A Fascinating Traitor Part 34

"h.e.l.l and furies!" he cried, "the whole world is leagued against me.

I've got to go back to India now, Justine, and go alone. Luck is dead against me now." And the whitening face of the woman who hung on his every glance made the infuriated man even more reckless. "d.a.m.n them, I'll grind them all to powder!" he growled. For the tide was on the turn, and it was dead water again at Geneva, the tide fast receding, and the man who was "a devil for luck" was soon left on the rocks of a silent despair.

Alan Hawke's eyes gleamed out with a murderous sheen as he scanned both letters carefully. "It is his work--the low dog--and he shall die.

Wait till Jack Blunt and I get a hack at him," he mused, with a sudden conviction that he dared not now show himself at St. Heliers, nor openly approach the Banker's Folly. "I stand to lose all and win nothing. I must work in the dark. I cannot dare to brave this Anstruther. They would simply drive me from India. But, Simpson and Ram Lal shall pay!

And, Berthe Louison--Ah! By G.o.d! I will strike her to the heart now! I see the way!"

The official words of Captain Anstruther were few but crushing in there stern brevity. And Alan Hawke's heart sank as he read them over again.

"By the orders of His Excellency, the Viceroy, I have the honor to inform you that he has withdrawn your temporary rank, and all powers heretofore delegated to you will cease on the receipt of this letter, which please acknowledge. On reporting to me in London in person, you will receive the payment of all your accounts with your back pay and transportation back to Calcutta, the place of your temporary appointment. All the Consuls in continental Europe have now been notified of the cessation of your powers, and you will therefore, in no way act in the future in regard to the confidential business once in your hands. The inquiry has been finally abandoned by the order of the Indian Government.

"Please do report as soon as possible, and deliver over all papers and vouchers now remaining in your hands. With a.s.surance of my consideration, Yours,

"ANSON ANSTRUTHER, Captain and A. D. C."

"Official,

"Confidential."

The letter of the Credit Lyonnais was even more menacing in its tone.

The Direction G'entrale referred to a formal letter of the solicitors of the estate of Hugh Fraser Johnstone, deceased, totally repudiating the four unaccepted drafts of five thousand pounds sterling each, and legally notifying the Direction of an intended suit to recover from the payee and the in-dorser, the first draft for five thousand pounds paid before Executor Andrew Fraser had filed his objections with Messrs.

Glyn, Carr & Glyn. "The arrival from India of the papers of the deceased, and the testimony of his body servant Simpson, as well as the Calcutta Banker and solicitors, proves that no such considerable withdrawals as twenty-five thousand pounds were ever contemplated by the deceased, who had sent the most minute business instructions to his agent and later executor."

"I shall have to throw this all back on Ram Lal." mused Alan Hawke, who hastily bade Justine an adieu, until he could conjure up an explanation for the Geneva agents of the Credit Lyonnais. The closing words of the Paris Derection were semi-hostile. "Be pleased. Monsieur, to call at once upon our Geneva branch and explain these imputations. We are forced to withhold your present deposits to cover any reclamation and legal expenses, and we therefore beg you to discontinue the drawing of any drafts upon us until the solicitors of Messrs. Glyn, Carr & Glyn and the Executor notify us of the settlement of this distressing imputation upon the regularity of our actions as your business agents."

"That leaves me only the jewels, and about a thousand pounds ready cash on hand, and that is due from Anstruther," gloomily decided Alan Hawke, when he was safely locked in his rooms at the National.

"Tricked by this double-faced devil Louison-Delavigne, thrown out of my future rank, held for the five thousand pounds already advanced, and, with eleven thousand embargoed in that Paris p.a.w.nbroker shop of a Credit Lyonnais, I've but one course left to me now."

He took counsel of the brandy bottle, and then, ignoring all else, he sent off a careful letter to Joseph Smith. "I'll jolly poor Justine a bit, so as to leave one faithful friend to watch and get all my letters here. Jack can raise money on the jewels now for us both. I must tell these fellows of the French Bank here that I go to London to see my own lawyers. I'll go over, settle with Anstruther, and then just quietly disappear. The next blow shall come out of the blackness of night, and I'll strike them all at once!"

In the evening, Major Alan Hawke drove with Justine Delande to the restaurant garden, where, long months before, he had first learned the daring hardihood of his fair employer--the acute woman who had fooled him at every turn. His heart was saddened with all the fresh hopes which had failed him. He had frankly told Euphrosyne Delande that a return journey to India, and a long and bitter struggle now lay between him and the rank and competence which he would need to make her loving sister his wife.

