“O Alicia, your satin is stained with blood; it will never be worth anything again!” cried Robin.
“My satin has done its work,” was Alicia’s reply: “I have through it secured the black locket.”
“Secured the black locket!” exclaimed Robin, springing from his seat, and clapping his hands for joy like a child.
“I will now at once write to Mr. Thole a full account of this cruel, cowardly attack on my son,” said Mr. Hartley, “and of the carrying away by violence one of her Majesty’s subjects.”
“And you will add that the proof of Premi’s identity with Miranda Macfinnis, my wife’s cousin, is in our hands,” observed Harold; “that Alicia has secured the black locket, which is exactly similar to the one in her own possession.”
“And tell of the fragment of a child’s sock,” added Alicia, “and that it has the initials ‘M. M.’ marked upon it.”
“Oh, show me these things!” exclaimed Robin.
“Sit down, sit down,” said Harold: “we must not have the end of the scarf hanging down like a streamer, instead of binding up your poor broken head. If you will be quiet, like a sensible fellow, Alicia will show us her trophies of war.”
With very great interest were the black locket and piece of old sock examined and handed around. Both had suffered from time and rough usage, but on the locket the inscription in minute letters, “E. T., 1856,” was legible still, as well as the mark on the sock. Mr. Hartley, after examining these relics, sat down to his desk and wrote as concise and forcible an account as possible of the attack on Kripá Dé, the injury received by Robin, and the manner in which the proofs of Miss Miranda Macfinnis’s identity had come into the missionaries’ possession. “Doubtless due investigation will bring out other and yet more convincing evidence,” Mr. Hartley wrote in conclusion. He then sent off his letter at once.
“Alicia, you have managed your part of the affair much better than I have done mine,” said poor Robin, whose head was aching sorely under its improvised picturesque turban.