Jewel Weed Part 40

"Still, my house, you know--and my friend. It's horrible!" In fact Mr.

Early was shivering as though he had the ague. "It would drive me mad if any one should think--why, Mrs. Percival, think of the scandal of having him with me for months. Of course, if they catch him, I'll make him clear me at once. But, take it how you will, it is awful. The least I can expect is to be laughed at over the whole civilized world for being his dupe. I've always prided myself on my clean skirts. You think I'm raving, Mrs. Percival. I am nearly mad." Mr. Early suddenly leaped up with horror newly reborn in his eyes. "And I had just given him a large check. That is bound to look bad. There is no knowing how it may be misconstrued. Great heavens, what am I to do?"

Lena flushed.

"I'm afraid that check was for me," she said. "Mr. Early, I want to thank you--for--for being so generous to me; and when d.i.c.k comes back from North Dakota, he will repay you at once."

Mr. Early caught himself up and remembered that he had a part to play in the present drama.

"When d.i.c.k comes back," he said in a stupefied way, "what do you mean by 'when d.i.c.k comes back'? Isn't he here now? Why, he must be. It isn't an hour since he signed--"

"Didn't you know he was away?" asked Lena timidly, her heart sinking, for Mr. Early's tone was sharp.

"I certainly thought he signed a note made out to me. Was it another piece of the Swami's clever forgery?"

"He--I--" cried poor Lena in confusion. "Oh, Mr. Early, do you call it forgery?--my own husband's name? Oh, I--oh, Mr. Early, what are you thinking?" At this moment she was the picture of confused innocence.

Mr. Early looked at her and gave a long-drawn breath of astonishment.

"I understand," he said at last, while Lena hung her head. "You wrote d.i.c.k's name for him, and he knows nothing about it. Well, let it go at that. It is a matter of no consequence. And, my dear Mrs. Percival, I would suggest that this matter be kept a secret between you and me.

We'll never mention the debt again. I'm sure you will accept the rubies as a little gift from one of the most humble of your admirers." He bent forward and kissed her finger-tips in his most gallant manner.

"Oh, Mr. Early, you are so good!" Lena's voice expressed manifest relief. The memory came back to her of what Ram Juna had said about the bond created by favor. It flashed into her mind, "He thinks it is sweet and innocent and womanly in me to do such a thing in ignorance. d.i.c.k would think so, too. How should I know?"

"But suppose d.i.c.k shouldn't like to have me take them from you, such a magnificent gift?"

"I would suggest," Mr. Early's manner was regaining some of its self-possession, "that you speak of the necklace--is that it in your hand? a really wonderful thing, with curious settings, carved by hand--as I was saying, I would suggest that you speak of it as a gift from the Swami, who, as is well known, was much impressed by your charms. A present from such a creature, who hardly comes into the category of ordinary men, would create no such remark as might a gift from me. Do you not see? We will let the truth remain a little secret between us two. I have an idea that we shall not be likely to see Ram Juna again. I fancy he is a fellow of greater cunning than any of us dreamed; and if he has a little start of the detectives, I doubt if they have so much as a glimpse of his heels; though, to be sure, he is rather a marked figure, and difficult to disguise. Now don't forget. The Swami, with oriental profuseness, gave you the rubies."

"You are a dear," gushed Lena. "Oh, I do hope he is gone!" After all, it was a relief that d.i.c.k should not know.

"One favor I must ask, my dear Mrs. Percival," Mr. Early went on hesitatingly. "If, by any chance, d.i.c.k should ever come to know of this, will you a.s.sure him that I supposed his signature to be genuine? I wouldn't have him suspect that I--that I was a party--or at least that I knew that you wrote it for him. For really, little woman, it wasn't strictly honest, you know."

"I'm afraid it wasn't," Lena confessed with charming blushes. "But I didn't think. I don't know much about such things, you know."

"Of course you don't. No nice woman does," said Mr. Early comfortingly.

"And now let us forget it."

"Here come the officers," said Lena.

"It ain't no use," said the captain disgustedly. "He's given us the slip, somehow. And we'd watched the house and made sure we'd nab him."

"What are you going to do?" asked Mr. Early.

"Take his kit, and set guards and send telegraph descriptions of him in all directions. 'Taint likely he can get clean away. He'll be a marked man wherever he goes."

"If there is anything I can do to help you," said Mr. Early grandiloquently, "you can command me, though you may imagine that it is very offensive to me to be mixed up in this kind of affair."

"Well, rather," said the officer dryly. Then, seeing the flush rising on Mr. Early's face, he went on with the patronage of the majesty of the law: "You needn't fear that you'll suffer any personal inconvenience.

We've had you under surveillance for a long time--ever since we began to suspect your n.i.g.g.e.r friend; and we know you are all right." But the a.s.surance seemed to add to Mr. Early's discomfiture. "Looks as if it was going to blow up a storm. A dark night would be a good thing for him and a nuisance to us. But we'll catch him sure."

They were gone, and Lena lingered a moment, fastening her dearly-bought bauble around her neck and gathering her books, while a maid came scudding from the house to bundle rugs and cushions away in face of the thunder-heads looming in the southwest. A sudden sibilant sound brought Lena to attention.