Three hours later Justine Delande's arms clung desparingly around the handsome outcast, as he was leaving her to be escorted home by the adroit Francois, already in waiting without the restaurant with a closed carriage. The presage of sorrow weighed upon her loving heart.

"Alan, My G.o.d, I can not let you go. You are the one brightness of my life. My heart of hearts. My very soul," sobbed the wretched woman. "I have fears for you. They will kill you in that far land, these powerful enemies. That mysterious devil woman who bends all to her will will ruin you." And then, really touched at heart, the desperate trickster drew off his finger a superb diamond, the nonpareil, the choicest stone of Ram Lal's unwilling tribute. "Wear this always, and think of me, Justine," he said. "You are the only woman who ever loved me, and, if I succeed, I swear you shall share my better fortunes--if not, then--" he crushed her to his breast and ran out of the room, before she could drag him back. "Go in, Francois, quickly to Miss Justine," cried Hawke, thrusting a hundred-franc note in the butler's open hand. The rattle of departing wheels was heard as Francois supported the half-fainting woman to her carriage.

"Now for London," growled Major Hawke as the train dashed down the Rhone valley. "I've got a clear alibi here. All my letters sent to Justine will be forwarded to the Delhi Club. One day in London, then to Granville, and Jack Blunt. They will only get Justine's story if they shadow me, and if I can only hit it off right, at Calcutta. Yes! there is the king luck of all. To give the whole thing away to the baffled Viceroy. Then denounce Ram Lal to him as the early confederate and later a.s.sa.s.sin of Hugh Fraser Johnstone! These jewels that I have 'innocently received' will connect old Ram Lal with Hugh Fraser's betrayed trust. I will hold the murder business back at first.

"Ram Lal or his estate will be finally forced to cash my drafts. It is clear that Johnstone and Ram Lal have either divided or hidden the jewels. Yes! By G.o.d! I have it. If I can wring them out of the old professor, or find them, I will then hide them away and secretly report the whole affair to the Viceroy, in my chosen colors as a friend of the Crown, and they'll give me a huge reward; my permanent army rank will soon follow. So, if Justine only holds to my alibi, by G.o.d! I will marry her, for she would be a badge of respectability. I'll take no more chances after this--not another single chance! I've got money enough to satisfy Jack Blunt. He shall secretly sell the jewels for me--a small lot, here and there, a few at a time."

"There is just one frightful risk to run," he muttered, as he reached out for his brandy flask. "Ram Lal might go in to save his twenty-five thousand pounds, for the Johnstone estate will never pay these disputed claims which I cannot prove in law. Good in honor, but bad in law! And if he should denounce me privately to the Viceroy, as the real murderer of Hugh Fraser? He is there on the ground. I did not denounce him. I did not produce the dagger. I dare not to explain why I concealed the crime.

An accessory! He might seek to turn Queen's evidence, and even try to hang me. He is rich, sly, smart. By G.o.d! they may even now be shadowing me. Once on English soil, I am at Anstruther's mercy." He was still white-faced and unmanned as he took the Boulogne boat the next evening.

"I must face Anstruther, get my money, and then telegraph to Justine my departure for India from London. I'll wire the poor woman from here now.

A few loving words will cheer her. Her true heart is the only jewel I have that I have not stolen. Poor girl! she will miss me sorely!" And the handsome blackguard sighed over the ruin he had wrought--an honest woman's shattered peace of mind. It weighed heavily upon him now.

For there came back to him now strange shadowy glimpses of his own stormy past! Dashing on, to face unknown dangers, the dauntless adventurer, with a softened heart, recalled the days when he could gaze, without a secret shudder, upon the battle-torn colors of the regiment from which he had been chased by that suddenly discovered sin, once so sweet!

He "looked along life's columned years, to see its riven fane--just where it fell." And, sadly alone in life now, his heart gnawed with a growing remorse, he saw in the mirror of memory, once more, the bright faced boy who had "filled the cup, to toast his flag and land." Alan Hawke, in all the bright promise of his youth, the darling of women, the envy of men!

Under the swiftly gliding current of his tortuous past, he plainly saw now the fanged reefs which had wrecked him! With a smothered groan, he recalled all that he had lost, and this bitter introspection brought up to him, among his deeds of pa.s.sion, the one needless cruelty of his reckless life! "Poor Justine! There is such a thing as woman's love after all!" he sighed, for he knew that the steadfast woman had poured out the wine of her life all in vain. "She loves me!" he cried!

