With which vigorous "flea in the ear," General Willoughby dismissed his startled comrade to the society of his crafty old host. And, that night, strange dreams of unrest haunted the "modern Major General" in the marble house, while singularly gloomy misgivings weighed down the brave-hearted Berthe Louison, now heart-hungry for a sight of the doubly beloved child of the dead lady of Jitomir. She woke in the hot and clammy night to cry "No, no! He would never dare to! She is here! I shall go boldly and demand to see her to-morrow!" Her womanly intuition told her the lines were broken.

And so, robed in fashion's shining armor, Alixe Delavigne counted the moments, until at four o'clock of the next afternoon her carriage waited in the bower-decked oval of the marble house. A gloomy frown settled upon her face, as the impassive Hugh Johnstone approached her carriage, sun helmet in hand. She scented treachery now! There were a dozen brilliant young officers longingly gazing at this sweet apparition in the gloomy gardens. Even General Abercromby strutted out and displayed himself in the foreground, as Johnstone leaned over and gravely whispered to the pale-faced beauty:

"My daughter has been sent away from the city for her health! Her absence is indefinite. I will see you when General Abercromby leaves here in a week, and explain all. No, not before. It is impossible."

With a sudden motion of her hand to Jules, Alixe Delavigne leaned back, half fainting, upon her cushions. Her agitated heart was now beating in a wild tumult of rage and baffled hatred! "Home!" she cried, and then, as the marble house was lost to view, she harshly cried: "To Ram Lal's first! To the jewel store!"

There was a brooding death in her eyes when she sternly said to the merchant: "Send him to me at once! Send Hawke! Go! Waste not a moment!"

And then she swore an oath of vengeance, which would have made Hugh Fraser Johnstone shudder, as he sat drinking champagne cup with his guest. "One for you, my lady!" he had laughed, grimly, as the woman whom he had tricked drove swiftly away. And the grim fates laughed too, spinning at a shortening life web.

Major Alan Hawke was interrupted in his cosy nest at the Club by the hasty advent of Ram Lal. The old jeweler had for once abandoned all his Oriental calm, and he trembled as he muttered. "She demands you at once. I brought my own carriage. Go to her quickly. There will be a great monsoon of quarrel now. But her face looks as if she was stricken to the death, and something will come of all this. You must watch like the crouching cheetah!"

"What has happened?" anxiously cried Hawke.

"She has just found out the women are gone! She went up to the marble house this afternoon, and saw the old Sahib Johnstone. He did not even bid her to leave her carriage. One of my men ran over at once and told me. She drove to the shop on her way homeward and sent me here." The black Son of Plutus scuttled away, as if in a mortal fear. "I do not dare to face her—in her angry mood," was Ram's last word. He was only accustomed to baby-faced Hindu women of the "langorous lily" type, who hung on his every word—the mute slaves of his jaded passions. "This one is a tigress!" he sighed, as he fled from the Club.

"Ah! My lady is a bit rattled," mused Hawke as the carriage sped along. "Now is the time to catch her off her guard." And so he made himself sleek and patient, with the surface varnish of his "society manner," when Jules Victor, with semi-hostile eyes, ushered him into the presence of Alixe Delavigne, still in her robes of "visitation splendor."

"What is this devil's work done in my absence? This spiriting away of Nadine!" cried Alixe, grasping Hawke's wrist with a nervous clasp, which made the strong man wince. "This juggling in my absence?" Her eyes were sternly fixed on him in dawning suspicions.

"Madame," calmly said Alan Hawke, "if you had trusted to me, this would not have happened. But you have chosen to make an enigma of yourself, from the first. I am not tired of your moods, but I am of your cold disdain, your contemptuous slighting of my useful mental powers. You left me with no orders. I warned you that he was capable of anything. See how he has treated me," he continued, with a well-dissembled indignation. "He called me away to Allahabad to be bear-leader to Abercromby, and the brute has just shown me the door, to-day, openly saying that his daughter has gone to the Hills. I believe that he lies! I know that he does! If you had deigned to trust me, I would have followed on her track to hell itself, but you chose to play the woman—the catlike toying with men! Damn him! I owe him one now! If he had openly entertained me in this brilliant visit, I might have re-entered the staff service—in a week. And, you threw all my experience away in not trusting to me."

Alixe Delavigne looked up, with one piercing glance, as she sealed a note. "Go openly to him—to Johnstone! Bring him back at once with you! He dare not disobey this! I will denounce him, now, to-day! to both the generals, and go to the Viceroy myself! I care not what excuse he makes! BRING HIM!"

"And so I cut the last tie that binds me to a future reinstatement for you, a callous employer, and am left adrift without an anchor out for the future! You know that this man is a director of the Bank of Bengal! A multi-millionaire! He will chase me from India! I might trace the girl to her hiding-place for you! She has surely been sent home by sea!" Alixe Delavigne was gliding up and down the room as noiselessly as a serpent. She abruptly stopped her march.

"I will find her in Europe! What do you require to follow my orders for three months? To wait here and then to take the road or to join me in Europe! I pay all expenses and incidentals. What will make you reasonably sure against fate—in advance?"

Alan Hawke dropped his eyes. Gentleman once, he was ashamed of the sordid implied threat of abandonment.

"Five thousand pounds!" he whispered. The stony-faced woman dashed off a check.

"Bring that man to me at once!" she cried, "and then go down to Grindlay's agency here, and get your money! Go openly!"

"Shall I come back with him?" demanded Hawke.

"No, bring him here, and then excuse yourself."

Alixe Delavigne watched the carriage dash away. Hawke was on his mettle at last, and he brutally enjoyed the little tableau, when Hugh Fraser Johnstone impatiently tore open "Madame Berthe Louison's" note. Hawke observed significantly that he had been shown into a small room, suited to semi-menial interviews. The additional slight maddened him. The clash of glasses and shouts of a gay crowd of military convives rose up in a merry chorus within. Across that banquet hall's draped doors the thin, invisible barrier of "Coventry" shut out the bold social renegade. "She'll have to wait, Hawke!" roughly said Hugh Johnstone, moving toward the door.

"By God! she shall not wait a minute, you damned old moneybags!" cried the ruined soldier, who had long forfeited his caste—his cherished rank. "You treated her like a brute to-day! She is a lady, and you can't play fast and loose with her! You insulted me by closing your damned door and sending me your offensive letter. Go to her now! If you do not, I'll send my seconds to you, and if you don't fight, by Heaven, I'll horsewhip you like a drunken pandy!" and the fearless renegade barred the door.

"Don't be a fool, Hawke," faltered Johnstone. "She has taken the whole thing the wrong way. I'll join you in a moment. I've got these men on my hands. What did she tell you?"

"Nothing!" harshly cried Hawke, "and I wash my hands of you and her. Settle your intrigues as you will!"

Not a word was spoken, as Alan Hawke gravely opened the door to Madame Berthe Louison's reception room. Hugh Johnstone's yellow face paled as the Major breaking the silence, coldly said: "Madame! I have broken a friendship of fifteen years to-day! Please do consider me a stranger to you both after today!" And then he walked firmly out of the house with a warning glance to Jules Victor, lingering in the long hall.

The quick Frenchman saw in Hawke's gesture the secret sign of a hidden friend, and he threw up his hand in a Parisian gesture of gratitude and comprehension, and failed not to report to his mistress, who saw Hawke's fine method with a secret delight.

Hawke drove to Grindlay's agency, where, in a private room, he promptly cashed his check.

"I'll take it in Bank of England notes!" he quietly said as the clerk lifted inquiring eyes. "I am going to transact some business for the lady."

"Now, I can defy Fate!" he exulted, when he was safe out of the bank. "She will trust me now, and old Johnstone will fear me. A case of vice versa!" And, as he drove to the Club, he murmured, "I will never leave this fight now! Damme! I'll just go in and get the girl! Just to spite the old coward!"

Within the dreaming shades of the gardens hiding the Silver Bungalow, there was no sign of clamor. The beautiful little jewel-box of a mansion was apparently deserted, but a duel to the death was going on within the great white parlor where Hugh Johnstone stood raging at bay. He leaped up in a mad outburst of passion, when Alixe Delavigne cuttingly broke the silence. The old nabob knew that the desperate woman in her reckless mood feared nothing.—

"You have lied to me! You have tricked me! You have sent that girl away to Europe to hide her forever from me! I kept my pact, and, you deliberately lied!" She stood before him like an avenging fury, quivering in a passion which appalled him. But secure in his skillfuly executed maneuver, he reached for his hat and stick.

"I defy you! I have no answer to your abuse! Draw off your fighting cur, Major Hawke, or I'll grind you and him in the dust!" The old man was frantic under the insult. He moved toward the door.

"Stop! You go to your ruin!" cried the irate woman. "Will you give me full access to your daughter?"

"Never! My Lady! Go and lord it over your whipped hounds in Poland—hide in your estates the price of the double shame of two most accommodating Frenchwomen!"

"By the God who made me" she hissed, "I will bar your Baronetcy forever! I will find out that girl, and she shall learn to love me and despise your hated name and memory! It is open war now! and,—mark you—liar and hound, these two generals, the Viceroy, and, all India shall soon know what I know!" Then, with a clang of her silver bell, she called Jules Victor to her side. "Jules," she said, "If this person ever crosses the threshold of my door again, shoot him like the dog he is!"

And then the black-browed Frenchman, holding open the door, hissed "ALLEZ!" as Hugh Johnstone saw for the last time the marble face of the woman who had doomed him to shame.

"Go and send Ram Lal to me at once!" sternly said Berthe Louison. "Then to Major Hawke. Tell him that I want him to dine with me, and I shall need him all the evening. Order my carriage for five o'clock!"

Alan Hawke had played his best trump card, and played it well, for the woman who had doubted him, gloried in his courage and hardihood. "I can trust him now!" she murmured when she drove to the Delhi agency of Grindlays and, two hours later, astounded the local manager by the executive rapidity of her varied business actions.

"What's in the wind?" murmured the bank manager. "A sudden flitting!" He had been ordered to detail two of his best men to accompany Madame Louison to Calcutta, in a special car leaving at midnight. "Telegraph to your head office in Calcutta of my arrival. Major Alan Hawke will represent me here, under written orders to be left with your Calcutta manager. Send this on in cipher." She handed him a long dispatch to his chief.

