The Adventures of Kathlyn - Harold MacGrath (black books to read TXT) 📗

big thing did you do?" demanded Kathlyn, her eyes still filled with scrutiny.

"What makes you think it was big?" jestingly.

"Because," she answered seriously, "you never do anything but big things. As the lion is among beasts, you are among men."

"Good lord!" The colonel reached embarrassedly for his pipe, lighted it, puffed a few minutes, then laid it down. "India is full of strange tongues and strange kingdoms and principalities. Most of them are dominated by the British Raj, some are only protected, while others do about as they please. This state"—touching the order—"does about as it did since the days of the first white rover who touched the shores of Hind. It is small, but that signifies nothing; for you can brew a mighty poison in a small pot. Well, I happened to save the old king's life."

"I knew it would be something like that," said Kathlyn. "Go on. Tell it all."

The colonel had recourse to his pipe again. He smoked on till the coal was dead. The girls waited patiently. They knew that his silence meant that he was only marshaling the events in their chronological order.

"The king was a kindly old chap, simple, yet shrewd, and with that slumbrous oriental way of accomplishing his ends, despite all obstacles. Underneath this apparent simplicity I discovered a grim sardonic humor. Trust the Oriental for always having that packed away under his bewildering diplomacy. He was all alone in the world. He was one of those rare eastern potentates who wasn't hampered by parasitical relatives. By George, the old boy could have given his kingdom, lock, stock and barrel, to the British government, and no one could say him nay. There was a good deal of rumor the last time I was there that when he died England would step in actually. The old boy gave me leave to come and go as I pleased, to hunt where and how I would. I had a mighty fine collection. There are tigers and leopards and bears and fat old pythons, forty feet long. Of course, it isn't the tiger country that Central India is, but the brutes you find are bigger. I have about sixty beasts there now, and that's mainly why I'm going back. Want to clean it up and ship 'em to Hamburg, where I've a large standing order. I'm going first to Ceylon, for some elephants."

The colonel knocked the ash from his pipe. "The old boy used to do some trapping himself, and whenever he'd catch a fine specimen he'd turn it over to me. He had a hunting lodge not far from my quarters. One day Ahmed came to me with a message saying that the king commanded my presence at the lodge, where his slaves had trapped a fine leopard. Yes, my dears, slaves. There is even a slave mart at the capital this day. A barbaric fairy-land, with its good genii and its bad djinns."

"The Arabian Nights," murmured Winnie, snuggling close to Kathlyn.

"The Oriental loves pomp," went on the colonel. "He can't give you a chupatty——"

"What's that?" asked Winnie.

"Something like hardtack. Well, he can't give you that without ceremonial. When I arrived at the lodge with Ahmed the old boy—he had the complexion of a prima donna—the old boy sat on his portable throne, glittering with orders. Standing beside him was a chap we called Umballa. He had been a street rat. A bit of impudence had caught the king's fancy, and he brought up the boy, clothed, fed him, and sent him away down to Umballa to school. When the boy returned he talked Umballa morning, noon and night, till the soldiers began to call him that, and from them it passed on to the natives, all of whom disliked the upstart. Hanged if I can recall his real name. He was ugly and handsome at the same time; suave, patient, courteous; yet somehow or other I sensed the real man below—the Tartar blood. I took a dislike to him, first off. It's the animal sense. You've got it, Kit. Behind the king sat the Council of Three—three wise old ducks I wouldn't trust with an old umbrella."

Winnie laughed.

"While we were salaaming and genuflecting and using grandiloquent phrases the bally leopard got loose, somehow. Maybe some one let him loose; I don't know. Anyhow, he made for the king, who was too thunderstruck to dodge. The rest of 'em took to their heels, you may lay odds on that. Now, I had an honest liking for the king. Seeing the brute make for him, I dashed forward. You see, at ceremonials you're not permitted to carry arms. It had to be with my hands. The leopard knocked the old boy flat and began to maul him. I kicked the brute in the face, swept the king's turban off his head and flung it about the head of the leopard. Somehow or other I got him down. Some of the frightened natives came up, and with the help of Ahmed we got the brute tied up securely. When the king came around he silently shook hands with me and smiled peculiarly at Umballa, who now came running up."

"And that's how you got those poor hands!" exclaimed Kathlyn, kissing the scars which stood out white against the tan.

"That's how," raising the hands and putting them on Kathlyn's head in a kind of benediction.

"Is that all?" asked Winnie breathlessly.

"Isn't that enough?" he retorted. "Well, what is it, Martha? Dinner? Well, if I haven't cheated you girls out of your tea!"

"Tea!" sniffed Winnie disdainfully. "Do you know, dad, you're awfully mean to Kit and me. If you'd take the trouble you could be more interesting than any book I ever read."

"He doesn't believe his stories would interest vain young ladies," said Kathlyn gravely.