Woman, born to be man's sport and plaything, is doomed to be the unconscious avenger of her s.e.x in every tragedy of the heart! The treason of some callous lover is repaid with vengeance meted out to some defenseless man who comes all unguarded "into the arid desert of Phryne's life, where all is parched and hot." And, Alan Hawke, the innocent Lancelot, had suffered for some recreant's past crime!

Among the visions of the burning Lotos Land, the bright phantasmagoria of his unstained youth, there came back now to Alan Hawke all the glories of his first Durbar, the unforgotten day when he had fallen under the spell of the woman whose fatal touch had withered the "very rose and expectancy" of his brilliant promise. His mind strayed backward through all the misty years to that gorgeous scene of Oriental pomp. He closed his eyes and pictured again the brilliant pageant.

The huge ma.s.ses of serried troops, the lines of stately elephants, the castled background of the temples of Aurungzebe. The blare of trumpets smote once more upon his ear, and hordes of jewel-decked Asiatics swept along before the pompous military representatives of the Empress, who wears the Crown of the Seas.

There was a quickening of "Love's extinguished embers" as he lived over again the moment, when "side by side, with England's pride," he rode with his sword lowered in knightly salute before the cl.u.s.tered banners of the Imperial military throne. And the hour of his fate sounded when the eyes of a woman rested upon him in a mute appeal! Their glances told him all.

For, then and there, the young officer had seen the wonderful beauty of the woman who had lured him on and then, in after days, sold his unstained soul to shame! A fair-faced Lilith, her glowing beauty enshrined in all the borrowed splendor of majesty, a woman of gleaming golden hair, a later, all too willing, Guenevere! The soft subtle invitation of her eyes of sapphire blue had called him to her side, in that unspoken pact which needs no words! He was her slave from the first moment! With a last pang of his quivering heart, Hawke recalled the sly skill of the faithless wife who had drawn the young officer into her net, for the pa.s.sing amus.e.m.e.nt of her idle hours! Too late he knew all the artful craft of his being bidden to the Grand Ball, of the "veiled interest" which had "detailed him, for special duty," of the self-protecting maneuvers which had placed him on the staff of the faded valetudinarian general who had given his spotless name to the woman whose lava heart glowed under a snowy bosom. It was the wreck of a soul!

And then, with a gasp, he recalled his mad fever to win every honor under her glowing eyes. The forgotten deeds of desperate valor--all useless now, and stained forever with the bar sinister of his treason.

He shuddered at the unforgotten delights of the hour when they had met in her seraglio bower of shaded luxury, and "the fairest of Laoc.o.o.ns"

had answered his pa.s.sionate whisper, "Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die," with the faltered words: "Alan, you are all the world to me!"

Fondly blind, he had drifted along in a Fool's Paradise, at her bidding, until the crash came! He never knew the military Sir Modred, who had betrayed the open secret, but his blood boiled when he recalled the cruel abandonment to the rage of a jealous and awakened spouse!

All in vain had been his manly sacrifice to save the woman whom he had loved more than life. He had cast away every protection for himself.

Duped and tricked, he had remained mute before the storm of abuse heaped on him by the General, and his papers sent in, at a momentary summons, had carried him in dishonor out of the band of laureled soldier knights, to dream no more "the dream that martial music weaves!" And the smiling woman Judas tricked him to the very last!

How hollow her faith, how lying the mute pleading of her eyes, he knew now, for had he not paused at the door for one despairing glance of farewell, to hear her murmur to her placated lord: "After all your goodness to him, to dare to offer me insult! You have punished him rightly, but, he is a fascinating traitor, after all!" Deprived of his sword, shunned by his a.s.sociates, and lingering near her in hopes of the last interview pledged him by her lying eyes, he had only been undeceived when he vainly tried to reach her carriage for a last farewell on a star-lit lonely drive.

The cold cutting accent of her voice smote him as the edge of a sword.

"Drive on, Johnson!" she sharply cried. "These vagabond people must face the General himself." Then came the insane self-sacrifice of his reckless downfall, but he had spared her to the very last.

He bowed his head in his hands, and a storm of agony swept over him as he recalled the word "traitor," branded upon his brow as a badge of shame, and again he wandered along that devious path which had led him year by year downward. Too bitterly self-accusing to palliate his past, he only knew that in all the long years of social pariahhood he had learned to despise all men and to trust no woman! For had not Friendship been a lie to him, Love only a hollow cheat, and woman's vows of deathless loyalty but writ in sand to be washed out by the next wave of pa.s.sion?

