The Keeper of the Door Part 111

He seemed to be looking at her, obviously he must have seen her sitting there, and yet to Olga his eyes looked blind. They stared straight up at the sky while he spoke, and there was a dreadful paleness about them, a lifeless hue that contrasted very strangely with the deep copper of his bearded face.

"Do not be alarmed, most gracious!" he begged in a thin reedy voice. "I come with a message from the captain _sahib_. He has been detained in the city; but all is well with him. He bids me to say that he desires the _mem_ to eat alone this morning, but to have no fear. He will be with her again ere the sun has reached its height."

Olga leaned upon the bal.u.s.trade of the verandah and looked down at her strange visitor. She was not sorry that she was thus raised above him, for he was very dirty. The voluminous _chuddah_ in which he was swathed looked as if it had wrapped him in those selfsame folds for many years.

"But what is the _sahib_ doing?" she asked. "Why doesn't he come?"

The old man wagged a deferential beard. "Excellency, how should a poor old seller of moonstones know?"

"Oh!" Olga suddenly became interested in the messenger. "You are the moonstone-seller, are you?" she said. "Have you ever been here before?"

He bent himself before her in a low salaam. "I am my lord's most humble servant," he told her meekly. "A very poor man, most gracious,--a very poor man. I come here at my lord's bidding--when he needs me."

Olga's brow puckered. "How queer!" she said. "I wonder I have never seen you before. Perhaps you only come at night."

"Only at night, most gracious," he said.

He made as if he would hobble away, but she called to him to wait, while she ran to her room to fetch a few _annas_ for him. It took her but a second or two to find what she wanted, but when she emerged again upon the verandah her visitor had disappeared.

She stood and searched the compound with astonished eyes, but no sign of him was visible. He must have removed himself with considerable rapidity for so old a man, and remembering his extreme poverty, Olga was puzzled.

She had never known a native run away from _backsheesh_ before.

She sat down to her solitary breakfast, no longer actively anxious concerning Nick, but still by no means easy. She was firmly convinced that he was running risks in the city, and she longed to have him back.

The morning dragged away. She would not leave the bungalow lest he should return in her absence. She busied herself with the making of a fancy-dress which she and her _ayah_ had concocted for the coming ball at the mess-house. It was to be quite an important affair, and every European within reach was to attend--according to Noel's decree. He had persuaded his colonel to have a purely European function for once, pleading that it would be so much more like Home; and Colonel Bradlaw, albeit with hesitation, had yielded the point. So to that one night's entertainment no native guests had been invited.

Noel was looking forward to the event with an enthusiasm that simply swept Olga along with it. She could not help being interested and in a measure excited. It was an absolute impossibility to be lukewarm about anything over which Noel was enthusiastic. He kindled enthusiasm wherever he went. Native fancy-dresses were tabooed by the regulations.

Noel was supremely contemptuous of all things native. He meant to go as d.i.c.k Turpin himself, and she had promised to support him in a dress of the same period. It had taken considerable thought and skill to manufacture, but it was now well on the road to completion, and she sat and st.i.tched at it throughout the morning, trying to stifle her uneasiness in the attention which it demanded.

It was not an easy matter. She found herself starting at every sound, and pausing to listen with nerves on edge. Still she persisted, determined not to give way to them; and she was in fact gradually schooling herself to a calmer frame of mind, when suddenly a thing happened that bereft her in a moment of all the composure she had striven so hard to attain. A man's hand shot--swiftly and stealthily--from behind her and covered her eyes in a flash, while a man's voice, soft and exultant, said mockingly above her head, "Guess!"

Olga uttered a cry that would have been a shriek had not the hand very swiftly shifted its position from her eyes to her mouth. She looked up into a face she knew--a face whose eyes of evil triumph made her heart stand still, and all her strength went suddenly from her. She turned as white as death and sank back into the chair from which she had half-risen. The total unexpectedness of the thing deprived her of all powers of resistance. She sat as one stunned.

He took his hand from her lips and brutally kissed them, laughing as she shrank away from him in sick horror. The gleaming mockery of his eyes was a thing she dared not meet.

"You will never guess what I have come for," he said, hanging over her, his hand gripping both of hers, his face still horribly near.

Her lips moved voicelessly in answer. She could not utter a word.

"You're awfully pleased to see me, aren't you?" he said. "That's nice of you. I wonder when you mean to pay that debt of yours--that old, sweet debt."

He spoke softly, smilingly, his eyes devouring her the while. She closed her own to avoid them. Her heart did not seem to be beating at all. She felt as if she were going to die of sheer horror there in his arms.

Softly again his voice came to her. "Come, you mustn't faint. That wouldn't be at all good for you. Open your eyes! Don't be afraid! Open them!"

They opened quiveringly, almost against her will. He was holding her closely, as if he antic.i.p.ated some sudden resistance. But his eyes were on her still, burningly, possessively, menacingly. She met them shrinking, and felt as if thereby she gave herself to him body and soul.

