The Adventures of Kathlyn Part 6

"Crime?" with elevated eyebrows.

"Yes. You have abducted me."

"No. You came of your own free will."

"The white men of my race will not pause to argue over any such subtlety. Marry you? I do not like your color."

A dull red settled under Umballa's skin.

"I merely wish to warn you," she went on, "that my blood will be upon your head. And woe to you if it is. There are white men who will not await the coming of the British Raj."

"Ah, yes; some brave hardy American; Bruce Sahib, for instance. Alas, he is in the Straits Settlements! Seven days."

"I am not afraid to die."

"But there are many kinds of death," and with this sinister reflection he stepped aside.

The mult.i.tude, seeing Kathlyn coming down from the dais, still surrounded by her cordon of troopers, began reluctantly to disperse.

"Bread and the circus!"--the mobs will cry it down the ages; they will always pause to witness bloodshed, from a safe distance, you may be sure. There was a deal of rioting in the bazaars that night, and many a measure of bhang and toddy kept the fires burning. Oriental politics is like the winds of the equinox: it blows from all directions.

The natives were taxed upon every conceivable subject, not dissimilar to the old days in Urdu, where a man paid so much for the privilege of squeezing the man under him. Mutiny was afoot, rebellion, but it had not yet found a head. The natives wanted a change, something to gossip about during the hot lazy afternoons, over their hookas and coffee. To them reform meant change only, not the alleviation of some of their heavy burdens. The talk of freeing slaves was but talk; slaves were lucrative investments; a man would be a fool to free them. An old man, with a skin white like this new queen's and hair like spun wool, dressed in a long black cloak and a broad brimmed hat, had started the agitation of liberating the slaves. More than that, he carried no idol of his G.o.d, never bathed in the ghats, or took flowers to the temples, and seemed always silently communing with the simple iron cross suspended from his neck. But he had died during the last visitation of the plague.

They had wearied of their tolerant king, who had died mysteriously; they were now wearied of the council and Umballa; in other words, they knew not what they wanted, being People.

Who was this fair-skinned woman who stood so straight before Umballa's eye? Whence had she come? To be ruled by a woman who appeared to be tongue-tied! Well, there were worse things than a woman who could not talk. Thus they gabbled in the bazaars, round braziers and dung fires.

And some talked of the murder. The proud Ramabai had been haled to prison; his banker's gold had not saved him. Oh, this street rat Umballa generally got what he wanted. Ramabai's wife was one of the beauties of Hind.

Through the narrow, evil smelling streets of the bazaars a man hurried that night, glancing behind frequently to see if by any mischance some one followed. He stopped at the house of Lal Singh, the shoemaker, whom he found drowsing over his water pipe.

"Is it well?" said the newcomer, intoning.

"It is well," answered Lal Singh, dropping the mouthpiece of his pipe.

He had spoken mechanically. When he saw who his visitor was his eyes brightened. "Ahmed?"

"Hush!" with a gesture toward the ceiling.

"She is out merrymaking, like the rest of her kind. The old saying: if a man waits, the woman comes to him. I am alone. There is news?"

"There is a journey. Across Hind to Simla."

"The hour has arrived?"

"At least the excuse. Give these to one in authority with the British Raj, whose bread we eat." Ahmed slid across the table a very small scroll. "The Mem-sahib is my master's daughter. She must be spirited away to safety."

"Ah!" Lal Singh rubbed his fat hands. "So the time nears when we shall wring the vulture's neck? Ai, it is good! Umballa, the toad, who swells and swells as the days go by. Siva has guarded him well.

The king picks him out of the gutter for a pretty bit of impudence, sends him afar to Umballa, where he learns to speak English, where he learns to wear shoes that b.u.t.ton and stiff linen bands round the neck.

He has gone on, gone on! The higher up, the harder the fall."

"The cellar?"

"There are pistols and guns and ammunition and strange little wires by which I make magic fires."

"Batteries?"

"One never knows what may be needed. You have the key?"

"Yes."

"Hare Sahib's daughter. And Hare Sahib?" with twinkling eyes.

"In some dungeon, mayhap. There all avenues seemed closed up."

"Umballa needs money," said Lal Singh, thoughtfully. "But he will not find it," in afterthought.

"To-morrow?"

"At dawn."

These two men were spiders in that great web of secret service that the British Raj weaves up and down and across Hind, to Persia and Afghanistan, to the borders of the Bear.

Even as Lal Singh picked up his mouthpiece again and Ahmed sallied forth into the bazaars Umballa had brought to him in the armory that company of soldiers who had shown such open mutiny, not against the state but against him.

Gravely he questioned the captain.

"Pay our wages, then, heaven born," said the captain, with veiled insolence. "Pay us, for we have seen not so much as betel money since the last big rains."

"Money," mused Umballa, marking down this gallant captain for death when the time came.

"Ai, money; bright rupees, or, better still, yellow British gold. Pay us!"

"Let us be frank with each other," said Umballa, smiling to cover the fire in his eyes.

"That is what we desire," replied the captain with a knowing look at his silent troopers.

"I must buy you."

The captain salaamed.

"But after I have bought you?" ironically.

"Heaven born; our blood is yours to spill where and when you will."

From under the teak table Umballa drew forth two heavy bags of silver coin. These he emptied upon the table dramatically; white shining metal, sparkling as the candle flames wavered. Umballa arranged the coin in stacks, one of them triple in size.

"Yours, Captain," said Umballa, indicating the large stack.

The captain pocketed it, and one by one his troopers pa.s.sed and helped themselves and fell back along the wall in military alignment, bright-eyed and watchful.