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

food left by the treasure seekers. Money and revenge; these would have kept him to the chase had he been dying.

As for Bala Khan, he was at once glad and sorry to see his friends. Nothing would have pleased him more than to fall upon Allaha like the thunderbolt he was. But he made Ramabai promise that if ever he had need of him to send. And Ramabai promised, hoping that he could adjust and regulate his affairs without foreign assistance. They went on, this time with Ahmed.

Toward the end of the journey they would be compelled to cross a chasm on a rope and vine bridge. Umballa, knowing this, circled and reached this bridge before they did. He set about weakening the support, so that the weight of passengers could cause the structure to break and fall into the torrent below. He could not otherwise reach the spot where the treasure lay waiting.

The elephants would be forced to ford the rapids below the bridge.

Kathlyn, who had by this time regained much of her old confidence and buoyancy, declared that she must be first to cross the bridge. She gained the middle, when she felt a sickening sag. She turned and shouted to the others to go back. She made a desperate effort to reach the far end, but the bridge gave way, and she was hurled into the swirling rapids. She was stunned for a moment; but the instinct to live was strong. As she swung to and fro, whirled here, flung there, she managed to catch hold of a rock which projected above the flying foam.

A mahout, seeing her danger, urged his elephant toward her and reached her just as she was about to let go.


CHAPTER XXIV

THE INVINCIBLE WILL

"Those ropes were cut," declared Ahmed.

"But who in the world could have cut them?" demanded the colonel.

Ahmed shrugged. "We may have been followed by thieves. They could have got here before us, as we were forced to use the elephant trails. Let us keep our eyes about us, Sahib. When one speaks of gold, the wind carries the word far. And then . . ." He paused, scowling.

"And then what?"

"I do not want the Mem-sahib to hear," Ahmed whispered. "But who shall say that this is not the work of the gurus, who never forget, who never forgive, Sahib."

"But they would not follow!"

"Nay, but their servant would, on the fear of death. I will watch at night hereafter."

Ahmed searched thoroughly about the ledge from which the east side of the bridge had swung, but the barren rocks told him nothing. Armed with his rifle, he plunged boldly back along the elephant trail, but returned without success. Whoever was following them was an adept, as secret as a Thuggee. All this worried Ahmed not a little. He readily understood that the murderous attempt had not been directed against Kathlyn alone, but against all of them. But for her eagerness and subsequent warning some of them would have been dead at this moment.

"Sahib, it would be better to make camp on the other side of the ford. The Mem-sahib is weak from the shock and might collapse if we proceeded."

"I leave everything to you, Ahmed. But is there not some place farther below where the water does not run so fast?"

"Ramabai will know."

But Ramabai knew only the bridge. They would have to investigate and explore the bank. Half an hour's journey-rather a difficult one-brought them to still and shallow water. Here they crossed and made camp beyond in a natural clearing. They erected the small tent for Kathlyn, inside of which she changed her clothes, drank her tea and lay down to sleep.

"What does Ahmed think?" asked Bruce anxiously.

"That we are being followed by some assassins hired by our friends, the priests."

"Colonel, let us make straight for the seaport and let this damnable bushel of trinkets stay where it is," urged Bruce, the lover.

"That is not possible now," replied Ramabai. "We can now reach there only by the seacoast itself, or return to the desert and journey over the old trail. We must go on."

The colonel smoked his pipe moodily. He was pulled between necessity and desire. He had come to Asia for this filigree basket, and he wanted it, with a passion which was almost miserly. At one moment he silently vowed to cast the whole thing into the sea, and at the next his fingers would twitch and he would sigh.

Sometimes it seemed to him that there was some invisible force working in him, drawing and drawing him against the dictates of his heart. He had experienced this feeling back in California, and had fought against it for weeks, without avail. And frequently now, when alone and undisturbed, he could see the old guru, shaking with the venom of his wrath, the blood dripping from his lacerated fingers, which he shook in the colonel's face flecking it with blood. A curse. It was so. He must obey that invincible will; he must go on and on.

His pipe slipped from his fingers and his head fell upon his knees; and thus Kathlyn found him.

"Let him sleep, Mem-sahib," warned Ahmed from across the fire. "He has been fighting the old guru."

"What?" Kathlyn whispered back. "Where?"

Ahmed smiled grimly and pointed toward his forehead.

"Is there really such evil, Ahmed?"

