CHAPTER XXI.
A SCENE IN INDIA.
Neva Wynde had retired to her bed, as will be remembered, upon the marriage night of Lady Wynde and Craven Black, her thoughts all of her father and of his tragic fate in India. All day long she had thought of him with tender yearning, pity and regret, recalling to mind his goodness, nobleness, and grandeur of soul; and when night came, and she lay in her bed with the noise of revellers in the drawing-rooms and on the lawn coming faintly to her ears, she had sobbed aloud at the thought that her father had been so soon forgotten, and that his friends and tenantry were now making merry over the marriage of his widow to a man unworthy to cross the threshold of Hawkhurst.
And thus sobbing and thinking, she had slept, and in her sleep had dreamed that her father still lived, and that she saw him standing at the door of a hut among the far-off Indian hills, and that she heard his voice calling “Octavia! Neva!” And thus dreaming, she had awakened with a cry of terror, to ask of herself if it was only a dream.
It was not strange that she had thus dreamed, since all the day and all the evening her mind had been fixed upon her father. It would have been strange if she had not dreamed of him. Her dream had had the clearness of a vision, but Neva was not romantic, and although she slept no more that night, but walked her floor with noiseless steps and wildly questioning eyes, yet she convinced herself long before the morning that she had been the victim of her excited imagination, and that her dream was “only a dream.”
But was it so? There is a philosophy in dreams which not the wisest of us can fathom. And although the cause of Neva’s dream can be simply and naturally explained as the result of her agitated thoughts of her father, yet might one not also think, with less of this world’s wisdom, perhaps, and more of tenderness, that the girl’s guardian angel had placed that picture before her in her sleep, and so made recompense, in the joy of her dream, for her day of anguish and unrest?
Be this as it may, our story has to deal with actual facts, and has now to take a startling turn, perhaps not anticipated by the reader.
It was about one o’clock of the morning when Neva awakened from her dream.
It was then about seven o’clock—there being six hours difference in time—in India.
Among the cool shadows of the glorious Himalayas are many country seats, or “bungalows,” occupied at certain seasons by exhausted English merchants from Calcutta, with their families, by army officers, and by others of foreign birth, enervated or rendered sickly by the scorching heats of the sea-coast or more level regions. They find “among the hills” the fresh air, and consequent health, for which otherwise they would have to undertake, at all inconvenience and expense, a voyage home to England or Holland.
These bungalows, for the most part, are cheaply built of bamboo, with thatched roofs, and are encircled with broad and shaded verandas, always roofed, and sometimes latticed at the sides and grown with vines, to form a cool and leafy arcade, which serves all the purposes of promenade, sitting-room, music-room, dining-room, and even sleeping room, for there are usually bamboo couches scattered about, upon which the indolent resident takes his siesta at midday.
To one of these bungalows, a fair type of the rest, we will now direct the attention of the reader.
It stood upon an elevated plateau, with the tall mountains crested with snow in the distance. It was surrounded at the distance of a few miles by a range of hills, and between it and them lay miles of forest, which was an impenetrable jungle. Around the bungalow was a clearing of limited extent, and which was dotted with plumed palms, bamboo, and banyan trees.
The dwelling, frail like all of its class, was sufficiently well built for the climate. It was constructed of bamboo, was a single story in height, and was thatched with the broad leaves of the palm. A veranda, twelve feet wide, surrounded it. Its interior consisted of a broad hall, extending from front to rear, with two rooms opening from each side of it. The central hall, containing no staircase, was a long and wide apartment, which served as dining-room, sitting-room, and parlor, when required.
A little in the rear of this dwelling were two others, one of which served as the kitchen of the establishment, and the other as the quarters of the half-dozen native servants belonging to the place.
The bungalow which we have thus briefly described belonged to a Major Archer, H. M. A., and it was under its roof that George Wynde had breathed his last. It was from its broad veranda that Sir Harold Wynde had rode away for a last morning ride in India, upon that fatal day on which he had encountered the tiger of the jungle, in which encounter he was said to have perished.
At about seven o’clock of the morning then, as we have said, and about the moment when Neva awakened from her dream, Major Archer reclined lazily upon a bamboo couch in the shadow of his veranda. He was dressed in a suit of white linen, and wore a broad-brimmed straw-hat, which was tipped carelessly upon the back part of his head. He was reading an English paper, received that morning at the hands of his messenger, and indolently smoking a cigar as he read.
