The Adventures of Kathlyn Part 28

"Bala Khan," cried the colonel, "you are a prince indeed! It will tonic me like medicine. Thanks, thanks!"

"It is well."

"You have a wonderful elephant out there in the compound," said Bruce, who had remained a silent listener to all that had gone before.

"Ah! That is a curiosity. He is wors.h.i.+ped by Hindus and reverenced by my own people. I am his official custodian. There is a saying among the people that ill will befall me should I lose, sell, or permit him to be stolen."

"And many have offered to buy?" inquired the colonel.

"Many."

When the colonel appeared at supper, simple but substantial, he was a new man. He stood up straight, though his back still smarted from the lash. Kathlyn was delighted at the change.

After the meal was over and coffee was drunk, the Khan conducted his guests to his armory, of which he was very proud. Guns of all descriptions lined the walls. Some of them Bruce would have liked to own, to decorate the walls of his own armory, thousands of miles away.

The colonel whispered a forgotten prayer as, later, he laid down his weary aching limbs upon the rope bed. Almost immediately he sank into slumber as deep and silent as the sea.

Kathlyn and Bruce, however, went up to the hanging gardens and remained there till nine, marveling over the beauty of the night. The Pathan city lay under their gaze with a likeness to one of those magic cities one reads about in the chronicles of Sindbad the Sailor. But they spoke no word of love. When alone with this remarkable young woman, Bruce found himself invariably tongue-tied.

At the same hour, less than fifty miles away, Umballa stood before the opening of his elaborate tent, erected at sundown by the river's brink, and scowled at the moon. He saw no beauty in the translucent sky, in the silvery paleness of the world below. He wanted revenge, and the word hissed in his brain as a viper hisses in the dark of its cave.

Dung fires twinkled and soldiers lounged about them, smoking and gossiping. They had been given an earnest against their long delinquent wages; and they were in a happy frame of mind. Their dead comrades were dead and mourning was for widows; but for them would be the pleasures of swift reprisals. The fugitives had gone toward the desert, and in that bleak stretch of treeless land it would not be difficult to find them, once they started in pursuit.

Midnight.

In the compound the moonlight lay upon everything; upon the fat sides and back of the sacred white elephant, upon the three low caste keepers, now free of the vigilant eye of their Brahmin chief. The gates were barred and closed; all inside the house of Bala Khan were asleep. Far away a sentry dozed on his rifle, on the wall. The three keepers whispered and chuckled among themselves.

"Who will know?" said one.

"The moon will not speak," said another.

"Then, let us go and smoke."

The three approached the elephant. A bit of gymnastics and one of them was boosted to the back of the elephant to whom this episode was more or less familiar. Another followed; the third was pulled up, and from the elephant's back they made the top of the wall and disappeared down into the street. Here they paused cautiously, for two guards always patrolled the front of the compound during the night. Presently the three truants stole away toward the bazaars which in this desert town occupied but a single street. Down they went into a cellar way and the guru's curse stalked beside them. For opium is the handmaiden of all curses.

Perhaps twenty minutes later slight sounds came from the front of the compound wall. A rifle barrel clattered upon the cobbles. Then, over the wall, near the elephant, a head appeared, then a body. This was repeated four times, and four light-footed nomads of the desert lowered themselves into the compound. They ran quickly to the gate and noiselessly unbarred it. Outside were five more desert nomads, gathered about the insensible bodies of the sentries.

These nine men were the dancers who had entered the town in advance of Kathlyn. For weeks they had lain in wait for this moment. They had spied upon the three low caste keepers and upon learning of their nocturnal junkets into the opium den had cast the die this night.

With the utmost caution they approached the sacred elephant, took off his chains and led him from the compound. Immediately six of the marauders trotted far ahead toward the gate they knew to be the least guarded. The sacred elephant, pa.s.sing through the streets, attended by three men, aroused no suspicions in any straggler who saw. So remote was the walled city, so seemingly impregnable, and so little interfered with that it was only human that its guardians should eventually grow careless.

When the keepers, straggling under the fumes of the drug, returned near daybreak, first to find the gate open, second to find their sacred charge gone, they fled in terror; for it would be death, lingering and painful, for them to stay and explain how and why they had left their post.

The wild and lawless brigands knew exactly what they were about. There were several agents of European and American circuses after this white elephant, and as it could not be purchased there was no reason why it could not be stolen.

When the Brahmin arrived at sunrise to find his vocation gone he set up a wailing which awakened the household. The Khan was furious and ordered a general search. He vowed death to the foul hands which had done this sacrilege!

Kathlyn and the others were genuinely sorry when they heard the news.

They were in the armory when the Khan announced what had taken place.

Said he: "Come, you are all skilled hunters. Find me my elephant and these guns and newer and surer ones shall protect you from Durga Ram, should he take it into his head to come this way."

The colonel, Bruce and Ramabai set off at once. After they had gone a camel rider entered the compound and sought audience with Bala Khan.

Kathlyn and Pundita were in the compound at the time and the former was greatly interested in the saddlebags, attached to one of which was a binocular case. Kathlyn could not resist the inclination to open this case. It contained an exceptionally fine pair of gla.s.ses, such as were used in that day in the British army. No doubt they were a part of some loot.

Suddenly an idea came to her. She asked permission (through Pundita) to ride the camel outside the town. After some argument the servant in charge consented.

Upon a knoll outside the city--a hillock of sand three or four hundred feet in height--Kathlyn tried the gla.s.ses. From this promontory she had a range of something like fifteen to twenty miles. Back and forth her gaze roved and suddenly paused.

CHAPTER XII

THE PLAN OF RAMABAI

When Kathlyn returned to the compound it was with the news that she had discovered a group of men, some twelve or fifteen miles to the west.

They had paused at what appeared to be a well, and with them was the sacred white elephant. Bala Khan was for giving orders at once to set out with his racing camels to catch and crucify every mother's son of them on the city walls. But Ramabai interposed.

"As I came toward the compound I was given a message. The man who gave it to me was gone before I could get a good look at his face. These men who stole the sacred white elephant are brave and desperate. At the first sign of pursuit they promise to kill the elephant."

"And by the beard of the prophet," cried Bala Khan, his face purpling with pa.s.sion, "these men of the desert keep their promises. And so do I. I promise later to nail each one of them to the walls to die hanging to nails!"

"But just now," said Ramabai quietly, "the main thing is to rescue the elephant, and I have a plan."

"Let me hear it."

"From what you told me last night," went on Ramabai, "those nomads or brigands are opium fiends."

Bala Khan nodded.

"Bruce Sahib, here, and I will undertake to carry them doctored opium.

I know something about the drug. I believe that we saw the thieves last evening as we came through the streets. My plan is this: we will take five racing camels, go north and turn, making the well from the west. That will not look like pursuit."

"But five camels?" Bala Khan was curious.

"Yes. In order to allay the suspicions of the brigands, Kathlyn Mem-sahib and my wife must accompany us."

The colonel objected, but Kathlyn overruled his objections.

"But, Kit, they will recognize us. They will not have forgot me. They will know that we have come from the town, despite the fact that to all appearances we come from the West."

Bruce also shook his head. "It doesn't look good, Ramabai. Why not we three men?"

"They would be suspicious at once. They would reason, if they saw Kathlyn Mem-sahib and my wife with us that we were harmless. Will you trust me?"

"Anywhere," said the colonel. "But they will simply make us prisoners along with the elephant."