A Fascinating Traitor Part 1

A Fascinating Traitor.

by Richard Henry Savage.

BOOK I. OUT OF THE DEAD PAST.

CHAPTER I. A CHANCE MEETING AT GENEVA.

"By Jove! I may as well make an end of the thing right here to-night!"

was the dejected conclusion of a long council of war over which Major Alan Hawke had presided, with the one straggling comfort of being its only member.

All this long September afternoon he had dawdled away in feeding certain rapacious swans navigating gracefully around Rousseau's Island. He had consumed several Trichinopoly cigars in the interval, and had moodily gazed back upon the strange path which had led him to the placid sh.o.r.es of Lake Leman! The gay promenaders envied the debonnair-looking young Briton, whose outer man was essentially "good form." Children left the side of their ox-eyed bonnes to challenge the handsome young stranger with shy, friendly approaches.

Bevies of flashing-eyed American girls "took him in" with parthian glances, and even a widowed Russian princess, hobbling by, easing her gouty steps with a jeweled cane, gazed back upon the moody Adonis and sighed for the vanished days, when she possessed both the physical and mental capacity to wander from the beaten paths of the proprieties.

But--the world forgetting--the young man lingered long, gazing out upon the broad expanse of the waters, his eyes resting carelessly upon the superb panorama of the southern sh.o.r.e. He had wandered far away from the Grand Hotel National, in the aimlessness of sore mental unrest, and, all unheeded, the hours pa.s.sed on, as he threaded the streets of the proud old Swiss burgher city. He had known its every turn in brighter days, and, though the year of ninety-one was a brilliant Alpine season, and he was in the very flower of youth and manly promise, gaunt care walked as a viewless warder at Alan Hawke's side.

He had crossed over the Pont de Montblanc to the British Consulate, only to learn that the very man whom he had come from Monaco to seek, was now already at Aix la Chapelle, on his way to America, on a long leave.

He had wearily made a tour of the princ.i.p.al hotels and scanned the registers with no lucky find! Not a single gleam of hope shone out in all the polyglot inscriptions pa.s.sing under his eye! And so he had sadly betaken himself to a safe, retired place, where he could hold the aforesaid council of war.

The practical part of the operations of this sole committee of ways and means, was an exhaustive examination of his depleted pockets. A few sovereigns and a single crisp twenty-pound Bank of England note const.i.tuted the rear guard of Alan Hawke's vanished "sinews of war." The young man briefly noted the slender store, with a sigh.

"Twenty-five pounds--and a little trumpery jewelry--I can't ever get back to India on that!" He seemed to hear again the rasping voice of the vulpine caller at Monte Carlo: "Messieurs! Faites vos jeux! Rien ne va plus! Le jeu est fait!" And, if a dismal failure in Lender had been his Leipsic, the black week at Monaco had been his long drawn-out Waterloo!

"I was a rank fool to go there," he growled, "and a greater fool to come over here! I might have got on easily to Malta, and then chanced it from there to Calcutta!"

The sun's last lances glittered on the waters gleaming clear as crystal, with their deep blue tint of reflected sky, and liquid sapphire! The gardens were becoming deserted as the loungers dropped off homeward one by one, and still the handsome young fellow sat moodily gazing down into the rushing waters of the arrowy Rhone, as if he fain would cast the dark burden of his dreary thoughts far away from him down into those darkling waters. But thirty-two years of age, Alan Hawke had already outlived all his wild boyish romances. The thrill with which he had first set foot upon the land of Clive and Warren Hastings had faded away long years gone! And, Fate had stranded him at Geneva!

As he sat, still irresolute as to his future movements, the dying sunlight gilded the splendid panorama of the whole Mont Blanc group.

Rose and purple, with fading gold and amethystine gleams played softly upon the far-away giant peak, with its n.o.ble bodyguard, the Aiguilles du Midi, Grandes Jora.s.ses, the Dent du Geant, the st.u.r.dy pyramid of the Mole, and the long far sweep of the Voirons. But he noted not these splendors of the dying sun G.o.d, as he stood there moodily defying adverse fate, a modern Manfred. "I might with this get on to London--but what waits me there? Only scorn, callous neglect!" His eye fell upon the statue of Jean Jacques, lifted up there by the st.u.r.dy men who have for centuries clung to the golden creeds of civil and religious liberty--the independence of man--and the freedom of the unshackled human soul.

