He grovelled before her, his head almost in the dust.
"Mem-sahib he has gone for water, but he will soon return. And he will lie to the gracious lady, and tell her that the shaft of the carriage is broken so that he cannot take her back. But it is not so, most gracious. The shaft is cracked, indeed, but it is not beyond repair. Moreover, it was cracked by the saice at his master's bidding, while the mem-sahib was at the fair."
He paused; but Beryl said nothing. She was listening to the whole story in speechless, unfeigned astonishment.
"Also," her informant proceeded, "the sahib's mare was frightened, not by an accident, but by a trick. It was the sahib's will that she should run away. And he chose this road so that he might be far from habitation, well knowing that for every mile on the lower road there are two miles to be travelled on this. Mem-sahib, your servant has spoken, and he prays you to beware. There is danger in your path."
"But—but," gasped Beryl, "how do you know all this? What makes you tell me? You can't know what you are saying!"
She was thoroughly frightened by this time, and heat and faintness were alike forgotten. Incredible as was the story to which she had listened, there was about it a vividness that made it terrifying.
"But I don't understand," she said helplessly, as the snake-charmer remained silent to her questions. "It is not possible! It could not be!"
He lifted his head a little and, from the depths of the chuddah, she knew that piercing eyes surveyed her.
"Mem-sahib," he said, "your servant knew that this would happen, and he came here swiftly by a secret way to warn you. More, he knows that when Fletcher sahib returns, he will speak lightly of the accident, so that the mem-sahib will have no fear. 'A broken shaft is soon mended,' he will say. 'My servant has returned to Farabad—to a man he knows. We will rest under the trees but a furlong from this place till he comes back.' But, most gracious, he will not come back. There is no place at Farabad at this time of the fair where the work could be done. Moreover, the saice has his orders, and he will not seek one. He will go back to Kundaghat with the mare, but he will walk all the way. It is fifteen miles from here by the road. He will not reach it ere nightfall. He will not return till after the darkness falls, and then he will miss the road. He will not find Fletcher sahib and the gracious lady before the sunrise."
Thus, in brief but telling sentences, the old native revealed to the white-faced woman before him the whole abominable plot. She listened to him in a growing agony of doubt. Could it be? Was it by any means possible that Fletcher, desiring to win her, but despairing of lessening the distance she maintained between them by any ordinary method, had devised this foul scheme of compromising her in the eyes of society in order to force her to accept him?