The major was a short, stout, choleric man, with a warm heart and a ready tongue. He had greatly loved young Captain Wynde, and still mourned his death, and he mourned also the tragic fate of Sir Harold.
“Not much news by this mail,” the major muttered, as he withdrew his cigar and emitted a cloud of smoke from his pursed lips.
“And no hope whatever of our regiment being ordered back to England! We shall get gray out here in this heathenish climate, while the fancy regiments play the heroes at balls in country towns at home. The good things of life are pretty unevenly distributed any how.”
He replaced his cigar and clapped his hands sonorously. A light-footed native, clad in loose white trousers and white turban, and having his copper-colored waist naked, glided around an angle of the veranda and approached him with a salaam.
“Sherbet,” said the major sententiously.
The servant muttering, “Yes, Sahib,” glided away as he had come.
The major let fall his paper and reclined his head upon a bamboo rest, continuing to smoke. He had arisen hours before, had taken his usual morning ride to the house of a friend, his nearest neighbor, three miles distant, and had returned to breakfast with his wife and family, who were now occupied in one of the four rooms of the dwelling. The major’s duties for the day were now to be suspended until sunset, the intervening hours being spent in smoking, reading, sleeping and partaking frequently of light and cooling refreshments.
The sherbet was presently brought to the major in a crystal jug upon a salver. He laid down his cigar and sipped the beverage with an air of enjoyment, yet lazily, as he did everything.
“I don’t see how I should get along without you, Karrah,” said the major. “And you know it too, you dog. I pay you big wages as it is, and now I want to know how much extra you will take, and forego your present practice of stealing. I think I’d better commute. Mrs. Archer says you are robbing us right and left. What do you say?”
The native, a slim, lithe, sinewy fellow with oblong black eyes, full of slyness and wickedness, a mouth indicative of a cruel disposition, and with movements like a cat, grinned at the major’s speech, but did not deny the charge. He had formerly been George Wynde’s servant and nurse, then Sir Harold’s attendant, and was now Major Archer’s most valued servant. He had made himself necessary to the officer by his knowledge of all his master’s requirements, and his exact fulfillment of them; by his skill in concocting sherbets and other cooling drinks; by his apparent devotion, and in other ways. Being so highly valued, he had every opportunity, in that loosely ordered household, of robbing his employer, and he was maintaining a steady drain upon the major’s purse which that officer now purposed to abolish.
“Come, you coppery rascal,” said the major good-humoredly, “what will you take to let the sugar and tea and coffee and the rest of the things alone, except when you find them on the table?”
“Karrah no make bargain, Sahib,” said the native, rolling up his eyes. “Karrah do better as it is.”
“No doubt; but I’m afraid, my worthy copper, that we shall have to part unless you and I can commute your stealings. Yesterday, for instance, I left five gold sovereigns in my other coat pocket, and last night when I happened to think of them and look for them they were gone. You took them—”
“No prove, Sahib—no prove!” said the native stolidly.
“I can prove that no one but you went into that room yesterday except me,” declared the major coolly. “You needn’t deny the theft, even if you purpose taking that trouble. I know you took the money. You are a thief, Karrah,” continued his master placidly and indolently, “and a liar, Karrah, and a scoundrel, Karrah; but your race is all tarred with the same stick, and I might as well have you as another. By the way my fine Buddhist, if that is what you are, did you use to steal right and left from Captain Wynde?”
“Karrah honest man; Karrah no steal, but Karrah always same.”
“Always the same! Poor George! Poor fellow! No wonder he died!” muttered the major compassionately. “It was a consumption of the lungs by disease, and a consumption of means by a scoundrel. And did you take in Sir Harold in the same way?”
The Hindoo’s face darkened, and an odd gleam shone in his eyes.
“Sir Harold no ’count gen’leman,” he said briefly. “Karrah no like him. Three days ’fore tiger eat him, Karrah look into Sir Harold’s purse and take out gold, only few miserable pieces, and Karrah look into Captain Wynde’s trunk and take a few letters and diamond pin. Sir Harold come in sudden, see it all; he eyes fire up; he seize Karrah by waistband and kick he out doors. Karrah hate Sir Harold—hate—hate!”
The indolent officer shrank before the sudden blaze of his servant’s eyes, with a sudden realization of the possibilities of that ignorant, untaught and vicious nature.
