The Bronze Bell Part 46

"Labertouche--?"

"He told me nothing. I haven't seen him since that morning, when, just after you were wounded, we started for Nok. He posted off to Kuttarpur to find my father.... No; it was you who told me--everything--in your delirium."

"And ... you forgive--?"

"Forgive!"

He smiled faintly. "That photograph?"

"I had it ready to return to you that morning, David."

"Knowing what it meant to me?"

"Knowing what it meant to _me_--what it meant to both of us, David."

"So you weren't offended, that night?"

"I loved you even then, David. I think I must have loved you from that first day at Nokomis. Do you remember...?"

His eyes widened, perplexed, staring into her grave, dear eyes. "Then why did you pretend--?"

With the low, caressing laugh of a happy child, the girl knelt by the side of his berth, and laid her cheek against his own. "Oh, David, my David! When do you expect to understand the heart of a woman, dear heart of mine?"

CHAPTER XXI

THE FINAL INCARNATION

About five o'clock of an evening in April the Cunarder _Caronia_, four hours out from Queenstown and buckling down to a night's hard work against the northwesterly gale, s.h.i.+pped a sea. It was not much of a sea--merely a playful slap of a wave that broke against the staunch black side and glanced upward in a shower of spray, spattering liberally a solitary pa.s.senger who had been showing enough interest in the weather to remain on deck until that particular moment. Apparently undisconcerted by the misadventure, he shook himself and laughed a sober, contented laugh, found a handkerchief and mopped his face with it, then, with a final approving survey of the lowering and belligerent canopy of wind-cloud that overhung the tortured ocean, permitted himself to be blown aft to the door of the first-cabin smoking-room.

Opening this by main strength, he entered. The gale saved him the bother of closing it.

Removing his rain-coat and cap and depositing them on a convenient chair, he glanced round the room and discovered that he shared it with a single pa.s.senger, who was placidly exhausting the virtues of an excellent cigarette. Upon this gentleman the newcomer bent a regard steadfast and questioning, but after returning it casually the smoker paid him no further attention. Dissatisfied, the other moved toward him, and the deck slanted suddenly and obligingly the better to accelerate his progress, so that he brought up with a lurch in the seat next the smoker. The latter raised the eyebrows of surprise and hoped that the gentleman had not hurt himself.

"I didn't, thank you, Mr. David Amber."

Mr. David Amber looked the gentleman over with heightened interest. He saw a man of medium height, with a st.u.r.dy figure that bore without apparent fatigue the years that go with slightly greyish hair. He was quietly dressed and had intelligent eyes, but was altogether unimpressive of manner, save for a certain vague air of reserve that a.s.sorted quaintly with his present att.i.tude.

"You've the advantage of me, sir," Amber summed up the result of his scrutiny.

"It's not the first time," a.s.serted the other, with an argumentative shake of his head. "No-o?" Light leaped in Amber's eyes. "Labertouche!"

"Surprised you, eh?" The Englishman grinned with pleasure, pumping Amber's arm cordially. "I don't mind owning that I meant to."

"Well, considering that this is positively your first appearance as yourself on the stage of my life, you don't deserve any credit for being able to deceive me. When one gets accustomed to remembering you only as a native--generally as a babu in dirty pink satin--...Do you know, I made all sorts of enquiries after you, but they told me, in response to my wires to Calcutta, that you'd dropped out of the world entirely. I had begun to fear that those d.a.m.ned natives must have got you, after all, and that I'd never see you again."

"I'd almost given up hope of ever seeing myself again," said Labertouche drily.

"But why didn't you--?"

"Business, dear boy, business.... I was needed for several days in the neighbourhood of Kathiapur."

"It seems as though I'd waited several years for news of Kathiapur. The papers--"

"There are a good many things that happen in India that fail to get into the newspapers, Amber. It wasn't thought necessary to advise the world, including Russia, that half the native potentates in Hindustan had been caught in the act of letting the Second Mutiny loose upon India." A network of fine wrinkles appeared about his eyes as he smiled enjoyment of what he seemed to consider a memorable joke.

"Go on," pleaded Amber.

"Kathiapur was a sort of mousetrap; the brutes came out by twos and three, just as I said they would, for the better part of three days. It was either surrender or starve with them, and after five-sixths of them had elected not to starve we turned a couple of companies of Tommies into the place, and I don't believe they left unturned a stone big enough to hide a rabbit. One by one they routed 'em out and booted 'em down to us. Meanwhile we had rushed enough troops to Kuttarpur to keep their tails quiet."

