” said Ram Lal, salaaming to the ground, and he was happy at heart as he glided out of the garden. A ferocious smile of coming triumph gleamed in his dark face. “I have him now! He will never slip away in the night! But I must please him, and lie to him!” It was the chance for which he had vainly waited there many years, and Ram Lal prayed to great Bowaaee to aid him.
“Hawke!” said Johnstone, when his astounded listener heard all of Johnstone’s proposed infamy. “I have telegraphed to Allahabad and Calcutta. This strange woman has gone down there. Now, I want you to fall in with Abercromby. He will go down in a few days. Bring them together in any way you can. The General and the beauty. No fool like an old fool!” he grinned. “Watch them and post me! Abercromby is already well disposed to you. Make a play on him. He will get you a temporary rank from the Viceroy.
“Your matchless knowledge of the Himalayas and the whole northern frontier will earn you a regular rank. Coddle Anstruther, too, and cling to the Vice-roy! I’ll back you with any money you need. It’s the one chance of a life!”
“And what am I to do for you, Johnstone?” quietly said the delighted Hawke.
“Just stand by me about this baronetcy, and bamboozle this damned foolish woman, while I slip quietly away to Europe! She is mercurial and vain. Abercromby will get her into the fast Calcutta set, after one necessary appearance at the Viceroy’s! She is, after all, only a woman. You can catch them with a feather, if you can catch them at all! Once properly launched by Abercromby, you are a made man for life! He will not dare to ‘go back on you!’ as our Yankee cousins have it. The Viceroy will do anything for him!”
“By God! Johnstone! I’m your man! Count on me in life and death!” warmly cried Hawke. The two men clasped hands.
There was a clatter and a jingle. The old warrior was on his return. “Here he comes now! Fall in with his humor, and success to you at Calcutta,” whispered Johnstone. There was the very jolliest breakfast imaginable at the marble house that day, and that same afternoon Major. Alan Hawke rode all over Delhi as volunteer aide to General Abercromby.
Two nights later General Abercromby whispered to Hugh Johnstone, at a Grand Ball at Willoughby’s Headquarters: “I’ve just had a telegram from the Viceroy to return at once. Your matter is now all right. I leave the property with Willoughby here. I’ll go down in the morning, if you’ll fix me up.” And then, Johnstone signing to Major Alan Hawke, who had been the cynosure of all eyes, as he gracefully led Madame la Generale Willoughby through a lanciers, took the favorite of fortune aside.
“Make your adieux! Get out of here! Settle all your little affairs! Send all your traps over to my house! General Abercromby wants to slip away quietly in the morning! No one is to know! And you go with him, at his urgent request.”
And that very evening at Calcutta, Alixe Delavigne would have laughed in triumph to know of Hugh Johnstone’s strange eagerness to dispatch his amorous guest. For the lady—in the safe haven of the great banker’s home—had just returned from a captivated Viceroy, who had instantly recalled Abercromby by a dispatch to be “obeyed forthwith.”
“You, Madame, have laid me under an obligation which I can never forget,” said the graceful statesman. The list of Ram Lal was in his hands now! And so Hugh Johnstone was highly pleased, and Madame Berthe Louison, still in her masquerade, was happy, and the watchful Commanding-General Willoughby was more than pleased; and the now doubly hopeful Major Alan Hawke rejoiced, while General Abercromby knew that the “little party” was waiting him in Calcutta. But most of all pleased was Ram Lal Singh, clutching in his dreams at the dagger of Mirzah Shah, lying there by his bedside. “He will be left alone, and he knows my signal—his own device—THREE TAPS AT HIS WINDOW! In Delhi there only lingered, sad and lonely, Major Harry Hardwicke, whose sighs were echoed back from afar by a starry-eyed girl watching the sandy shores of the Suez Canal.
“I dare not telegraph to him till we reach Brindisi,” mused the loving girl. “After that our path will be plain, and Justine MUST help me! Then he can follow me—if he loves me!” She faltered, hiding her blushing face. The only comforter of the lonely Hardwicke was “Rattler Murray.” Red Eric, of the Eighth Lancers, had just fallen into a pot of money.
“Take your long leave, my boy!” he cried. “I’ve been nine long years a Lieutenant! I’ll have my troop before my leave is out! And there’s a loving lass awaiting me! One I love—one who loves me—one you must know, for you must be the ‘best man’!”
“Wait, only wait a couple of weeks, Eric!” said the Major, whose eyes were now turned daily to Simpson. “Then I’ll put in my own application, and we’ll go home together.”
