The Bronze Bell Part 9

"My lord is harsh to one who would be his slave in all things.

Fortunate indeed am I to own the protection of the Token." A slow leer widened greasily upon his moon-like face.

"Ah, the Token!" Rutton repeated tensely, beneath his breath. "It is true that you have the Token?" "Aye; it is even here, my lord." The heavy brown hand returned to the spot it had sought soon after the babu's entrance, within the folds of silk across his bosom, and groped therein for an instant. "Even here," he iterated with a maddening manner of supreme self-complacency, producing the bronze box and waddling over to drop it into Rutton's hand. "My lord is satisfied?" he gurgled maliciously.

Without answering Rutton turned the box over in his palm, his slender fingers playing about the bosses of the relief work; there followed a click and one side of it swung open. The Bengali fell back a pace with a whisper of awe--real or affected: "The Token, hazoor!" Amber himself gasped slightly.

Unheeded, the box dropped to the floor. Between Rutton's thumb and forefinger there blazed a great emerald set in a ring of red old gold.

He turned it this way and that, inspecting it critically; and the lamplight, catching on the facets, struck from it blinding shafts of intensely green radiance. Rutton nodded as if in recognition of the stone and, turning, with an effect of carelessness, tossed it to Amber.

"Keep that for me, David, please," he said. And Amber, catching it, dropped the ring into his pocket.

"My lord is satisfied with my credentials, then?" the babu persisted.

"It is the Token," Rutton a.s.sented wearily. "Now, your message. Be brief."

"The utterances of the Voice be infrequent, hazoor, its words few--but charged with meaning: as you know of old." The Bengali drew himself up, holding up his head and rolling forth his phrases in a voice of great resonance and depth. "These be the words of the Voice, hazoor:

"'_To all my peoples:

"'Even now the Gateway of Swords yawns wide, that he who is without fear may pa.s.s within; to the end that the Body be purged of the Scarlet Evil.

"'The Elect are bidden to the Ordeal with no exception._'"

The sonorous accents subsided, and a tense wait ensued, none speaking.

Rutton stood in stony apathy, his eyes lifted to a dim corner of the ceiling, his gaze--like his thoughts--perhaps ranging far beyond the dreary confines of the cabin in the dunes. Minute after minute pa.s.sed, he making no sign, the babu poised before him in inscrutable triumph, watching him keenly with his black and evil eyes of a beast. Amber hung breathless upon the issue, sensing a conflict of terrible forces in Rutton's mind, but comprehending nothing of their natures. In the hush within-doors he became acutely conscious of the war of elements without: the mad elfin yammering of the gale tearing at the cabin as though trying to seize it up bodily and whirl it off into the witches'

dance of the storm; the deep and awful booming of the breakers, whose incessant impact upon the beach seemed to rock the very island on its base. Somehow he divined a similitude between the struggle within and the struggle without, seemed to see the contending elements personified before his eyes--the spirit of evil incarnate in the Bengali, vast, loathsome, terrible in his inflexibility of malign purpose; the force of right symbolized in Rutton, frail of stature, fine of mould, strong in his unbending loyalty to his conception of honour and duty. The Virginian could have predicted the outcome confidently, believing as he did in his friend. It came eventually on the heels of a movement of the babu's; unable longer to hold his pose, he shifted slightly. And Rutton awoke as from a sleep.

"The Voice has spoken, babu," he said, not ungently, "and I have heard."

"And your answer, lord?"

"There is no answer."

"Hazoor!"

"I have said," Rutton confirmed evenly, "there is no answer."

"You will obey?"

"That is between me and my G.o.d. Go back to the Hall of the Bell, Behari Lal Chatterji, and deliver your report; say that you have seen me, that I have listened to the words of the Voice, and that I sent no answer."

"Hazoor, I may not. I am charged to return only with you."

"Make your peace with the Bell in what manner you will, babu; it is no concern of mine. Go, now, while yet time is granted you to avoid a longer journey this night."

"Hazoor!"

"Go." Rutton pointed to the door, his voice imperative.