Madame Berthe Louison was seen in Delhi, in public, for the last time, as she gazed steadily at the brilliant throng on the lawns of the marble house. A fete Champetre had brought "all of Delhi" together, and the conspicuous absence of "the French Countess" was the reigning sensation. The tall, bent form of Hugh Fraser Johnstone was prominent reigning as host, under a great marquee. Neither of the great generals were there, however, for Simpson had drawn Major Hardwicke aside to whisper: "A captain's guard came here to-day and took an enormous treasure in precious stones up to Willoughby's Headquarters!" and the two commanders were even then busied in listing the recovered loot, with a dozen yellow-faced Hindus and several confidential staff officers. "It's the last act, Captain darlin'," said Simpson. "Old Hugh has given me secret orders to get ready to go on to London. He only takes his personal articles. Young Douglas Fraser will come here and manage the Indian estates."

"Who's he?" eagerly cried Hardwicke.

"The fellow who carried the women away—the old man's only nephew."

"Ah! now I see!" heavily breathed Hardwicke. "I will take the previous boat, and wait for the old man at Brindisi! Post me! I'll keep mum!"

"Depend on me for my life itself," said Simpson; "but be prudent! I don't want to lose my life pension. He's been a good master to me. We've grown old together!" sighed the gray-headed soldier.

The frightened Ram Lal Singh was driven around Delhi this eventful day like a hunted rat. Suddenly summoned to General Willoughby's private rooms, escorted by a sergeant, who never left him a moment, the old Mohammedan was ushered into the presence of the two generals, who pounced upon him and showed him a great, assorted treasure in diamonds, pearls, pigeon rubies, sapphires, and emeralds of great size and richness. They were all duly weighed and listed, and duplicate official invoices lay signed upon the table.

"You were Mirzah Shah's Royal Treasure Keeper? Tell me. Are all his jewels here? The treasure that disappeared at Humayoon's Tomb before Hodson slew the princes in the melee?"

Ram Lal saw the frowns of men who had blown better men than himself from the guns in the old days, and he had a vivid memory of those same hideous scenes.

"They are about half here in weight and number; about a quarter of the value. There is a hundred thousand pounds worth missing!" said the jewel dealer, gazing on the totals of numbers and weights. "The historic diamonds, the matchless pearls, the never-equaled rubies—all the choicest have been abstracted, and by a skillful hand!"

"Go, then!" cried Willoughby. "Seal this in your breast! Speak to no one or you'll die in jail, wearing irons! Here!" A hundred-pound note was thrust into his hand, and he was whirled away to his shop.

"Ah! The gray devil! he has stolen and hidden the best! I will watch him like a ghoul of Bowanee, and they shall be mine! He would turn tail now and steal away!" Ram Lal laughed an oily laugh, and going to an old cabinet, took out a heavy kreese. "The poisoned dagger of Mirzah Shah!" he smiled. "After many years!" It was Hugh Johnstone himself who sought Ram Lal in his pagoda that afternoon, and, after making some heavy purchases, finally drew out a list of jewels.

"I wish you to certify, Ram Lal," he cautiously said, "that these are all the jewels of Mirzah Shah, that you handled as 'Keeper of the Prince's Treasure,' before the Meerut mutineers rushed down upon us." Slowly peering over the paper, the crafty Ram Lal said:

"You forget, Sahib, that I was sent away to Lucknow and Cawnpore, by Mirzah Shah, with letters to Nana Sahib and Tantia Topee. I was shut out of Delhi till after the British were camped on the Windmill Ridge, and for months I never saw the royal jewels! Every moon the list was made anew. The mollahs and moonshees and treasurers took jewels for the Zenana every moon, and for the gifts of the princes. I could not testify to this!" The old man was on his guard.

"I will pay you well, Ram Lal. It is my last little matter to settle with the authorities! Then my accounts are closed forever! As Treasurer you could do this!" Old Hugh Fraser Johnstone was ignorant of the veiled scrutiny of his stewardship.

Ram Lal raised his head, at last, with something like defiance. "The better half is gone—the rarest—the richest! True, the princes may have divided them, they may have bribed their mutineer officers with some, but, a true list may be in the hands of these Crown officers here. They captured all the Palace papers. Now, I did not open them at Humayoon's Tomb. You know," he faltered, "how they passed through your hands!"

Hugh Johnstone, for the last time tried to threaten and bully. "I will have you punished. I paid you well—you must lie for me! We both lied then."

"Then the curse of Allah be upon the liar who lies now," solemnly said Ram Lal Singh. "I will not sign! I have the savings of years to guard. You will go away and the Crown will come upon me for the missing gems. I was absent five months from the Palace when you were in Brigadier Wilson's Camp! I will offer my head to these generals, but I will not sign! The Kaisar-I-Hind is just, and I will tell all!" With an oath of smothered rage, Hugh Johnstone strode away.

"I must try and make a royal present to Willoughby's wife,—a timely one—and lose a half a lac of rupees to Abercromby. They may find a way to pass the matter over." He dared not press Ram Lal to a public exposition of all the wanderings of Mirzah Shah's jewels. "If I had not told them that fairy tale, I might hedge; but it's too late now. I will go down to Calcutta, see the Viceroy, and then clear out for good. And I must placate Alan Hawke. I was a fool to ignore him. But, to make an enemy of him, on account of that damned woman, would be ruin. He chums with Ram Lal. He might cable to Anstruther."

In fact Alan Hawke's bold social revolt had imposed on Johnstone. "He might help to cover all up if I induced Abercromby to get him back on the staff once more. I was a fool to slight him." Hugh Fraser Johnstone was dimly conscious that his own line of battle was wavering, and that his flanks were unguarded—his rear unprotected. "I will only trust my homeward pathway to Simpson, and my health is a good excuse for clearing out for good. I can easily locate on the Continent—in Belgium, or Switzerland—and out of reach of any little trouble to come. They've no proof. This fellow has no list, thank Heaven. I'll slip down to Ceylon and catch the first boat there to Suez. Then ho for Geneva!"

But Ram Lal Singh's slight defenses fell instantly before the golden battering-ram of Madame Berthe Louison's direct onslaught. "I was busied in the bazaars, buying jewels," he expostulated, when Jules Victor led him into Madame Louison's boudoir. Even then Major Hawke was curiously noting the dismantled condition of the reception-room, where Johnstone had at last thrown off the mask.

"I leave Major Hawke here to close all my business, Ram Lal," she said. "I go to Calcutta. I may be gone for some months. But I have watched you and him. You are close friends—very close friends. Now, remember that I pay him and I pay you. I wish you to give me—to sell me—the list of the jewels which Johnstone took away from you and hid, when he was Hugh Fraser." The old scoundrel began to protest. Berthe Louison rang her silver bell. "Jules!" she said, "I wish you to go to General Willoughby with this letter, and tell him to send a guard here to arrest a thief who has government jewels."

Ram Lal was on the floor at her feet, groveling, before she grimly smiled, as he held out a paper, quickly extracted from his red sash. "That will do, Jules." The Frenchman stood without the door. "You will not run away. You are far too rich, Ram Lal. And you will be watched every moment. Sign and seal the list, and date it to-day." The old craven begged hard for mercy. "Here is a hundred pounds. Hawke will pay you four hundred more when I am safely on the sea, but only then! He will close all my bills. Remember, I shall come back again. And," she whispered a word, "he will watch you closely." The jeweler sealed the document, and scribbled his certificate. "Not one word of my business, not even to Hawke, on your life," she said. "I shall come again! And General Willoughby will throw you in prison on a word from me."

Major Alan Hawke was astounded, after an hour's yielding to the social charm of Madame Alixe Delavigne, when the happy woman led him away from the dinner table. "Now for a half-hour's business chat," she gayly said. "No, no notes. We shall next meet at No. 9 Rue Berlioz, Paris. You will receive my sealed directions from Grindlay's agent here, with funds to settle my affairs. I go to-night to Calcutta, and thence to Europe. Obey my orders. You will get them, sealed, from the agent here. You can come on, by Bombay, when I cable to you. I will cable direct here to Grindlay's. They'll not lose sight of you," she smiled.

"And my relations with old Hugh?" he gasped in surprise.

"Just watch him and follow him on to Europe. Neither you nor he can do me any harm, but your reward for your manly stand to-day will reach you in Paris. I knew of it."

"Shall I not see you to the train?" Hawke stammered.

"Ah!" she smiled, extending her hand warmly, "I have a double guard and my servants. I will be met at Calcutta, and I go on my way safely now to work a slow vengeance!"



CHAPTER X. A CAPTIVATED VICEROY.



There were several "late parties" in sumptuous Delhi, on the evening when Madame Berthe Louison drove quietly to the railway station at two o'clock. A little knot of tired officials were still on duty, and when some forerunner had given a private signal, a single car, drawn by a powerful locomotive, glided out of the darkness.

In a few moments a dozen trunks and a score of bags and bundles were tossed aboard the baggage van. Five persons stepped nimbly aboard, and then with no warning signal, the Lady of the Silver Bungalow was borne out into the darkness, racing on toward Calcutta with the swiftness of the wind.

Jules Victor, vigorous and alert, after several cups of cafe noir, well dashed with cognac, disposed his two Lefacheux revolvers in readiness, and then betook himself to a nap. His bright-eyed wife was in the compartment with her beautiful mistress, and ready to sound a shrill Gallic alarm at any moment. She gravely eyed the two escorting officials of the bank. Marie said in her heart that "all men were liars," and she believed most of them to be voleurs, in addition. Jules, when the little train was whirling along a-metals a score of miles away from Delhi, relaxed his Zouave vigilance, and bade a long adieu to Delhi, in a vigorous grunt. "Va bane! Sacre Canaille!"

There was silence at the railway station when the head agent wearily said, "I suppose the Bank is moving a lot of notes back to Calcutta! They are a rum slick lot, these money changers!" When all was left in darkness, save where a blinking red and white line signal still showed, Ram Lal Singh crept away from the line of the rails. The rich jewel vender clutched in his bosom the handle of Mirzah Shah's poisoned dagger, the deadly dagger of a merciless prince.

He had long pondered over the sudden demand made upon him by the Lady of the Silver Bungalow. And he greatly desired to re-adjust his relations with Hugh Johnstone and Major Alan Hawke. The daily usefulness of "Lying as a Fine Art" was never before so apparent to Ram Lal. He slunk away on foot to his own bit of a zenana.