This bright hope was duly pledged in many a loving cup.
General Abercromby was far away on the road to Calcutta when Major-General Willoughby sent, posthaste, for Major Harry Hardwicke of the Corps of Engineers. The puzzled Commanding General was racking his brains to find out if his old friend Abercromby had committed any fatal error during his somewhat bacchanalian visit on “special duty.”
“I’m glad he is gone” mused the stout-hearted, thick-headed old Commander, as he read, over and over, the Viceroy’s cipher dispatch to the departed General.
“Do nothing further! Turn over all property, on invoice, to General Willoughby, and report here forthwith. Hold no communication with Johnstone, and guard an absolute silence. Report in person, instantly on your arrival.”
“Something has surely gone wrong!” at last decided Willoughby. “Old Hugh Fraser Johnstone may have been too much for him. Strange, the Viceroy says nothing of him!” And then he read a second dispatch, with the Viceroy’s orders to himself. “Notify Major Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers, to report in person, to the Viceroy for special duty, prepared to go in a week to England on duty. Absolute secrecy required. His leave application will be approved for any period, to take effect on his completion of duties assigned, in London. Special cipher orders will be sent to him this A.M. Deliver them and furnish him the code No. 2. No copies to be retained. Furnish Major Hardwicke with a captain and ten picked men to escort the property received by General Abercromby to Calcutta. Invoices to you to be signed by him. Property to be sent down in sealed pay-chests, with your seal and Major Hardwicke’s. Report compliance, and telegraph in cipher No. 2 Hardwicke’s departure for Calcutta. Special transportation has been ordered.”
“There, my boy, you have your orders!” an hour later said General Willoughby when Major Hardwicke reported. “I am glad to have the whole thing off my hands. Here is the double-ciphered code. You are to translate for yourself, and, remember, then destroy your translation. Remember, also, one single whisper of your destination, and you are a ruined man! Evidently the Viceroy is bent on trapping old Hugh Johnstone. Damn him, for a sneaking civilian! I never trusted him!” And the old General rolled away for his family tiffin. “I’ll see you when you have translated the private orders. Thank God, the Viceroy keeps me out of this dirty muddle! You see, I have no power over Johnstone—he is a blasted civilian.” Two hours later, the grateful old General found Hardwicke pacing up and down impatiently. “I ought only to tell Murray,” he murmured, “if I could! He is going home to be married, and I am to stand up with him.”
“Just the thing!” gayly cried Willoughby. “Murray’s captaincy is in the Gazette of to-day’s mail. I will order him down with you, in command of the guard, and, at Calcutta, the Viceroy will release you from your promise, so as to let him know that you can meet him in London. His Excellency evidently wants to hoodwink all the gossips here, and, above all, to blind old Johnstone. Now, Harry, I feel like a brute to let you go without a poor send-off, but, by Heaven, the whole Willoughby clan will follow you in London, and pay off a part of our debt for that ‘run-under fire’ with my wounded boy. Name anything you want. Do you want any help to watch Johnstone?” The old General was eager.
“Ah! I fear that I must attend to him, alone!” sadly said Major Hardwicke, whose heart was racked, for a fair, dear face now afar must soon be clouded with sorrow and those dear eyes weep a father’s shame.
“Call, day and night, for anything you want!” heartily said the loyal old father of the rescued officer. “The day before you go you must dine with us, alone, and Harriet will give you her last greeting.”
As the day wore away, there was a jovial rapprochement in the special car where General Abercromby and Major Hawke were gayly extolling Madame Berthe Louison’s perfections. “Mind you, General, I am no squire of dames,” said the Major. “You must make your own running.”
“Ah! my boy, you have earned your temporary rank as a Major of Staff, when you’ve introduced me. I flatter myself that I know women!” cried Abercromby as they cracked t’other bottle of Johnstone’s champagne.
“Take me to her, and then, I’ll take you to the Viceroy. I guarantee your rank!”
“It’s a bargain!” cried the delighted Hawke. While Abercromby dreamed of the lovely lady of the Silver Bungalow, Major Alan Hawke leisurely examined a sheaf of letters from Europe which had been thrust in his pocket by Ram Lal at parting.
“Victory!” he cried, as he read a tender letter from Euphrosyne Delande, in which she promised her absolute compliance with his every wish. “Justine has written to me herself,” was the underscored hint that the three might join fortunes. “It’s about time for that Madras boat to get to Brindisi,” mused Hawke, as they ran into Allahabad, “There may be telegrams here now.” And, while General Abercromby jovially feasted, Hawke ran over to his secret haunt to which he had ordered Ram Lal to send any telegrams, for one day only, and then, the rest would be safe with Ram’s secret agent in Calcutta. “My God! This is my fortune! Bravo, Justine!” cried Hawke, “True and quickwitted. I now hold Berthe Louison in my hand.”