Upon this the babu abandoned argument, realising that further resistance were futile. And in a twinkling his dignity, his Urdu and his cloak of mystery, were discarded, and he was merely an over-educated and over-fed Bengali, jabbering babu-English.

"Oah, as for thatt," he affirmed easily, with an oleaginous smirk, "I daresay I shall be able to make adequate explanation. It shall be as you say, sar. I confess to fright, however, because of storm." He included Amber affably in his confidences. "By Gad, sar, thees climate iss most trying to person of my habits. The journey hither _via_ causeway from mainland was veree fearful. Thee sea is most agitated.

You observe my wetness from a.s.sociation with spray. I am of opinion if I am not d.a.m.n-careful I jolly well catch-my-death on return. But _thatt_ is all in day's work."

He rolled sluggishly toward the door, dragging his inadequate overcoat across his barrel-like chest; and paused to cough affectingly, with one hand on the k.n.o.b. Rutton eyed him contemptuously.

"If you care to run the risk," he said suddenly, "you may have a chair by the fire till the storm breaks, babu."

"Beg pardon?" The babu's eyes widened. "Oah, yess; I see. 'If I care to run risk.' Veree considerate of you, I'm sure. But as we say in Bengal, 'thee favour of kings iss a.s.s a sword of two edges.' Noah, thanks; the servants of thee Bell do not linger by wayside, soa to speak. Besides, I am in great hurree. Mister Amber, good night. Rutton Sahib"--with a flash of his sinister humour--"_au revoir_; I mean to say, till we meet in thee Hall of thee Bell. Good night."

He nodded insolently to the man whom a little time since he had hailed as "my lord," shrugged his coat collar up round his fat, dirty neck, shivered in antic.i.p.ation, jerked the door open and plunged ponderously out.

A second later Amber saw the confused ma.s.s of his turban glide past the window.

CHAPTER V

THE GOBLIN NIGHT

Amber whistled low. "Impossible!" he said thoughtfully.

Rutton had crossed to and was bending over a small leather trunk that stood in one corner of the room. In the act of opening it, he glanced over his shoulder. "What?" he demanded sharply.

"I was only thinking; there's something I can't see through in that babu's willingness to go."

"He was afraid to stay."

"Why?"

Rutton, rummaging in the trunk, made no reply. After a moment Amber resumed.

"You know what Bengalis are; that fellow'd do anything, brave any ordinary danger, rather than try to cross that sandbar again--if he really came that way; which I am inclined to doubt. On the other hand, he's intelligent enough to know that a night like this in the dunes would kill him. Well, what then?"

Rutton was not listening. As Amber concluded he seemed to find what he had been seeking, thrust it hurriedly into the breast-pocket of his coat, and with a muttered word, unintelligible, dashed to the door and flung it open and himself out.

With a shriek of demoniac glee the wind entered into and took possession of the room. A cloud of snow swept across the floor like a veil. The door battered against the wall as if trying to break it down.

A pile of newspapers was swept from the table and scattered to the four corners of the room. The rug lifted beneath the table and flapped against it like a broken wing. The cheap tin kerosene lamp jumped as though caught up by a hand; its flame leapt high and blue above the chimney--and was not. In darkness but for the fitful flare of the fire that had been dying in embers on the hearth, Amber, seeking the doorway, fell over a chair, blundered flat into the wall, and stumbled unexpectedly out of the house.

His concern was all for Rutton; he had no other thought. He ran a little way down the hollow, heartsick with horror and cold with dread.

Then he paused, bewildered. Other than the wan glimmer of the snow-clad earth he had no light to guide him; with this poor aid he could see no more than that the vale was deserted. Whither in that white whirling world Rutton might have wandered, it was impossible to surmise. In despair the Virginian turned back.

When he had found his way to the door of the cabin, it was closed; as he entered and shut it behind him, a match flared and expired in the middle of the room, and a man cursed brokenly.

"Rutton?" cried Amber in a flush of hope.

"Is that you, Mr. Amber? Thank Gawd! Wyte a minute."