"Poor Rousseau! seer and parasite, fugitive adventurer, the sport of the great, the eater of bitter bread--the black bread of dependence! I will not linger here in a long-drawn agony! Here, I will end it forever, and to-night!"

There were certain visions of the past which returned to shake even the iron nerves of Alan Hawke! Face to face now with his half formed resolution of suicide, the wasted past slowly unrolled itself before him.

The brief days of his service in India, an abrupt exit from the service, long years of wandering in j.a.pan and China, as a gentleman adventurer, and all the singular phases of a nomadic life in Burmah, Nepaul, Cashmere, Bhootan, and the Pamirs.

He smiled in derision at the recollection of a briefly flattering fortune which had rebaptized him with a shadowy t.i.tle of uncertain origin. Thus far, his visiting card, "Major Alan Hawke, Bombay Club" had been an easily vised pa.s.sport, but--alas--good only among his own kind!

He was but a free lance of the polished "Detrimentals," and, under this last adverse stroke of fortune, his poor c.o.c.kboat was being swamped in the black waters of adversity. He had staked much upon a little campaign at the Foreign Office in London. The cold rebuff which he had received to there had carried him in sheer desperation over to Monaro and incoming onto Geneva, he had "burned his ships" behind him. Ignorant of the precise manner in which his clouded reputation had stopped the way to his advancement in the English Secret Service, he remembered, even at the last, that a few letters were due to those who still watched his little flickering light on its way over the trackless sea of life.

For hard-hearted as he was,--benumbed by the blows of fate, his heart calloused with the snapping of cords and ties which once had closely bound him--there were yet loosely knit bonds of the past which tinged with the glow of his dying pa.s.sions--the unforgotten idols of his adventurous career!

He rose and walked mechanically along the Qua du Mont Blanc with the alert, springy step of the soldier. "Once a Captain, always a Captain"

was in every line of his resolute, martial figure. His well-set-up, graceful form, his n.o.bly poised head and easy soldierly bearing contrasted sharply with the lazy shuffle of the prosperous Swiss denizens and the listless lolling of the sporadic foreign tourists.

Crisp, curling, tawny hair, a sweeping soldierly moustache, with a resolute chin and gleaming blue eyes accentuated a handsome face burnt to a dark olive by the fiery Indian sun. An easy insouciance tempered the habitual military smartness of the man who had known several different services in the fifteen years of his wasted young manhood. As he swung into the glare of the hospitable doorway of the Grand Rational, the obsequious head porter doffed his gold banded cap.

"Table d'hote serving now, Major!" With the mere social instinct of long years, Alan Hawke recognized the man's perfunctory politeness, tipped him a couple of francs, and then, mechanically sauntered to a seat in the superb salle a manger. "I'll get out of here to-night," he muttered, and then he bent down his head over the carte du jour and peered at the wine list, as the chatter of happy voices, the animated faces of lovely women and the eager hum of social life around, recalled him to that world from which he contemplated an unceremonious exit. It was in a deference to old habit, and the "qu en dira't on," that he ordered a half bottle of excellent Chambertin and then proceeded to dine with all the scrupulous punctilio of the old happy mess days.

Something of defiance seemed to steal back into his veins with the generous warmth of the wine--a touch of the old gallant spirit with which he had faced a hard world, since the unfortunate incident which had abruptly terminated his connection with "The Widow's" Service. His eye swept carelessly over the international detachment seated at the splendid table. Lively and chattering as they were, it was a human Sahara to him. He easily recognized the "Ten-Pounder" element of wandering Britons; poor, anxious-eyed beings grudgingly furloughed from shop and desk, and now sternly determined to descend at Charing Cross without breaking into the few reserve sovereigns. Serious-looking women, clad in many colors, and stolid c.o.c.kneys, hostile to all foreign innovation, met his eye. He sighed as he cast his social net and drew up nothing.

There was a vacant chair at his left. Very shortly, without turning his eyes, he was made aware of the proximity of a woman, young, evidently a continental, from her softly murmured French.