"And Salig Singh--and Naraini?"

"Salig Singh, it turned out, was the chap that got bayoneted in the tamarisks. Naraini managed somehow to steal away the next night, under the noses of any number of sentries; beauty such as hers would bribe her way out of h.e.l.l, I think. What became of her I don't know, but I can prophesy that she won't live long. She was rather too advanced in her views, for India--some centuries ahead of her race. She and Salig Singh had it all planned, you know; his was the master-mind, hers the motive-power. They were to crown you, instead of Salig's son, the next day--in the name of Har Dyal Rutton; and then you were to die suddenly by virtue of hemp poison or some other contagious disease, and Salig was to step into your shoes as Emperor of Hindustan, with Naraini as his Empress.... She should have stayed home and been a suffragette."

"Better for her," said Amber. "Of course I've found out about her, from Farrell. It seems that she was brought up in England, with Sophia, and always given to believe she was his own daughter, but she was a wild thing and hard to handle. One day she found out about her parentage--how, it's not known, but Farrell suspects that the men who were hounding Rutton got into communication with her. At all events, she brooded over the thing, and when, five years or so ago, Mrs.

Farrell died and the Colonel sent for Sophia to join him in India, Naraini--well, she rebelled. He refused to let her leave England, and she finally took the bit in her teeth and ran away--vanished and was never heard of again until Sophia recognised her in Kathiapur."

"I myself can fill in the gap," Labertouche volunteered. "She joined some of Salig's underlings in Paris and went thence direct to Khandawar, a.s.suming the name of one of the old queens who had elected opportunely to die.... Queer case--singular instance of reversion to type."

"A mighty distressing one to the old colonel; you know Rutton kept religiously to his promise not to see the child after he'd given her into Farrell's care. Farrell lost all track of him and was unable to communicate with him, of course, when Naraini chose to strike out for herself.... One thing has always puzzled me; the girl called me by her father's name, pretending to recognise me as her husband; you can't reconcile such conduct."

"You can, easily enough--beg pardon, my dear fellow. Neither she nor Salig Singh was for an instant deceived. But Salig _had_ to deliver up _a_ Har Dyal Rutton to the Council, so Naraini was set to seduce you.

Their plans only required that you should be madly infatuated with her for a couple of days; after that ..." Labertouche turned down his thumb significantly. "I fancy there must have been a family secret or tradition, handed down from father to son in the Rutton line, that some day one of the family would be called upon to raise the standard of the Second Mutiny. That will explain why Har Dyal Rutton, a gentleman of parts and cultivation, dared not live in India, and why--because he was sworn to keep the secret--he laid stress on the condition that you were not to mention his name."

"Still, he gave me permission to talk to Dhola Baksh."

"True; but it seems that Dhola Baksh had been his confidential body-servant in Kuttarpur, during his too-brief reign. Rutton thought he would be able to help you, and knew that he would be loyal to his master's memory."

"Finally, what about that photograph?"

"You've Salig Singh to thank for its return, I fancy. I had nothing to do with it. But they were bent on luring you to Naraini's bower, and they figured that after receiving it you'd go anywhere to meet the man who returned it. By the way, where's Ram Nath?"

"He's staying in England as body-servant to Colonel Farrell."

"He's well off, so; his sphere of usefulness in India was at an end.

So, in fact, was mine. That's why I'm here--on indefinite leave of absence. One or two things grew out of the affair of the Gateway to make me a person of interest to the natives, and when that happens in India it's just as well for the interesting person to pack up and get thence with all possible expedition. It's too bad; I was really doing some good work there. Well...! When the East gets into a fellow's blood, he's a hopeless, incurable case; I shall go back, I presume, some day. If the big trouble comes in my lifetime--and I think it will; come it will unquestionably, soon or late--I shan't be able to keep away, you know." He glanced at his watch and rose. "Time to dress for dinner," said he; and as they were moving to the door, he added: "What ever became of that emerald ring, Amber?"

"The Eye?" Amber laughed. "Well--it was silly enough; but women are superst.i.tious, you know--Sophia dropped it overboard one day as we were coming through the Mediterranean. She said she was afraid of it ... and I don't know but I sympathise with her."

"I'm certain I do. And yet, in your case, it was the means of introducing you, wasn't it?... But there! It's been on the tip of my tongue a dozen times to ask, but other things got in the way.... How _is_ Mrs. Amber?"

"You shall see for yourself," said Amber, "when we meet for dinner."