"I must try to deceive them both! Fool that I was not to see it before! These two Generals are her friends, of old! The secret protector of the wonderful moon-eyed beauty here is General Willoughby, and the other General will secretly help her down at Calcutta. She came up here, secretly, to see her old lover Willoughby, and that is why she would be able to have a guard arrest me. For she said just what they said about the prison. Willoughby goes down often to Calcutta! Ah! Yes! They are all the same, these English! Fools! Not to lock their women up, when they have once bought them, with a secret price! And now, Hawke must never know of this paper I gave her. She would find out, and then have the General punish me. Now I know why she went not to the great English Mem-Sahibs here! And these two great General Sahibs have had her spy upon this old man, Hugh Fraser—the man who would steal away with the Queen's jewels. They would have them. By Bowanee! I will have them first! For I can hide them where they never will find them! I will trade them off to the Princes, who know the old jewels of Oude. They will give me double weight, treble value." Ram Lal crept into his hidden love nest, his skinny hand clutching the golden shaft of Mirzah Shah's dagger. "I might surrender them later and get an enormous reward from the Crown," he mused.

At the Delhi Club, Major Alan Hawke, in a strange unrest, paced his floor half the night. "I stand now nearly eleven thousand pounds to the good, with outlying counties to hear from, as the Yankees say." He smiled, "that is, if the old fox does not stop these drafts. If he does, I'll stop him!" he swore. And yet, he was troubled at heart. "I know Alixe Delavigne will call me back and pay me well. How did she find out about my bold bluff to Johnstone? Some servant may have overheard, and she is a deep one. She may even have her own spies there!"

"Justine, I can count on you to help me later. But, how to treat old Hugh?" His dreams of an army reinstatement came back to worry him. "I might go to Abercromby and warn him about Johnstone. Damn it! I've no proof as yet! Berthe Louison will fire the great gun herself." The renegade fell asleep, torturing himself about the needless breach with Johnstone. "All violence is a mistake!" he muttered, half asleep. "The angry old man will keep me away from the girl forever, and the old brute is going to Europe. I have spoiled one game in taking one trick too roughly."

Another "late party" was at Major Hardwicke's quarters, where the loyal Simpson related to the lover all the gossip of Johnstone and General Abercromby, over their brandy pawnee and cheroots. Simpson was the eager servitor of the young engineer, whom he loved.

General Willoughby had a little fit of "work" which seized upon him, and so he toiled till late at night, sending some cipher dispatches to the Viceroy. "I may make a point in this, perhaps a C. B.," said the old veteran, who was sharper when drunk than sober. "I'll put a pin in Johnstone's game, and get ahead of Abercromby." This last old warrior had secretly vowed to force Hugh Fraser Johnstone to present him to the "little party in the Silver Bungalow." The Calcutta general was a Knight of Venus, as well as a Son of Mars, and had guarded memories of some wild episodes of his own there in the halcyon days of the great chieftain who had builded it. A gay young staff officer whispered:

"Alan Hawke is the only one who really has the 'open sesame.' He knows that 'little party.' Didn't you see Johnstone hurry her away? The old nabob, too, is sly."

"Ah!" mused the General. "I'll make Johnstone have Hawke here to breakfast. Devilish clever fellow—and he'll take me there!" Alas! for these rosy anticipations. The "little party" was already at Allahabad before the gouty general awoke from his love dream.

And, last of all the "late parties" on this eventful night was Hugh Fraser Johnstone's little solitary council of war. He had, with a prescience of coming trouble, detailed two of his own keenest personal servants to watch the Silver Bungalow, from daylight, relieving each other, and never losing sight a moment of the hidden tiger's den. "I'll find out who goes and comes there! By God! I will!" he raged. After a long cogitation, he evolved a "way out" of his quarrel with Hawke. "Damn the fellow! I must not drive him over into the enemy's camp. I'll have him here—to breakfast, to-morrow. The jewels are safely out of the way now. For a few pounds he will watch this she-devil, and that yellow thief, Ram Lal, for me. My only danger is in their coming together. I'll get a note to him early." Seizing his chit-book, he dashed off in a frankly apologetic way a few lines. "There! That'll do! Not too much!" He read his lines with a final approval.

"Dear Hawke: I've been worried to death with a lot of people thrust on me. Mere figure-heads. You must excuse an old friend—an old man—and Madame Louison is like all women—only a bundle of nerves. Come over to the house to-day at noon and breakfast with Abercromby and myself alone. I'll send you back to Calcutta with him on a little run. I appreciate your manliness in keeping out of my little misunderstanding with the Madame. By the way, a few words from Abercromby to the Viceroy would put you back on the Army Staff, where you rightly belong. Let bygones be bygones, and you can make your play on the General, It's the one chance of a life. Come and see me. J."

"There! He will never show that!" mused Hugh Johnstone. "It touches his one little raw spot!" And calling a boy the old Commissioner dispatched the note, carefully sealed, to the Club. The last one to seek his rest in the marble house, old Johnstone was strangely shaken by the events of the day.

Berthe Louison's threats, Ram Lal's stubborn refusal, and the useless quarrel with Hawke had unmanned him. He drank a strong glass of grog and then sought his room. "All things settle themselves at last! This thing will blow over! I wish to God that she was out of the way! I could then handle the rest!" For in his heart he feared the defiant woman.

There were two men equally surprised when gunfire brought the "day's doings" on again in lazy, luxurious Delhi. Over his morning coffee, Major Alan Hawke thankfully cried: "I am a very devil for luck! This old skinflint is opening his bosom and handing me a knife. By God! I'll have my pound of flesh!" He leaped from his couch as blithe as a midshipman receiving his first love letter from a fullgrown dame. There was great joy in the house of Hawke.

But when Simpson entered his master's room he was followed by a wild-eyed returning emissary, who waited till the old soldier had left the room. Hugh Johnstone suddenly lost all interest in the breakfast tray, the letters and his morning toilet, when the Hindu fearfully said: "They are all gone—the Mem-Sahib, the two foreign devils, and all their belongings!"

Johnstone was on his feet with a single bound. "Gone! What do you tell me, you fool?" He was shaking the slim-boned native as if he were a man of straw.

"They went to the railroad at two o'clock at night, the coachman told me. We only began our watch by your orders at daybreak. She had been then gone four hours." Johnstone foamed in an impotent rage.

"Who is left in the house?" he roared.

"Nobody, Sahib." tersely said the Hindu.

"Get out and send me Simpson!" the old man sternly said. "Go back and watch that house till I have you relieved. Tell me everyone who goes in or out!"

And then the horrible fear that Willoughby or Abercromby had deceived him, began to dawn upon his excited mind. "Simpson," he cried, "there's a good fellow! Take the first trap and get over to Major Hawke. Tell him that I must see him here, at once, on the most important business. He must come. Then get to Ram Lal, and bring him yourself to your own room. Let me know, privately, when he is there. Never mind my dressing. Send me a couple of the others. Is the General awake?"

"Just coming down for his ride! Horses ordered in half an hour!"

Simpson fled away, muttering, "Hardwicke must know of this!"

Hugh Johnstone fancied that he was dreaming when he met his official guest, refreshed and jovial, but still under the spell of Venus.

"See here, Hugh!" said the gallant Abercromby. "I want you to present me to that stunning woman over there, at the Silver Bungalow, you know. They tell me she's the Queen of Delhi. You old rascal, I'm bound to know her! Can't we have a little breakfast there, under the rose?" A last desperate expedient occurred to Johnstone. His baronetcy was in danger now.

"There's but one man in Delhi can bring you within the fairy circle. That's Hawke—a devilish good officer too, by the way! Ought to be back on the 'Temporary Staff,' at least! He comes here to breakfast! I'll turn you over to him. He manages all the lady's private affairs. He is your man."

General Abercromby turned a stony eye upon his host. "Does Willoughby go there?" he huskily whispered.

"Never crossed the line! Hawke is far too shy. You see, Willoughby has not recognized Major Hawke's rank and past services!"

"Ah!" said the jealous warrior. "If Hawke is the man you say he is, I can get the Viceroy to give him a local rank, in two weeks! Send him down with me to Calcutta!" and the gay old would-be lover jingled away on his morning ride.

"This may be my one anchor of safety!" gasped the wondering Johnstone, as Alan Hawke came dashing into the grounds. In half an hour, the broken entente cordiale was restored, and Johnstone had slipped away and questioned the wary Ram Lal.

"All I know is that the lady hired the house temporarily from me, I am agent for Runjeet Hoy, who owns it now. She went without a word, and gave me three hundred pounds yesternight, for her rent and supplies. I asked the Mem-Sahib no questions. She went away all by herself, in the middle of the night."

"Ah! You know nothing more?" sharply queried Johnstone.

"Of course not! I thought you, or Hawke Sahib, or General Wilhoughby, was a secret friend." Slyly said Ram Lal.

"She owes you nothing? You do not expect her to return?" the nabob cried.

"I think she has gone to Calcutta! She came from there."

"Come to-night, privately, Ram Lal. I'll show you how to get in. Just tap at my bedroom window three times. Come secretly, at eleven o'clock, and find out all you can. Wait in the garden till the house is dark. I'll pay you well," continued Johnstone, leading the old jeweler to his bedroom. "I will leave this one window unfastened. So you can come in! The room will be dark!"

"The Sahib shall be obeyed!" said Ram Lal, salaaming to the ground, and he was happy at heart as he glided out of the garden. A ferocious smile of coming triumph gleamed in his dark face. "I have him now! He will never slip away in the night! But I must please him, and lie to him!" It was the chance for which he had vainly waited there many years, and Ram Lal prayed to great Bowaaee to aid him.

"Hawke!" said Johnstone, when his astounded listener heard all of Johnstone's proposed infamy. "I have telegraphed to Allahabad and Calcutta. This strange woman has gone down there. Now, I want you to fall in with Abercromby. He will go down in a few days. Bring them together in any way you can. The General and the beauty. No fool like an old fool!" he grinned. "Watch them and post me! Abercromby is already well disposed to you. Make a play on him. He will get you a temporary rank from the Viceroy.

"Your matchless knowledge of the Himalayas and the whole northern frontier will earn you a regular rank. Coddle Anstruther, too, and cling to the Vice-roy! I'll back you with any money you need. It's the one chance of a life!"

"And what am I to do for you, Johnstone?" quietly said the delighted Hawke.

"Just stand by me about this baronetcy, and bamboozle this damned foolish woman, while I slip quietly away to Europe! She is mercurial and vain. Abercromby will get her into the fast Calcutta set, after one necessary appearance at the Viceroy's! She is, after all, only a woman. You can catch them with a feather, if you can catch them at all! Once properly launched by Abercromby, you are a made man for life! He will not dare to 'go back on you!' as our Yankee cousins have it. The Viceroy will do anything for him!"