And yet, stained with crime, there was one breath of truth which swept over his soul as fresh as the voice of the "pines of Ramoth Hill!"

His eyes were misty and his breath choked in a sorrowing gasp of manly remorse, as the winsome face of the true-hearted Justine rose up before him in this hour of lonely agony! Her devotion had touched the wayworn wanderer, and, pure and unselfish, her love had been the one bright star of all these darkened years!

"By Jove! She is a royal soul! If I could only save her the shock of the awakening," he murmured. His heart beat generously in a thrill of pride recalling Justine's steadfast devotion to the motherless girl whom he had sought to entangle. "Far above rubies!" he cried, and the memory of the fond woman who was watching for him at Lausanne, swept over his stormy soul to bring unbidden tears to eyes which had never flinched before the red flash of the grim cannon.

"There are still good women in the world!" he muttered, "and, G.o.d bless you, you have taught me this, Justine!" Drawing her picture from his bosom, he gazed fondly at the face of the gentle-hearted daughter of the Alps. A vain and pa.s.sionate regret racked his bosom--the last struggle of his wavering soul! "Shall I turn back?" he doubtfully cried. And then in the rush of his onward course, a dull hopeless feeling came over him.

"Kismet!" he cried. "It is too late now. If they had only trusted me! If they had told me all and given my fighting soul a chance to redeem the lost promise once written on my brow. I have played a man's part before!

I might, perhaps, have won this girl's grat.i.tude and earned Justine's love to be a shield and a buckler to me. But--" his head, overweaned with care, drooped down, and in the company of strange visions and and dreams of ominous import, the hunted soldier of fortune forgot alike the echoing voice of his better angel, and lost from view, the shadowy faces of both the woman who had lured him to a living death, and the tender-hearted one whose heart was glowing at Lausanne in all the fervor of her unrequited devotion. Over Alan Hawke, sleeping there, as he was swiftly borne away, hovered, in sad regret, his good angel, with sorrowing eyes, for the stern, self-accusing man had not sought, in the last hours of this sorrow, even the poor consolation that his life had been wrecked to feed the fires of vanity burning in the jaded heart of the beautiful Faustine, whose cold desertion had sold his youth to shame!

Twenty-four hours later Major Alan Hawke was again a stormy petrel on Life's trackless ocean. The cold politeness of Captain Anson Anstruther at the brief interview at the Junior United Service Club in London at once decided the wanderer to make for India as soon as his "pressing engagements" would allow. There was no seeming menace, however, in Anstruther's wearied air of perfunctory courtesy.

"The whole affair being officially dropped, Major Hawke," said Anstruther, "I only ask for your personal receipt for my individual check. You will observe that this eleven hundred pounds is not in any way government funds. And, on behalf of the Viceroy himself, I thank you for your energy shown in the inquiry, which is now permanently abandoned." To Major Hawke's murmured request, Anstruther replied:

"Certainly! Drive around to Grindlay's in Parliament Street with me and they will at once give you notes or their own circular check for this money." In ten minutes, when Hawke had lightly announced his intention to return to India, the Captain observed: "I may not meet you for some years. If the Viceroy returns to England, my promotion will probably carry me with his Emba.s.sy to Paris as Major and Military Attache." And then they parted as mere casual acquaintances.

"d.a.m.n his cool impertinence," mused Alan Hawke, as he caught a pa.s.sing cab, after telegraphing his greetings and intended departure to Justine Delande.

"Write one letter to Hotel Binda, Paris, then all to the P. & O. Agency, Brindisi; after that, to Delhi," were the lying words which reached the Swiss woman, whose loving breast was now given over to a tumult of sighs.

Major Hawke was not free from secret apprehensions until he landed at Calais, upon the next morning. "Now for a last 'throw off' at Paris!"

he exclaimed. "d.a.m.n England! I hope I shall never see it again!" he growled, unmindful of the pitiless Fates ever spinning the mysterious web of Destiny. "I'll first show up at Berthe Louison's, at No. 9 Rue Berlioz. They shall have my next address given to them as Delhi. The real Major Hawke dives under the troubled sea of Life at Paris, only to emerge at Calcutta! Ram Lal is like all his kind, a coward at heart!

He has not denounced me, for, if he had, Captain Anstruther would have nabbed me in England. He acts by the Viceroy's private cabled orders.

No! The coast is all clear for my dash at the enemy's works!"