"Houbigant's Forest Violets," he murmured. "She is at least semi-civilized!" He was dreaming of the far off lotos land which he had left, as he felt the rebellious protest of his young blood and the defiant spirit awaked by the mechanical luxury of the well-ordered dinner. "These human p.a.w.ns seem to be all prosperous, if not happy! I'll have another shy at it! By G.o.d! I must get back to India!" The whole checkered past rushed back over his mind! The fifteen years of his "wanderjahre"! Scenes which even he dared not recall! Incidents which he had never dared to own to any European! He but too well knew the origin of his loosely applied t.i.tle of Major--a field officer's rank more honored at the easygoing clubs of Yokahama, Shanghai, and Hong Kong than on the Army List--a rank best known at the ring-side of Indian sporting grounds, and only tacitly accepted in the extra-official circles of Hindustan. For it figured not in the official Army List, either as active or retired. The whole panorama of the mystic land of the Hindus was unrolled once more by the memories of fifteen clouded years, He saw again his far-away theater of varied action, with its huge grim mountains towering far over the snow line, its arid wastes, its fertile plains bathed in intense sunshine, its mystic rivers, and its silent, solemn shrines of the vanished G.o.ds.

Major Alan Hawke silently ran over his slender professional accomplishments. "I'm not too heavy to ride yet. I've a fair hand at cards--tough nerves, and even a bit of staying power. Luck may turn my way yet and there's always the Pamirs! At the worst, the Russians--the Afghans,--or those fellows up in Sikkim and Hill Tipperah! An artillerist is always welcome there!" But even in his moral desperation, he hung his head, for a flush of his boyhood's bright ambitions returned to shame him. An old song jingled in his memory, "When I first put this uniform on." He lapsed into a bitter reverie!

The soldier of fortune was finally aroused from a brown study by the impa.s.sive steward presenting two great dishes. The clatter of some late convive seating himself also caused him to turn his head.

"h.e.l.lo, Anstruther! You are a long way from staff headquarters here!"

quietly said Hawke, as the new arrival gazed at him in a mute surprise.

Captain the Honorable Anson Anstruther put up his monocle and duly answered: "I thought that you were still in Calcutta, Hawke." There was a faint noli me tangere air in the young staff officer's manner, and yet mere propinquity drew them together in a few minutes. With the insouciance of men bred in club and at mess, the two soldiers soon drifted into an easy chat, meeting on safe grounds. They calmly ignored the surrounding civilians, regardless of the attractions of two falcon-eyed Chicago beauties, loud of voice and brilliantly overdressed, who were guiding "Popper" and "Mommer" over the continent. These resplendent daughters of Columbia already boasted a train consisting of a French count (of a very old and shadowy regime), a singularly second-hand looking Italian marquis, a wooden-soldier figured German baron, and a sad-eyed, distant-looking Russian prince, whose bold Tartar glances rested hungrily upon both Miss "Phenie" and Miss "Genie" Forbes.

The Anglo-Indians, however, calmly pursued their dinner and gossip regardless of the fact that Miss "Phenie" had violently nudged Miss "Genie," and whispered in a stage aside: "Say, Genie, look at those two English fellows! They are something like--I bet you that they are two Lords!" The approval of the gilded Western maidens, whose father systematically a.s.sa.s.sinated a thousand porkers per diem, was lost upon the chance-met acquaintances. "I must get back to India, by hook or crook," mused Alan Hawke, and therefore, he very delicately played his wary fish, the sybaritic young swell of the staff. Captain the Honorable Anson Anstruther's reserve soon melted under the skillful bonhomie of the astute Alan Hawke. An easy-going patrician of the staff, he was in the magic circle of the viceroy. The heir to an inevitable fortune, and already vested with substantially stratified deposits at "Coutts"

and Glyn, Carr and Glyn's, he would have been envied by most luckless mortals the heavy balances which he always carried at "Grind-lay's," a fortune for any less fortunate man.

He was already interested in the remarkably fetching looking young woman at Alan Hawke's left, being a squire of dames par excellence, while Major Alan Hawke himself wondered how Anstruther had drifted so far away from the direct line of travel to London.

Thawing visibly under the influence of Hawke's gracefully modulated camaraderie, the susceptible Anstruther was attentively examining his fair neighbor in silence, while he tried vaguely to recall some story which he had once heard, quite detrimental to the cosmopolitan Major.

