“You have heard from Miss Wynde?” cried Lord Towyn. “You have later news even than mine? Speak, Atkins. Those villains have not succeeded in forcing her into a marriage with young Black? It is not that—say that it is not.”
“It is not that, my lord. How am I to tell you the startling news I have just learned? My lord, I have had a visit to-night from a gentleman who has just returned from India. He knew Sir Harold Wynde well, and came to give me all the particulars of Sir Harold’s supposed death!”
“Supposed death? How strangely you choose your words, Atkins. Supposed death?”
“Yes, my lord,” cried Atkins, trembling and eager. “We have all mourned Sir Harold as dead. And this gentleman says—prepare for a surprise, my lord—he says that Sir Harold Wynde still lives!”
The young earl started, and grew white.
“It is impossible!” he ejaculated. “He lives? It is preposterous! Atkins, you are the sport of some impostor!”
“No, no, my lord. I believe it; I believe that Sir Harold lives!”
“Have you forgotten the letter of Surgeon Graham, giving a circumstantial and minute account of Sir Harold’s death?” demanded Lord Towyn. “If Sir Harold had survived his encounter with the tiger, would he not have returned home over a year ago?”
“The—the gentleman who gave me the particulars of Sir Harold’s fate,” said Atkins, full of suppressed excitement, “says that the baronet was unfortunate enough to incur the enmity of his Hindoo servant, who secretly swore revenge. Sir Harold actually encountered the tiger, as was said, but a shot from the servant frightened the beast, and he fled back into the jungle. Sir Harold was wounded and bleeding and his horse was killed. The Hindoo servant picked up his disabled master, and, instead of taking him back to Major Archer’s bungalow, he carried him forward and gave him into the hands of some of his own friends and country people, and these friends of the Hindoo carried off Sir Harold further into the hill country, to their home, a sort of mountain fastness. They kept him there closely imprisoned, and while we mourned our friend as dead, he was chained in a cell but little better than a dungeon.”
Lord Towyn still looked incredulous.