"Look!"--from Kathlyn; "there is one of those wonderful trees they call the flame of the jungle." She called their attention to the tree merely to cause a diversion. She wanted to keep her father"s thoughts away from Allaha.
So they journeyed on into the sunset, into twilight, into the bright starry night.
Back in the city the panic was already being forgot as a thing of the past. The leopards were back at their patrolling; the high officials and dignitaries, together with the unsuccessful candidates, had gone their several ways. Umballa alone paced the halls, well satisfied with the events of the day, barring the disturbance caused by the escape of the leopards.
His captain entered and saluted.
"Highness, a mahout has news."
"News? Of what?"
"He claims that he saw the king"s turban in a howdah which pa.s.sed the ancient gate about an hour gone."
"That is not possible," replied Umballa.
"I told him that the king was in his chamber."
"So he is. Wait! I will go myself and see," all at once vaguely perturbed. He was back in a very short time, furious.
"It is true! Woe to those who permitted him to escape!"
"Highness, the escape of the leopards and the confusion which followed . . ."
"By all the G.o.ds of Hind, and "twas you who left the door open! You opened it for me to pa.s.s out first. Summon the council. Off with you, and give this handful of silver to the only man who has sense enough to believe his eyes. Hare Sahib is mine, and I will follow him into the very house of the British Raj! Guards and elephants! And the bride to be, what of her? Look and see. Nay, I will go with you."
Umballa found an empty chamber; the future queen was gone. More, he found one of the women of the zenana--his favorite--bound and gagged with handkerchiefs. Quickly he freed her.
"Highness, the bride"s face was dark like my own, but her arms were as light as clotted cream! And she spake the tongue of the white people."
Kathlyn Hare! She lived; she had escaped the brigands; she had fooled him! And Ramabai had played with him as a cat plays with a wounded mouse. Oh, they should see this time!
Suddenly he laughed. It echoed down the corridor, and one of the treasury leopards roared back at the sinister sound.
"Highness!" timidly.
"Enough! I hold you blameless." He rushed from the palace.
Poor fools! Let them believe that they had escaped. There was still the little sister; in a short time now she would be inside the city walls. The Colonel Sahib would return; indeed, yes. There would be no further difficulty regarding the filigree basket of gold and gems.
Still, he would pursue them, if only for the mere sport of it. If he failed to catch them all he had to do was to sit down and wait for them to return of their own volition.
Ramabai, however, was a menace; and Umballa wondered how he was going to lay hold of him. While waiting for his elephants to be harnessed he summoned the council. Ramabai"s property must be confiscated and Ramabai put to death. Here for the first time the council flatly refused to fall in with Umballa"s plans. And they gave very good reasons. Yes, Ramabai was a menace, but till the soldiery was fully paid, to touch Ramabai would mean the bursting forth of the hidden fire and they would all be consumed.
"Open the treasury door for me, then!"
"We dare not. The keepers understand. They would loose the leopards, which we dare not shoot. The law . . ."
"What is the law to us?" demanded Umballa frankly. "Let us make laws to suit our needs. The white man does. And we need money; we need one another," pointing a finger suggestively toward the floor.
"Only when we have the troops," replied the council firmly. "We have bent our heads to your will so far in everything, but we refuse to sacrifice these heads because of a personal spite against Ramabai, whom we frankly and wisely fear. We dare not break into the treasury. The keepers are unbribable; the priests are with them, and the people are with the priests. Bring back the white man and his daughter. If that is impossible, marry this second daughter and we will crown her; and then you may work your will upon Ramabai. You have failed in all directions so far. Succeed but once and we are ready to follow you."
Umballa choked back the hot imperious words that crowded to his lips.
These were plain unvarnished facts, and he must bow to the inevitable, however distasteful it might be. For the present then, Ramabai should be permitted to go unharmed. But Ramabai might die suddenly and accidentally in the recapture of the Colonel Sahib. An accidental death would certainly extinguish any volcanic fires that smoldered under Allaha. So, with this secret determination in mind, Umballa set forth.
Ahmed, his mind busy with a thousand things, forgot the thousand and first, at that stage most important of all; and this was the short cut, a mere pathway through the jungle, but which lessened the journey by some thirty miles. And this pathway Umballa chose. The three hours"
headway was thus pared down to minutes, and at the proper time Umballa would appear, not behind the pursued, but in the road in front of them.
There was, to be sure, a bare possibility of the colonel and his party getting beyond the meeting of the path and the road, that is, if he kept going forward all through the night, which, by the way, was exactly what the astute Ahmed did. But Kathlyn"s curiosity the next morning neutralized the advantage gained.
A group of masked dancers, peripatetic, was the cause. Confident that they had outstripped pursuit, she saw no reason why she should not witness the dancing.
How Umballa came upon them suddenly, like a thunderbolt, confiscating the elephants; how they fled to a near-by temple, bribed the dancers for masks and garments, fled still farther into the wooded hills, and hid there with small arms ready, needs but little telling. Umballa returned to the city satisfied. He had at least deprived them of their means of travel. Sooner or later they would founder in the jungle, hear of the arrival of the younger daughter and return.
Ahmed was grave. Lal Singh had gone. Now that the expedition had practically failed, his place was back in the shoe shop in the bazaars.
Yes, Ahmed was grave. He was also a trifle disheartened. The fakir had said that there would be many disappointments, but that in the end . . . He might be a liar like all the other Hindus. Yet one part of his foretelling was correct: many disappointments.
"Kit," said her father, "Ahmed warned you not to stop."
"I am sorry."
It was on the tip of her tongue to retort that his own carelessness was the basic cause of the pursuit; but she remembered in time what her father had been through.
"There is a village not far," reminded Ahmed. "They are a friendly people. It is quite possible, with the money we have, to buy some horses, small but st.u.r.dy. But there is one thing I do not understand, Sahib."
"And what is that?" asked the colonel.
"The readiness with which Umballa gave up the pursuit. It"s a long walk; let us be getting forward."
Late that afternoon they were all mounted once more, on strong tractable ponies, with water and provisions. And the spirits of all rose accordingly. Even Ahmed became cheerful.
"We"ll make it, please G.o.d!" said the colonel. "Give me a telegraph office. That"s all I need just now."
"Two days, Sahib," said Ahmed, "we will reach the sea."
They rode all through the night, stopping only at dawn for breakfast and a cat nap after. Then forward again till they came upon a hunter"s rest house, deserted. Here they agreed to spend the night. Beyond the rest house were half a dozen scattered mud huts, occupied by natives who pretended friendliness, lulling even the keen Ahmed into a sense of security. But at dawn, when they awoke cheerfully to pick up the trail, they found their horses and provisions gone.
The colonel, Bruce and Ahmed, still armed, never having permitted the rifles out of their keeping, set out grimly in pursuit of the thieves, while Kathlyn proceeded to forage on her own initiative.
She came presently upon a magnificent ravine, half a mile in depth.
There was a broad ledge some fifteen feet below. It was evidently used as a goat path, for near at hand stood a shepherd"s hut. Stirred by the spirit of investigation, she made preparations for descent by attaching the rope she had brought along to a stout boulder.
Panthers!
They were coming up the pathway behind her. It would be simple enough to descend; but how to get back to the rest house? There was no time to plan; she must act at once. She must drop down to the ledge and trust to her star.
She called out loudly as she swung downward. The shepherd came running out of his hut, dumfounded at what he saw.