"By God! Johnstone! I'm your man! Count on me in life and death!" warmly cried Hawke. The two men clasped hands.

There was a clatter and a jingle. The old warrior was on his return. "Here he comes now! Fall in with his humor, and success to you at Calcutta," whispered Johnstone. There was the very jolliest breakfast imaginable at the marble house that day, and that same afternoon Major. Alan Hawke rode all over Delhi as volunteer aide to General Abercromby.

Two nights later General Abercromby whispered to Hugh Johnstone, at a Grand Ball at Willoughby's Headquarters: "I've just had a telegram from the Viceroy to return at once. Your matter is now all right. I leave the property with Willoughby here. I'll go down in the morning, if you'll fix me up." And then, Johnstone signing to Major Alan Hawke, who had been the cynosure of all eyes, as he gracefully led Madame la Generate Willoughby through a lanciers, took the favorite of fortune aside.

"Make your adieux! Get out of here! Settle all your little affairs! Send all your traps over to my house! General Abercromby wants to slip away quietly in the morning! No one is to know! And you go with him, at his urgent request."

And that very evening at Calcutta, Alixe Delavigne would have laughed in triumph to know of Hugh Johnstone's strange eagerness to dispatch his amorous guest. For the lady—in the safe haven of the great banker's home—had just returned from a captivated Viceroy, who had instantly recalled Abercrornby by a dispatch to be "obeyed forthwith."

"You, Madame, have laid me under an obligation which I can never forget," said the graceful statesman. The list of Ram Lal was in his hands now! And so Hugh Johnstone was highly pleased, and Madame Berthe Louison, still in her masquerade, was happy, and the watchful Commanding-General Willoughby was more than pleased; and the now doubly hopeful Major Alan Hawke rejoiced, while General Abercromby knew that the "little party" was waiting him in Calcutta. But most of all pleased was Ram Lal Singh, clutching in his dreams at the dagger of Mirzah Shah, lying there by his bedside. "He will be left alone, and he knows my signal—his own device—THREE TAPS AT HIS WINDOW! In Delhi there only lingered, sad and lonely, Major Harry Hardwicke, whose sighs were echoed back from afar by a starry-eyed girl watching the sandy shores of the Suez Canal.

"I dare not telegraph to him till we reach Brindisi," mused the loving girl. "After that our path will be plain, and Justine MUST help me! Then he can follow me—if he loves me!" She faltered, hiding her blushing face. The only comforter of the lonely Hardwicke was "Rattler Murray." Red Eric, of the Eighth Lancers, had just fallen into a pot of money.

"Take your long leave, my boy!" he cried. "I've been nine long years a Lieutenant! I'll have my troop before my leave is out! And there's a loving lass awaiting me! One I love—one who loves me—one you must know, for you must be the 'best man'!"

"Wait, only wait a couple of weeks, Eric!" said the Major, whose eyes were now turned daily to Simpson. "Then I'll put in my own application, and we'll go home together."

This bright hope was duly pledged in many a loving cup.

General Abercromby was far away on the road to Calcutta when Major-General Willoughby sent, posthaste, for Major Harry Hardwicke of the Corps of Engineers. The puzzled Commanding General was racking his brains to find out if his old friend Abercromby had committed any fatal error during his somewhat bacchanalian visit on "special duty."

"I'm glad he is gone" mused the stout-hearted, thick-headed old Commander, as he read, over and over, the Viceroy's cipher dispatch to the departed General.

"Do nothing further! Turn over all property, on invoice, to General Willoughby, and report here forthwith. Hold no communication with Johnstone, and guard an absolute silence. Report in person, instantly on your arrival."

"Something has surely gone wrong!" at last decided Willoughby. "Old Hugh Fraser Johnstone may have been too much for him. Strange, the Viceroy says nothing of him!" And then he read a second dispatch, with the Viceroy's orders to himself. "Notify Major Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers, to report in person, to the Viceroy for special duty, prepared to go in a week to England on duty. Absolute secrecy required. His leave application will be approved for any period, to take effect on his completion of duties assigned, in London. Special cipher orders will be sent to him this A.M. Deliver them and furnish him the code No. 2. No copies to be retained. Furnish Major Hardwicke with a captain and ten picked men to escort the property received by General Abercromby to Calcutta. Invoices to you to be signed by him. Property to be sent down in sealed pay-chests, with your seal and Major Hardwicke's. Report compliance, and telegraph in cipher No. 2 Hardwicke's departure for Calcutta. Special transportation has been ordered."

"There, my boy, you have your orders!" an hour later said General Willoughby when Major Hardwicke reported. "I am glad to have the whole thing off my hands. Here is the double-ciphered code. You are to translate for yourself, and, remember, then destroy your translation. Remember, also, one single whisper of your destination, and you are a ruined man! Evidently the Viceroy is bent on trapping old Hugh Johnstone. Damn him, for a sneaking civilian! I never trusted him!" And the old General rolled away for his family tiffin. "I'll see you when you have translated the private orders. Thank God, the Viceroy keeps me out of this dirty muddle! You see, I have no power over Johnstone—he is a blasted civilian." Two hours later, the grateful old General found Hardwicke pacing up and down impatiently. "I ought only to tell Murray," he murmured, "if I could! He is going home to be married, and I am to stand up with him."

"Just the thing!" gayly cried Willoughby. "Murray's captaincy is in the Gazette of to-day's mail. I will order him down with you, in command of the guard, and, at Calcutta, the Viceroy will release you from your promise, so as to let him know that you can meet him in London. His Excellency evidently wants to hoodwink all the gossips here, and, above all, to blind old Johnstone. Now, Harry, I feel like a brute to let you go without a poor send-off, but, by Heaven, the whole Willoughby clan will follow you in London, and pay off a part of our debt for that 'run-under fire' with my wounded boy. Name anything you want. Do you want any help to watch Johnstone?" The old General was eager.

"Ah! I fear that I must attend to him, alone!" sadly said Major Hardwicke, whose heart was racked, for a fair, dear face now afar must soon be clouded with sorrow and those dear eyes weep a father's shame.

"Call, day and night, for anything you want!" heartily said the loyal old father of the rescued officer. "The day before you go you must dine with us, alone, and Harriet will give you her last greeting."

As the day wore away, there was a jovial rapprochement in the special car where General Abercromby and Major Hawke were gayly extolling Madame Berthe Louison's perfections. "Mind you, General, I am no squire of dames," said the Major. "You must make your own running."

"Ah! my boy, you have earned your temporary rank as a Major of Staff, when you've introduced me. I flatter myself that I know women!" cried Abercromby as they cracked t'other bottle of Johnstone's champagne.

"Take me to her, and then, I'll take you to the Viceroy. I guarantee your rank!"

"It's a bargain!" cried the delighted Hawke. While Abercromby dreamed of the lovely lady of the Silver Bungalow, Major Alan Hawke leisurely examined a sheaf of letters from Europe which had been thrust in his pocket by Ram Lal at parting.

"Victory!" he cried, as he read a tender letter from Euphrosyne Delande, in which she promised her absolute compliance with his every wish. "Justine has written to me herself," was the underscored hint that the three might join fortunes. "It's about time for that Madras boat to get to Brindisi," mused Hawke, as they ran into Allahabad, "There maybe telegrams here now." And, while General Abercromby jovially feasted, Hawke ran over to his secret haunt to which he had ordered Ram Lal to send any telegrams, for one day only, and then, the rest would be safe with Ram's secret agent in Calcutta. "My God! This is my fortune! Bravo, Justine!" cried Hawke, "True and quickwitted. I now hold Berthe Louison in my hand."

He read the words—"Andrew Fraser, St. Agnes' Road, St. Heliers, Jersey." The dispatch was headed Brindisi, and signed "Justine." "A man might do worse than marry a woman as true and keen as that," smiled Hawke. "I am a devil for luck!" And then he gayly drank Justine's health, in silence, when he joined the amorous Abercromby at the table.

But the "devil for luck" did not know of a little scene at Brindisi, where the blushing Nadine Johnstone hid her face in her friend's bosom. "It is my life, my very existence, Justine!" she pleaded. "I will never forget you; we are both women, and my heart will break if you refuse!" And thus Justine Delande had learned at last of Nadine's easy victory over the frank-hearted cousin's prudence.

"What's the wrong—to tell her?" he had mused, under the spell of the loving eyes. "We go straight through, and I am in charge till my father takes her out of my hands! Poor girl, it will be a grim enough life with him. Not a man will ever set eyes on her face without old Hugh's written order!" And it was thus that Justine was enabled to warn her own lover when she had slipped away and cabled by her mistress's orders to the young Lochinvar at Delhi:

"Captain Harry Hardwicke, Royal Engineers, Delhi: Letters for you at Andrew Fraser's, St Agnes Road, St. Heliers, Jersey. Come."

The Swiss woman shuddered as she boldly signed Nadine! And this same dispatch when received by the young officer, now busied with the Viceroy's mandate, brought the sunlight of Love back into his darkened soul! The minutes seemed to lengthen into hours until the special train was ready. At the risk of his military future, the Major gave to the faithful Simpson his London Club address. "If anything happens here, you must go to General Willoughby. Tell him what you want me to know. He will send it on, and give you a five-pound note. Remember! Simpson, you'll die in my service if you stand true!"

"That I will, for your brave father's sake, and for the young lady's bright eyes! Bless her dear, sunny face! Tell her that I will work for her in life and death!" And when, in a few days the lengthened absence of Major Harry Hardwicke and Red Eric Murray was noted, the groups only conjectured a little junket to some near-by station, or a long shikaree trip. But Simpson and General Willoughby knew better. Simpson was a "lord" in these days, in the quarter, for Hardwicke had not left Delhi with a closed hand.

And old Hugh Johnstone, greatly relieved at heart, was now busied in secretly arranging for his own flitting. "I'll run down to Calcutta, see the Viceroy, give Abercromby a splendid dinner, and then slip off home, on the quiet, via Ceylon. I'll send Douglas back when I get to Jersey, and then I can put those jewels where no human being can ever trace them! Once that brother Andrew has my full orders as to Nadine, I will bar this she-devil forever from her side! On the excuse of a leisurely contemplated tour, I can have the rich Jew brokers of Amsterdam and Frankfort, with their agents in Cairo and Constantinople, divide up the jewels among the foreign crown-heads. I am then safe! safe! No human hand can ever touch me now," he gloated.

