"I know how you feel," he said with sympathy. "It"s been a good many years since I visited India, and of course I then saw and heard little of the darker side. Your people are brave enough, out there."
"They are. I don"t know about Government; but its servants are loyal and devoted and unselfish and cheerful. And I don"t at all understand,"
she added in confusion, "why I should have decided to inflict upon you my emotional hatred of the country. Your question gave me the opening, and I forgot myself."
"I a.s.sure you I was thoroughly shocked, Miss Farrell."
"You should have been--surprised, at least. Why should I pour out my woes to you--a man I"ve known not fifteen minutes?"
"Why not, if you felt like it? After all, you know, we"re both of us merely making talk to--ah--to cover our interest in one another."
She paused momentarily to laugh at his candour. "You are outspoken, Mr.
Amber! It"s very pretty of you to a.s.sert an interest in me; but why should you a.s.sume that I--"
"You said so, didn"t you?"
"Wel-l ... yes, so I did."
"You can change your mind, of course."
"I shan"t, honestly, until you turn stupid. And you can"t do that until you stop having strange adventures. Will you tell me something?"
"If I can."
"About the man who wouldn"t acknowledge knowing you? You remember saying three people had been mistaken about your ident.i.ty this afternoon."
"No, only one--the babu. You"re not mistaken--"
"I knew you must be David Amber the moment I heard you speaking Urdu."
"And the man at the station wasn"t mistaken--unless I am. He knew me perfectly, I believe, but for reasons of his own refused to recognise me."
"Yes--?"
"He was an English servant named Doggott, who is--or once was--a valet in the service of an old friend, a man named Rutton."
She repeated the name: "Rutton? It seems to me I"ve heard of him."
"You have?"
"I don"t remember," she confessed, knitting her level brows. "The name has a familiar ring, somehow. But about the valet?"
"Well, I was very intimate with his employer for a long time, though we haven"t met for several years. Rutton was a strange creature, a man of extraordinary genius, who lived a friendless, solitary life--at least, so far as I knew; I once lived with him in a little place he had in Paris, for three months, and in all that time he never received a letter or a caller. He was reticent about himself, and I never asked any questions, of course, but in spite of the fact that he spoke English like an Englishman and was a public school man, apparently, I always believed he had a strain of Hungarian blood in him--or else Italian or Spanish. I know that sounds pretty broad, but he was enigmatic--a riddle I never managed to make much of. Aside from that he was wonderful: a linguist, speaking a dozen European languages and more Eastern tongues and dialects, I believe, than any other living man. We met by accident in Berlin and were drawn together by our common interest in Orientalism. Later, hearing I was in Paris, he hunted me up and insisted that I stay with him there while finishing my big book--the one whose t.i.tle you know. His a.s.sistance to me then was invaluable. After that I lost track of him."
"And the valet?"
"Oh, I"d forgotten Doggott. He was a c.o.c.kney, as silent and self-contained as Rutton.... To get back to Nokomis: I met Doggott at the station, called him by name, and he refused to admit knowing me--said I must have mistaken him for his twin brother. I could tell by his eyes that he lied, and it made me wonder. It"s quite impossible that Rutton should be in this neck of the woods; he was a man who preferred to live a hermit in centres of civilisation.... Curious!"
"I don"t wonder you think so. Perhaps the man had been up to some mischief.... But," said the girl with a note of regret, "we"re almost home!"
They had come to the seaward verge of the woodland, where the trees and scrub rose like a wild hedgerow on one side of a broad, well-metalled highway. Before them stretched the eighth of a mile of neglected land knee-deep with crisp, dry, brown stalks of weedy growths, beyond which the bay smiled, a still lake of colour mirroring the intense lapis-lazuli of the calm eastern skies of evening. Over across its waters the sand dunes of a long island glowed like a bar of new red gold, tinted by the transient scarlet and yellow glory of the smouldering Autumnal sunset. Through the woods the level, brilliant, warmthless rays ran like wild-fire, turning each dead, brilliant leaf to a wisp of incandescent flame, and tingeing the air with an evanescent ruby radiance against which the slim young boles stood black and stark.
To the right, on the other side of the road, a rustic fence enclosed the trim, well-groomed plantations of Tanglewood Lodge; through the dead limbs a window of the house winked in the sunset glow like an eye of garnet. And as the two appeared a man came running up the road, shouting.
"That"s Quain!" cried Amber; and sent a long cry of greeting toward him.
"Wait!" said the girl impulsively, putting out a detaining hand. "Let"s keep our secret," she begged, her eyes dancing--"just for the fun of it!"
"Our secret!"
"About the babu and the Token; it"s a bit of mystery and romance to me--and we don"t often find that in our lives, do we? Let us keep it personal for a while--between ourselves; and you will promise to let me know if anything unusual ever comes of it, after I"ve gone. We can say that I was riding carelessly, which is quite true, and that the horse shied and threw me, which again is true; but the rest for ourselves only.... Please.... What do you say?"
He was infected by her spirit of irresponsible mischief. "Why, yes--I say yes," he replied; and then, more gravely: "I think it"ll be very pleasant to share a secret with you, Miss Farrell. I shant say a word to any one, until I have to."
As events turned he had no need to mention the incident until the morning of the seventh day following the girl"s departure. In the interim nothing happened, and he was able to enjoy some excellent shooting with Quain, his thoughts undisturbed by any further appearance of the babu.
But on that seventh morning it became evident that a burglary had been visited upon the home of his hosts. A window had been forced in the rear of the house and a trail of burnt matches and candle-grease between that entrance and the door of Amber"s room, together with the somewhat curious circ.u.mstance that nothing whatever was missing from the personal effects of the Quains, forced him to make an explanation.
For his own belongings had been rifled and the bronze box alone abstracted--still preserving its secret.
In its place Amber found a soiled slip of note-paper inscribed with the round, unformed handwriting of the babu: "Pardon, sahib. A mistake has been made. I seek but to regain that which is not yours to possess.
There will be naught else taken. A thousand excuses from your hmbl.
obt. svt., Behari Lal Chatterji."
CHAPTER III
MAROONED
A cry in the windy dusk; a sudden, hollow booming overhead; a vision of countless wings in panic, sketched in black upon a background of dulled silver; two heavy detonations and, with the least of intervals, a third; three vivid flashes of crimson and gold stabbing the purple twilight; and then the acrid reek of smokeless drifting into Amber"s face, while from the sky, where the V-shaped flock had been, two stricken bundles of blood-stained feathers fell slowly, fluttering....
Honking madly, the unscathed brethren of the slain wheeled abruptly and, lashed by the easterly gale, fled out over the open sea, triangular formation dwindling rapidly in the clouded distances.
Shot-gun poised abreast, his keen eyes marking down the fall of his prey, Amber stood without moving, exultation battling with a vague remorse in his bosom--as always when he killed. Quain, who had dropped back a pace after firing but one shot and scoring an unqualified miss at close range, now stood plucking clumsily, with half frozen fingers, at an obstinate breech-lock. This latter resisting his every wile, his temper presently slipped its leash; as violently as briefly he swore: "d.a.m.n!"
"Gladly," agreed Amber, without turning. "But what?"
"This gun!"
"Your gun?"
"Of course." There were elaborations which would not lend themselves to decorative effect upon a printed page.
"Then d.a.m.n it yourself, Quain; I"m sure you can do it ever so much more thoroughly than I. But what"s the matter?"