But his cunning eyes searched Travers Nugent's face in vain for signs of any such emotions. It was not that astute gentleman's way to show his inmost feelings, which at the moment were an intense curiosity to learn what was expected of him in return for the enormous bribe. It was characteristic of him that it was in his most indifferent manner that he said:—
"You are altogether too subtle for me, Maharajah, and I cannot think that you are quite serious. If you have finished poking fun at a jaded man about town, I think I'll go home to bed."
He half rose, as if to suit the action to the word, and that was the precise moment when the Hindoo once for all assumed the lead in the infamous partnership that was to bind them. And Bhagwan Singh gained and kept that mastery by the simple but efficacious expedient of throwing off all semblance of the equality on which they had muck-raked London together. In a blaze of haughty contempt he let his jackal see that he was understood and appreciated at his proper value.
"You are never jaded when there is plunder in view, and you have no intention of going from here till you have heard the proposal to which you will sit still and listen," said Bhagwan Singh, waving him with a commanding gesture back to his chair. "It comes natural to those of Royal blood, Mr. Nugent, to estimate truly those who serve them, and I know that you are a useful but expensive tool, as willing to be bought as I am to buy you. You have taught me some of your slang. I will act on the square with you if you will act on the square with me. If I pay you £20,000, and show you how to do it, will you, without any personal risk to yourself, aid me in achieving the desire of my heart?"
In a matter of business, and when there were no witnesses, there was not much pride about Travers Nugent. He tacitly waived his position as friend of the prince, and became his subordinate by replying:
"I should like to hear your plan before I commit myself, your Highness."
Now the project which the Maharajah of Sindkhote, after further recourse to the brandy decanter, proceeded to unfold, if put forward by any ordinary man, would have seemed on the face of it too wildly preposterous to be entertained for a moment. But Travers Nugent was aware that his patron's wealth was almost boundless, and that the lavish expenditure he was prepared to incur would discount most of the obstacles to the amazing abduction contemplated.
Bhagwan Singh, it transpired, had in his service as commander of his native body-guard a young Englishman who had been compelled by his extravagant follies to leave the British regiment in which he had formerly held a commission. He had incurred such debts in India that he would have been unable to leave that country even if he had possessed the price of a passage home, and, being thus stranded and penniless, he had accepted a mere pittance to drill the semi-barbarous matchlockmen of Sindkhote.
"He is mine body and soul, and the wretch is nearly desperate with home-sickness and misery," the Maharajah went on, warming as he saw that he had gripped Nugent's attention. "There are no Europeans for him to associate with in Sindkhote, and before his fall he was the most popular young officer at Simla and Calcutta—a good dancer, a crack shot and a grand polo player. He is as strong and as handsome as one of the ancient gods, and all the ladies adored him. I propose to return to India by the next mail boat, and I shall send him home to England, so that Violet Maynard may fall in love with him."
"What good is that going to do you?" asked Nugent, though his agile mind was already grasping the germ of the idea.