The Adventures of Kathlyn by Harold MacGrath (free ebook reader for pc .TXT) 📖

damned to the nethermost hell! Let him, Durga Ram, but bury his lean hands in that treasure, and Daraka swallow Allaha and all its kings! Rubies and pearls and emeralds, and a far country to idle in, to be feted in, to be fawned upon for his riches!

And Ramabai and his wife, Pundita, let them beware; let them remain wisely in their house and meddle not with affairs of state.

"A thousand rupees!"

Umballa looked up with a start. Unconsciously he had wandered into the slave mart. He shrugged and would have passed on but for the strange, unusual figure standing on the platform. A golden haired woman with neck and arms like Chinese bronze and dressed in a skirt of grass! He paused.

"Two thousand rupees!"

"What!" jeered the professional seller. "For an houri from paradise? O ye of weak hearts, what is this I hear? Two thousand rupees?-for an houri fit to dwell in the zenana of heaven!"

A keen-eyed Mohammedan edged closer to the platform. He stared and sucked in his breath. He found himself pulled two ways. He had no money, but he had knowledge.

"Who sells this maiden?" he asked.

"Mohammed Ghori."

"Which is he?"

"He squats there."

The Mohammedan stopped and touched the old mahout on the shoulder.

"Call off this sale, and my master will make you rich."

The old sinner gingerly felt of the speaker's cotton garb. "Ah! 'My master' must be rich to dress thee in cotton. Where is your gold? Bid," satirically.

"Two thousand rupees!" shouted the professional seller.

"I have no gold, but my master will give 10,000 rupees for yonder maid. Quick! Old fool, be quick!"

"Begone, thou beggar!"

And the old man spat.

"Mem-sahib," the Mohammedan called out in English, "do not look toward me, or all will be lost. I am Ali, Bruce Sahib's chief mahout; and we have believed you dead! Take care! I go to inform Ahmed. Bruce Sahib has not returned."

Kathlyn, when she heard that voice, shut her eyes.

Umballa had drawn closer. There was something about this half veiled slave that stirred his recollection. Where had he seen that graceful poise? The clearness of the skin, though dark; the roundness of the throat and arms. . . .

"Three thousand rupees!"

The old mahout purred and smoothed his palms together. Three thousand rupees, a rajah's ransom! He would own his elephant; his wife should ride in a gilded palanquin, and his children should wear shoes. Three thousand rupees! He folded his arms and walked gently to and fro.

"Five thousand rupees!" said Umballa, impelled by he knew not what to make this bid.

A ripple of surprise ran over the crowd. The regent, the powerful Durga Ram, was bidding in person for his zenana.

Kathlyn's nerves tingled with life again, and the sudden bounding of her heart stifled her. Umballa! She was surely lost. Sooner or later he would recognize her.

The mahout stood up, delighted. He was indeed fortunate. He salaamed.

"Huzoor, she is gentle," he said.

The high-caste who had bid 3,000 rupees salaamed also.

"Highness, she is yours," he said. "I can not bid against my regent."

It was the custom to mark a purchased slave with the caste of her purchaser. Umballa, still not recognizing her, waved her aside toward the Brahmin caste markers, one of whom daubed her forehead with a yellow triangle. Her blue eyes pierced the curious brown ones.

"The sahib at the river," she whispered in broken Hindustani. "Many rupees. Bring him to the house of Durga Ram." This in case Ali failed.

The Brahmin's eyes twinkled. Her Hindustani was execrable, but "sahib" and "river" were plain to his understanding. There was but one sahib by the river, and he was the white hunter who had rescued the vanished queen from the ordeals. He nodded almost imperceptibly. Inwardly he smiled. He was not above giving the haughty upstart a Thuggee's twist. He spoke to his neighbor quietly, assigned to him his bowls and brushes, rose, and made off.

"Follow me," said Umballa to the happy mahout. Presently he would have his bags of silver, bright and twinkling.

Fate overtook Ali, who in his mad race to Hare's camp fell and badly sprained his ankle. Moaning, less from the pain than from the attendant helplessness, he was carried into the hut of a kindly ryot and there ministered to.

The Brahmin, however, filled with greed and a sly humor, reached his destination in safety. Naturally cunning, double tongued, sly, ingratiating, after the manner of all Brahmins, who will sink to any base level in order to attain their equivocal ends his actions were unhampered by any sense of treachery toward Umballa. A Thuggee's twist to the schemes of the street rat Umballa, who wore the Brahmin string, to which he had no right! The Brahmin chuckled as he paused at the edge of Bruce's camp. A fat purse lay yonder. He approached, his outward demeanor a mixture of pride and humility.