“Why, you’re a perfect demon, Karrah,” exclaimed the major. “You’re a firebrand—a—a devil! If you hated Sir Harold to such an extent, how did it happen that you continued in his service, and were even his attendant upon that last ride?”
The Hindoo smiled slowly, a strange, cruel smile.
“Oh,” he said softly, “Karrah go back; Karrah say sorry; know no better. Sir Harold smile sad, say been hasty, and forgive. Karrah say he love Sir Harold. That night Karrah send messenger up country—”
He paused abruptly, as if he had said more than he intended.
“Well, what did you send a messenger up country for, you rascal?”
“To Karrah’s people, many miles away, to say that Karrah not come home,” declared the Hindoo more guardedly. “Makes no difference why Karrah sent. Karrah stay with Sahib Sir Harold three days, and see him die. Then Karrah live with Sahib Major.”
“I hope you don’t hate me,” said the major, with a shudder. “I have a fancy that your hatred would be as deadly as a cobra’s. If it were not for the tiger, I might think—But, pshaw! And yet—I say, Karrah, did you know that there was a tiger in that part of the jungle that morning?”
“Karrah know nothing,” returned the Hindoo. “Karrah good fellow. He has enemies—they happen die, that’s all. Karrah no set a tiger on Sahib. Karrah no friend tigers. Sahib have more sherbet?”
“No, nothing more. You may go, Karrah.”
The Hindoo glided away around the angle of the veranda.
“I believe I’ll have to let the fellow go,” muttered the major, uneasily. “His looks and words give me a strangely unpleasant sensation. I shall take care not to offend him, or he may season my sherbet with a snake’s venom. How he glared in that one unguarded moment when he said he hated Sir Harold! There was murder in his look. I declare I had a hundred little shivers down my spine. If Sir Harold had not been killed so unmistakably by a tiger, and if Doctor Graham and I had not seen the fresh tracks and the marks of the struggle, and if the tiger had not been afterward killed, I should think—I should be sure—”
An anxious look gathered on his face, and he ended his sentence by a heavy sigh.
“Strange!” he said presently, giving utterance to his secret thoughts; “my wife never liked this fellow, although I could see no difference between him and the rest. She insists that he is treacherous and cruel. I’ll dismiss him, and tell her that I do so out of deference to her judgment. But the truth is, since I’ve seen the fellow’s soul glaring out of his eyes, I sha’n’t dare to sleep nights for fear I may have offended his High Mightiness. I think it better for me that he should travel out of this.”
He had just announced to himself this decision, when raising his eyes carelessly and looking out from the cool shadows of the pleasant veranda, he beheld a horseman approaching his bungalow, riding at great speed.
“It may be Doctor Graham coming up for a month, as I invited him,” thought the major, too indolent to feel more than a trivial curiosity at the sight of a coming stranger. “But the doctor’s too sensible to ride like that. It is either a green Englishman, with orders from headquarters for me, or it’s some reckless native. In either case the fellow’s preparing for a first-class sunstroke or fever, or something of that nature. But that’s his look-out. I’ve troubles enough of my own without worrying about him. It might be as well to finish my sherbet before losing my appetite under an order to return to my post. Oh, bother the army!”
He sipped his sherbet leisurely, not even looking again at the horseman, who came on swiftly, urging his horse to a last burst of speed. That the horse was jaded, his jerking, convulsive mode of going plainly showed. He was wet with sweat, and his head hung low, and he frequently stumbled. The horseman urged him on with spur and whip, now and then looking behind him as if he feared pursuit.
The major did not look up until the horseman drew rein before the bungalow, and alighted at a huge stone which served as a horse-block. The stranger came slowly and falteringly toward the veranda, and then the Sybaritic major set down his empty cup and glanced at him.
The glance became a fixed gaze, full of wildness and affright.
The stranger slowly entered the shade of the veranda and there halted, his features working, his form trembling. He looked weary and travel-stained. His haggard eyes spoke to the owner of the bungalow in a wild appeal.
With the peculiar movement of an automaton, the major slowly arose to his feet and came forward, his face white, his eyes dilating, a tremulous quiver on his lips.
“Don’t you know me, major?” asked the stranger wearily.
“Great heaven!” cried the major, even his lips growing white. “It is not a ghost! I am not dreaming! Have the dead come to life? It is—it is—Sir Harold Wynde!”