He began to laugh again--that soft, silky laugh. "You're such a silly child," he said; "you always expect the worst. It's not wise of you.

Aren't you old enough to know that yet?"

She found her voice at last, and with it came the consciousness of the slow, slow beating of her heart. "Let me go!" she said, in a breathless whisper.

"Presently; on one condition," he said.

"No, now!" The beating had begun to quicken a little, to harden into a distinct throbbing. But she felt deadly cold. Her hands, powerless in that unrelenting grasp, were as ice.

"Now don't be foolish!" said Hunt-Goring. "You're absolutely at my mercy, and it's very poor policy on your part not to recognize that fact. Just listen! You want me to let you go, you say. Well, I will let you go--for one small consideration on your part. You've never paid that debt of yours. You will pay it now--in full, freely, both arms round my neck. Come, I've a right to ask that much. It's just a whim that you can't refuse to gratify."

"I can refuse!" The words leaped from Olga. Her strength was returning, her heart quickening with every instant. "At least you can't make me do that!" she said.

"You would rather do it than marry me, I presume?" he said.

"I will never do either!" She stirred at last in his hold. She did not shrink from his eyes any longer; rather she challenged them as she stiffened herself to rise.

Hunt-Goring laughed in her face. "Oh, won't you?" he said. "I fancy you said that once before--and lived to regret it. It really is not wise of you to defy me. I warn you! I warn you!" His hold tightened upon her with sudden brutality, quelling her effort at freedom. "There are worse things than marriage," he said. "Are you utterly ignorant, I wonder, or deliberately foolhardy? Why do you always force upon me the _role_ of villain? I tell you again, you are not wise!"

"I don't know what you mean," Olga said. She sat quite still in his hold now, for she knew that resistance was useless. Like Noel, she suddenly wondered if he were indeed sane. His eyes were unlike any she had ever seen in a human being. They glared upon her so devilishly, so murderously. She faced them with all her courage. "I don't know what you mean," she repeated. "I think you must be mad to persecute me in this way. I have always said that I would never marry you."

"But you will change your mind," he said.

She kept her eyes on his. "I shall never change my mind," she said very distinctly.

He laughed again, his lower lip between his teeth. "Even if I were mad,"

he said, "wouldn't you be wiser to humour me? Have you forgotten what happened when you flouted me before?"

"No, I have not forgotten." A quiver of anger went through Olga, and she suffered it, for it helped her courage. "I shall never forgive you for that," she said--"never, as long as I live!"

Hunt-Goring continued to laugh, and his laugh was an insult. "I shall get over that," he told her. "I don't want your forgiveness--especially as you had yourself alone to thank for that episode. But come now! About marrying me. You'd better give in at once; you'll have to in the end.

And there are plenty of advantages to outweigh your present disinclination. For instance, my life is not considered a good one. As my widow, you would be quite a wealthy woman. Doesn't that appeal to you? And I'll give you plenty of rope even while I'm alive. I shan't interfere with your pleasures. Come, I shouldn't make such a bad husband. I'm quite respectable nowadays. I should want a little attention of course, but you wouldn't find me exacting. You'll get quite fond of me in time."

Olga barely repressed a shudder. "Never!" she said. "No, never!"

"Never?" said Hunt-Goring. He stooped a little lower over her, his arm about her shoulders despite her sick disgust. "Why never? You've sent that doctor chap about his business, haven't you?"

"He has gone, yes." She answered him briefly to hide the intolerable pain at her heart the words called up.

"But you're still hankering after him; is that it?" sneered Hunt-Goring.

"Well, then, listen to me! I hold that man's future in my hands. I can ruin him utterly or--I can forbear. I'm not over-fond of him, as you know. I should rather like to see him ruined, though it would give me some little trouble to do it. What say you? I am the gladiator in the arena. I shall slay or spare--at your word alone."

Again his eyes overwhelmed her, so that she could not meet them. A great shiver went through her. She began to pant a little. "I--don't understand," she said. "You know nothing--but gossip. You--you can prove nothing."

"Can I not?" said Hunt-Goring. "You haven't a very high opinion of my intelligence, have you? Colonel Campion--I believe you know him--is scarcely the man to sit still when such gossip as that reaches his ears.

As for the proofs, I know how to find them. The worthy Mrs. Briggs was on the spot, you may remember. Her evidence would be valuable. And there are other well-known means which I needn't go into now. But I a.s.sure you the circ.u.mstances themselves, properly handled, are sufficiently suspicious. You would not care to see your friend Max on his trial for murder, I presume?"

She shivered again, shivered from head to foot. She did not utter a word.

"No, I thought not," said Hunt-Goring, after a moment. "It would be especially painful for you, as your evidence also would be required. You see the position quite clearly, don't you? Come, hadn't you better give in now--and save further trouble?"

She was silent still. Only her breath came fast--as the breath of one who nears exhaustion.