The Adventures of Kathlyn Part 43

The old camaraderie was gone; there seemed to be some invisible barrier between them now.

"She will discover herself, then," proceeded Ramabai. "Umballa will at once start to order her capture, when she shall stay him by crying that she is willing to face the arena lions. Remember, there will be a trap and a tunnel."

"And outside?" said Ahmed, still doubting.

"There will be soldiers, my men. But they will at that moment be elsewhere."

"If you have soldiers, then, why not slip them into the palace and have them take the young Mem-sahib by force?"

"My men are not permitted to enter the palace, Ahmed. Umballa is afraid of them. To go on. Winnie Mem-sahib will stand up and exclaim that she will join her sister, to prove that she is no less brave."

"But the lions!"--from Bruce. From his point of view the plan was as absurd as it was impossible.

Ramabai, however, knew his people and Bruce did not.

"Always remember the trap and the tunnel, Bruce Sahib. At the entrance of the lions the trap will fall. Inside the tunnel will be the Colonel Sahib and Bruce Sahib. Outside will be Ahmed and the brave men he had with him this night. And all the road free to the gates!"

"Ah, for those thousand men!" sighed Ahmed. "I can not forget them."

"Nor I the dungeon-keep," replied Ramabai. "I must go my own way. Of the right and wrong of it you are not concerned, Ahmed."

"By the Lord!" exclaimed the colonel, getting up. "I begin to understand. He is alive, and they hold him there in a den, vile like mine was. Alive!"

Ramabai nodded, but Ahmed clapped his hands exultantly.

"Umballa did not put him there. It was the politics of the council; and this is the sword which Umballa holds over their heads. And if I summoned my thousand men their zeal for me . . ."

"Pardon, Ramabai!" cried Ahmed contritely. "Pardon!"

"Ah! finally you understand?"

"Yes. You are not only a good man but a great one. If you gave the sign to your men there would be no one in yonder dungeon-keep alive!"

"They know, and I could not stay the tempest once I loosed it. There, that is all. That is the battle I have fought and won."

The colonel reached down and offered his hand.

"Ramabai, you're a man."

"Thanks, Sahib. And I tell you this: I love my people. I was born among them. They are simple and easily led. I wish to see them happy, but I can not step over the dead body of one who was kind to me. And this I add: When you, my friends, are free, I will make him free also.

Young men are my followers, and in the blood of the young there is much heat. My plan may appear to you weak and absurd, but I know my people.

Besides, it is our only chance."

"Well, Ramabai, we will try your plan, though I do so half heartedly.

So many times have we escaped, only to be brought back. I am tired, in the heart, in the mind, in the body. I want to lie down somewhere and sleep for days."

Kathlyn reached out, touched his hand and patted it. She knew. The pain and terror in his heart were not born of his own miseries but of theirs, hers and Winnie's.

"Why doesn't my brain snap?" she queried inwardly. "Why doesn't the thread break? Why can't I cry out and laugh and grow hysterical like other women?"

"I shall take charge of everything," continued Ramabai. "Your tribulations affect my own honor. None of you must be seen, however; not even you, Ahmed. I shall keep you informed. Ahmed will instruct the keepers to obey me. No harm will come to them, since no one can identify them as having been Umballa's a.s.sailants. My wife will not be molested in any way for remaining at the bungalow."

Without another word Ramabai curled himself up and went to sleep; and one by one the others followed his example. Bruce was last to close his eyes. He glanced moodily round, noted the guards patrolling the boundaries of their secluded camp, the mahout sleeping in the shadow of the elephant; and then he looked down at Kathlyn. Only a bit of her forehead was exposed. One brown shapely hand clutched the howdah blanket. A patch of moonshine touched her temple. Silently he stooped and laid a kiss upon the hand, then crept over to Ahmed and lay down with his back to the Mohammedan's.

After a while the hand clutching the howdah blanket slid under and finally nestled beneath the owner's chin.