He gave it up as a bad job! "Hang it!" he thought. "It may have been some other chap. Very likely!" It was the strange story of a sharp encounter with the hostile Kookies, in which a couple of English mountain guns, long before abandoned by a British expeditionary force, had been served with due professional skill and most desperate dash by a reckless man, easily recognized as an English refugee artillerist.

The wounded escaped British soldier, who had died after denouncing the deserting adventurer, had left his parting advice to the Royal Artillery to burn the fearless renegade, should he ever be captured. It was the Story of a nameless traitor!

But, the vague distrust of the curled darling of Fortune soon faded away under Hawke's measured social leading. A silver wine cooler stood behind their chairs, and the old yarn of a British officer playing Olivier Pain became very misty under the subtle influence of the Pommery Sec. Alan Hawke guarded the expected story of his own wanderings, waiting craftily until Bacchus and Venus had sufficiently mollified Anstruther.

He duplicated the champagne, knowing well the warming influence of "t'other bottle." The Major of a shadowy rank had early learned the graceful art of effacing himself, and on this occasion, it stood greatly to his credit. Anstruther was now quite sure that the graceful head of the beautiful neighbor swayed in an unconscious recognition of his witty sallies. A true son of Mars--ardent, headlong, and gallant as regarded le beau s.e.xe--he talked brilliantly and well, aiming his boomerang remarks at a woman whom he knew to be young and graceful, and whose beauty he was gayly taking upon trust; an old, old interlude, played many a time and oft.

"What is going on here in this beastly slow old town? Nothing much for to-night, I fancy," said the aid-de-camp, wondering if a promenade au clair de la lune or a carriage ride to Ferney would be possible! He already had noted the purity of the French accent of the fair unknown.

No guttural Swiss patois there, but that crisp elegance of tone which promised him a flirtation en vraie Parisienne.

"Only Philemon and Baucis, an antique opera, at the Grand Opera House, and sung by a band of relics of better days, wandering over here!" said Hawke.

And then it finally dawned upon the blase young staff officer that he had met Alan Hawke in certain circles where plunging had chased away the tedium of Indian club life with the delightful sensations of raking in other people's money.

"Better come up to my rooms then, and have a weed and a bit of ecarte!"

slowly said Anstruther. "We may manage a ride afterward!" Alan Hawke nodded, and a thirsty gleam lit up his crafty eyes. He instinctively felt for the little card case containing that solitary twenty-pound note; it was a gentleman's stake after all. And the would-be suicide silently invoked the fickle G.o.ddess Fortuna!

Captain Anstruther, however, furtively murmured a few words to the solemn head steward and then leaned back contentedly in his chair.

His ostensible orders for cafe noir and cards, as well as the least murderous of the obtainable cigars, covered the plan of using a five-pound note in an adroit personal inquiry. For, the Honorable Anson Anstruther proposed to ride that very evening, and he did not wish to bore Major Hawke with his company. He nursed a little scheme of his own.

"Do you make a long stay?" carelessly said the wary Major.

"I intend to leave to-morrow night," gayly answered the other. "I came over here on a very strange errand. I've got to see an eminent Gorgon of respectability, who has a finishing school here for the young person bien clevee," said Anstruther, eyeing the unknown.

"Hardly in your line, Anstruther!" laughed Hawke, casting his eyes around the depleted table, for Miss Phenie and Miss Genie Forbes had vanished at last, leaving behind them expanding wave circles of sharply echoing comment. The noisy Teutons had devoured their seven francs worth, and the fair bird of pa.s.sage on their left was left alone, woman-like, dallying with the last sweets and finishing her demi bouteille with true French deliberation. "It's a case of the wolf and the sheep-fold!"

"Not that; not at all!" gayly answered Anstruther. "I have a long leave, and I only ran over here to oblige His Excellency." He spoke with all the easy disdain of all underlings born of an Indian official life--the habitual disregard of the Briton for his inferior surroundings. "By Jove! you may help me out yourself! You're an old Delhi man!" He gazed earnestly at Hawke, who started nervously, and then said:

"You know I've been away for a good bit of the ten years in the far Orient, but I used to know them all, before I went out of the line."

"Then you surely know old Hugh Johnstone, the rich, old, retired deputy commissioner of Oude?" Alan Hawke slowly sipped his champagne, for his Delhi memories were both risky and uncertain ground.