Her father eyed her sharply. Of what was she thinking? In those calm unwavering eyes of hers he saw a question, and he feared in his soul she might voice it. He could evade the questions of the volatile Winnie, but there was no getting by Kathlyn with evasions. Frowning, he replaced the order in the box, which he put away in a drawer. It was all arrant nonsense, anyhow; nothing could possibly happen; if there did, he would feel certain that he no longer dwelt in a real workaday world. The idle whim of a sardonic old man; nothing more than that.

"Father, is the king dead?"

"Dead! What makes you ask that, Kit?"

"The past tense; you said he was, not is."

"Yes, he's dead, and the news came this morning. Hence, the yarn."

"Will there be any danger in returning?"

"My girl, whenever I pack my luggage there is danger. A cartridge may stick; a man may stumble; a man you rely on may fail you. As for that, there's always danger. It's the penalty of being alive."

On the way to the dining-room Kathlyn thought deeply. Why had her father asked them if they loved him? Why did he speak of the Big Trek? There was something more than this glittering medal, something more than this simple tale of bravery. What? Well, if he declined to take her into his confidence he must have good reason.

After dinner that night the colonel went the rounds, as was his habit nightly. By and by he returned to the bungalow, but did not enter. He filled his cutty and walked to and fro in the moonlight, with his head bent and his hands clasped behind his back. There was a restlessness in his stride not unlike that of the captive beasts in the cages near by. Occasionally he paused at the clink clink of the elephant irons or at the "whuff" as the uneasy pachyderm poured dust on his head.

Bah! It was madness. A parchment in Hindustani, given jestingly or ironically by a humorous old chap in orders and white linen and rhinoceros sandals.… A throne! Pshaw! It was bally nonsense. As if a white man could rule over a brown one by the choice of the latter! And yet, that man Umballa's face, when he had shown the king the portraits of his two lovely daughters! He would send Ahmed. Ahmed knew the business as well as he did. He would send his abdication to the council, giving them the right to choose his successor. He himself would remain home with the girls. Then he gazed up at the moon and smiled grimly.

"Hukum hai!" he murmured in Hindustani. "It is the orders. I've simply got to go. When I recall those rubies and emeralds and pearls.… Well, it's not cupidity for myself. It's for the girls. Besides; there's the call, the adventure. I've simply got to go. I can't escape it. I must be always on the go … since she died."

A few days later he stood again before the desk in the living-room. He was dressed for travel. He sat down and penned a note. From the box which contained the order he extracted a large envelope heavily sealed. This he balanced in his hand for a moment, frowned, laughed, and swore softly. He would abdicate, but at a snug profit. Why not?… He was an old fool. Into a still larger envelope he put the sealed envelope and his own note, then wrote upon it. He was blotting it as his daughters entered.

"Come here, my pretty cubs." He held out the envelope. "I want you, Kit, to open this on December thirty-first, at midnight. Girls like mysteries, and if you opened it any time but midnight it wouldn't be mysterious. Indeed, I shall probably have you both on the arms of my chair when you open it."

"Is it about the medal?" demanded Winnie.

"By George, Kit, the child is beginning to reason out things," he jested.

Winnie laughed, and so did Kathlyn, but she did so because occultly she felt that her father expected her to laugh. She was positively uncanny sometimes in her perspicacity.

"On December thirty-first, at midnight," she repeated. "All right, father. You must write to us at least once every fortnight."

"I'll cable from Singapore, from Ceylon, and write a long letter from Allaha. Come on. We must be off. Ahmed is waiting."

Some hours later the two girls saw the Pacific Mail steamer move with cold and insolent majesty out toward the Golden Gate. Kathlyn proved rather uncommunicative on the way home. December thirty-first kept running through her mind. It held a portent of evil. She knew something of the Orient, though she had never visited India. Had her father made an implacable enemy? Was he going into some unknown, unseen danger? December thirty-first, at midnight. Could she hold her curiosity in check that long?

Many of the days that followed dragged, many flew—the first for Kathlyn, the last for Winnie, who now had a beau, a young newspaper man from San Francisco. He came out regularly every Saturday and returned at night. Winnie became, if anything, more flighty than ever. Her father never had young men about. The men he generally gathered round his board were old hunters or sailors. Kathlyn watched this budding romance amusedly. The young man was very nice. But her thoughts were always and eternally with her father.

During the last week in December there arrived at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco an East Indian, tall, well formed, rather handsome. Except for his brown turban he would have passed unnoticed. For Hindus and Japanese and Chinamen and what-nots from the southern seas were every-day affairs. The brown turban, however, and an enormous emerald on one of his fingers, produced an effect quite gratifying to him. Vanity in the Oriental is never conspicuous for its absence. The reporters gave him scant attention, though, for this was at a time when the Gaikwar of Baroda was unknown.

The stranger, after two or three days of idling, casually asked the way to the wild animal farm of his old friend, Colonel Hare. It was easy enough to find. At the village inn he was treated with tolerant contempt. These brown fellows