But Winnie could not sleep. Every sound brought her to an upright position; and to-night the palace seemed charged with mysterious noises. The muttering of the c.o.c.katoo, the tinkle of the fountain as the water fell into the basin, the sc.r.a.pe and slither of sandals beyond the lattice part.i.tions, the rattle of a gun b.u.t.t somewhere in the outer corridors--these sounds she heard. Once she thought she heard the sputter of rifle shots afar, but she was not sure.

Kit, beautiful Kit! Oh, they would not, could not let her die! And she had come into this land with her mind aglow with fairy stories!

One of the leopards in the treasury corridors roared, and Winnie crouched into her cushions. What were they going to do to her? For she understood perfectly that she was only a prisoner and that the crown meant nothing at all so far as authority was concerned. She was indeed the veriest puppet. What with Ahmed's disclosures and Kathlyn's advice she knew that she was nothing more than a helpless p.a.w.n in this oriental game of chess. At any moment she might be removed from the board.

She became tense again. She heard the slip-slip of sandals In the corridor, a key turn in the lock. The door opened, and in the dim light she saw Umballa.

He stood by the door, silently contemplating her. "What a certain dungeon holds!" still eddied through the current of his thoughts.

Money, money! He needed it; it was the only barrier between him and the end, which at last he began to see. Money, baskets and bags of it, and he dared not go near. May the fires of h.e.l.l burn eternally in the bones of these greedy soldiers, his only hope!

His body ached; liquid fire seemed to have taken the place of blood in his veins. His back and shoulders were a ma.s.s of bruises. Beaten with a gun b.u.t.t, driven, harried, cursed--he, Durga Ram! A gun b.u.t.t in the hands of a low caste! He had not only been beaten; he had been dishonored and defiled. His eyes flashed and his fingers closed convulsively, but he was sober. To take yonder white throat in his hands! It was true; he dared not harm a hair of her head!

"Your sister Kathlyn perished under the wheels of the car of Juggernaut."

Winnie did not stir. The aspect of the man fascinated her as the nearness of a cobra would have done. Vipers not only crawl in this terrible land; they walk. One stung with fangs and the other with words.

"She is dead, and to-morrow your father dies."

The disheveled appearance of the man did not in her eyes confirm this.

Indeed, the longer she gazed at him the more strongly convinced she became that he was lying. But wisely she maintained her silence.

"Dead," he repeated. "Within a week you shall be my wife. You know.

They have told you. I want money, and by all the G.o.ds of Hind, yours shall be the hand to give it to me. Marry me, and one week after I will give you means of leaving Allaha. Will you marry me?"

"Yes." The word slipped over Winnie's lips faintly. She recalled Ahmed's advice: to humor the man, to play for time; but she knew that if he touched her she must scream.

"Keep that word. Your father and sister are fools."

Winnie trembled. They were alive. Kit and her father; this man had lied. Alive! Oh, she would not be afraid of any ordeal now. They were alive, and more than that they were free.

"I will keep my word when the time comes," she replied clearly.

"They are calling me Durga Ram the Mad. Beware, then, for madmen do mad things."

The door opened and shut behind him, and she heard the key turn and the outside bolt click into its socket.

They were alive and free, her loved ones! She knelt upon the cushions, her eyes uplifted.

Alone, with a torch in his shaking hand, Umballa went down into the prison, to the row of dungeons. In the door of one was a sliding panel. He pulled this back and peered within. Something lay huddled in a corner. He drew the panel back into its place, climbed the worn steps, extinguished the torch and proceeded to his own home, a gift of his former master, standing just outside the royal confines. Once there, he had slaves anoint his bruised back and shoulders with unguents, ordered his peg, drank it and lay down to sleep.

On the morrow he was somewhat daunted upon meeting Ramabai in the corridor leading to the throne room, where Winnie and the council were gathered. He started to summon the guards, but the impa.s.sive face of his enemy and the menacing hand stayed the call.