There was a clattering of aides-de-camp and great official bustle at the Government House in Calcutta when General Abercromby reported to the great statesman Viceroy, dwelling in the vast palace, builded by the Marquis of Wellesley.

General Abercromby, marveling at the abruptness of the Viceroy, was relieved to know that his "secret service" had been transferred to Major Hardwicke under the orders of Major-General Willoughby. His mind was intently occupied with the promised introduction to Madame Berthe Louison—"that little party"—and so he failed not to refer to the future value to the crown of Alan Hawke's services.

"He is here with me, Your Excellency!" respectfully said Abercromby, who had already posted off his leporello to call in due form at the banker's mansion, where the disguised Alixe Delavigne had taken refuge. "Send him to me at once, General. I need him! I will give him the local staff rank of Major and immediate employment. Willoughby has also written to me especially about his wonderful knowledge of our northern lines. Stay! Bring him yourself, to-morrow, at ten o'clock."

"Splendid! Splendid!" cried the love-lorn General, rubbing his hands, as he hastened away in his carriage to meet Alan Hawke! "I am ready for him, if he is ready for me! I wish she were at some one of the great hotels instead of being buried in the silver-gray respectability of the Manager's family circle. But—but—I will take her to the Viceroy. The bird shall then learn to test its wings. I will bring her out as a social star!"

Major Alan Hawke, with a beating heart, recounted to Madame Berthe Louison all the occurrences in Delhi, when they were left alone in the great banker's vast parlors. "She is a puzzle, this strange woman!" mused Hawke, for a serene and stately triumph shone in her splendid eyes.

Berthe Louison listened to all! "You will get your staff appointment," she smiled, "and I will help you! Bring your friend General Abercromby to see me here to-morrow evening! I will be amiable to him, for your sake, and for the sake of my future interests!"

The grateful young man, now on the threshold of reinstatement, in a sudden impulse cried, "I can, now, give you Nadine Johnstone's hiding place! You can trust to me and I will prove it, now! It is—"

"With Andrew Fraser, retired Professor of Edinburgh University, historian and philologist, ethnologist, etc.; St. Agnes Road, St. Heliers, Jersey," laughingly rejoined Berthe Louison.

"You are a—witch, woman! A wonder!" cried the astounded adventurer.

"Ah! You see that I have trusted you!" she smiled. "Now, do as I bid you, and you will rise in the service! Remember! You are to do just what I say! The bank here, or in Delhi, will give you always my directions. Remember! I shall not lose sight of you for a moment, though near or far! And money and promotion will reward your good faith! Go now! my friend," she kindly said, extending her hand. "Bring the General, here, tomorrow evening, at eight! I will be busied till then! There is nothing for you to do now!"

The astonished schemer was in a maze as he dashed away to the Calcutta Club to meet General Abercromby. "She is a very devil and a mistress of the Black Art!" he mused. "I will stand by her," he admiringly cried, "as long as it pays me." It was the honest tribute of a grateful scoundrel's heart!

While the happy Abercromby dallied with Major Hawke over a claret cup, an official messenger sought him out, at the Club. "There, my boy! You see that I am a man of my word!" cried the would-be lover. Alan Hawke's lip trembled as he tore open an envelope directed to him and marked: "On Her Majesty's Service." The first in many years. The walls spun around before his eyes when he read his provisional appointment, with an order to report forthwith, to the Chief of Staff, for private instructions. "Ah! I congratulate you, my boy!" heartily cried the happy General. "You are a very devil for luck! One toast to the Viceroy! I'll meet you here to-night!"

The happiest man in India sped away to his newly opened gate of Paradise Regained, while afar in the sweltering September sun, the gleam of rifles and red coats told of an armed escort on the train, bearing Major Hardwicke and Captain Eric Murray, on to Calcutta, with the swiftness of the wind. Neither of the officers for a moment quitted their compartment, and two chosen sergeants, revolver in hand, watched certain sealed packages lying beside them all there in plain view. Major Hardwicke's soul was now in his quest!

There was a gleam of romance in the great Viceroy's morning duties, while Major Hawke had hastened to the Chief of Staff's office.

Madame Berthe Louison, escorted by her guardian, the bank manager, had placed upon the Viceroy's table a little document which he studied with great care. "You are sure that there is no mistake?" the statesman said, gravely interrogating the banker. "I will guarantee it, Your Excellency, with its face value, fifty thousand pounds." answered the financier. It was the memorandum of a policy of assurance for a sealed package, on the steamer Lord Roberts, sent by Hugh Fraser Johnstone to Prof. Andrew Fraser, St. Agnes Road, St. Heliers, Jersey and now half way to England.

"I will act, Madame, at once!" said the holder of a scepter by proxy. "You are to guard this secret, both, upon your honor. Send the dispatch, as you have proposed. My official action is to follow this up. I will let the game go on in silence just a little longer. And now—" the Viceroy led the lady aside, whispering a few private words, which left her a proud and happy woman. "My special aid will call at your residence as soon as it is dark. The consular officials at Aden, Suez, Port Said, and Brindisi will all have orders regarding you. I am ashamed that the prudence needed in the official side of this affair prevents me socially honoring you as I would. The French Consul-General has given to me his official guaranty for you, which," he smiled, "was not needed. We shall meet again, and your conduct will not be forgotten."

Alixe Delavigne bowed with the grace of a queen and never lifted her eyes until her sober mentor had brought her to the shelter of his home. Before they were seated at tiffin the wires bore away this dispatch, which astounded its recipient:

"CAP. ANSON ANSTRUTHER, JUNIOR UNITED SERVICE CLUB,

LONDON.

Meet me at Morley's Hotel, London. Will telegraph you from Brindisi. Official dispatches to you explain.

BERTHE LOUISON."

When the stars lit up the broad Hooghly that night, a swift Peninsular and Oriental Liner drew away down the river, with a smart steam-launch towing at her companionway. The woman who said adieu to the Viceroy's aid and her grave-faced banker in her splendid rooms had read the brief words of Captain Anstruther, telling her that the electric Ariel was true to his trust. "All right. Both dispatches received. Welcome. Anstruther." The official staterooms were a bower of floral beauty, and the gallant aid murmured: "I hope that nothing has been forgotten. The whole ship is at your disposal. The Commander has the Viceroy's personal orders. And, I was to give you the letter and this package!" When the banker had exchanged the last words of counsel and advice, he said: "Trust me! I know Hawke of old! We will let him go up the ladder of life a little, while the other fellow comes down!"

When the little steam-launch was a black blur on the blue waters, then Alixe Delavigne, standing alone at the rail, smiled as she saw the lean, straggling shores sweep by. "I fear that General Abercromby will deem me discourteous! But time, tide, and the P. and O. steamers wait for no elderly beau, however fascinating!"

It is a matter of local history in Calcutta that General Abercromby's remark: "Hawke! we have been a pair of damned fools! We are outwitted!" found its way at last into the clubs, and the attack of jaundice, followed up by a severe gout, which "laid out" the sighing lover for long months, proves, as of old, that stern Mars cannot cope with the bright and all-compelling Venus! But Major Alan Hawke, of the Provisional Staff, hearkened wisely to the banker's words: "Don't be fool enough to think that you can trifle with Madame Louison's interests. The noble Viceroy has placed you on duty, at her own personal request, to give you a last chance to regain all the promise of your youth. One word from her, and—and you will be suspended or, dropped! You will get your military orders from the Viceroy and her wishes from me."

Alan Hawke was paralyzed with astonishment the next day, when the Viceroy ordered him to proceed at once to Delhi, to report to General Willoughby, and to hasten to London, via Bombay, on completion of his secret service at Delhi."

"I am a devil for luck!" muttered Hawke. "But even the tide of Fortune can drive along too fast!" He had lost his head, and forgotten all his pigmy plans. A stronger hand than his own was secretly guiding his onward path, upward to the old status of the "British officer!" "What the devil do they want of me in London?" he mused.

And, chuckling over how easily he had made the lovesick Abercromby help him into his "military seat" once more, Alan Hawke betook himself forthwith to Delhi, to report to General Willoughby for instant service. When he descended at Allahabad, his undress uniform of a major of the Staff Corps brought down on him a storm of congratulations from old friends gathered there. "Sly old boy you were!" the service men laughed, over their glasses, while wetting his new uniform. "A man must not tell all he knows!" patiently replied Major Hawke, with the sad, sweet smile of a man who had dropped into a good thing.

As he rolled along toward Delhi, he seriously cogitated "playing fair" in his new capacity. "Perhaps it will pay!" he mused. "But I will even up with that old hog, Johnstone!" He dared not contemplate now any substantial treason to Madame Alixe Delavigne. "She is a witch woman! She seems to have an untold backing! The Bankers, even, the Viceroy, and the French Consul-General, too. She could crush me! I must serve My Lady Disdain, and I will fight and die in her army!" Arriving at Delhi, Major Alan Hawke's first visit was to Ram Lal Singh, as he prepared to "report forthwith," in "full rig," to the local Commander. There was a strange preoccupation in the old jeweler which baffled Hawke. Ram Lal only humbly begged to have all his lengthened accounts with Madame Berthe Louison arranged, and Alan Hawke, with a few words, calmed the Mussulman's fears.

"I'll have it all attended to, to-morrow, when I look it over," said the Major, hastening away to the Club. "Ram has been at the hashish, or bhang, or the betel nut, or some of his recondite dissipations—perhaps he has enjoyed an opium bout in the Zenana," mused the new appointee, as he gayly "begged off" from a cloud of eager congratulations by promising to "blow off" the whole Delhi Club. "Business first, pleasure afterwards" said the resplendent Major Hawke, as he clattered away, a handsome son of Mars, to report to General Willoughby.

Major Hawke was secretly delighted with his cordial reception. "Come to me to-morrow at ten, Major," said the Commander, "I will have your first instructions, but remember absolute secrecy. This is a very grave affair to both of us—your coming employment."

"The tide of life is bearing me on, with a devilish rapidity, with favoring gales," the Major reflected. But beyond the clouds veiling the future he saw no farther shore.

