The Adventures of Kathlyn Part 49

In the vault outside a bell tinkled, a gong boomed melodiously.

"When I give the sign," continued the schemer, "declare the curse upon all those who do not bend. A word from your lips, and Ramabai's troops vanish, reform and become yours and mine!"

"While the king lives?" asked the chief priest curiously.

"Ah!" And Umballa smiled again.

"But you, Durga Ram?"

"There is Ramabai, a senile king, and I. Which for your purposes will you choose?"

There was a conference. The priests drifted away from Umballa. He did not stir. His mien was proud and haughty, but for all that his knees shook and his heart thundered. He understood that it was to be all or nothing, no middle course, no half methods. He waited, wetting his cracked and swollen lips. When the priests returned to him, their heads bent before him a little. It represented a salaam, as much as they had ever given to the king himself. A glow ran over Umballa.

"Highness, we agree. There will be terms."

"I will agree to them without question."

Life and power again; real power! These doddering fools should serve him, thinking the while that they served themselves.

"Half the treasury must be paid to the temple."

"Agreed!" Half for the temple and half for himself; and the abolishment of the seven leopards. "With this stipulation: Ramabai is yours, but the white people are to be mine."

The priests signified a.s.sent.

And Umballa smiled in secret. Ramabai would be dead on the morrow.

"There remains the king," said the chief priest.

Umballa shrugged.

The chief priest stared soberly at the lamp above his head. The king would be, then, Umballa's affair.

"He is ill?"

"He is moribund . . . Silence!" warned Umballa.

The curtains became violently agitated. They heard the voice of the young priest outside raised in protest, to be answered by the shrill tones of a woman.

"You are mad!"

"And thou art a stupid fool!"

Umballa's hand fell away from his dagger.

"It is a woman," he said. "Admit her."

The curtains were thrust aside, and the painted dancing girl, who had saved Umballa from death or capture in the fire of his own contriving, rushed in. Her black hair was studded with turquoise, a necklace of amber gleamed like gold around her neck, and on her arms and ankles a plent.i.tude of silver bracelets and anklets. With her back to the curtains, the young priest staring curiously over her shoulder, she presented a picturesque tableau.

"Well!" said Umballa, who understood that she was here from no idle whim.

"Highness, you must hide with me this night."

"Indeed?"

"Or die," coolly.

Umballa sprang forward and seized her roughly.

"What has happened?"

"I was in the zenana, Highness, visiting my sister, whom you had transferred from the palace. All at once we heard shouting and trampling of feet, and a moment later your house was overrun with men.

They had found the king in the hut and had taken him to the palace.

That they did not find you is because you came here."

"Tell me all."

"It seems that the majordomo gave the poison to Ramabai, but the white G.o.ddess . . ."

"The white G.o.ddess!" cried Umballa, as if stung by a cobra's fang.

"Ay, Highness. She did not die on that roof. Nothing can harm her.

It is written."

"And I was never told!"

She lived, lived, and all the terrors he had evoked for her were as naught! Umballa was not above superst.i.tion himself for all his European training. Surely this girl of the white people was imbued with something more than mortal. She lived!

"Go on!" he said, his voice subdued as was his soul.

"The white G.o.ddess by mistake took Ramabai's goblet and was about to drink when the majordomo seized the goblet and drained the poison himself. He confessed everything, where the king was, where you were.

They are again hunting through the city for you. For the present you must hide with me."

"The white woman must die," said Umballa in a voice like one being strangled.

To this the priests agreed without hesitation. This white woman whom the people were calling a G.o.ddess was a deadly menace to that scepter of theirs, superst.i.tion.

"What has gone is a pact?"

"A pact, Durga Ram," said the chief priest. With Ramabai spreading Christianity, the abhorred creed which gave people liberty of person and thought, the future of his own religion stood in imminent danger.

"A pact," he reflected. "To you, Durga Ram, the throne; to us half the treasury and all the ancient rites of our creed restored."

"I have said it."

Umballa followed the dancing girl into the square before the temple.

He turned and smiled ironically. The bald fools!

"Lead on, thou flower of the jasmine!" lightly.