Bruce had returned but half an hour before, mind weary, bone tired. He sat with his head in his hands, his elbows propped upon his knees. His young heart was heavy. He had searched the bewildering jungle as one might search a plot of grass before one's door, blade by blade. A hundred times he had found traces of her; a hundred times he had called out her name, only to be mocked and gibbered at by apes. She had vanished like a perfume, like a cloud shadow in the wind.

His soul was bitter; for he had built many dreams, and always this fair haired girl had ridden upon them. So straight she stood, so calm in the eyes, mannered with that gentleness, known of the brave. . . . Gone, and skilled as he was in jungle lore, he could not find her.

"Sahib, a Brahmin desires audience."

"Ask him what he wants."

"It is for the sahib's ear alone."

"Ah! Bring him to me quickly."

The Brahmin approached, salaamed.

"What do you wish?" Bruce asked curtly.

"A thousand rupees, Huzoor!" blandly.

"And what have you that is worth that many rupees?" irritably.

The Brahmin salaamed again. "Huzoor, a slave this day was purchased by Durga Ram, Umballa, so-called. She has skin the color of old tusks, and eyes like turquoise, and lips like the flame of the jungle, and hair like the sands of Ganges, mother of rivers."

Bruce was upon his feet, alive, eager. He caught the Brahmin by the arm.

"Is this woman white?" harshly.

"Huzoor, the women of Allaha are always dark of hair."

"And was sold as a slave?"

"To Durga Ram, the king without a crown, Huzoor. It is worth a thousand rupees," smiling.

"Tell me," said Bruce, stilling the tremor in his voice, "tell me, did she follow him without a struggle?"

"Yes. But would a struggle have done any good?"

Bruce took out his wallet and counted out a thousand rupees in Bank of India notes. "Now, listen. Umballa must not know that I know. On your head, remember."

"Huzzor, the word of a Brahmin."

"Ah, yes; but I have lived long here. Where is Ali?" cried Bruce, turning to one of his men.

"He went into the city this morning, Sahib, and has not returned."

"Come," said Bruce to the waiting Brahmin, "We'll return together." He now felt no excitement at all; it was as if he had been immersed in ice water. It was Kathlyn, not the least doubt of it, bought and sold in the slave mart. Misery, degradation . . . then he smiled. He knew Kathlyn Hare. If he did not come to her aid quickly she would be dead.

Now, when Umballa took her into his house, Kathlyn was determined to reveal her identity. She had passed through the ordeals; she was, in law, a queen, with life and death in her hands.

"Do not touch me!" she cried slowly in English.

Umballa stepped back.

"I am Kathlyn Hare, and if all the world is not made up of lies and wickedness, I am the queen you yourself made. I can speak a few words, enough to make myself known to the populace. I will make a bargain with you. I will give you five times five thousand rupees if you will deliver me safely in Peshawer. On my part, I promise to say nothing, nothing."

Umballa raised both his hands in astonishment. He knew now why that form had stirred his recollection.

"You!" He laughed and clapped his hands to summon his servants. Kathlyn, realizing that it was useless to attempt to move this man, turned and started to run, but he intercepted her. "My queen, my bride that was to be, the golden houri! Five times five thousand rupees would not purchase a hair of your head."

"I am your queen!" But she said it without heart.

"What! Do you believe that? Having passed the ordeals you nullified the effect by running away. You will be whatever I choose! Oh, it will be legally done. You shall go with me to the council, and the four of us shall decide. Ah, you would not be my wife!"

"You shall die, Durga Ram," she replied, "and it will be the death of a pariah dog."

"Ah! Still that spirit which I loved. Why, did I not buy you without knowing who you were? Are you not mine? At this very moment I could place you in my zenana and who would ever know? And soon you would not want any one to know."

"Are you without mercy?"

"Mercy? I know not the word. But I have an ambition which surpasses all other things. My wife you shall be, or worse. But legally, always legally!" He laughed again and swiftly caught her in his arms. She struggled like a tigress, but without avail. He covered her face and neck with kisses, then thrust her aside. "Poor little fool! If you had whined and whimpered I should have let you go long since. But there burns within you a spirit I must conquer, and conquer I will!"

Kathlyn stood panting against a pillar. Had she held a weapon in her hand she would have killed him without compunction, as one crushes a poisonous viper.

"Legally! Why, all the crimes in Hind are done under that word. It is the shibboleth of the British Raj. Legally! Come!"

"I will not stir!"

"Then be carried," he replied, beckoning his servants.

"No, no!"

"Ah! Well, then, we'll ride together in the palanquin."

To struggle would reward her with nothing but shame and humiliation; so she bent her head to the inevitable. A passionate longing to be revenged upon this man began to consume her. She wanted the feel of his brown throat in