In the dim watches of the night for a week past, Simpson, secretly busied with preparing Hugh Johnstone's flitting, was perplexed at the sound of shuffling feet and whispered voices in the master's rooms opening into the splendid gardens. "Who the devil has he there? Some woman!" mused the old veteran servant. Simpson had his own little "private life" to wind up, and so he was charitably inclined. It was his custom when all was still to slip away "to the quarter" where some lingering cords were now slowly snapping one by one. The old servant noted with surprise a dark form gliding on his trail in several of these goings and comings. Being of a practical nature, the man who had faced the mad rebels at Lucknow only belted on a heavy Adams revolver, and concluded at last that some others of the household were busied in secret dissipation or nocturnal lovemaking. "No one man has a controlling patent on being a fool," mused Simpson. "Black and white, we're all of a muchness." And as he knew they might now leave at any moment he sped away to his last delightful nights in Delhi.

On the night when Alan Hawke returned from Calcutta, the inky blackness of an approaching storm wrapped dreaming Delhi in an impenetrable mantle. Under the huge camphor tree where the cobra had risen in its horrid menace before the frightened girl, a dark figure waited till a man glided to his side. His head was bent as the spy reported "Simpson is gone to the quarter. Two of our men have followed him, and, if he returns, he will be stopped on the way." The only answer was an outstretched arm, and the whispered words, "Go, then, and watch."

"It is the very night—the night of all nights!" muttered the watcher under the tree, and then, stealing forward, he tapped three times at the window where Hugh Johnstone stood with his heart beating high in all the pride of a coming triumph ready to open to the man who was settling hisprivate affairs.

"No one shall know that I have stolen away," he mused. "Forever and in the night."

A light foot pressed the floor as the expected one glided over the low window sill. There was a night lamp burning dimly in a shaded corner. "Put out the light. I must tell you something. We are both watched and spied on!" whispered a well-known voice.

As Hugh Johnstone turned from the corner, in the darkness, there was a gurgling cry—a half-smothered groan—as Mirzah Shah's poisoned dagger was driven to the hilt between his shoulders. His accounts were settled, at last!

An hour later, a dark form crept through the gardens toward the gate where Harry Hardwicke had rode in to the rescue. There was a silent struggle as two men wrestled in the darkness, and one fled away into the shadows of the night. It was the chance meeting of a spy and a murderer.

And then Major Alan Hawke stooped and picked up a heavy dagger lying at his feet. "I have the beggar's knife," he growled. And, with a sudden intention, he vanished toward the Club, for the knife of Mirzah Shah was reeking, and Hugh Johnstone had gone out on his darkened path alone. He had left Delhi—forever.



BOOK III. PRINCE DJIDDIN'S VISIT TO ENGLAND.



CHAPTER XI. "DO YOU SEE THIS DAGGER?"



Morning in Delhi! The fiery sun leaped up, gilding once more the far Himalayas and lighting the bloodstained plains of Oude. The golden shafts twinkled on the huge colonnade, the vast ruined arch, the crumbling walls, and the huge castled oval of Humayoon's tomb. In the dark night, the monsoon winds wailed over the wreck of Hindu, Pathan, and Mogul magnificence. The dark demons of Bowanee rejoiced at a new sacrifice to the gloomy goddess; and the straggling jungle was alive again.

In the vacant caverns, whence the sons of Mohammed Bahadur were once dragged forth to die by daring Hodson's smoking pistols, their slaughtered shades grinned over the ghastly vengeance of the barren years.

The huge dome of the mosque hung in air over the vacant palaces of the great Moguls, and the far windmill ridge, and the bastioned walls of Delhi were bathed in golden light, while Alan Hawke slept the sleep of exhaustion. And while Ram Lal Singh, secure in his zenana, calmly greeted the cool morning hour with a smiling face and a happy heart, in the lonely marble house, stern old Hugh Fraser Johnstone slept the sleep that knows no waking.

The Chandnee Chouk awoke to its busy daily chatter, and old Shahjehanabad sought its pleasures languidly again, or bowed its shoulders once more under the yoke of toil.

The faithful sought the Jumna Musjid for morning prayer, and the nonchalant British officials began to straggle into the vacant Hall of the Peacock Throne.

Far away, the Kootab Minar, rising three hundred feet in air, bore its mute witness to the splendor of the vanished rulers of Delhi, the peerless Ghori swordsmen of Khorassan. But, even as the soldiers of the old Pathan fort had marched out into the shadowless night of death to join Ghori and Baber and Nadir Shah, so the spirit of the lonely old miser nabob had sought the echoless shore.

When Simpson had unavailingly endeavored to awaken his master, the locked doors were burst in at last by the anxious servants, and they found only the tenantless shell of the mighty millionaire, as cold and rigid as the iron pillar which veils to-day its mystery of a forgotten past, when the jackals howl in the ruins of old Delhi.

Then rose up a wild outcry, and the sound of hurrying feet. The alert old veteran servitor, with instinctive military obedience, dispatched two messengers, on the run, to notify General Willoughby and Major Alan Hawke. And then, with quick wit, he forbade the gaping crowd to touch even a single article.

Not even the stiffened body, as it lay prone upon its face, was disturbed. Simpson stood there, pistol in hand, on guard until properly relieved, and as silent as a crouching rifleman on picket. The whole room bore the evidence of a thorough ransacking, and the disordered clothing of the nabob proved, too, that the body had been rifled. The mysterious nocturnal visits returned to Simpson's mind. "Could it have been some once-wronged woman?" he mused while waiting for his "military superiors." For the simple old soldier scorned all civilian control. His keen eye had caught the strange facts of the fastened windows, the disappearance of the two mahogany boxes, and the startling absence of the key of the chamber door.

"Whoever did this job knew what they came for and when to come!" mused Simpson. He gazed at the window sill. There was the mark of damp earth still upon it. "Just as I fancied!" growled Simp-son. "They came in at the window, and when their work was done, left by the door. There was more than one murderer in this job!" And, then, certain old stories of a mysterious Eurasian beauty returned to cloud the old man's judgment. "Was it robbery, or vengeance?" he grumbled. "The black gang are in this, but their secrets are safe forever! They are a close corporation—these devils!"

With certain ideas of an endangered life pension, and a sudden yearning for the absent Hardwicke's counsel, stern old Simpson awaited the coming of his betters. And, the ghastly news of Johnstone's "taking-off" flew over Delhi to furnish a nine days' wonder.

There was a great crowd gathered around the garden walls of the Marble House, as an officer of the guard galloped up with a platoon of cavalry. "The General will be here himself, soon! What's all this terrible happening?" said the young officer, as he took post beside Simpson. "You have done well!" the soldier said, on a brief report. "Let nothing be touched. My guard will prevent any one leaving the grounds!" There was a sullen apathy as regarded the unloved old egoist.

Major Alan Hawke sprang to his feet, hastily, as the excited Club Steward, forgetting all his decorum, banged loudly upon the staff officer's bedroom door. The young man was still in the dress of night, as the Steward excitedly exclaimed: "Here's a fearful deed! Hugh Johnstone has been murdered in his bed, and—they've sent for you!"

Alan Hawke was staggered. "Get me a horse, at once! I must report to the General! When, where, how? Tell me all! Send off a man for the horse!" And, as Hawke hastily donned his uniform, he heard the Hindu servant's story.

"Be off! Tell Simpson I go first to the General, and, then, I will come over to the house!"

As Major Hawke strode through the clubroom, a half-dozen half-dressed clubmen seized upon him. He waved off their inquiries, as an orderly dashed up to the door.

"General Willoughby's compliments, Sir. You are to report to him instantly at the Marble House! You can take my horse, Major! I'll bring yours on." And so, lightly leaping into the saddle, the Major galloped away, with an approving nod. "There'll be a devil of a racket over this thing!" he reflected, as he dashed along. And he chuckled with glee at his prudence in hiding away the dagger which he had picked up in the garden. For, a moonlight-eyed Eurasian girl, hidden in a little cottage, was the only human being in Delhi who knew of the hasty visit her secret lover had made in the night. The jeweled dagger of Mirzah Shah was now securely locked in a little chest where Alan Hawke kept a few articles hidden away in the humble home of the passive plaything of his idle hours. As he caught sight of the Marble House, with its gathered crowds, he saw the gleam of musket barrels, as a company of foot were picketing the vast garden inclosure, and forcing back the excited crowd.

A non-commissioned officer swung open the heavy gates which would only turn on their hinges once more for Hugh Johnstone going out on his last journey. "The General awaits you, Major," said the sergeant, touching his cap. "He has already asked for you." And as Hawke rode up to the front door he was suddenly reminded of his imperiled interests. "The drafts! They may be stopped now! By God! I must see Ram Lal! I need him now and he needs me."

With an unruffled professional calm, however, Major Hawke reported to the visibly disturbed General commanding.

With a single warning gesture of silence, General Willoughby drew the Major aside. "I shall put you in entire charge here. I have seen all the civil authorities. This is your affair. It touches your mission. The Viceroy has been telegraphed, and you are to guard the whole property here till we have his pleasure. Now come with me and let us question Simpson. The rest are merely a lot of apes."

And so Major Alan Hawke had ample time to arrange his private plan of campaign as he guarded a respectful silence during Simpson's long relation, for his thoughts were now far away with Berthe Louison, and the lovely orphan, whose only confidante was his tender-hearted dupe Justine Delande. But the acute adventurer's mind returned to fix itself upon Ram Lal Singh, now blandly smiling in his jewel shop, where the morning gossips babbled over Johnstone Sahib's tragic death. "I must telegraph to Euphrosyne," thought the Major, "and to 9 Rue Berlioz, Paris, for my will-o-the-wisp employer. But, Mr. Ram Lal Singh, you shall pay me for what ruin Mirzah Shah's dagger has wrought!"

The mantle of silence had fallen forever over the last night's rencontre in the garden. With dreaming eyes Hawke mused: "It would never do to tell any part of that story. What business had I there?" And, without a tremor, he stood by the General's side as they gazed on the dead millionaire's body still lying on the floor.

"I will now send for the civil authorities, and you, Major Hawke, will represent me in the investigation. Your military future hangs on this. Remember, now, that the Viceroy looks to you alone! I will return here after tiffin. I will have some personal instructions for you." And Alan Hawke now saw the farther shore of his voyage of life gleaming out as General Willoughby left him to confer with the arriving magistrates and civil police. "I shall marry you, my veiled Rose of Delhi, and be master here yet, in this Marble House, and, by God, I'll die a general, too!" he swore, with which pleasing prophecy Major Alan Hawke calmly took up the varied secret duties which joined a Viceroy's secret orders to the will of the General commanding.