"Mrs. Percival!" she heard. "Look up."

Among the branches over her head the leaves were drawn so closely together that only a few faint glimmers of white showed, and the brilliant eyes that glared down at her were the most conspicuous things she saw.

"Listen and reply not," he said. "You will bring a dark and large great-coat, and other dark garments that you can find, and leave them here with swiftness and secrecy. I command you. If you do not obey, I will make it the worse for you."

He snarled suddenly, and Lena jumped back as though a tiger had sprung at her throat.

The face disappeared among the leaves, and Lena sped toward the house, hastened by a crash of thunder and a few great drops, that seemed to her frightened imagination like the servants of the savage creature that she had left in the tree-tops. She slipped out again, in spite of wind and rain, obedient to his command, and as she dropped her bundle at the foot of the tree trunk, she whispered,

"I hope, oh, I hope that you will get away!" But she heard no reply. The storm came down and the night fell, seamed with lightning.

Lena quietly ate her dinner, and listened to the well-bred calm voice of her mother-in-law as she wondered what d.i.c.k was doing, and when he would be at home again. But Lena wondered what Ram Juna was doing, and whether she should ever see him again.

CHAPTER XX

A LIGHT FROM THE EAST GOES OUT

To be in the heart of a great country, fifteen hundred miles from the Atlantic, and two thousand miles from the Pacific, to be forbidden the public highway of the train, and to have one's objective point India,--this is by no means an easy problem, even to the oriental mind.

And who could know what was going on in the being that crept away into the storm, strong with the instinct of hiding and of cunning. He must have balanced all things. To go westward, where the great steamers plied toward the Orient, this would seem the natural course; and yet that way lay interminable prairies and empty stretches, and again deserts and piled mountains, without shelter and without food. It is easier to hide among people than amid solitudes. On crowded city streets, we jostle without seeing.

It was no great feat to transform the once Swami of the flowing robes and lofty port into a hulking skulking negro tramp, like the st.u.r.dy villains of ancient days, sleeping in woody nooks by day, and pursuing his slow journey under the stars, answering the look of such human beings as he met with suspicion, keeping to the hamlets where police officers were scarce and knowledge of the criminal world scarcer, and where solitary house-wives, whose men were in the field, could be persuaded, half through charity and half through fear, to dole out food.

Ah, but it was a weary journey. The world, of whose littleness we boast when we think of steam and electricity, grows very sizable again when a man comes back to the elemental means of progress--his own two legs. As for the smaller world in which he had been living--the world of luxury and of worshiping disciples--he laughed silently to think what a mirage it was and always had been.

Down the Mississippi he crept, sometimes peering from between the great trees that flanked its steep banks, as the red Indians did long ago, to see the boats of the white man go serenely up and down that mighty swirling current, and stopping even in his self-absorption to feel a little of the beauty when the great river spread itself into the shimmering expanse of Lake Pipin, or to remember, at Winona, the picturesque legend that he had heard of the deserted Chippewa maiden who here threw herself from the overhanging rocks into the pitiless rush of waters below, and left only her ghost and her sweet-sounding name to the spot. He halted to inspect the great monolith, a hundred feet in height, of Sugar Loaf.

He had an idea that in some little town to the south he might venture to board a straggling cross-country train to Chicago; and, once in the thick of men again, he believed himself safe. He had always been wary enough to keep on his person a certain sum of money. Such as it was, it might serve his purpose. It also tickled his sense of humor to think that--shabby black wayfarer that he was--he had in his pocket a check for five thousand dollars, that he could not cash, and a handful of rubies that were enough to awaken the suspicions of the least suspicious. But still, day after day and night after night, he plodded patiently on his way down the water course, until at last, at Prairie du Chien, two hundred miles from St. Etienne, he felt that he might comfort his inner man with hot food, and his weary legs with a bed and a pillow. He prowled along the streets of the country town looking for some cheap lodging-house where such as he, a humble, cringing, dog-like fellow, might find shelter. He looked through a dusty window and saw a s.h.a.ggy-bearded, roughly-dressed man shoveling food with a knife, and he felt that he had found the right place.

The proprietor of the establishment sat at a small table absorbed in the perusal of a week-old Sunday newspaper. He growled out a "Guess so.

Sausages; baked beans; coffee," to Ram Juna's polite inquiry. It neither looked nor smelled inviting, but the Hindu submitted to fate and swallowed a hasty and unpalatable meal.

"Can you tell me where I can get a bed for the night?" he asked, turning to his host.

The evident refinement in his voice made that worthy look up from his literary occupation in some startled curiosity.

"They ain't many places where they take n.i.g.g.e.rs," he said with an unpleasant grin. "But I guess you might find a berth at Sally Munn's, if you ain't too particular about morals. She's a merlatter herself; keeps a place 'bout six houses down, first street to the left." The man stared impudently as he spoke, but Ram Juna said, "Thank you," with his usual politeness as he went out. The Hindu noted the impudent stare, but he went away with an indifferent air.

"See here!" said the proprietor to his single other customer, "ain't this picture in the paper the very image of that black feller that just skipped?"

"Say, it's him!"

"We'd ought to look this up. There's a big reward offered."