"You read the papers, don't you, in America?"
"Rather." Amber smiled.
"You've surely not been so blind as to miss the occasional reports that leak out about native unrest in India?"
"Surely you don't mean——"
"I assuredly do mean that the Second Mutiny impends," declared Labertouche solemnly. "Such, at least, is my belief, and such is the belief of every thinking man in India who is at all informed. The entire country is undermined with conspiracy and sedition; day after day a vast, silent, underground movement goes on, fomenting rebellion against the English rule. The worst of it is, there's no stopping it, no way of scotching the serpent; its heads are myriad, seemingly. And yet—I don't know—since yesterday I have hoped that through you we might eventually strike to the heart of the movement."
"Through me!" cried Amber, startled.
Labertouche nodded. "Just so. The information you have already brought us is invaluable. Have you thought of the significance of Chatterji's 'Message of the Bell'?"
"'Even now,'" Amber quoted mechanically, "'The Gateway of Swords yawns wide, that he who is without fear may pass within; to the end that the Body be purged of the Scarlet Evil.'" He shook his head mystified. "No; I don't understand."
"It's so simple," urged Labertouche; "all but the Gateway of Swords. I don't place that—yet…. But the 'Body'—plainly that is India; the 'Scarlet Evil'—could anything more fittingly describe English rule from the native point of view?"
Amber felt of his head solicitously. "And yet," he averred plaintively, "it doesn't feel like wood."