"I am a devil for luck!" he mused as he gazed down on the old man's shrunken and withered dead face. "I will do the honors alone for you, my departed friend," he sneered, "for I am the master here now." The absence of all articles of value, the disappearance of Johnstone's three superb ruby shirt-studs, and his magnificent single diamond cuff-buttons, told of the greed of the robbers, presumably familiar with his personal ornaments, while the terrific stab in the back showed that the heavy knife had been driven through the back up to its very hilt.

"We must find the dagger!" pompously said the civil magistrate. "Major Hawke, will you give orders to have the whole house and grounds searched?" And with a faint smile the Major politely rose and set all his myrmidons in motion.

Even then the telegraph was clicking away a message to Johnstone's lawyer and bankers in Calcutta, and to his young relative, Douglas Fraser, of the great P. and O. steamship service. Before night the crafty Calcutta lawyer had notified Professor Andrew Fraser, in the far-away island of Jersey, and before Major Hawke himself received the Viceroy's orders, through General Willoughby, Mademoiselle Euphrosyne Delande, of Geneva, and the household at No. 9 Rue Berlioz, Paris, both knew that the defiant old nabob had sailed the dark sea without a shore.

Most of all surprised was Captain Anson Anstruther in London, who pondered long at the United Service Club over an official message from the Viceroy, telling him of the startling murder. The young gallant's heart beat in a strange agitation as he examined the previous dispatches of both Berthe Louison and the Viceroy.

"She had no hand in it, thank God!" mused the young aide-de-camp. "Perhaps he was paid off for some of his old Shylock transactions—some local intrigue, or the jealous lover of some Eurasian beauty, dragged to his lair, has finished all, and revenged the accumulated brutalities of thirty years."

There was a loud outcry of horror and surprise sweeping on now from the social circles of Delhi to the clubs of Lucknow, Cawnpore, Allahabad, Benares, and Patna to Calcutta.

In a day or two, men from Lahore to Hyderabad, from Bombay to Nagpore and Madras, and in all the clubs from Calcutta to Simla, had paused over their brandy pawnee to murmur, "Well! The poor old beggar is gone, and now he'll never get his Baronetcy! Some of the niggers did the trick neatly for him at last. They must have got a jolly lot of loot!"

In which general verdict the glittering-eyed Ram Lal, hidden in his zenana, did not share. For, when he had rifled and destroyed the two mahogany boxes he summed all up his pickings with baffled rage. "A couple of thousand pounds of notes, a few scattered jewels, the sly old dog has spirited away his vast stealings! My work was all in vain, save the vengeance!" And the oily Ram Lal, in the zenana, drew a willing beauty of Cashmere to his bosom, and hid his face from the chatterers of street and shop. He was safe from all prying eyes in the Harem.

But, while the triumphant English Mem-Sahibs, of Delhi, shuddered at the bloody details of old Hugh Johnstone's taking off, they found abundant reason to point a moral and adorn a tale.

While the anxious Viceroy was busied at Calcutta, and General Willoughby and Hawke were engrossed with the pompous funeral preparations at Delhi, the ladies of the whole station unanimously condemned the departed. For a cold and brutal foe of womanhood had died unhonored in their midst, and none were left to mourn.

With much pretentious wagging of shapely heads, and much mysterious innuendo, they spoke lightly of the departed one, and failed not to mentally unroof the Silver Bungalow. The baffled ladies scented a social mystery!

Wild rumors of splendid orgies, strange tales of a wronged woman's vengeance, lurid romances of the flight of the French Countess with a younger lover, after despoiling her aged admirer; all these things were "put in commission" and vigorously circulated.

The principal party interested in these slanders, was, however, now calmly gliding on toward Aden, while the dead millionaire was alike oblivious to the lovely daughter whom he had crushed as a bruised flower, the haughty woman who had defied him in his wrath, and the administration of the million sterling which was the golden monument over his yawning grave! The silk-petticoat Council of Notables in Delhi decided by a tidal-wave of womanly intuition, that the gallant and debonnair Major Alan Hawke would marry "the lovely and accomplished heiress," and so the white-bosomed beauties of the capital of Oude turned again lazily to their respective sins of omission and commission, and to the glitter of their respective booths in Vanity Fair!

The club gossips waited in vain for the reappearance of Major Alan Hawke, whose entire personal effects were bundled hastily away to the marble house, where the adventurer now ruled pro tempore. It was late in the night when Major Hawke had achieved all the preparations for the funeral of the murdered man, upon the following day. Simpson and a squad of non-commissioned officers watched where the flickering lights gleamed down upon the dead nabob.

Making his last rounds for the night, Major Hawke, with a soldier's cynical calmness, enjoyed a cheroot upon the veranda, as he bade his captain of the guard take charge until his return. The Major had most carefully examined the five bills of exchange which now occupied his attention, and his mind was now busied with the dead man's golden store. He now contemplated a visit to a man whose conscience bothered him not, but whose bosom quaked in fear when Hawke's letter, sent by a messenger, bade Ram Lal await him at midnight.

"Does he know?" gasped Ram Lal, with chattering teeth, and yet he dared not fly.

An early evening interview with General Willoughby had disclosed to the Major the inconvenient fact that the dead nabob had left a carefully drawn will, whereof Andrew Fraser, of St. Heliers, Jersey, and Douglas Fraser, of Calcutta, were executors. "There is a duplicate will here in the Bengal Bank," so telegraphed the solicitor, "and I have now notified both the executors. I presume that Mr. Douglas Fraser will return here at once, as he is absent in Europe on leave. It may be a week or more until he receives the sad intelligence."

Alan Hawke softly smiled at those touching words, "Sad intelligence." It was only the perfunctory regret of the shark-like lawyer, and the secretly rejoicing heirs. "This is not a case where the one who goes is happier than the one that's left behind," mused Hawke. "I must settle matters rapidly with Ram Lal, for if the will leaves the property to Nadine, she must be mine at all costs!

"Shall I not send a well-armed man with you, Major?" asked the Captain. "It is very late!"

"Thanks, Jordan," lightly said the Major. "I've a good revolver and my service sword—a priceless old wootz steel tulwar. I'm good for a dozen Pandies! I'm used to Thug—and Dacoit, to bandit and ruffian. I have a little private business to attend to, and I'll come home in a trap!"

By a strange chance, Major Alan Hawke, the distinguished favorite of fortune, slunk along in byway and shadow till he reached the cottage, where a lovely woman, flower wreathed, with child-like face and timid, mournful eyes, anxiously awaited him. "I'll be back in two or three hours," he carelessly said, as he tossed her a roll of rupees. Then, with a long, slender package hidden in his bosom, he stole out after a long circuit and entered Ram Lal's compound by the rear entrance, always at his use.

"It is just as well not to make any little mistake just now," mused Hawke, as with cat-like tread he sped through the old jeweler's garden. And the "prevention of mistakes" consisted in the heavy Adams revolver which he carried slung around his neck and shoulder by a heavy cord, in the handy Russian fashion.

His left hand steadied the peculiar parcel which he had so carefully hidden. An amused smile flitted over his face when old Ram Lal opened the door of the snuggery, where Justine had first listened to a lover's sighs. "Poor girl! I wish she were here to-night!" tenderly mused the sentimental rascal, as he waved away Ram Lal's bidding to a splendid little supper.

"I came here to talk business, Ram, to-night" sternly said Hawke, who had inwardly decided not to taste food or drink with the past master of villainy. "He might give me a gentle push into the Styx," acutely reflected the Major. "Sit down right there where I can see you," said Hawke, his hand firmly grasping the revolver, as he indicated a corner of the table, after satisfying himself that the shop door was locked. He then quickly locked the garden door and pocketed both the keys.

"What do you want of me?" murmured Ram Lal, who had noted the semi-hostile tone, and who clearly saw the butt of the revolver.

"I want to talk to you of this Johnstone matter," said the soldier, ignoring all other reference to the "dear departed." This coolness unsettled the wily jeweler, who trembled as Hawke laid a long red pocketbook down on the table before him.

The wily scoundrel shivered when the Major, with his left hand, pushed over to him five sets of Bills of Exchange for a thousand pounds each. Ram Lal's eyes dropped under the brave villain's steady gaze, and he slowly read the first paper. He well knew the drawer's writing:

DELHI, August 15, 1890.

L 1,000.

Thirty days after sight of this first of exchange (second and third unpaid), pay to the order of Alan Hawke one thousand pounds sterling, value received.

HUGH FRASER JOHNSTONE.

To Messrs. Glyn, Carr and Glyn, London.

"What do you wish me to do, Sahib?" tremblingly faltered the old usurer, as he carefully noted the fifteen papers. A sinking at the heart told him that he was in the power of the one man in India whom he knew to be as merciless as himself, for a kindred spirit had fled when the drawer of the Bills of Exchange died alone in the dark, his bubbling shriek stopped by his heart's blood. The Major sternly said in an icy voice, as he fixed his eyes full on his victim:

"I wish you to indorse, every one of those papers. I wish you to make each one of them read five thousand pounds. You have done that trick very neatly before, and to put the additional Crown duty stamps upon them." Ram Lal had started up, but he sank back appalled as he looked down the barrel of Hawke's revolver.

"Keep silence or I'll put a ball through your shoulder, and then drag you up to General Willoughby. He will hang you in chains if I say the word." Alan Hawke was tiger-like now in his rapacity.

"I will leave the first set with you, and you will now give me your check on the Oriental Bank for five thousand pounds. The other drafts you will have all ready for me to-morrow and bring them to me at the Marble House."

The jeweler groaned and swayed to and fro upon his seat in a mute agony. "I cannot do it. I have not the money," he babbled.

"You old lying wretch. You have screwed a quarter of a million pounds out of Christian, Hindu, and Mohammedan here," mercilessly said the torturer.

"I will not! I cannot! I dare not!" cried Ram Lal, dropping on the floor and trying to bow his head at Hawke's feet.

"Get up! You old beast!" commanded Hawke. "By God! I'll shoot and disable you now and then arrest you! Tell me! Do you know that dagger?" With a quick motion, still covering the cowering wretch with his pistol, Hawke drew out the package from his bosom, clumsily tearing off a silk neck scarf-wrapper with his left hand. He laid down on the table the blood-incrusted dagger of Mirzah Shah. The golden haft, the jeweled fretwork and the broad blade were all covered with the life tide of the great man whom no one mourned in Delhi.