He read the words—“Andrew Fraser, St. Agnes’ Road, St. Heliers, Jersey.” The dispatch was headed Brindisi, and signed “Justine.” “A man might do worse than marry a woman as true and keen as that,” smiled Hawke. “I am a devil for luck!” And then he gayly drank Justine’s health, in silence, when he joined the amorous Abercromby at the table.
But the “devil for luck” did not know of a little scene at Brindisi, where the blushing Nadine Johnstone hid her face in her friend’s bosom. “It is my life, my very existence, Justine!” she pleaded. “I will never forget you; we are both women, and my heart will break if you refuse!” And thus Justine Delande had learned at last of Nadine’s easy victory over the frank-hearted cousin’s prudence.
“What’s the wrong—to tell her?” he had mused, under the spell of the loving eyes. “We go straight through, and I am in charge till my father takes her out of my hands! Poor girl, it will be a grim enough life with him. Not a man will ever set eyes on her face without old Hugh’s written order!” And it was thus that Justine was enabled to warn her own lover when she had slipped away and cabled by her mistress’s orders to the young Lochinvar at Delhi:
“Captain Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers, Delhi: Letters for you at Andrew Fraser’s, St Agnes Road, St. Heliers, Jersey. Come.”
The Swiss woman shuddered as she boldly signed Nadine! And this same dispatch when received by the young officer, now busied with the Viceroy’s mandate, brought the sunlight of Love back into his darkened soul! The minutes seemed to lengthen into hours until the special train was ready. At the risk of his military future, the Major gave to the faithful Simpson his London Club address. “If anything happens here, you must go to General Willoughby. Tell him what you want me to know. He will send it on, and give you a five-pound note. Remember! Simpson, you’ll die in my service if you stand true!”
“That I will, for your brave father’s sake, and for the young lady’s bright eyes! Bless her dear, sunny face! Tell her that I will work for her in life and death!” And when, in a few days the lengthened absence of Major Harry Hardwicke and Red Eric Murray was noted, the groups only conjectured a little junket to some near-by station, or a long shikaree trip. But Simpson and General Willoughby knew better. Simpson was a “lord” in these days, in the quarter, for Hardwicke had not left Delhi with a closed hand.
And old Hugh Johnstone, greatly relieved at heart, was now busied in secretly arranging for his own flitting. “I’ll run down to Calcutta, see the Viceroy, give Abercromby a splendid dinner, and then slip off home, on the quiet, via Ceylon. I’ll send Douglas back when I get to Jersey, and then I can put those jewels where no human being can ever trace them! Once that brother Andrew has my full orders as to Nadine, I will bar this she-devil forever from her side! On the excuse of a leisurely contemplated tour, I can have the rich Jew brokers of Amsterdam and Frankfort, with their agents in Cairo and Constantinople, divide up the jewels among the foreign crown-heads. I am then safe! safe! No human hand can ever touch me now,” he gloated.
There was a clattering of aides-de-camp and great official bustle at the Government House in Calcutta when General Abercromby reported to the great statesman Viceroy, dwelling in the vast palace, builded by the Marquis of Wellesley.
General Abercromby, marveling at the abruptness of the Viceroy, was relieved to know that his “secret service” had been transferred to Major Hardwicke under the orders of Major-General Willoughby. His mind was intently occupied with the promised introduction to Madame Berthe Louison—“that little party”—and so he failed not to refer to the future value to the crown of Alan Hawke’s services.
“He is here with me, Your Excellency!” respectfully said Abercromby, who had already posted off his leporello to call in due form at the banker’s mansion, where the disguised Alixe Delavigne had taken refuge. “Send him to me at once, General. I need him! I will give him the local staff rank of Major and immediate employment. Willoughby has also written to me especially about his wonderful knowledge of our northern lines. Stay! Bring him yourself, to-morrow, at ten o’clock.”
“Splendid! Splendid!” cried the love-lorn General, rubbing his hands, as he hastened away in his carriage to meet Alan Hawke! “I am ready for him, if he is ready for me! I wish she were at some one of the great hotels instead of being buried in the silver-gray respectability of the Manager’s family circle. But—but—I will take her to the Viceroy. The bird shall then learn to test its wings. I will bring her out as a social star!”