"Evil begets evil, heaven born, just as good begets good. The Colonel Sahib did wrong. And who shall deny some of these gurus a supernatural power? I have seen; I know."

"But once you said that we should eventually escape, all of us."

"And I still say it, Mem-sahib. What is written is written," phlegmatically.

Wearily she turned toward her tent, but paused to touch the head of her sleeping father as she passed. Her occidental mind would not and could not accept as possibilities these mysterious attributes of the oriental mind. That a will could reach out and prearrange a man's misfortunes was to her mind incredible, for there were no precedents. She never had witnessed a genuine case of hypnotism; those examples she had seen were miserable buffooneries, travesties, hoodwinking not even the newsboys in the upper gallery. True, she had sometimes read of such things, but from the same angle with which she had read the Arabian Nights-fairy stories.

Yet, here was her father, thoroughly convinced of the efficacy of the guru's curse; and here was Ahmed, complacently watching the effects, and not doubting in the least that his guru would in the end prove the stronger of the two.

One of the elephants clanked his chains restlessly. He may have heard the prowling of a cat. Far beyond the fire, beyond the sentinel, she thought she saw a naked form flash out and back of a tree. She stared intently at the tree for a time; but as she saw nothing more, she was convinced that her eyes had deceived her. Besides her body seemed dead and her mind too heavy for thought.

Umballa, having satisfied himself that the camp would not break till morning, slunk away into the shadows. He had failed again; but his hate had made him strong. He was naked except for a loin clout. His beard and hair were matted, the latter hanging over his eyes. His body was smeared with ashes. Not even Ahmed would have recognized him a yard off. He had something less than nine hours to reach the cape before they did; and it was necessary that he should have accomplices. The fishermen he knew to be of predatory habits, and the promise of gold would enmesh them.

The half island which constituted the cape had the shape of a miniature volcano. There was verdure at the base of its slope and trees lifted their heads here and there hardily. It was a mile long and half a mile wide; and in the early morning it stood out like a huge sapphire against the rosy sea. Between the land and the promontory there lay a stretch of glistening sand; there was half a mile of it. Over this a flock of gulls were busy, as scavengers always are. At high tide, yonder was an island in truth.

Sometimes a British gunboat would drop down here suddenly; but it always wasted its time. The fishermen knew nothing; nothing in the way of guns and powder ever was found; and yet the British Raj knew that somewhere about lay the things for which it so diligently and vigorously sought.

On the beach fishermen were disembarking. A sloop with a lateen sail lay at anchor in the rude harbor. Some of the fishermen were repairing nets, and some were tinkering about their fishing boats. Beyond the beach nestled a few huts. Toward these other fishermen were making progress.

The chief of the village-the head man-disembarked from this sloop. He was met by his wife and child, and the little one clambered about his legs in ecstasy. Among the huts stood one more imposing than the others, and toward this the chief and his family wended their way. In front of the hut stood an empty bullock cart. Attached to one of the wheels was a frisking kid. The little child paused to play with her pet.

Absorbed in her pastime, she did not observe the approach of a gaunt being with matted hair and beard and ash-besmirched body. Children are gifted with an instinct which leaves us as we grow older; the sensing of evil without seeing or understanding it. The child suddenly gazed up, to meet a pair of eyes black and fierce as a kite's. She rose screaming and fled toward the house.

The holy man shrugged and waited.

When the parents rushed out to learn what had frightened their little one they were solemnly confronted by Umballa.

"I am hungry."

The chief salaamed and ordered his wife to bring the holy man rice and milk.

"Thou art an honest man?" said Umballa.

"It is said," replied the chief gravely.

"Thou art poor?"

"That is with the gods I serve."

"But thou art not without ambition?"

"Who is?" The chief's wonder grew. What meant these peculiar sentences?

"Wouldst put thy hand into gold as far as the wrist and take what thou couldst hold?"

"Yee, holy one; for I am human. Whither leads these questions? What is it you would of me?"

"There are some who need to be far away to see things. Well, good man, there is a treasure under your feet," falling into the vernacular.

The chief could not resist looking down at the ground, startled.

"Nay," smiled Umballa, "not there. Think; did not something unusual happen here five years ago?"

The chief smoothed the tip of his nose. "My father died and I became head man of the village."

"Would you call that unusual?" ironically.

"No. Ha!" suddenly. "Five years ago; yes, yes, I remember now. Soldiers, who made us lock ourselves in