"Mercy! Mercy!" hoarsely whispered Ram Lal, with his hands clasped, as in prayer.

"I know whose it is!" pitilessly continued the tormentor. "You dropped it, you fool, when you ran against me in the garden in your mad haste to get away! One single rebellious word and I will march you to the nearest guard post! Now, will you do what I wish?"

"Anything, anything, Sahib!" begged the cowering wretch. "Put it away, put it away!"

"Now, quick!" said the Major. "First, give me the check! Then indorse all these drafts right here in my presence. I will negotiate the others myself. You can send on the first one through your bankers. Your name on all of them will make them go without question." The alert adventurer watched Ram's trembling fingers achieve the work. "Do not dare to leave your own inclosure till you come directly to me to-morrow, when you have altered all those drafts to read five thousand pounds each. I have charge of the estate of the man whom you butchered like a dog. I have a guard of two companies of soldiers, and you will be arrested as a murderer if you attempt to leave, save to come directly to me with these papers."

Alan Hawke lit a cigar and then took a refreshing draught from a pocket flask.

"Now open your strong box and show me your jewels! I want some of them!" The sobbing wretch at his feet demurred until the cold nozzle of the pistol was pressed against his forehead. "I will make the English bankers pay the other four bills; but, you brute, did you think that I would let you off with a poor five thousand pounds? Harken! I go to England in a week! Then you are safe forever! Bring out all your jewels! You got fifty thousand pounds from the old man! I know it!"

Begging and beseeching in vain, Ram Lal crawled to his great iron strong box studded over with huge knobs, and, after a half an hour's critical selection, Alan Hawke had concealed on his person four little bags, in which he had made the shivering wretch place the choicest of his treasures.

"Call up your man now. Do not stir for an instant from my side! If the drafts are not with me before sundown to-morrow, you will be hung in chains, and the ravens will finish what the hangman leaves! Remember—my boy! The rail and telegraph will cut off any little tricks of yours! And," he laughed, "you will not run away; you have too much here to leave. It would be a fat haul for the Crown authorities. I will keep my eye on you, near or far. I will be with you always. We have our own little secret, now!"

"I will obey—only save me! Save me, Hawke Sahib. I will do all upon my head, I will!" pleaded Ram Lal, whose vast fortune was indeed at the mercy of the law.

"Call up your servants. Get out the carriage. Go back to your women. Make merry. You are perfectly safe, but only if you obey me!" was the last mandate of the triumphant bravo. When he stepped out of the house, attended by the frightened murderer, Alan Hawke whispered from the carriage: "Your house is under a close watch—even now. Remember—I give you till sundown, and if you fail, I will come with the guard! I shall seal up the dagger and leave it here with a message to the General Willoughby Sahib to be given to him, at once, by one who knows you! So, I can trust you. Nothing must happen to your dear friend, you know!" he smilingly said in adieu, as Ram Lal groaned in anguish.

Alan Hawke had closely examined the vehicle, and he sat with his drawn revolver ready as he drove down the still lit-up Chandnee Chouk. In a storm of remorse and agony, the plundered jeweler was now doubly locked up in his room. "I must do this devil's bidding!" he murmured. "Bowanee! Bowanee! You have betrayed your servant!" was his cry as he sought the safety of the Zenana.

Major Hawke tasted all the sweets of a great secret triumph as he cast up his accounts. "The five thousand pounds frightened from this old wretch, Ram Lal, really squares me with the estate of the 'dear departed.' The jewels are worth twice as much more, and, with Ram Lal's indorsement all the other drafts on Glyn's bank are as good as gold. There is twenty thousand clear profit. I will send them on now for acceptance, openly, through the Credit Lyonnaise when I get to Paris. For Berthe Louison will give me, also, a good character. Old Ram's indorsements make them perfectly good anywhere. I had better hide the details of this windfall, out here. And, now, thank Heaven, I am 'fixed for life,' and I can go in boldly and play the Prince Charming to Miss Moneybags, the fair Nadine." He tossed a double rupee to the driver, as the sentry swung the gate, but, hastily called him back as Captain Jordan said, hastening from the house:

"Orders are waiting for you now, with the General. Let me give you a trusty Sergeant. Drive right up there, Major. The General sent word that he awaits you." And so the Major sped away to his chief.

No human being in Delhi ever knew the purport of the orders which General Willoughby handed to Major Hawke, on this eventful evening, but much marveled all Delhi that the favorite of fortune was absent from the funeral of the late Hugh Fraser Johnstone, Esq., of Delhi and Calcutta. He had vanished, with no P.P.C. calls, and a hundred-pound note tossed to the poor little Eurasian girl in the cottage was her whole fortune in life now.

But a grave-faced civilian public official, with Major Williamson, of the Viceroy's general staff (a late arrival from Calcutta), ruled over the marble house in place of Major Alan Hawke "absent upon special duty." Only Ram Lal knew of the real destination of the lucky man, who was only free from care when he had sailed from Bombay direct for Brindisi, on the fleet steamer Ramchunder.

"I am safe now," laughed Alan Hawke, who rejoiced in the easy tour of duty before him. "To repair to London and to report to Captain Anson Anstruther, A.D.C., for special duty." Such were the Viceroy's secret orders. It was General Willoughby who had absolutely invoked secrecy. "Wear a plain military undress, and you must avoid most men, and all women. Keep your mouth shut and you may find your provisional rank confirmed."

To Berthe Louison's secret agents, the Grindlay Bank at Delhi, Major Hawke had delivered a sealed envelope. "Use this only at your sorest need. I will see Madame Louison probably before she has any orders for me, as to her private affairs." When the envelope was opened the words "Major Alan Hawke, Hotel Faucon, Lausanne, Switzerland," gave the only address which the adventurer dared to leave. And it was that which the cowering Ram Lal Singh copied when he brought to Alan Hawke the four sets of altered Bills of Exchange, and the Bank of England notes for the check of five thousand pounds.

Major Hawke surveyed the skillfully raised Bills of Exchange and carefully examined them in a dark room with a light, and also before the glaring sun rays. "A splendid job, Ram Lal," he gayly said. "You must have given them a coat of size and then moistened and ironed them." The old rascal gloomily accepted the professional compliment. "I observe that you have labored to protect your own indorsement," sportively remarked the Major.

"And now you will return to me my jewels?" timidly demanded Ram Lal.

"Do you wish me to send the dagger of Mirzah Shah to General Willoughby? It is deposited here, with a sealed letter," coldly sneered Hawke. "Should anything happen to me or, to these drafts, it would be sent to the General, and you would hang. No, I will keep the jewels."

And then Major Hawke thrust the shivering wretch out, having liberally paid to him, through Grindlay, the balance due by Berthe Louison.

"I swear that I did not get a single jewel from—from him. He has hidden them," pleaded Ram Lal.

"Ah! I must look to this" mused Hawke, when Ram Lal had been frightened away with a last stern injunction:

"Obey my slightest wishes or you will hang! I will have you watched till I return! There are eyes upon your path that never close in sleep!" Ram Lal shuddered in silence.

Delhi soon forgot the man whom the great stone now covered in the English cemetery, and only General Willoughby and the easy-going civil authorities knew of the cablegram: "Coming on with full power from Senior Executor.—Douglas Fraser, Junior Executor." The cablegram was dated from Milan, for two keen Scottish brains were now busied with plans to save and care for the worldly gear so suddenly abandoned to their care by Hugh Johnstone. Though Delhi was swept as with a besom, no trace of the cowardly assassins was ever found, and only old Simpson, waiting, in final charge as household major domo for Douglas Fraser's arrival, could enlighten the perturbed commanding General with certain vague suspicions. But Ram Lal slept now in a growing security.

"It is clear that the master was watched in his secret preparations for the voyage home," said Simpson, "and some outsiders, with the help of some traitor among the blacks, paid off an old score. I could tell of many an old enemy which he gained in these twenty years." sadly said Simpson. "I feel they only mussed up the room to give an appearance of robbery. The mahogany boxes were merely part of master's old wedding outfit in London, and I know that they were only filled with toilet articles and little medical stores. They only lugged them off to make a show."

And General Willoughby, following up Simpson's clues, easily discovered a shady side of Johnstone's past life, not compatible with the pompous panegyrics of the Indian press, the resolutions of a dozen clubs and societies, the minutes of the Bank of Bengal, and other mortuary literature of a complimentary nature. It was some old curse come down upon the defenseless man in his old age! And so no one ever sought for the solution of the mystery in the deep dejection of Ram Lal Singh, who vainly mourned for his lost jewels and money. Fear tied his hands, and his tongue was palsied by guilt. He vindictively, however, raised his customary "rate of usance," and swore in his own hardened heart that the needy borrowers of Delhi should recoup him fully before a year. The one Star gleaming in the dark night of financial blackness was the vengeance upon the man who had tricked and despoiled a fellow-robber thirty years before.

Major Hawke on his homeward way counted up a goodly store of twelve thousand pounds in money, jewels of nearly the same value, and the skillfully raised and properly indorsed drafts on London for twenty thousand more. "If I can only get these passed by the executors I am a made man for life," mused the Major as the Ramchunder sped over the blue Arabian sea. "If I discover the secret of the stolen jewels, they must yield, to save both family honor and money; if I don't, then, Ram Lal must save his life and protect the drafts. I will negotiate them with the Credit Lyonnais, in Paris, and force Berthe to help me. No one shall rob me now," somewhat illogically mused the brilliant adventurer, proud of his life-work.

At Calcutta, the noble Viceroy had already given to Major Harry Hardwicke and Capt. Eric Murray his orders for their performance of a delicate duty.

"You will find Captain Anstruther to be my personal as well as official representative in London, and Her Majesty's service demands prudence in this grave affair. So but one set of confidential cipher dispatches have been sent on, and Captain Anstruther will have charge of the whole delicate affair. Should either of you meet Major Alan Hawke in London, or out of India, your commissions will depend on guarding an absolute silence as to the whole Johnstone affair. You are trusted, and not watched, gentlemen," said the great noble, "and he is watched, and not trusted. Now, I have done all I can for you, as this duty takes you home and brings you back at the expense of her Majesty's government. You will not fail to communicate with me from Aden, Suez, and Port Said, as well as Brindisi, and to report if Madame Louison has received at each place her telegrams and proceeded on her journey in safety. Her Majesty's consuls will, in each place, aid you in every way. Should I decide to drop or quash the whole affair, my young kinsman, Anstruther, represents me, personally as well as officially."