Major Alan Hawke, with a beating heart, recounted to Madame Berthe Louison all the occurrences in Delhi, when they were left alone in the great banker’s vast parlors. “She is a puzzle, this strange woman!” mused Hawke, for a serene and stately triumph shone in her splendid eyes.
Berthe Louison listened to all! “You will get your staff appointment,” she smiled, “and I will help you! Bring your friend General Abercromby to see me here to-morrow evening! I will be amiable to him, for your sake, and for the sake of my future interests!”
The grateful young man, now on the threshold of reinstatement, in a sudden impulse cried, “I can, now, give you Nadine Johnstone’s hiding place! You can trust to me and I will prove it, now! It is—”
“With Andrew Fraser, retired Professor of Edinburgh University, historian and philologist, ethnologist, etc.; St. Agnes Road, St. Heliers, Jersey,” laughingly rejoined Berthe Louison.
“You are a—witch, woman! A wonder!” cried the astounded adventurer.
“Ah! You see that I have trusted you!” she smiled. “Now, do as I bid you, and you will rise in the service! Remember! You are to do just what I say! The bank here, or in Delhi, will give you always my directions. Remember! I shall not lose sight of you for a moment, though near or far! And money and promotion will reward your good faith! Go now! my friend,” she kindly said, extending her hand. “Bring the General, here, tomorrow evening, at eight! I will be busied till then! There is nothing for you to do now!”
The astonished schemer was in a maze as he dashed away to the Calcutta Club to meet General Abercromby. “She is a very devil and a mistress of the Black Art!” he mused. “I will stand by her,” he admiringly cried, “as long as it pays me.” It was the honest tribute of a grateful scoundrel’s heart!
While the happy Abercromby dallied with Major Hawke over a claret cup, an official messenger sought him out, at the Club. “There, my boy! You see that I am a man of my word!” cried the would-be lover. Alan Hawke’s lip trembled as he tore open an envelope directed to him and marked: “On Her Majesty’s Service.” The first in many years. The walls spun around before his eyes when he read his provisional appointment, with an order to report forthwith, to the Chief of Staff, for private instructions. “Ah! I congratulate you, my boy!” heartily cried the happy General. “You are a very devil for luck! One toast to the Viceroy! I’ll meet you here to-night!”
The happiest man in India sped away to his newly opened gate of Paradise Regained, while afar in the sweltering September sun, the gleam of rifles and red coats told of an armed escort on the train, bearing Major Hardwicke and Captain Eric Murray, on to Calcutta, with the swiftness of the wind. Neither of the officers for a moment quitted their compartment, and two chosen sergeants, revolver in hand, watched certain sealed packages lying beside them all there in plain view. Major Hardwicke’s soul was now in his quest!
There was a gleam of romance in the great Viceroy’s morning duties, while Major Hawke had hastened to the Chief of Staff’s office.
Madame Berthe Louison, escorted by her guardian, the bank manager, had placed upon the Viceroy’s table a little document which he studied with great care. “You are sure that there is no mistake?” the statesman said, gravely interrogating the banker. “I will guarantee it, Your Excellency, with its face value, fifty thousand pounds.” answered the financier. It was the memorandum of a policy of assurance for a sealed package, on the steamer Lord Roberts, sent by Hugh Fraser Johnstone to Prof. Andrew Fraser, St. Agnes Road, St. Heliers, Jersey and now half way to England.
“I will act, Madame, at once!” said the holder of a scepter by proxy. “You are to guard this secret, both, upon your honor. Send the dispatch, as you have proposed. My official action is to follow this up. I will let the game go on in silence just a little longer. And now—” the Viceroy led the lady aside, whispering a few private words, which left her a proud and happy woman. “My special aid will call at your residence as soon as it is dark. The consular officials at Aden, Suez, Port Said, and Brindisi will all have orders regarding you. I am ashamed that the prudence needed in the official side of this affair prevents me socially honoring you as I would. The French Consul-General has given to me his official guaranty for you, which,” he smiled, “was not needed. We shall meet again, and your conduct will not be forgotten.”
Alixe Delavigne bowed with the grace of a queen and never lifted her eyes until her sober mentor had brought her to the shelter of his home. Before they were seated at tiffin the wires bore away this dispatch, which astounded its recipient:
“CAP. ANSON ANSTRUTHER, JUNIOR UNITED SERVICE CLUB,
LONDON.
Meet me at Morley’s Hotel, London. Will telegraph you from Brindisi. Official dispatches to you explain.