King--of the Khyber Rifles: A Romance of Adventure by Talbot Mundy (fiction novels to read TXT) 📖

“Read that, will you?” he said, passing it to Rewa Gunga. It was not in cypher, but in plain everyday English.

“She has not gone North,” it ran. “She is still in Delhi. Suit your own movements to your plans.”

“Can you explain?” asked King in a level voice. He was watching the Rangar narrowly, yet he could not detect the slightest symptom of emotion.

“Explain?” said the Rangar. “Who can explain foolishness? It means that another fat general has made another fat mistake!”

“What makes you so certain she went North?” King asked.

Instead of answering, Rewa Gunga beckoned Ismail, who had stepped back out of hearing. The giant came and loomed over them like the Spirit of the Lamp of the Arabian Nights.

“Whither went she?” asked the Rangar.

“To the North!” he boomed.

“How knowest thou?”

“I saw her go!”

“When went she?”

“Yesterday, when a telegram came.”

The word “came” was the only clue to his meaning, for in the language he used “yesterday” and “to-morrow” are the same word; such is the East's estimate of time.

“By what route did she go?” asked Rewa Gunga.

“By the terrain from the station.”

“How knowest thou that?”

“I was there, bearing her box of jewels.”

“Didst thou see her buy the tikkut?”

“Nay, I bought it, for she ordered me.”

“For what destination was the tikkut?”

“Peshawur!” said Ismail, filling his mouth with the word as if he loved it.

“Yet”--it was King who spoke now, pointing an accusing finger at him--“a burra sahib sends a tar to me--this is it!--to say she is in Delhi still! Who told thee to answer those questions with those words?”

“She!” the big man answered.

“Yasmini?”

“Aye! May Allah cover her with blessings!”

“Ah!” said King. “You have my leave to depart out of earshot.”

Then he turned on Rewa Gunga.

“Whatever the truth of all this,” he said quietly, “I suppose it means she has done what there was to do in Delhi?”

“Sahib,--trust her! Does a tigress hunt where no watercourses are, and where no game goes to drink? She follows the sambur!”

“You are positive she has started for the North?”

“Sahib, when she speaks it is best to believe! She told me she will go. Therefore I am ready to lead King sahib up the Khyber to her!”

“Are you certain you can find her?”

“Aye, sahib,--in the dark!”

“There's a train leaves for the North to-night,” said King.

The Rangar nodded.

“You'll want a pass up the line. How many servants? Three--four--how many?”

“One,” said the Rangar, and King was instantly suspicious of the modesty of that allowance; however he wrote out a pass for Rewa Gunga and one servant and gave it to him.

“Be there on time and see about your own reservation,” he said. “I'll attend to Ismail's pass myself.”

He folded the list of names that the Rangar had marked and wrote something on the back. Then he begged an envelope, and Rewa Gunga had one brought to him. He sealed the list in the envelope, addressed it and beckoned Ismail again.

“Take this to Saunders sahib!” he ordered. “Go first to the telegraph office, where you were before, and the babu there will tell you where Saunders sahib may be found. Having found him, deliver the letter to him. Then come and find me at the Star of India Hotel and help me to bathe and change my clothes.”

“To hear is to obey!” boomed Ismail, bowing; but his last glance was for Rewa Gunga, and he did not turn to go until he had met the Rangar's eyes.

When Ismail had gone striding down the room, with no glance to spare for the whispering women in the window, and with dignity like an aura exuding from him, King looked into the Rangar's eyes with that engaging frankness of his that disarms so many people.

“Then you'll be on the train to-night?” he asked.

“To hear is to obey! With pleasure, sahib!”

“Then good-by until this evening.”

King bowed very civilly and walked out, rather unsteadily because his head ached. Probably nobody else, except the Rangar, could have guessed what an ordeal he had passed through or how near he had been to losing self-command.

But as he felt his way down the stairs, that were dimly lighted now, he knew he had all his senses with him, for he “spotted” and admired the lurking places that had been designed for undoing of the unwary, or even the overwary. Yasmini's Delhi nest was like a hundred traps in one.

“Almost like a pool table,” he reflected. “Pocket 'em at both ends and the middle!”

In the street he found a gharry after a while and drove to his hotel. And before Ismail came he took a stroll through a bazaar, where he made a few strange purchases. In the hotel lobby he invested in a leather bag with a good lock, in which to put them. Later on Ismail came and proved himself an efficient body-servant.

That evening Ismail carried the leather bag and found his place on the train, and that was not so difficult, because the trains running North were nearly empty, although the platforms were all crowded. As he stood at the carriage door with Ismail near him, a man named Saunders slipped through the crowd and sought him out.

“Arrested 'em all!” he grinned.

“Good.”

“Seen anything of her? I recognized Yasmini's scent on your envelope. It's peculiar to her--one of her monopolies!”

“No. I'm told she went North yesterday.”

“Not by train, she didn't! It's my business to know that!”

King did not answer; nor did he look surprised. He was watching Rewa Gunga, followed by a servant, hurrying to a reserved compartment at the front end of the train. The Rangar waved to him and he waved back.

“I'd know her in a million!”